Platform and Minority Report, Part II

This is part II of our discussion of the Platform and Minority Report, from the Texas State Republican Convention. There will be four parts total (I’m doing them on consecutive days. So, part I was yesterday. Here are the subjects in order:

·         Part I: Cannabis 

·         Part II: Marriage, Homosexuality, and Other LGBTQ Issues

·         Part III: School Choice

·         Part IV: The Minority Report

Marriage, Homosexuality, and other LGBTQ Issues

Another issue that occupied a lot of testimony time at the convention was homosexuality. Those issues ended up mainly in State Affairs. The main concern, since the Obergefell ruling, is about religious freedom, balancing that with tolerance. The 2016 plank said this:

Homosexuality: Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that has been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nation’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, in public policy, nor should family be redefined to include homosexual couples.  We oppose the granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin.  We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.  

There was a rewrite, hotly debated, that lasted until a compromise, late Thursday evening, which became acceptable to all, containing many of these same ideas (I’ve highlighted in both where the words are identical):

Homosexual Behavior: We affirm God’s biblical design for marriage and sexual behavior between one biological man and one biological woman, which has proven to be the foundation for all great nations in Western civilization. We oppose homosexual marriage, regardless of state of origin. We urge the Texas Legislature to pass religious liberty protections for individuals, businesses, and government officials who believe marriage is between one man and one woman. We oppose the granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.

The changes take a bit of concentration to discern. While God and Bible are cited in both, the new plank is more about affirming marriage, rather than condemning the sinfulness of homosexuality, which may make it less controversial while still concentrating on what we want to accomplish: protect marriage, and protect religion freedom. I like the connection of marriage to civilization; that's part of the Spherical Model formula for civilization.

That's us, in front of the Civilization wall
in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center

The testimony against the plank was mainly of the variety that homosexuality ought to be seen as just another acceptable lifestyle choice. That is definitely not the view of the Republican Party of Texas. It is gaining ground with younger people, mainly because of the indoctrination from media and academia—along with their inherent (but maybe not obvious) anti-religious bias.

During testimony during the Permanent Platform Committee, on Thursday afternoon/evening of the convention, there was a particular pro-homosexuality witness who was called back for a question by an older woman on the committee. The witness was flippant. The committee member took offense at that. And there was a rather unpleasant interchange that got terminated as not really questioning the witness, so it should be saved for committee discussion later.

Over time, it’s been my observation that Log Cabin Republicans, who agree with Republicans on 90% of issues, and just diverge on these particular social issues, have generally been good members of the party, agreeing to disagree without being disagreeable. I hope that attitude can continue.

There were several other planks that are related more specifically to defense of marriage—which is the appropriate way to look at the position of Republicans generally. It is not about hate; it is about preserving marriage in order to preserve civilization. Here are some of the additional planks:

Definition of Marriage: We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal, and moral commitment only between one natural man and one natural woman.

State Authority over Marriage: We support withholding jurisdiction from the federal courts in cases involving family law, especially any changes in the definition of marriage.
Spousal Benefits: We shall not recognize or grant to any unmarried person the legal rights or status of a spouse, including granting benefits by political subdivisions.
No-Fault Divorce: We urge the Legislature to rescind no-fault divorce laws and support covenant marriage.

Overturn Unconstitutional Ruling: We believe this decision, overturning the Texas law prohibiting same-sex marriage in Texas, has no basis in the Constitution and should be reversed, returning jurisdiction over the definition of marriage to the states. The Governor and other elected officials of the State of Texas should assert our Tenth Amendment right and reject the Supreme Court ruling.

There are additional LGBTQ issues, mainly related to transgender indoctrination:

Gender Identity Facilities in Businesses: We support enacting legislation in the State of Texas ensuring that no government entity in the state be allowed to take it upon itself to define for any private business or private entity how it must segregate its restrooms, changing facilities, or showers; nor may any government agency be allowed to require businesses to profess, espouse, or adopt specific views on sex, sexuality, gender, or gender identity, other than to guarantee that views and positions on these matters are not used as a basis to deny access to public accommodations, as defined by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, nor to deny employment, or discriminate in employment decisions, solely on the basis of a person’s views on these matters.

