Liberals are all about helping people stay safe.
In fact, modern liberalism simply assumes that the general public is far too stupid, far too child-like, to be entrusted with looking out for itself.
Thank heavens modern liberals are here to protect us from ourselves!
That is why liberals are so authoritarian - just like the authoritarian parents they never had, they find an inchoate need to introduce authority not only into their own lives, but into everyone else's life as well.
Action is outlawed
So, trans-fats must be outlawed, because trans-fats are likely to increase heart disease.
Smoking must be outlawed or heavily taxed, because it causes lung disease.
Big Gulps must be outlawed, because they make us obese.
Non-Action is outlawed
Refusing to wear seat belts is outlawed because that increases car accident injuries.
Refusing to pay a tax must be outlawed because that leads to insufficient income for our betters.
Refusing to have sex (chastity) must be outlawed because that encourages us to believe in God.
The liberals aren't authoritarian in everything EXCEPT sex.
They are authoritarian in everything INCLUDING sex.
Why do you think they are so down on marriage, insisting over and over again that most marriages end in divorce even though they know it is a lie?
Sex isn't the dangerous thing.
Sex is a positive thing.
The more deviant the sex, the better.
You can never be led astray by deviant behaviour.
But sex between committed married people... therein lies danger.
The lack of sex (celibacy, chastity, virginity) and what that might lead to... that is extremely dangerous.
None of us have the right to engage in behaviour that would directly damage ourselves.
Nor have we the right to accept the authority of anyone besides our leaders.
They are here. We need no one else.
Don't you understand?
The internal control of appetites is entirely dangerous.
We cannot be permitted to exercise such internal control, because it gives us the illusion that there is a power other than theirs. We are powerless without our leaders. There is no power besides our leaders.
The liberals are here to save us from ourselves.
We should be thanking them.
Showing posts with label homosexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homosexuality. Show all posts
Monday, July 02, 2012
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
The Blind Leading The Blind
Over at Patheos, Deacon Greg Kandra praises Mark Shea's non-judgemental demeanor.
Mark had this to say about a friend of his who was, according to Mark, a sodomite:
I am supposed to imitate Jesus, who never, ever said harsh things to anyone. Not a single soul. Jesus didn't judge anybody and He never will. Not for all eternity! Never!
As Mark implies, it's absolutely possible for someone to engage in homosexuality, adultery, incest, violent rape, but still be very Christ-centered. Heck, he could be a saint, even. Already canonized. In heaven. Praying for us. And for his victims, presumably, which just shows how generous the man is.
As one sterling Christian said, we can commit adultery or murder thousands of times each day, but as long as we have saving faith, we are saved! Of course, that same magnificent Christian was also fine with bigamy, but that's no big deal. Bigamy is a private matter. Not. My. Business.
Question
How many people can identify the theological error Mark Shea engages in?
Deacon Kandra, go ahead and sit on your hands.
You clearly have nothing to contribute to this one.
Anyone else?
That's right!
Mark has confused the grace of charism with the grace of sanctification!
You see, the grace of charism, or charismatic grace, is a grace intended for other people's salvation, not for my own. When God gives a special charismatic grace to someone, He intends that grace to be exercised for someone else's good. And I can exercise that grace for someone else's good even if I am personally in a state of mortal sin.
So, let's say I have a charism of teaching. I can teach you about Christ very effectively, yet be engaged in the most monstrous soul-damning sins myself because the grace of the charism is external to my own salvation. It operates for YOUR salvation, not mine.
Sanctifying grace is quite a different matter. It assures MY salvation.
So, I can appear to be Christ-centered through my charismatic grace, but unless I am actually Christ-centered through sanctifying grace, I still go to hell, even though my teaching was effective enough to get you to renounce your sins and allow you to enter heaven.
The Result
Now, when Mark says that this poor sodomite's personal sins are not his business, Mark is, of course, merely echoing Cain, who insisted that his brother's affairs were not his business either.
Jesus didn't tell the adulterous woman that her sins were not His business. He told her that her sins were most definitely His business. And if we are co-workers with Christ, part of His body and sharers in His glory, then we also share in His ability to judge sin. Indeed, on the Last Day, we will even share in His ability to judge angels.
To the extent that we close our eyes to someone else's lifestyle, or lay out the claim that this is Not. My. Business., then we reject our union with Christ and our duty to do Christ's work.
Objectively, it is sinful to hold that someone else's possibly sinful activity is Not. My. Business. I can say that I don't know what to do about helping him past those sins. I can say that, given his attitude, my pointing out the facts of heaven, hell, sin and damnation will likely be counter-productive, so he would be better off if I didn't. I can say I love him, but I hate his sins. But I can't say his sins are Not. My. Business.
Sure, the state of the individual's soul is a matter between that individual and God.
No one but God can judge another person's soul.
But the action itself?
We are REQUIRED to judge the action.
If I know my friend is an alcoholic, and I find out from a friend that he has a bottle of rum in his house, it is my duty to get involved in helping him get away from that situation. If I have a sodomite friend and he has a "partner" in his house, the same would apply.
So, Mark mistakes charism for sanctification, he mistakes judgement of soul for judgement of action, and he (ironically) canonizes someone who the Church herself has not got around to canonizing. I say that last bit is ironical, because he actually does judge this poor sodomite's soul - he judges it sound enough to enter Heaven immediately, even though he himself says that the man's sins are Not. His. Business. I believe that's called "willful blindness."
There was something about the blind leading the blind in Scripture, but I'm sure it's all good.
Right, Mark?
UPDATE:
There's a nice summary of the Vatican II and Thomistic response to Mark here.
