I wrote this in 2008, and
shared it with people who were working on the Prop 8 campaign in California.
But to my knowledge it was used as background, not published, so I hadn’t
included it in my recent Defense of Marriage collection. The full piece begins with several
paragraphs identifying the unique benefits of marriage to society: This
covenant values exclusivity (so that inheritance rights are meaningful, and
sexually transmitted diseases are not a threat), possibility of offspring, and
permanence (so that offspring have a stable home in which to be raised).
Despite Kennedy’s opinion in the Supreme Court ruling in Windsor a month ago
that no one can have a rational reason for the traditional definition of
marriage, these benefits are real, well documented and mounting in social
science, and exemplified in some six millennia of human history.
I have covered these reasons
elsewhere in my writings, so for today I’ll mostly just include the analogy portion of
the piece, meant to illustrate what happened 40 years ago to set in motion the
propaganda that has been trying to control what the public “knows,” which doesn’t
happen to be true.
_____________________________
Alternative Reality
Homosexuals are not
prohibited from marrying a person of the opposite sex who is not a close
relative, who is of legal age, and who is not already married to another
person—the same criteria required of heterosexuals.
But they can’t marry the
person they would choose! Neither can heterosexuals who would choose someone
too closely related, too young, or currently married, limitations that are
intended to make marriage relationships most likely to be valuable to society
rather than detrimental. So what homosexuals are saying, really, is that they
want a change in the law to accommodate their particular desires, without
showing that their relationship choices will be of value to society.
If they were to get what they
want, then society is deprived of a way to encourage permanent, faithful
opposite-sex parents to maintain stable families in which to raise offspring—a
way it has had for six thousand-plus years. And their reason for depriving
society is just because they claim it’s unfair to them not to get their way.
Their main argument
presupposes that homosexuality is an innate quality, like race, inborn and
immutable. But common sense tells us that behavior does not qualify as an
inborn immutable quality; behavior is what we do, by choice (even if there
doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice because the urge is strong, just as it is
for a child rapist/murderer, which is, by the way, just another sexual
orientation among a couple dozen).
So how did we as a society
come to believe that homosexuality was a trait, innate and unchangeable? By
scientific study and discovery? Overwhelming evidence? Not exactly.
To show you how it happened,
it might help to look at an allegorical situation, a story:
Once
upon a time, in the early 1970s, there were certain members of the governing
body of the American Psychiatric Association who had traits not common to the
population at large. They had an alternative view of ownership, which led them,
at times, to see the belongings of other people as their own. Previously among
their colleagues there had been a term for this condition: kleptomania. It was
considered a mental disorder that could be treated. There were studies about
the condition, and new treatments being tried, to alter what was viewed as an
unwanted, undesirable behavior problem.
But
these particular alternative-ownership perceivers didn’t think their problem
should be treated. They liked perceiving other people’s belongings as their
own. To them, it wasn’t harmful or undesirable. And they didn’t think it should
be viewed as undesirable to their colleagues. Over several years, they combined
together to build their political authority in the professional organization;
also, they organized pressure groups from outside the organization to help them
lobby. And they were able to proclaim that kleptomania was not a behavioral
disorder. It was an inborn trait, a different ownership orientation, and was as
valid as any other ownership orientation. It should not be treated. Studies
should no longer be done in order to discover causes and cures.
Instead,
society should be persuaded to accept the differently ownership oriented.
Anyone who refused to agree would be labeled kleptophobic. Presentations would
be given in schools—first colleges, then high schools, and eventually
elementary schools, to indoctrinate the public to accept this new view of
kleptomania. Illustrated books would be written for school children: Mommy Found Yet Another Pair of Shoes,
and You Might Be Differently Ownership
Oriented; You Won’t Know until You Try. Laws were put before legislative
bodies to declare it a crime to discriminate against someone just because they
might be differently ownership oriented. Despite heavy lobbying against it from
the greedy retail industry, many places did pass the legislation. Television
began to put more and more differently ownership oriented persons in their
programming, and began to portray them not as the butt of jokes, but as
positive role models that simply suffered misunderstanding from a bigoted
public.