Child Rights: We call on the Texas Legislature to pass legislation to protect privacy in public schools and government buildings as allowed by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, by ensuring that multi-use facilities, including showers, changing rooms, and bathrooms, are designated for and used only by persons based on the person’s biological sex.

No Sexuality Indoctrination: We call on the State Legislature to pass legislation so that no public school or other educational institution may force, require, or pressure any child or student to profess, espouse, or adopt, or otherwise be indoctrinated without explicit parental consent, specific views on sex, sexuality, gender, or gender identity.

Gender Identity Pronouns: We oppose any attempt to criminalize and/or penalize anyone for the wrong use of pronouns.

The opposition will call these hateful. But we resist nonetheless. Because, while we’re quite willing to be tolerant, we’re not willing to give up our freedom, privacy, safety, or beliefs just to avoid being called hateful, homophobic, and bigoted. And we all know they’ll call us that regardless of reality, so it’s just better, always, to stand for truth.

Path Forward for Us Dissidents

dis·si·dent[i]

ˈdisədənt/

noun

1.     1.

a person who opposes official policy, especially that of an authoritarian state.

"a dissident who had been jailed by a military regime"

synonyms:		dissenter, objector, protester

Ryan T. Anderson
photo from Amazon page

I enjoy people who can see a positive direction, even from a dark place. Ryan Anderson is such a person. He is the William E. Simon senior research fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation. He specializes in issues of marriage and family. In short, he is the best public voice on marriage in the public arena today. I read almost everything he writes, and see as many videos of his speeches and interviews as I can.

His book came out last week: Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom. I haven’t read it yet. I’m still debating with myself between Kindle and hardcopy. The paperback isn’t available until the end of August, so that may decide it for me. (Plus, it has text-to-speech enabled, which fewer Kindle books have lately, and I appreciate that.)

We, who know the truth about marriage, and how valuable—essential—it is to civilization, have been feeling low this month, following the SCOTUS ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges. It wasn’t decided according to the Constitution. It wasn’t decided according to the beliefs of a large majorities is most of the states—wherever the people have been allowed to voice their views. It wasn’t anything but a capitulation to an intense and relatively short (decade) campaign to alter public opinion on what marriage is. And it has the ugly impact of curtailing the religious freedoms of anyone who knows the truth about marriage.

It has made dissidents out of people like me who hold to the truth known for millennia when the authoritarian state says we’re supposed to believe something else.

So there has been reason to mourn.

But Ryan Anderson is ahead of the game, ready to take the necessary positive steps.

In an article, as well as in an interview, this past week, Anderson makes a comparison with the pro-life movement following a similarly bad SCOTUS ruling in Roe v. Wade. At that time, people who knew the truth about the human life and value of unborn children were told, “You lost the argument; get over it.” And they were told the next generation would be on the “right side of history,” would be pro-abortion. But, in fact, this upcoming generation is more pro-life than their parents' generation. Partial birth abortion is outlawed already nationwide. Many states have outlawed abortions after 20 weeks—the time at which the fetus can be shown to suffer pain (which other nations already use as a standard). How could this progress be made, when the debate was supposedly shut down by the Supreme Court?

The pro-life movement did some things very right. They made it clear that the ruling was judicial activism—because it was. Even Justice Ginsburg has been heard to say that it was a bad ruling. It had precious little connection to the actual Constitution. 

Then the pro-lifers used science, which tends to bear out the truth, if it’s real science. So they have been able to show that the unborn child has a heartbeat, has its own DNA, responds to stimuli, looks human, and is not simply a blob of tissue.

Their progress was evident this past week, when information came out about Planned Parenthood  “selling” fetal body parts—when both the late-term abortions that allow for such harvesting are illegal, as is the selling of fetal body parts. The claim that they were “donating” with reimbursement plus a bit doesn’t stop the public from recognizing the horror of what they’re doing, and being disgusted with the cavalier attitude with which they do it.