Mark had this to say about a friend of his who was, according to Mark, a sodomite:
One of the people I admire most in the world, who I regard as an inspiration and, very likely, as a saint was a gay guy who lived here in Seattle named Perry Lorenzo.... Some Catholics (and some of my gay readers) will probably be surprised to hear that I’m not interested in whether or not he was celibate. Not my business. That’s between him and God. ...If Perry was an active homosexual, it’s none of my business and certainly not mine to judge. After all, I also agree with the Church that my own acts of gluttony are sinful and even gravely so. But I don’t believe God has abandoned or rejected me and I trust his grace to help me slowly become conformed to Christ, so why should I believe for a second that somebody like Perry, who manifested such abundant and beautiful fruits of the Spirit was not pleasing to God and was not doing his best to strive for God? On the contrary, I regard him as a role model and greatly admire his deep, generous and true faith. I hope he prays for the Church in Seattle and I think he is (not was, God rest his soul) one of the great ornaments of the Church.Of course, we all must be in accord with Scripture, and Scripture is quite clear on this. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Obviously, no.
I am supposed to imitate Jesus, who never, ever said harsh things to anyone. Not a single soul. Jesus didn't judge anybody and He never will. Not for all eternity! Never!
As Mark implies, it's absolutely possible for someone to engage in homosexuality, adultery, incest, violent rape, but still be very Christ-centered. Heck, he could be a saint, even. Already canonized. In heaven. Praying for us. And for his victims, presumably, which just shows how generous the man is.
As one sterling Christian said, we can commit adultery or murder thousands of times each day, but as long as we have saving faith, we are saved! Of course, that same magnificent Christian was also fine with bigamy, but that's no big deal. Bigamy is a private matter. Not. My. Business.
Question
How many people can identify the theological error Mark Shea engages in?
Deacon Kandra, go ahead and sit on your hands.
You clearly have nothing to contribute to this one.
Anyone else?
That's right!
Mark has confused the grace of charism with the grace of sanctification!
You see, the grace of charism, or charismatic grace, is a grace intended for other people's salvation, not for my own. When God gives a special charismatic grace to someone, He intends that grace to be exercised for someone else's good. And I can exercise that grace for someone else's good even if I am personally in a state of mortal sin.
So, let's say I have a charism of teaching. I can teach you about Christ very effectively, yet be engaged in the most monstrous soul-damning sins myself because the grace of the charism is external to my own salvation. It operates for YOUR salvation, not mine.
Sanctifying grace is quite a different matter. It assures MY salvation.
So, I can appear to be Christ-centered through my charismatic grace, but unless I am actually Christ-centered through sanctifying grace, I still go to hell, even though my teaching was effective enough to get you to renounce your sins and allow you to enter heaven.
The Result
Now, when Mark says that this poor sodomite's personal sins are not his business, Mark is, of course, merely echoing Cain, who insisted that his brother's affairs were not his business either.
Jesus didn't tell the adulterous woman that her sins were not His business. He told her that her sins were most definitely His business. And if we are co-workers with Christ, part of His body and sharers in His glory, then we also share in His ability to judge sin. Indeed, on the Last Day, we will even share in His ability to judge angels.
To the extent that we close our eyes to someone else's lifestyle, or lay out the claim that this is Not. My. Business., then we reject our union with Christ and our duty to do Christ's work.
Objectively, it is sinful to hold that someone else's possibly sinful activity is Not. My. Business. I can say that I don't know what to do about helping him past those sins. I can say that, given his attitude, my pointing out the facts of heaven, hell, sin and damnation will likely be counter-productive, so he would be better off if I didn't. I can say I love him, but I hate his sins. But I can't say his sins are Not. My. Business.
Sure, the state of the individual's soul is a matter between that individual and God.
No one but God can judge another person's soul.
But the action itself?
We are REQUIRED to judge the action.
If I know my friend is an alcoholic, and I find out from a friend that he has a bottle of rum in his house, it is my duty to get involved in helping him get away from that situation. If I have a sodomite friend and he has a "partner" in his house, the same would apply.
So, Mark mistakes charism for sanctification, he mistakes judgement of soul for judgement of action, and he (ironically) canonizes someone who the Church herself has not got around to canonizing. I say that last bit is ironical, because he actually does judge this poor sodomite's soul - he judges it sound enough to enter Heaven immediately, even though he himself says that the man's sins are Not. His. Business. I believe that's called "willful blindness."
There was something about the blind leading the blind in Scripture, but I'm sure it's all good.
Right, Mark?
UPDATE:
There's a nice summary of the Vatican II and Thomistic response to Mark here.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Fear Factor
The great thing about giving regular lectures on a variety of subjects is the questions and comments from the audience.
After a talk I gave yesterday, one of the attendees - an active homosexual - made a comment that opened up a new door of insight for me.
We were talking about the fact that Hitler won World War II. Sure, he lost the battles and committed suicide, but his philosophy had won. Secular humanists around the world agree that eugenics is a worthy goal, that we should seek out and destroy defective children or people who were too old, too sick, to contribute in any positive physical way to society.
America is now, and has long been, a eugenics culture, and we spread our eugenics ideas around the world.
And this young man was good with that. He agreed that defective people should be killed, insisted that he would never want to live in a deformed or semi-vegetative state, and hoped that someone would actively kill him if he ever entered such a state.
Why did he feel this way?
He remarked that he had once been at an outdoor cafe and seen a father and his son at a nearby table. The son suffered from some debilitating disease that required a stomach feeding tube. He saw the father cradle his teenage son as the father injected a nutrient solution into the teenager's stomach.
He said, "I could never do that. I would never be strong enough."
I replied, "You're afraid then. That's the basic problem here."
"Yes."
That is when the door opened up for me. I answered him.
"Well, that's understandable. But remember, every individual choice contributes to the larger society. Society is the sum total of all of society's individuals making individual choices. So, when you choose to do or not do something based on your fear, when everyone else also makes choices based on their fears, society becomes fear-based."
