By David Solway, AMERICAN THINKER
[…]
The short answer is, a lot. Our relationship foundered over the vexed issue of redefining marriage, for my friend was gay and expected us to affirm the legalization of gay marriage in the United States and his forthcoming betrothal, as he referred to it, to his longtime partner. This we could not do. He objected to a rather obscure Facebook comment in which my wife deplored how the gay lobby’s justifiable plea for tolerance, with which she was fully on board, had morphed into the triumphalist demand for the unconditional celebration of all things gay, from gay politicking to Gay Pride to so-called gay marriage.
The question of religious freedom and belief, sanctioned by the Constitution, also entered into the equation. She supported the right of a Christian baker to refuse preparing a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. This my friend could not accept. An email arrived accusing us of homophobia and informing us that the friendship was over.
Although I regard the reduction of identity to one’s sexual preferences, whatever these might be, as a diminishment of the complex spectrum of human personality, I have nothing against the practice of homosexuality – to each his own – and considered it a non-issue and none of my business. I do not like to interfere in other people’s personal lives. Then and now, however, I believed as a matter of principle that redefining marriage was another kettle entirely. People can manage their private passions as they wish, provided they remain within the common law, but marriage has to be defended not only as a binding compact between two people and an expression of religious faith, but as a social institution whose role is twofold: the preservation of cultural life and the procreation of the species.
For these reasons, marriage can be only a contract between a man and woman. Love, companionship, spiritual and intellectual reciprocity are desirable goods, but from the institutional perspective, such golden qualities are sufficient though not necessary conditions. As the backbone of the social covenant and the sine qua non of reproductive duration, marriage is more than merely a ritual performance or a consumer accessory. Romance and compatibility will sweeten and strengthen commitment and avowal, but the essential point is that the contractual heterosexual union is the driving force of human culture and the warranty of human survival.
When the institution of marriage is compromised; when single mothers proliferate and are even applauded; when children are separated or alienated from their parents; when the bonds of heterosexual intimacy are breached; when gender politics sabotages concord between the sexes; when same-sex couples receive the same rights, privileges, and rewards as child-bearing couples; and when matrimony becomes the prerogative of any group whatsoever with no relation to fecundity or cultural stability, the underpinnings of Western society will inevitably collapse.
This is why Marxism, for example, considers marriage an institution that needs to be destroyed, since procreant marriage with all its attendant responsibilities is the foundation of bourgeois society. This is why its dissolution or misprision is a prerequisite for the revolutionary socialist state in which the pivotal loyalty of the individual belongs to the sovereign collective, not to the family. And this is why calling two men or two women in a union “marriage” has been serially championed by the left.
Marriage in its orthodox acceptation may be in some respects a flawed institution; nevertheless, it is imperative. It is, as I’ve argued, the basis of civilizational survival, just as the heterosexual union in whatever form it may assume guarantees the survival of the race. Gay “marriage,” taken to its reductio ad absurdum, would terminate in the disappearance of the human race from the face of the Earth. In weakening the institution of marriage, gay people calling themselves spouses actually endorse the logic of species annihilation.
Moreover, to contend, as same-sex couples do, that they can adopt children or rely on sperm donors merely accentuates the paradox, for they reveal themselves as dependent on precisely the sexual fertility which they forsake and the procreative function they have renounced. There would be no gays in the absence of the bonded heterosexual couple that rears children and is socially constrained to provide for their future. There is a debt to be paid in the only way possible: do not insult or damage the institution that gave you existence and continues to sustain it. The fact often adduced by skeptics that not all heterosexual unions are fertile or permanent is beside the point; the ancestral purpose of marriage as an institution remains intact.
There is another paradox regarding gays who, like my former friend, are politically conservative, since they have participated in the socialist and communist paradigm of family abolition and the destruction of the very society they have taken for granted, espousing as they do a kind of archetypal sterility. They are doing the left’s bidding – professed conservatives eroding the traditional foundation of heteronormative society, turning marriage into a mockery of its reason for being. The cognitive dissonance is startling.