Strong majorities are against late-term abortion. Overwhelming majorities are against partial-birth abortion. More people are recognizing that when pregnant women see a ultrasound of their growing baby, they are less likely to go through with the abortion. The other side is left blustering that pregnant women shouldn’t be forced to learn the truth about their babies. Or they go overboard and claim the right to kill a baby even after birth, revealing their savagery.

We’re nowhere near outlawing abortion on demand, but we’ve made progress.

So, looking at that pattern, here are the steps Ryan Anderson suggests we take—over the next generation and beyond—to repair real marriage.

1.      We must refer to the ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges as judicial activism, and be able to state clearly why. The dissenting opinions by Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts provide clear arguments. There will be other resources as well—including Anderson’s new book.

2.      We must protect our freedom to speak and live according to the truth. We need to keep speaking the truth, with calm clarity and reason. Accusations of bigotry won’t fit when good people keep getting called bad by unreasonable, intolerant “winners.” We must press for legislation that protects religious liberty—in personal lives and businesses, as well as in churches. This would be similar to mainly successful pro-life efforts to make sure no one would be forced to perform or pay for an abortion when doing so would go against their personal beliefs. 

3.      We must redouble our efforts to make the case in the public square. Bring in the new and growing social science that shows the importance of having a mother and a father in a child’s life. Don’t let the false “science” claim of no difference stand. As Anderson points out, “Pro-lifers did much more than preach, launching a multitude of initiatives to help mothers in crisis pregnancies make the right choice.” I don’t know yet, beyond continuing to write, what that will look like in the marriage debate. It may include what Utah did, combining legislation that protected homosexuals in housing and employment (where discrimination was already illegal) with agreements to protect religious liberties. It might be in supporting children who have been raised with two mothers but no fathers to know that their sense of missing something is valid—every bit as valid as such feelings in children raised by singe parents.

There’s much to do. It’s an uphill battle. But if we have any interest in civilization, and the freedom and prosperity that go with civilization, then we must gear up for what we need to do.

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[i] From online dictionary: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=dissident%20definition

Family Proclaiming

This past weekend was the twice-a-year worldwide General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is broadcast in multiple ways, and is available online live, plus for reviewing, re-listening, or reading within a day or two. It’s something we enjoy and talk about over and over among ourselves.

Speakers come from the general (worldwide) leadership of the Church. They’re assigned to speak some weeks or months ahead of time, but they are not given topics. They are expected to prayerfully ask for guidance on what to say. So there are a variety of topics every time. But sometimes there seems to arise a common theme.

Last year I noted that the speakers were concerned with freedom of religion and told us to have courage.

The Church has always (all my life, in my memory, but also the Church’s entire history) valued strong families. This conference marriage and family seemed to me the overriding theme.

Conference is comprised of four main sessions of two hours each: two on Saturday and two on Sunday. Plus there is a session Saturday evening for men, age twelve and up. And Conference also includes a session for women the Saturday previous. So I’m about to share a few of the family theme highlights from the whole conference, starting with the women’s session.

Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson

Bonnie Oscarson is the Young Women General President (for youth ages 12-18). She spoke of defending the Family Proclamation. It’s a 600-word document, written twenty years ago, laying out the Church’s beliefs relating to marriage and family. It’s prophetic. I may spend a full post sometime sharing that. But, this is just to let you know what Sister Oscarson is referring to.

She begins with a story from 1850 Italy, where a young woman stood up bravely against an angry mob. That is the picture of courage she is hoping we can see in ourselves. She says,

Sisters, few of us will ever have to face an angry mob, but there is a war going on in this world in which our most cherished and basic doctrines are under attack. I am speaking specifically of the doctrine of the family. The sanctity of the home and the essential purposes of the family are being questioned, criticized, and assaulted on every front….

We need to boldly defend the Lord’s revealed doctrines describing marriage, families, the divine roles of men and women, and the importance of homes as sacred places—even when the world is shouting in our ears that these principles are outdated, limiting, or no longer relevant.

The entire women’s session was dedicated to proclaiming the importance of marriage and family.