And this was my question:
"Do you really want to live in a society based on fear?"
That's the basic difference between the Founding Fathers and ourselves.
It's the basic difference between any serious soldier and any non-soldier.
Fear cannot be avoided - we all experience it.
But the Founding Fathers made a society that was not based in fear. Our social institutions used to encourage bravery in the face of fear. Given a choice between surrendering to our fear or facing down our fears, our public institutions used to encourage us to do the latter.
Now it encourages us to do the former.
Insofar as we are willing to entertain a large, caretaker government, insofar as we surrender our personal responsibilities, we have chosen to create and live in a fear-based society.
After a talk I gave yesterday, one of the attendees - an active homosexual - made a comment that opened up a new door of insight for me.
We were talking about the fact that Hitler won World War II. Sure, he lost the battles and committed suicide, but his philosophy had won. Secular humanists around the world agree that eugenics is a worthy goal, that we should seek out and destroy defective children or people who were too old, too sick, to contribute in any positive physical way to society.
America is now, and has long been, a eugenics culture, and we spread our eugenics ideas around the world.
And this young man was good with that. He agreed that defective people should be killed, insisted that he would never want to live in a deformed or semi-vegetative state, and hoped that someone would actively kill him if he ever entered such a state.
Why did he feel this way?
He remarked that he had once been at an outdoor cafe and seen a father and his son at a nearby table. The son suffered from some debilitating disease that required a stomach feeding tube. He saw the father cradle his teenage son as the father injected a nutrient solution into the teenager's stomach.
He said, "I could never do that. I would never be strong enough."
I replied, "You're afraid then. That's the basic problem here."
"Yes."
That is when the door opened up for me. I answered him.
"Well, that's understandable. But remember, every individual choice contributes to the larger society. Society is the sum total of all of society's individuals making individual choices. So, when you choose to do or not do something based on your fear, when everyone else also makes choices based on their fears, society becomes fear-based."
And this was my question:
"Do you really want to live in a society based on fear?"
That's the basic difference between the Founding Fathers and ourselves.
It's the basic difference between any serious soldier and any non-soldier.
Fear cannot be avoided - we all experience it.
But the Founding Fathers made a society that was not based in fear. Our social institutions used to encourage bravery in the face of fear. Given a choice between surrendering to our fear or facing down our fears, our public institutions used to encourage us to do the latter.
Now it encourages us to do the former.
Insofar as we are willing to entertain a large, caretaker government, insofar as we surrender our personal responsibilities, we have chosen to create and live in a fear-based society.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Suffer the Children
As the family disintegrates, Western culture has proven itself unequal to the task of keeping up with the change. We have no model for a non-family based society, and our responses to the reality are becoming increasingly incoherent.
Take Jacques Chirac, for example. The president of France tried to convince French voters that the EU constitution was worthwhile by arguing, “[it is] about your future and that of your children, of the future of France and the future of Europe. On Sunday, everyone will have a share of the destiny of France in its hands.”
It was one of the sillier things he could have said. The French have a population growth rate of 1.85, one of the lowest rates of child-bearing in recorded French history. Chirac was appealing to an electorate that didn’t exist: parents. He lost the referendum.
We could write this off as the fate of the French if not for a recent story on San Francisco. It has become an essentially child-free city: only 14.5% of the city’s population is 18 or younger. The city is busily building programs for children who don’t exist. It may not be politically correct to mention the facts, but homosexual sex is functionally sterile. This is apparently only beginning to dawn on the city’s ruling elite and the news media.
Certainly the prime-time networks are unfamiliar with family life, as are the people who tout the prime-time shows. “ ‘Desperate Housewives’ made good on its pledge to solve the posthumous mystery of Mary Alice as its smash first season concluded on Wisteria Lane, the ABC show's mythical but all-too-recognizable slice of suburbia.” So said CNN, but most real parents are at a loss to figure out what is recognizably suburban about any of it. Most suburbanites do not have bodies buried in the back yard, nor stay-at-home moms, nor yard boys to have adulterous flings with.
But this kind of senility isn’t unique to secular atheists either. Christian organizations are attempting to organize boycotts of Carl Jr.’s and Hardees based on the family-unfriendliness of its Paris Hilton commercials. It has not yet occurred to anyone that the burger chain’s number-crunchers may have written off the family market. Indeed, as the American fertility rate hovers just below replacement level, held that high only by Hispanic and black fertility rates, appeals to do something “for the children” are going to fall on increasingly deaf ears. You can’t appeal for support to families that don’t exist.
So where have all the children gone? Well, even as children disappear from cities and suburbs, faux children rise to take their place. Recent screenings of Star Wars were preceded by trailers advertising Spiderman, Batman, the X-men and the Fantastic Four. Advertisers have long known that the adolescent segment is the best market segment, if only because immature people are easily separated from the money they carry. Because commerce is interested in maintaining immaturity for as long as possible, we have become a comic book nation.
And this is not just a cute phrase. As has been pointed out, “[a recent] National Endowment for the Arts survey found a dramatic decrease in Americans who read literature (novels, plays, poetry, short stories), with more than half - HALF! - of Americans not reading for pleasure. The survey found an overall decline of 10 percentage points in literary readers from 1982 to 2002, a loss of 20 million potential readers…. it was particularly dramatic among those 18 to 24 years old. Among this group, the decline was 55 percent greater than that of the total adult population. At the current rate of loss among the young, literary reading will virtually disappear in 50 years, the NEA warns.”
The irony is enormous. We don’t have children because we want to indulge ourselves. Our culture encourages this perpetual adolescence because it allows business to strip our money from us more efficiently. Precisely because we keep people immature for as long as we can, we do not raise families. Thus the supply of real children dwindles, resulting in an ever-more desperate attempt to lengthen the period of immaturity among the population that remains.