None of these considerations carried any weight with my literary colleague, who accused my wife and me of rejecting his “essential humanity” and broke off all communication, saying the issue was “non-negotiable” and all discussion would henceforth cease. We have never heard from him again. That his sexual proclivities were wholly inconsequential to us and that we explicitly wished the best for him and his partner were now immaterial. That he was helping to consummate the cultural mission of the left simply did not factor.
I think of our lost friendship with regret. We still follow his political writing devoutly, though we miss the conversations and lament the forfeiture of mutual affection. But there’s no help for it. My brief, as I’ve stressed, was never against him or the nature of his desire and love. My argument was, one might say, clinical. The received institution of marriage, whether regarded as sacrosanct or purely functional, was indispensable to both culture and race and should not be enfeebled or caricatured or rendered moot. It has to be respected and maintained in order to serve its original purpose.
My friend would have none of it. He demanded total assent and expected our congratulations. But as he once wrote me about another matter, “you don’t owe a friend a lie.” It’s a maxim worth living by.
@ broseman:
Yes, that, on the way to redefining the whole social structure of peoples and countries. But Israel has always been special. A Jewish State, should have Jewish Laws, and as the People and the Laws are somewhat intermingled, we should at least, impose the major tenets, like Shabbat observance for public transport and businesses(except in special circumstances) Kashrut in ALL the restaurants and food suppliers. Why even we in Ireland, struggling to make a living, always closed on Shabbat. It recharged us for the new week.
Just imagine, Matityahu proclaimed a revolt that freed the country for 140 years over a piece of chazar, and today, it’s sold openly all over Israel. There should not be a single living pig in the country, except possibly maybe there may be some in the wilds.
Israel overbalanced in it’s efforts to be ALL-inclusive, which a country and people like Israel and Jews, should never have attempted. So the result is the mess we have today, which will only get worse. Kissinger didn’t expect Israel to be in existence at this date, but how much longer an it exist and be Israel….The REAL Jewish State is 3/4 way out-the-door already.
It reminds me of the games that Unions “play”. One pushes hard for a raise and gets it…then another, pushes for a slightly higher raise, citing the other Union, and gets it..It’s called “leapfrogging”….. This is they way Israel is going down the tube, and losing it’s Jewish State(us)….. They may pass the Law,…great…wonderful… but what about the REALITIES…..???!!! ..
@ Cathy:
With thousands of “Paraders” there was only ONE attack…. If it is the work of the Mayor, why is he still mayor. Why, when elections are going on, are there no platforms against him which include his affection for this Parade. I do not include everyone as being acquiescent, meaning you. BUT, we never see any proper, and determined protests about this orgiastic demonstration of depravity in out Holy City. No demonstrations in other cities or ar crossroads…nowhere. The Dati should swarm out in their hundreds of thousands …wut, where are they….keeping their heads down so that they won’t see , and if they don’t see, then for them itsn’t there. A good piece of Talmudic pilpulim.
If there was a protest, and it attracted very little media attention, then it was merely a token, small protest, they should have broken a few windows, thrown a few firebombs, (not into a crowd of course, but where it could be seen but do no damage,) gathered a few hundred strong men into a wedge shaped battering ram charge right through the parade, and disrupted it completely. Their leaders should have promised more and more every year.
If they MUST have a parade let it be along the sea shores out of an urban area. Then few would bother to gawk at it. BUT…then they wouldn’t be happy, because their whole idea is to flaunt their “lifestyle” under our noses and rub them in it. They are exactly like the Women of the Wall, those few exhibitionists who desecrate the Wall, that mere double handful, getting attention from all around the world.
And te supine authorities, instead of arresting them quietly as soon as they show up, and before they can open up their raucous bellowing, and demonstration, just allow them a dozen or so, to interfere with the sincere devotions of thousands. If they did anything like this in a Muslim mosque, they’s be torn to little pieces within minutes. If they did the same in any Christian gathering, they’d be immediately gagged and led away to court and prison.