During the Saturday morning session, the final speaker was Elder L. Tom Perry, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church (and the oldest; he’s 92). He was one of those who attended the Vatican Colloquium on Marriage last November (which I wrote about here). Leaders from many religions and groups came together in agreement on the importance of marriage and family. He quoted Pope Francis from that colloquium:

Elder L. Tom Perry

We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment. This revolution in manners and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. … It is always they who suffer the most in this crisis.[i]

Elder Perry was pleased that a Muslim speaker quoted verbatim two paragraphs from our Church’s Proclamation on the Family. He said, “It was marvelous to be in meetings with worldwide presenters as they universally addressed their feelings of the importance of marriage between a man and a woman.” And he went on to emphasize that the Church’s teachings on family include an eternal perspective. More is at stake than the best life here on earth; family bonds continue beyond death:

We also believe that strong traditional families are not only the basic units of a stable society, a stable economy, and a stable culture of values—but that they are also the basic units of eternity and of the kingdom and government of God.

We believe that the organization and government of heaven will be built around families and extended families.

It is because of our belief that marriages and families are eternal that we, as a church, want to be a leader and a participant in worldwide movements to strengthen them.

Elder D. Todd Christopherson

During the Saturday afternoon session, Elder D. Todd Christopherson (also one of the Twelve) spoke on “Why Marriage, Why Family.” He shared a quote from a favorite piece from the martyred Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a letter sent from prison to his niece who was getting married:

Marriage is more than your love for each other. … In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. … So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God.[ii]

For people who believe in God, marriage is what God says it is. It can’t be anything else. I often write of social science support for marriage[iii], which is true. But I’m open to those truths because I am aware of God’s plan. Elder Christopherson brings that into perspective:

The social science case for marriage and for families headed by a married man and woman is compelling.[iv] And so “we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”[v] But our claims for the role of marriage and family rest not on social science but on the truth that they are God’s creation. It is He who in the beginning created Adam and Eve in His image, male and female, and joined them as husband and wife to become “one flesh” and to multiply and replenish the earth. Each individual carries the divine image, but it is in the matrimonial union of male and female as one that we attain perhaps the most complete meaning of our having been made in the image of God—male and female. Neither we nor any other mortal can alter this divine order of matrimony. It is not a human invention. Such marriage is indeed “from above, from God” and is as much a part of the plan of happiness as the Fall and the Atonement.

Elder Joseph W. Sitati

In the Sunday afternoon session, one of the speakers was Elder Joseph W. Sitati, of the Seventy (the quorums of 70are traveling ministers from around the world, as was Stephen in the New Testament; Elder Sitati is from Kenya). He spoke on the continued relevance of the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. With that commandment in mind, he said, “Marriage between a man and a woman is the institution that God ordained for the fulfillment of the charge to multiply. A same-gender relationship does not multiply.”

Please note that this is coming from a well-educated but meek and loving man. He is not saying we must hate homosexuals; he is simply saying that God’s plan of happiness applies to us all. The commandments are for our happiness.

In the Sunday afternoon session, Elder Robert D. Hales, of the Twelve, spoke on protecting religious freedom. He said,

As we walk the path of spiritual liberty in these last days, we must understand that the faithful use of our agency depends upon our having religious freedom. We already know that Satan does not want this freedom to be ours. He attempted to destroy moral agency in heaven, and now on earth he is fiercely undermining, opposing, and spreading confusion about religious freedom.

Elder Robert D. Hales

He listed four religious freedoms we should be concerned with: 1) freedom to believe; 2) freedom to share our beliefs with others; 3) freedom to form a religious organization; and 4) freedom to live our faith. And he added, “As disciples of Jesus Christ we have a responsibility to work together with like-minded believers, to raise our voices for what is right.”

A couple of weeks before General Conference, Utah passed a religious freedom and anti-discrimination law—with the support of the Church[vi]. Both religious freedom and anti-discrimination in employment and housing are the law; but they both needed reasserting. This might be an example for other states to follow. Working together, the Church was able to assert the need for respect for our beliefs, while calmly reassuring that we respect the rights of all others.

We need to stand strong. We need to have courage. Regardless of what courts rule, or media informs us is the majority opinion. We must stand with God, for the sake of civilization, and our posterity, and our souls. But that includes loving, calm, understanding discourse. Getting that from the other side is the miracle—a testament to the Church’s dedication to God and loving all His children.