As I pointed out in an essay several months ago, abortion is self-limiting if only because it kills its own future customers. In this respect, the free enterprise system resonates with the abortion culture. By encouraging immaturity among its audience, commerce kills tomorrow’s market in its insatiable quest for today’s market share.
There are limits to how long this childishness can continue.
Take Jacques Chirac, for example. The president of France tried to convince French voters that the EU constitution was worthwhile by arguing, “[it is] about your future and that of your children, of the future of France and the future of Europe. On Sunday, everyone will have a share of the destiny of France in its hands.”
It was one of the sillier things he could have said. The French have a population growth rate of 1.85, one of the lowest rates of child-bearing in recorded French history. Chirac was appealing to an electorate that didn’t exist: parents. He lost the referendum.
We could write this off as the fate of the French if not for a recent story on San Francisco. It has become an essentially child-free city: only 14.5% of the city’s population is 18 or younger. The city is busily building programs for children who don’t exist. It may not be politically correct to mention the facts, but homosexual sex is functionally sterile. This is apparently only beginning to dawn on the city’s ruling elite and the news media.
Certainly the prime-time networks are unfamiliar with family life, as are the people who tout the prime-time shows. “ ‘Desperate Housewives’ made good on its pledge to solve the posthumous mystery of Mary Alice as its smash first season concluded on Wisteria Lane, the ABC show's mythical but all-too-recognizable slice of suburbia.” So said CNN, but most real parents are at a loss to figure out what is recognizably suburban about any of it. Most suburbanites do not have bodies buried in the back yard, nor stay-at-home moms, nor yard boys to have adulterous flings with.
But this kind of senility isn’t unique to secular atheists either. Christian organizations are attempting to organize boycotts of Carl Jr.’s and Hardees based on the family-unfriendliness of its Paris Hilton commercials. It has not yet occurred to anyone that the burger chain’s number-crunchers may have written off the family market. Indeed, as the American fertility rate hovers just below replacement level, held that high only by Hispanic and black fertility rates, appeals to do something “for the children” are going to fall on increasingly deaf ears. You can’t appeal for support to families that don’t exist.
So where have all the children gone? Well, even as children disappear from cities and suburbs, faux children rise to take their place. Recent screenings of Star Wars were preceded by trailers advertising Spiderman, Batman, the X-men and the Fantastic Four. Advertisers have long known that the adolescent segment is the best market segment, if only because immature people are easily separated from the money they carry. Because commerce is interested in maintaining immaturity for as long as possible, we have become a comic book nation.
And this is not just a cute phrase. As has been pointed out, “[a recent] National Endowment for the Arts survey found a dramatic decrease in Americans who read literature (novels, plays, poetry, short stories), with more than half - HALF! - of Americans not reading for pleasure. The survey found an overall decline of 10 percentage points in literary readers from 1982 to 2002, a loss of 20 million potential readers…. it was particularly dramatic among those 18 to 24 years old. Among this group, the decline was 55 percent greater than that of the total adult population. At the current rate of loss among the young, literary reading will virtually disappear in 50 years, the NEA warns.”
The irony is enormous. We don’t have children because we want to indulge ourselves. Our culture encourages this perpetual adolescence because it allows business to strip our money from us more efficiently. Precisely because we keep people immature for as long as we can, we do not raise families. Thus the supply of real children dwindles, resulting in an ever-more desperate attempt to lengthen the period of immaturity among the population that remains.
As I pointed out in an essay several months ago, abortion is self-limiting if only because it kills its own future customers. In this respect, the free enterprise system resonates with the abortion culture. By encouraging immaturity among its audience, commerce kills tomorrow’s market in its insatiable quest for today’s market share.
There are limits to how long this childishness can continue.
Monday, September 15, 2003
In the Name of Love
In the Name of Love
"Man indicted for exposing lover to HIV." The CNN headline would be laughable if it weren't deadly. Love is a word often used, but rarely defined. This causes no end of confusion in discussions about love. As the headline indicates, this confusion is most clearly present in the media equation of homosexuals and love.
The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), for instance, promotes the sexual expression of love between men and little boys. For these gay men, outlawing such love is age-ist prejudice. These men point out that NAMBLA and other pro-pedophile organizations were long time members in good standing with the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). Oddly enough, the ILGA suddenly reversed its position on man-boy love only when the United Nations stripped the ILGA of its consultative status because its member groups promoted pedophilia. Harry Hay, the founder and leader of the modern gay rights movement, along with many other prominent gay and lesbian activists, publicly demonstrated against the ILGA for its hypocrisy in ousting NAMBLA. The United Nations trusts the integrity of this flagship gay/lesbian organization to such a great extent that it has continued to refuse the ILGA consultative status to this day. Who was right in this debate? It all hinges on what love means.
What is love? Love is not an emotion. Love is a decision. It is a choice. Love is the freely made decision to serve another person or person(s) by giving everything I am to her for the whole of my life. The point of love is to bring the person being loved to perfection. I don't bring her to the perfection I think she should have, rather, I assist her in reaching the standard of absolute perfection she was brought into existence to achieve. In order for me to fully assist her in reaching her goal, I must give everything I am to her. Thus, love is the gift of myself to the person I love. This definition has interesting consequences.
It means that if I marry for love, I am marrying in order to serve someone else. If I marry for love, it does not matter how much I get out of the marriage or whether I grow in the relationship - that's not relevant. Rather, in a love-based marriage my only standard of success is, "How well have I served my spouse? Have I given her everything she needs to grow and mature as a human person?" The feeling of love may not be logical, but the decision to love, to serve, is.