But only in Israel………Tikkun Olom…..has withered away all of our moral strength. To get a smile from the Goyim, what wouldn’t we do. ……..??
My only comment is our generation nullified the wisdom of hundreds before it in redefining marriage.@ Edgar G.:
Edgar G, How do you determine that the Jewish Israelis condone the terrible parade that just happened in Jerusalem? We live outside the city but we’re not given any say-so in this atrocity, and I can’t believe the city council gave 100% support. This is all on the mayor, who boasts that he wants Jerusalem to be a “normal city” I disagree with the mayor. There was a protest at the parade, but very little if any media covered this, in English, anyway, and because of an attack on one of the paraders in the past, the protesters were kept away from the paraders.
@ mrg3105:
I know that there is a sort of “estimate” of around 4.7-5% but….I’m sorry to disagree with you but there are loads of demographic researches, district by district, and age by age, with results entirely different from your “estimate”. I read them all over the internet in fact. So I then specifically looked up San Francisco, and found that a 1985 study which involved personally questioning residents found that 40% of single men there were admitted homos, many in what they called “monogamous” relationships. .
I know all about the lesbian complexities and the bi-sexual crap. . I got sick reading about them earlier, and told that guy who attacked me with faked up accusations, that as far as I’m concerned the “subject is CLOSED”…. i’m now telling you the same. I have children, and the matter is distasteful to me. I STILL say they should NOT be allowed to cavort and prance half naked down through central Jerusalem. It’s strictly against the Torah, and Jerusalem is regarded all over the world as “The Holy City”. It should be an embarrassment to the country.
I was born in an era where such things were NEVER heard of; I never knew there were even people like this, and only on this side of the Atlantic have I come across such drek.
To me the term “gay” has ALWAYS meant “jolly or happy”. As a working musician for a period, I’ve often played “The Gay Gordons” …and I recall a very old Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie that I saw called “The Gay Divorcee”..
I have no idea why people on this site are suddenly so hot in defence of such a revolting life style. You like it so much??
This is purely a rhetorical question and NO answer is needed or desired. I won’t respond to any more bullying on behalf of these deviants.
@ Edgar G.:
Those reports are BS.
There is no verifiable dempgraphic data that identifies even 5% of the US male population as homosexual. Based on data collected from medical practitioners, the number in 2010 if I’m not mistaken was 4.7%, but even this is deceptive since many claim non-exclusivity and bi-sexuality, which are disorders of a different kind. Some, perhaps as many as 1% of this number, were under 21 years old, and ‘experimenting’. The figure is even lower for women, primarily because female homosexuality often stemms from entirely different behavioural causalities to that of males.
@ al2sultan:
Actually it is not ridiculous.
Homosexuality is a mental disorder. In Medical Science any human condition that is outside the Normal Range of 95% measured normal state is, an illness.
Homosexuality, even in the USA, is a demographic of about 4.5%. While this is above the 2.5% threshold for the Normal Range, this has only become so with its popularisation, and acceptance as ‘normal’ abnormality.
Once ‘civilization’ accepts one disorder as normal, others follow. Why is sex with animals or pre-pubescent children abnormal? Why is incest abnormal? Why is prolific drug use abnormal? Etc.
And, there are economic consequences.
If insurers cannot discriminate against abnormal behaviours, then everyone is an uninsurable risk. Driving at high speed may be against the law now, but….maybe it’s normal? Maybe it’s just a disorder, like homosexuality? Maybe high volume smoking is also? Maybe crossing the road outside the pedestrian crossing is just a need for an adrenalin rush, and is normal.
So there goes the private insurance industry, but wait, there is more…
Commercial world is made up of the individuals executing roles and functions that largely require trust. 4% of the population is estimated to be people with sociopathic disorder. They lie. Maybe prolific lying is also normal. Maybe it is even a normal behaviour, like homosexuality, that had been supressed by the tyrannical orthodoxy. Maybe, everyone should lie all the time? And so you go to work the next day after the passing of the law prohibiting discrimination against liars. Still trust your boss? What about your customer? The guy at the next desk?