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[i] Pope Francis, address at Humanum: An International Interreligious Colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman, Nov. 17, 2014, http://humanum.it/en/videos/; see also http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-address-at-opening-of-colloquium-on-complementarity-of-man-and-woman.

[ii] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (1953), 42–43.

[iii] See my Defense ofMarriage Collection.

[iv] Elder Perry’s transcript offers this footnote: People may be loyal to one another in nonmarital relationships, and children can be born and raised, sometimes quite successfully, in other than a married two-parent family environment. But on average and in the majority of cases, evidence of the social benefits of marriage and of the comparatively superior outcomes for children in families headed by a married man and woman is extensive. On the other hand, the social and economic costs of what one commentator calls “the global flight from the family,” weigh increasingly on society. Nicholas Eberstadt catalogs the worldwide declines in marriage and childbearing and the trends regarding fatherless homes and divorce and observes: “The deleterious impact on the hardly inconsequential numbers of children disadvantaged by the flight from the family is already plain enough. So too the damaging role of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing in exacerbating income disparities and wealth gaps—for society as a whole, but especially for children. Yes, children are resilient and all that. But the flight from family most assuredly comes at the expense of the vulnerable young. That same flight also has unforgiving implications for the vulnerable old.” (See “The Global Flight from the Family,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 21, 2015, wsj.com/articles/nicholas-eberstadt-the-global-flight-from-the-family-1424476179.)

[v] “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” next to last paragraph.

[vi] http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/in-a-game-of-total-victory-we-all-lose

Supreme Court Sampler

It’s that season, when all of us watch, with nailbiting expectation, to see who the winners and losers are.

No, I’m not referring to World Cup Soccer. That’s for normal households. In the Spherical Model household, we’re watching the Supreme Court rulings come in. (If I had a graphic arts team here at Spherical Model, I'd have justices in robes kicking around a soccer ball in a grand stadium. Please imagine that here.)

The biggies for this session (Hobby Lobby and others who don’t want Obamacare to force them to purchase things against their religious views) have not shown up yet. There are still a few more days.

But there are a few things that appeared so far this week.

Recess appointments--Canning v. NLRB (National Labor Relations Board)

This was a 9-0 decision, slapping the president’s hand for reaching into the power cookie jar. But it isn’t as strong a rebuke as it could have been. The Constitution expects presidential appointments to be subject to Senate approval or disapproval (advise and consent). The president doesn’t like to submit to that—even though he has a Democrat Senate, because there are enough Republicans that might bring up the inappropriateness of many of his appointees. He is not the first president to misuse the recess appointment procedure.

It’s in the law because, at the time of the founding, when the legislative branch took a break and people returned to their home districts, it could take weeks to call them back to reassemble. If a need came up during their absence, it made sense to make a temporary appointment, so work would not be held up.

It doesn’t take weeks to recall the Senate now. But the Constitution doesn’t include reasons and intentions, so presidents have used this clause for their own political purposes—more so as transportation becomes less and less an issue. The SCOTUS today ruled that, while the president can indeed appoint during breaks in session, he can’t decide that a long weekend is a break. Even 10 days is probably too short a break. The justices fell short of defining the length of the break, but clearly ruled that the president shouldn’t be doing what he’s been doing.

The more conservative members of the Court held that the rule should be when the legislature is actually not in session—probably just during their annual August break. I’m with them. My son Political Sphere suggests that they ought to have also added the requirement that the appointment be urgent, couldn’t have been made in time before the legislative session ended, or couldn’t wait until the legislative session was to meet again. And of course such appointments ought to be approved or disapproved as soon as the legislature meets again—rather than just letting the appointment stand. In other words, change the expectations for Senate approval of appointments back to what the Constitution requires. What a concept.

I heard several times today that this ruling was the 12^th (maybe 13^th) time SCOTUS has ruled unanimously against Obama’s executive power overreach.