This is important. The emotional surge of love and the logical life of love are distinct. The decision to love may be based on something along the lines of, "I like this feeling, this person I am gazing upon engenders this feeling in me, so I want to stay with this person and keep this feeling." That's a logical decision, but it is based on evidence that is neither logical nor illogical - that is, it is a logical decision based on an emotion, a fact. This is a perfectly reasonable basis for reaching a decision.
However, the life of love endures not on the basis of the feeling, but on the basis of the decision. Once I make the decision to stay, I have to do what is necessary to keep her happy. That means I have to take care of her, serve her. And, as I live year in and year out serving her, I find that the emotion comes and goes, but the decision to serve her is what keeps me there no matter what I feel like on a specific day. So love is expressed in service, in giving myself and my talents entirely to her every day.
For this reason, sex, while it can be a very important part of love, is not a necessary part of love, of service, to the perfection of the person being loved. Indeed, it can be something that gets in the way of love. If sex is likely to harm the person, then it is not an expression of love. That's why spouses have sex with each other, but not their children. As any doctor knows, gay sex is highly unhealthy. It is not an expression of love. Nothing is wrong with gays loving each other. Everything is wrong with gays having sex with each other. Despite the best medical care in the world, gays without AIDS in the US have the life expectancy of someone born in 1871, before antibiotics and sterile surgery were developed. Gays with AIDS are only slightly worse off. Gay sex is not love. It is mutual suicide.
But today, even educated people confuse sex with love. The American Psychological Association said homosexuality was fine thirty years ago. Today, it floats trial balloons for legalizing pedophilia. Its official newsletter, The Psychological Bulletin, has already published articles arguing that pedophilia should no longer be considered a mental disorder. The APA has long argued that an eleven-year old can give informed consent for an abortion (though, after the uproar over it’s pro-pedophilia articles, it now insists that eleven-year olds cannot give informed consent to have sex). Dr. Jocelyn Elders, President Clinton's surgeon general, wrote a glowing forward to Judith Levine’s pro-pedophilia book “Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex", published by the University of Minnesota press.
Gay love, child love if you’re born that way, then society just has to accept it, right? Even if the APA stands on sexual expression were not illogical and contradictory, the group goes beyond its mandate as a scientific organization when it provides value judgements on human actions. Science is in the business of description. It can describe an action and tell us what the physical consequences of that action are. It cannot tell us whether either the action or the consequences are good or bad. That is a socio-cultural judgement, not a scientific judgement. If the APA wants to tell us that homosexuality or pedophilia are good things, then it is acting as a religion, not as a science. Sadly, love is not the only thing the APA does not understand.
"Man indicted for exposing lover to HIV." The CNN headline would be laughable if it weren't deadly. Love is a word often used, but rarely defined. This causes no end of confusion in discussions about love. As the headline indicates, this confusion is most clearly present in the media equation of homosexuals and love.
The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), for instance, promotes the sexual expression of love between men and little boys. For these gay men, outlawing such love is age-ist prejudice. These men point out that NAMBLA and other pro-pedophile organizations were long time members in good standing with the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). Oddly enough, the ILGA suddenly reversed its position on man-boy love only when the United Nations stripped the ILGA of its consultative status because its member groups promoted pedophilia. Harry Hay, the founder and leader of the modern gay rights movement, along with many other prominent gay and lesbian activists, publicly demonstrated against the ILGA for its hypocrisy in ousting NAMBLA. The United Nations trusts the integrity of this flagship gay/lesbian organization to such a great extent that it has continued to refuse the ILGA consultative status to this day. Who was right in this debate? It all hinges on what love means.
What is love? Love is not an emotion. Love is a decision. It is a choice. Love is the freely made decision to serve another person or person(s) by giving everything I am to her for the whole of my life. The point of love is to bring the person being loved to perfection. I don't bring her to the perfection I think she should have, rather, I assist her in reaching the standard of absolute perfection she was brought into existence to achieve. In order for me to fully assist her in reaching her goal, I must give everything I am to her. Thus, love is the gift of myself to the person I love. This definition has interesting consequences.
It means that if I marry for love, I am marrying in order to serve someone else. If I marry for love, it does not matter how much I get out of the marriage or whether I grow in the relationship - that's not relevant. Rather, in a love-based marriage my only standard of success is, "How well have I served my spouse? Have I given her everything she needs to grow and mature as a human person?" The feeling of love may not be logical, but the decision to love, to serve, is.
This is important. The emotional surge of love and the logical life of love are distinct. The decision to love may be based on something along the lines of, "I like this feeling, this person I am gazing upon engenders this feeling in me, so I want to stay with this person and keep this feeling." That's a logical decision, but it is based on evidence that is neither logical nor illogical - that is, it is a logical decision based on an emotion, a fact. This is a perfectly reasonable basis for reaching a decision.
However, the life of love endures not on the basis of the feeling, but on the basis of the decision. Once I make the decision to stay, I have to do what is necessary to keep her happy. That means I have to take care of her, serve her. And, as I live year in and year out serving her, I find that the emotion comes and goes, but the decision to serve her is what keeps me there no matter what I feel like on a specific day. So love is expressed in service, in giving myself and my talents entirely to her every day.
For this reason, sex, while it can be a very important part of love, is not a necessary part of love, of service, to the perfection of the person being loved. Indeed, it can be something that gets in the way of love. If sex is likely to harm the person, then it is not an expression of love. That's why spouses have sex with each other, but not their children. As any doctor knows, gay sex is highly unhealthy. It is not an expression of love. Nothing is wrong with gays loving each other. Everything is wrong with gays having sex with each other. Despite the best medical care in the world, gays without AIDS in the US have the life expectancy of someone born in 1871, before antibiotics and sterile surgery were developed. Gays with AIDS are only slightly worse off. Gay sex is not love. It is mutual suicide.