Yes, homosexual ‘marriage’ is the start of the end of civilization.
However, we (civilization) have been there before. Abnormal behaviours *were* regarded normal in the Ancient Greece and eventually Rome.
So, let’s see…where is that great Greek civilization? After being colonised by the Roman Empire, it had been passed around from empire to empire after Rome’s collapse, not to emerge as an independent society again until the 19th century! And, now Greece is the economic shithole of Europe.
Yes, I call that collapse. What do you call it?
@ al2sultan:
The Kinsey report, which I actually remember, found that at least 37% of males from youth to old age had had male contact which resulted in orgasms.But as a general figure he said that about 13% of males were homos. Spiegelhalter more recently, examining Kinsey’s work carefully, noting it had certain deficiencies. His own investigations were more careful, but corroborated Kinsey’s amount of 13%, However, as there were fewer women homos, he evened it out to 10% of the total population.
So I think your 5% errs on the side of generosity. I don’t intend to get into any argument on this matter which is distasteful to me, but your shrewish and inaccurate attack begs the question. I said nothing about marriage being solely for procreation, (although most Royal alliances were mainly for that purpose), and I believe that you enlarged my comment in your own mind to this accusation. I was commenting on the section in the article in which such possibilities were mentioned.
Personally, I was mainly complaining about the desecration by the brazen faced, over ostentatious, stick-it-in-your-face, so-called “Parade”, in our Holy City., as you must have read.
And lest your enthusiastic defence of this perversion lead you into more error, can we accept that women are generally believed to be past child bearing age at about 50, although I’ve known new mothers at age 53, and I believe I read about one of 55. But this is rather rare. As for men …nobody knows when they are past child procreating days, but it is many years later than women. And that is the norm for all mammalian creation. .Men (and only medical examination can really tell) can be say, 70, or even 90. I’ve seen recorded instance of a 94 year old man who impregnated women, and actually seen the children, including the baby. The man had 43 children. A Muslim of course..
Anyway, this is ALL I care to say…..except…..Go to San Francisco…( i say this instead of saying “Go to Blazes”)
Your argument that to assent to gay marriage will ultimately lead to the fall of civilization is rediculous. If a tiny minority of the worlds population who is gay would marry we are talking about less than 5% of a given population. Tell me how that imperils humanity. By your own logic if marriage should only be for procreation then men and women past child bearing years should also be prevented from getting married. You and the author do not approve of the kind of love homosexuality affords and do not consider it worthy of equality. Plain and simple.
@ Edgar G.:
My immediate thought when I saw the headline that the the first and foremost thing that people MUST to is to stop referring to this aberration as gay “marriage” . The word marriage, should never be mentioned in this context. It confers respectability and legitimacy on what is really an often sordid perversion, which, as the writer points out, if played to it’s logical finish, will result in the eradication of humankind….after the breakdown of family life and the social structures geared for the normal public..
Contrary to the writer and very many others, who are not concerned with what consenting adults do in private, I personally am. Because I could see that it was becoming progressive, step by step. I have seen the whole gay movement move out from the shadows where it properly belongs, into broad daylight, and living next door to you and your children. As he points out they have become mainstream, flaunting their way of life. as DESIRABLE, and gather in masses, from all over the world, to some public place ….like downtown Jerusalem for instance , where the most repulsive and revolting orgiastic pseudo parades take place….with the FULL blessing of the people and Council.
If the Jewish People were ever Torah observing and believing, that alone would plunge the country into disaster, direct from Heaven. And perhaps it will come, someday, and they will all wonder why…?
Common decency should relegate gays and their supporters to the sidelines; instead they make sure to stick themselves right under our noses. Tikun Olom. The first thing these new religion Jews need to do is fix themselves back into Jews.