Buffer Zones at Abortion Clinics—McCullen v. Oakley

In this Massachusetts case, there was a rule that within a 35-foot buffer zone, no one could enter the space near an abortion clinic except patients, workers, and anyone with business in the vicinity. In other words, no one could approach someone who might be going for an abortion and offer them “counseling,” or information that might sway their behavior.

This is a free speech argument. We’re talking about public sidewalks, which are traditionally places where demonstrations of speech are legal. And here the restriction is on specific speech on a specific topic—to prevent anti-abortion speech. Why that speech? Why is that targeted, but other speech could be allowed other similarly public locations? What makes the public space around an abortion clinic a non-free-speech zone?

The Obama administration supported censorship. The plaintiff asked for support of free speech rights. While there could be a safety issue to consider, the government must choose the least intrusive alternative. The Court could see that banning all free speech in a specified area, mainly to prevent speech on a specific issue, was not the least intrusive means. (A good discussion was on Hugh Hewitt's The Smart Guys segment Thursday--available by subscription.)

Here are a couple more of the rulings, with links to read further:

·         EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulation—Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency (read here and here).

·         Cell phone searches require warrant—Riley v. California (read here and here).

Meanwhile, in the Tenth Circuit Court, the state of Utah has been disallowed to define marriage. You’ll probably read errant headlines that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage has been found unconstitutional. That’s not really accurate. The 3-judge panel of the 10^th Circuit ruled against the state, in a 2-1 split, based on the Windsor ruling of June 2013, which decided that the US DOMA law was wrong to define marriage as between one man and one woman if other entities (i.e., state governments) defined it differently. In other words, the Supreme Court was leaving the defining of marriages to the states. But every time it has come up since then, some court has decided that states do not have the right to define marriage as between one man and one woman, because it’s unconstitutional. Hmm.

So, the courts are ruling that defining a term in a contract cannot be done at the federal level nor at the state level. That is very troubling. So how can governments define terms in a contract? The way the unelected and nebulous but powerful politically correct police say they can, according to the whims of the day—of course.

In this case, Kitchen v. Herbert, the steps may include appeal to the 10^th Circuit en banq (the full panel of 10^th Circuit Court judges). That may or may not be tried or accepted. If it is, then that court will hear the case first. If not, it could go to the Supreme Court as early as this coming fall. In the meantime, the Court stayed its ruling (will not in the meantime allow same-sex “marriages” to take place while the issue isn’t ultimately settled).

The Big 500th Celebration

 

Today is the 500^th post at the Spherical Model blog. Yay!!! (Balloons being dropped and confetti strewn as you read this. I can always vacuum later.)

It is also, coincidentally, approximately the 3^rd anniversary of the blog; that was officially March 4^th, but this 500^th milestone seemed close enough, I thought I’d wait and do both at the same time. The website, SphericalModel.com, is a few months older and has changed little; I’ve used the blog to add to the basic ideas.

Milestones are a good time to explain what the Spherical Model is. So here goes—again.

The Spherical Model is a different way of looking at the political world—different from the usual right-wing/left-wing model. In addition, the political world interrelates with the economic and social worlds, so the Spherical Model handles more ideas than the simple right/left arrow.

It works like this: think of a sphere, with freedom in the northern hemisphere, and tyranny in the southern hemisphere, so north is good and south is bad. (This relates in no way to actual places on our earth.) What about east and west, you ask? Good question. There isn’t a good-half/bad-half thing going on with east and west. It’s about level of interest, from the smallest unit of society, the family (furthest west longitude line), moving eastward to town/city, state/province, region, nation, multi-national allies, and reaching global interests at the far eastern longitude line. The caveat is, you need to be as local as possible for whatever issue is being addressed, or else there is loss of freedom (and therefore movement southward).

So it’s possible for there to be global issues, but they’re rare. And we tend to see a lot of national or state levels trying to usurp decision-making authority from the appropriate lower levels. Theoretically we could see a lower level insisting it is the appropriate level when a higher level actually is for fitting, but that’s more rare. And when there is such a disagreement, that’s when debate on issues should show up.

Just as you have freedom north and tyranny south for the political sphere, you have corresponding good north and bad south for the economic sphere: free enterprise economy north, and controlled economy south—which translates to prosperity north and poverty south.