But today, even educated people confuse sex with love. The American Psychological Association said homosexuality was fine thirty years ago. Today, it floats trial balloons for legalizing pedophilia. Its official newsletter, The Psychological Bulletin, has already published articles arguing that pedophilia should no longer be considered a mental disorder. The APA has long argued that an eleven-year old can give informed consent for an abortion (though, after the uproar over it’s pro-pedophilia articles, it now insists that eleven-year olds cannot give informed consent to have sex). Dr. Jocelyn Elders, President Clinton's surgeon general, wrote a glowing forward to Judith Levine’s pro-pedophilia book “Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex", published by the University of Minnesota press.
Gay love, child love if you’re born that way, then society just has to accept it, right? Even if the APA stands on sexual expression were not illogical and contradictory, the group goes beyond its mandate as a scientific organization when it provides value judgements on human actions. Science is in the business of description. It can describe an action and tell us what the physical consequences of that action are. It cannot tell us whether either the action or the consequences are good or bad. That is a socio-cultural judgement, not a scientific judgement. If the APA wants to tell us that homosexuality or pedophilia are good things, then it is acting as a religion, not as a science. Sadly, love is not the only thing the APA does not understand.
Monday, September 08, 2003
What's Natural About Marriage?
What's Natural About Marriage?
Laura Kipnis’ latest book, Against Love: A Polemic, makes an old case in a new way. Marriage, specifically monogamous marriage, is alleged to be… well… unnatural, a violation of human nature. That’s the old part. The new part? Monogamous marriage is just a capitalist trick designed to make people slaves.
Marriage – that is, any relationship that demands emotional and sexual fidelity – is bad because fidelity is bad. Fidelity is bad because it isn’t easy to live. Since fidelity isn’t easy, it must necessarily violate human nature. The evidence is near at hand: look at how many people cheat on their spouses! The logic is clear. If homosexuality, which comprises only three percent of the population, is normal, then adultery is certainly normal. Natural is normal. Unnatural is bad. Marriage is unnatural. Therefore…
But, a problem arises. Marriage is demonstrably good, both for spouses and children. Married people are, on average, happier than single people, in better health, and have better sex. Amazingly, recent studies have shown that even relatively bad marriages are better for children than the most amicable divorce. How can an “unnatural” institution be good for us?
We equate “natural” with “good” precisely because we don’t have much contact with nature. As we sit in our office cubicles, or slave away over various machines, we dream of a rustic cabin in the wilderness, by a pleasant stream or a sparkling lake. We dream about it because we haven’t lived it. The people who lived it weren’t generally that fond of it. They wrote of nature “red in tooth and claw” and a natural life “nasty, brutish and short”. Nature has insects, storms, floods, plagues. As one mariner observed about the sea, “She’s a beautiful lady, but she’ll kill you in a minute and no regrets.” Nature is a beauty, but dreadful.
Why dreadful? Because she is impersonal. Stephen Crane, also a mariner, expressed it most clearly, “A man said to the universe:/ ‘Sir I exist!’/ ‘However,’ replied the universe, ‘The fact has not created in me/ A sense of obligation." Nature possesses no intellect, no will. Nature does not think, nor choose. It is ungoverned. It just does.
The alert reader might argue that nature most certainly is governed. It is governed by the laws of nature: gravity, the speed of light, etc. True. But the natural laws that govern physical events are not passed by a collection of apes, dolphins and slugs, meeting in assembly. These natural laws simply express nature itself – together, these laws constitute what nature is. And this is precisely the problem.
We hold contradictory views of ourselves. When we want to indulge a particular lust, we argue, “But of course it’s alright to do this. Animals do it all the time, and we are nothing but animals!” But, we know our tools and ourselves effect the world far out of proportion to a colony of termites or hive of bees. Something about us is unnatural.
We simultaneously hold ourselves to be nothing but animals, and something far different than animals. But why? After all, virtually everything we are, we use or we do is natural. Atoms are the building blocks of nature, and – apart from a few very short-lived laboratory elements – everything is made of this natural stuff. We didn’t invent any of it. We just move the stuff around, like a beaver moves wood around to make a dam. A Corvette is just as natural as a coral reef.
But we can’t shake the knowledge: we are unnatural animals. This contradiction explains everything. You see, the relationships between persons are governed by laws which slugs do not know. Even when men meet in assembly to pass laws, our human laws must reflect the immutable natural laws governing personal relationships, or the laws will crush us as surely as the laws of physics crush a snail against a stone. Physics, on the other hand, knows nothing of fairness. Nature’s laws are nature’s lusts. The only laws it obeys are its own. In that sense, nature embodies most American advertising slogans. Because nature obeys only itself, it is quintessentially deadly, maiming and killing without remorse. It is impersonal precisely because it does not, it cannot, relate to us as persons do.
We, who care for and about each other, cannot abide this natural mindlessness that cares not a jot for anyone or anything. It is a well-known, though little-noted fact, that over ninety percent of all species were wiped out several million years ago. When we wipe out species and habitats, we are acting in a purely natural fashion. It is our attempts at “nature conservation” that are distinctly unnatural. When we ignore the effects of our actions on persons, we operate at an animal level, that is, a natural physical level. Serial adulterers, rapists or killers are acting in a purely natural fashion. Those who try to stop them are not.
Insofar as anything acts without regard to persons, it is acting as nature acts. Capitalism, socialism, fascism – all are capable of encouraging people to act as animals, to act naturally. Laura Kipnis rejects the idea that marriage is about the other person, that it is about helping your spouse and children become better people. She rejects the fact that marriage is about service. She mistakenly thinks marriage is all about self-actualization. Since marriage clearly collapses, crushing spouses when treated this way, she concludes that marriage is the error and adultery must be the solution.
So, naturally, she wrote a book about it.