A few
kleptomaniacs (pardon me, differently ownership oriented individuals) continued
to seek treatment, although treatment was no longer sanctioned. They claimed
the lifestyle made them suffer guilt, for taking things that didn’t belong to
them. And it undermined trust, so that their relationships weren’t as intimate
and lasting as they hoped for. And, despite the insistence that their
behavioral urges were an innate trait, many were able to leave the lifestyle.
Thousands, in fact. They were able to stop taking things that didn’t belong to
them. Many were very nearly able to completely overcome the urge to take
things. And these former kleptomaniacs held conferences to tell people there
was hope for them, if they also wanted to change. But the supporters of the
differently ownership oriented rallied against them, and often the six
sign-holding protestors would be featured in news stories where the 2,000
conference goers’ views would not be considered newsworthy.
[Forty]
years of kleptomania acceptance indoctrination netted some results. It became
popular for the elite to support the differently ownership oriented. It became
shameful to say, in public, that you didn’t like it when differently ownership
oriented people took your belongings. People publicly viewed kleptomania with
acceptance, and many even encouraged the uncertainly oriented to give it a try.
But the
additional acceptance, for some reason, didn’t seem to benefit civilization.
Traces
of old paradigms remained. Still, people weren’t more likely to invite the
differently ownership oriented to socialize with them in their homes. And there
continued a serious prejudice against them in the retail workplace and among
certain traditionalist religions which clung to the Ten Commandments as if they
still mattered. Also, people tended to hold on more tightly than ever to their
personal belongings when in public where they might unknowingly come in contact
with the differently ownership oriented. People are, after all, naturally
bigoted and hard to change.
OK, so kleptomania didn’t get
taken from the long (and almost inexhaustible) list of treatable behavioral
problems. But in 1973 homosexuality did.[1]
There were at that time some 600 ongoing studies into causes and treatments.
There were thousands of people who had been successfully treated. But because
of the political pressure from some few homosexual activists in the leadership
of the American Psychological Association along with a few well-funded pressure
groups, studies and treatments were axed.
Those seeking treatment were
turned away or told that “treatment” meant “accepting yourself as you are.”[2]
Those who have found treatment despite its scarcity have a relatively high
success rate, particularly when religion is a factor in the treatment
(reference).
But society is told this
behavior problem is an innate immutable trait. Society has been lied to.
Should society, based on the
political pressure of a few behaviorally warped psychiatrists, throw out the
institution of marriage in favor of honoring a behavior that does not benefit
society and arguably harms the individual as well? No, it should not.
[1] A thorough retelling of the sequence of events is
covered in Destructive Trends in MentalHealth, by Rogers H. Wright and Nicholas A. Cummings; see the chapter on this subject by William
T. O'Donohue and Christine E. Caselles.
Also, United Families
International includes this information in their Family Issues Guide—Sexual Orientation,
p. 9:
Myth: Homosexual
behavior should be considered normal as a result of the decision made by the
American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1973 which removed homosexuality from
its list of “disorders.”
Reality:
The decision to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual (DSM) was made after APA leaders and members had endured several years
of intense political pressure and disruptive lobbying efforts by militant
homosexual activist groups. (Ronald Bayer, “Homosexuality and American
Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis,”
Princeton University Press, 1987.) Homosexual activist groups pressured APA
committees to remove homosexuality from the APA’s approved list of disorders.
In spite of the long documented history showing that therapists have helped
homosexual clients reduce and change their homosexual tendencies, professionals
who persist in viewing and treating homosexuality as a changeable condition are
labeled unenlightened, prejudiced, homophobic, and unethical. There is currently a movement within the
APA to normalize pedophilia that appears to be following the same path to
legitimization as homosexuality. See Fast Facts and Commentary #1-66,
90-97.
[2] In
addition, there is pressure against psychology students to even question the
dogma. A good illustration is a seven-part piece in 2007 by Mike Adams, “Of
Mice and Mormons,” about a family therapy master’s degree student who asked his
program supervisor where to refer a client who was asking for help with
unwanted same-sex attraction; for asking the question, the student was
persecuted: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII.
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