Laura Kipnis’ latest book, Against Love: A Polemic, makes an old case in a new way. Marriage, specifically monogamous marriage, is alleged to be… well… unnatural, a violation of human nature. That’s the old part. The new part? Monogamous marriage is just a capitalist trick designed to make people slaves.
Marriage – that is, any relationship that demands emotional and sexual fidelity – is bad because fidelity is bad. Fidelity is bad because it isn’t easy to live. Since fidelity isn’t easy, it must necessarily violate human nature. The evidence is near at hand: look at how many people cheat on their spouses! The logic is clear. If homosexuality, which comprises only three percent of the population, is normal, then adultery is certainly normal. Natural is normal. Unnatural is bad. Marriage is unnatural. Therefore…
But, a problem arises. Marriage is demonstrably good, both for spouses and children. Married people are, on average, happier than single people, in better health, and have better sex. Amazingly, recent studies have shown that even relatively bad marriages are better for children than the most amicable divorce. How can an “unnatural” institution be good for us?
We equate “natural” with “good” precisely because we don’t have much contact with nature. As we sit in our office cubicles, or slave away over various machines, we dream of a rustic cabin in the wilderness, by a pleasant stream or a sparkling lake. We dream about it because we haven’t lived it. The people who lived it weren’t generally that fond of it. They wrote of nature “red in tooth and claw” and a natural life “nasty, brutish and short”. Nature has insects, storms, floods, plagues. As one mariner observed about the sea, “She’s a beautiful lady, but she’ll kill you in a minute and no regrets.” Nature is a beauty, but dreadful.
Why dreadful? Because she is impersonal. Stephen Crane, also a mariner, expressed it most clearly, “A man said to the universe:/ ‘Sir I exist!’/ ‘However,’ replied the universe, ‘The fact has not created in me/ A sense of obligation." Nature possesses no intellect, no will. Nature does not think, nor choose. It is ungoverned. It just does.
The alert reader might argue that nature most certainly is governed. It is governed by the laws of nature: gravity, the speed of light, etc. True. But the natural laws that govern physical events are not passed by a collection of apes, dolphins and slugs, meeting in assembly. These natural laws simply express nature itself – together, these laws constitute what nature is. And this is precisely the problem.
We hold contradictory views of ourselves. When we want to indulge a particular lust, we argue, “But of course it’s alright to do this. Animals do it all the time, and we are nothing but animals!” But, we know our tools and ourselves effect the world far out of proportion to a colony of termites or hive of bees. Something about us is unnatural.
We simultaneously hold ourselves to be nothing but animals, and something far different than animals. But why? After all, virtually everything we are, we use or we do is natural. Atoms are the building blocks of nature, and – apart from a few very short-lived laboratory elements – everything is made of this natural stuff. We didn’t invent any of it. We just move the stuff around, like a beaver moves wood around to make a dam. A Corvette is just as natural as a coral reef.
But we can’t shake the knowledge: we are unnatural animals. This contradiction explains everything. You see, the relationships between persons are governed by laws which slugs do not know. Even when men meet in assembly to pass laws, our human laws must reflect the immutable natural laws governing personal relationships, or the laws will crush us as surely as the laws of physics crush a snail against a stone. Physics, on the other hand, knows nothing of fairness. Nature’s laws are nature’s lusts. The only laws it obeys are its own. In that sense, nature embodies most American advertising slogans. Because nature obeys only itself, it is quintessentially deadly, maiming and killing without remorse. It is impersonal precisely because it does not, it cannot, relate to us as persons do.
We, who care for and about each other, cannot abide this natural mindlessness that cares not a jot for anyone or anything. It is a well-known, though little-noted fact, that over ninety percent of all species were wiped out several million years ago. When we wipe out species and habitats, we are acting in a purely natural fashion. It is our attempts at “nature conservation” that are distinctly unnatural. When we ignore the effects of our actions on persons, we operate at an animal level, that is, a natural physical level. Serial adulterers, rapists or killers are acting in a purely natural fashion. Those who try to stop them are not.
Insofar as anything acts without regard to persons, it is acting as nature acts. Capitalism, socialism, fascism – all are capable of encouraging people to act as animals, to act naturally. Laura Kipnis rejects the idea that marriage is about the other person, that it is about helping your spouse and children become better people. She rejects the fact that marriage is about service. She mistakenly thinks marriage is all about self-actualization. Since marriage clearly collapses, crushing spouses when treated this way, she concludes that marriage is the error and adultery must be the solution.
So, naturally, she wrote a book about it.
A Natural Solution
“Homosexuality should be accepted because we find it throughout nature. Adult whiptail lizards are all lesbian! Monkeys engage in homosexuality all the time! Grizzly bear cubs sometimes have two mothers taking care of them!”
How best can we reply to comments like this?
Simple. Agree, with a sunny smile. But point out that logical consistency is needed. If we wish to pass laws or build social customs around the idea that animals are good role models, then we must open up a whole new realm of jurisprudence.
Consider the sexual habits of the dolphin and the mallard duck, neither of which are cold-blooded lizards, but mammals like us. Both routinely engage in rape and gang rape. Logically, then, rape is good. Rape laws should be quashed so as to reflect this new-found wisdom. Or, consider the habits of the African macaque and the chimpanzee, only separated from us genetically by less than 5% difference in DNA. Both species routinely chase down smaller monkeys, rip them limb from limb, and eat their smoking flesh raw. Teenagers, pay attention! When next the munchies strike, save your money! Simply go to the mall, find a four-year old child, rip her limbs from her sockets and feast on her flesh! Not only is cannibalism perfectly natural, it also opens up a whole new secondary market for abortion clinics. We will, of course, have to retry Jeffrey Dahmer, but – given that he’s already dead – we can at least have an excellent lunch after the judge exonerates him and rehabilitates his reputation, sullied by all those homophobes who don’t understand that “natural” means “good”.
We need to stop being silly. Demonstrating that something is natural does not demonstrate that it is good. Alcoholism has at least as strong a genetic basis as homosexuality, but society doesn’t call it “good.” The medical costs of alcoholism are too high. So are the medical costs of homosexuality.
Lesbians are three times more likely to be alcoholic than non-lesbians, nearly half reported frequent drunkenness, and most pointed to money problems, not social acceptance, as the cause. Gays make up 80% of the both the AIDS and the syphilis cases in the US, their rate of syphilis is ten times that of the heterosexual population, and hepatitis-B transmits nearly nine times more efficiently than AIDS among homosexuals. 55% of homosexual men with ano-rectal complaints have gonorrhea, one-third have herpes simplex, 15% have chlamydia. Gays contract gonorrhea of the throat at a rate four times higher than heterosexuals. 91% of homosexual men have intestinal protozoa: the majority of shigella and amoeba infections among non-travelled immunocompetent patients are homosexuals. Indeed, one New York study found that every single such patient with giardiasis was homosexual. E. histolytica infection is a staggering twenty-seven times more prevelant in homosexuals. Not surprisingly, the most powerful predictor for both giardiasis and E. histolytica infection is homosexual behaviour. Rates of anal cancer are 2500 times higher in homosexuals. Monogamous gays are no better off, health-wise: The American Journal of Public Health published a study in 1990 that found, "Being in a monogamous gay relationship was associated with higher risk sex throughout the entire study."
Not surprisingly, gays have a life expectancy between 8 and 20 years less than heterosexual men, that is, their life expectancy is similar to a man born in 1871, born prior to antibiotics and aseptic surgical techniques. Their lifestyle is so self-destructive that 21st century medical care can only bring them up to 19th century life expectancy.
Everyone, homosexuals and heterosexuals, pays for this lifestyle. For those can afford the increased medical costs, and the higher insurance premiums, for those who don’t mind sharing a bathroom at work with a population that has a high rate of sexually transmitted disease, accepting the gay lifestyle is easy. The rest of us, who find we cannot afford to subsidize this lifestyle might, however, disagree. If it is homophobic to be concerned about my bank balance as I try to raise my family, then I am certainly homophobic, drunk-driver-phobic and cigarette-phobic, and will remain so at least until I win the lottery. And it better be a big pot, not one of those dinky single-digit millions.
How best can we reply to comments like this?
Simple. Agree, with a sunny smile. But point out that logical consistency is needed. If we wish to pass laws or build social customs around the idea that animals are good role models, then we must open up a whole new realm of jurisprudence.
Consider the sexual habits of the dolphin and the mallard duck, neither of which are cold-blooded lizards, but mammals like us. Both routinely engage in rape and gang rape. Logically, then, rape is good. Rape laws should be quashed so as to reflect this new-found wisdom. Or, consider the habits of the African macaque and the chimpanzee, only separated from us genetically by less than 5% difference in DNA. Both species routinely chase down smaller monkeys, rip them limb from limb, and eat their smoking flesh raw. Teenagers, pay attention! When next the munchies strike, save your money! Simply go to the mall, find a four-year old child, rip her limbs from her sockets and feast on her flesh! Not only is cannibalism perfectly natural, it also opens up a whole new secondary market for abortion clinics. We will, of course, have to retry Jeffrey Dahmer, but – given that he’s already dead – we can at least have an excellent lunch after the judge exonerates him and rehabilitates his reputation, sullied by all those homophobes who don’t understand that “natural” means “good”.
We need to stop being silly. Demonstrating that something is natural does not demonstrate that it is good. Alcoholism has at least as strong a genetic basis as homosexuality, but society doesn’t call it “good.” The medical costs of alcoholism are too high. So are the medical costs of homosexuality.
Lesbians are three times more likely to be alcoholic than non-lesbians, nearly half reported frequent drunkenness, and most pointed to money problems, not social acceptance, as the cause. Gays make up 80% of the both the AIDS and the syphilis cases in the US, their rate of syphilis is ten times that of the heterosexual population, and hepatitis-B transmits nearly nine times more efficiently than AIDS among homosexuals. 55% of homosexual men with ano-rectal complaints have gonorrhea, one-third have herpes simplex, 15% have chlamydia. Gays contract gonorrhea of the throat at a rate four times higher than heterosexuals. 91% of homosexual men have intestinal protozoa: the majority of shigella and amoeba infections among non-travelled immunocompetent patients are homosexuals. Indeed, one New York study found that every single such patient with giardiasis was homosexual. E. histolytica infection is a staggering twenty-seven times more prevelant in homosexuals. Not surprisingly, the most powerful predictor for both giardiasis and E. histolytica infection is homosexual behaviour. Rates of anal cancer are 2500 times higher in homosexuals. Monogamous gays are no better off, health-wise: The American Journal of Public Health published a study in 1990 that found, "Being in a monogamous gay relationship was associated with higher risk sex throughout the entire study."
Not surprisingly, gays have a life expectancy between 8 and 20 years less than heterosexual men, that is, their life expectancy is similar to a man born in 1871, born prior to antibiotics and aseptic surgical techniques. Their lifestyle is so self-destructive that 21st century medical care can only bring them up to 19th century life expectancy.
Everyone, homosexuals and heterosexuals, pays for this lifestyle. For those can afford the increased medical costs, and the higher insurance premiums, for those who don’t mind sharing a bathroom at work with a population that has a high rate of sexually transmitted disease, accepting the gay lifestyle is easy. The rest of us, who find we cannot afford to subsidize this lifestyle might, however, disagree. If it is homophobic to be concerned about my bank balance as I try to raise my family, then I am certainly homophobic, drunk-driver-phobic and cigarette-phobic, and will remain so at least until I win the lottery. And it better be a big pot, not one of those dinky single-digit millions.
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