You also have corresponding good north and bad south for the social sphere: civilization north, and savagery south.

All of these spheres interrelate. In other words, if you don’t do what it takes to sustain civilization, you suffer a loss of prosperity and a loss of freedom. If you strengthen civilization, that leads to greater freedom and prosperity as well. If you centralize decisions about who controls the spending of earned wealth, you affect freedom and civilization. For example, if either government or marauding gangs confiscate wealth from those who have earned it and redistribute it to those who haven’t earned it, workers are discouraged, feel enslaved, and feel hopeless.

What is the value of using this slightly more complicated model? For one thing you totally get rid of the accusation of being extremist just for wanting freedom, prosperity, and a thriving civilization. And you get rid of the notion that compromising in the middle, maybe just slightly toward the right, is sensible and logical. Because it is never a good thing to move south, and it is always a good thing to move north.

It doesn’t matter if an ideology is called socialism, communism, tyranny, dictatorship, anarchy, oligarchy, monarchy, or theocracy. All of these can be floating around below the equator. Location depends on the level of control (gang, state, nation, region—as is Axis of Evil—or global), and how much control. The more control, the further toward tyranny.

We don’t need to argue about whether “progressivism” is socialism by another name; we just need to look at how appropriate the level of interest (west/east), and how controlling the power center is.

If you’re conservative, you probably already believe much of what you’ll read here. The purpose is to give you new ways to evaluate ideas, candidates, issues, and policies—based on principles that are consistent and knowable. We can encourage policymakers to ask, “Does it lead toward more freedom, ensuring our inalienable rights?” “Does it lead to prosperity by encouraging free enterprise?” and “Does it lead to more thriving civilization by encouraging adherence to long-known good behaviors of religious people, and valuing the family as the basic unit of civilization?”

If you’d like to get a clearer understanding of the Spherical Model, I hope you’ll check out these sources:

Long Version: The Spherical Model website—a collection of long pieces describing the model and the three spheres, about 50 pages worth of writings.

Short Version: Blog post March 5, 2012: Year Two Begins, written for the one-year anniversary of the blog.

Best of the Blog: Collected links of blog posts most likely to give you additional understanding, offered as a celebration of the 400^th post, June 2013.

·         Part I covers the interrelationships of the three spheres, plus the Political Sphere.

·         Part II covers the Economic Sphere.

·         Part III covers the Social Sphere, or how to get to Civilization.

Special Topic Collections: These are additions to Best of the Blog, posts on specific issues that relate to the principles of going north on the sphere, but aren’t obviously related to a single sphere.

·         The Defense of Marriage Collection

·         The Education Collection

We’re a hundred posts beyond the Best of Blog collection. I hope there are now additional posts that should be favorites. They’re all available in the archives. I’m always honored whenever someone spends their time reading here. I hope you find the Spherical Model valuable in our joint efforts to have a world with more freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

Defining Marriage

A week ago the Indiana House Judiciary Committee met, discussing the state’s marriage law. Most of the day was spent talking about the emotional civil rights argument pressuring for “same-sex marriage.” Then the committee was schooled by a young man named Ryan Anderson. He’s the William E. Simon fellow at the Heritage Foundation, which is a non-partisan (but conservative) think tank in Washington, DC, which I often turn to for data and opinion. Anderson is also a doctoral candidate at the University of Notre Dame in political science. As an undergrad at Princeton, he co-authored a book—part of which was published as an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy—along with another undergrad and Constitutional Law professor Robert George. The title of the book/article is What Is Marriage? [I found a pdf here, 43 pages, so I think this is either the article or a summary of the book.]

Man/woman, exclusive, permanent marriage
is still a beautiful public good

His brief speech was organized with a lawyer’s mind, but with clarity for regular people. Most of his points are arguments I have made myself [see my Defense of Marriage collection], but I always admire someone who finds yet clearer ways to tell the truth. So today I’m going to just outline his speech, with occasional quotes.

The definition of marriage is necessary in the discussion:

Everyone in this room is in favor of marriage equality. The only way we can know whether or not any given state law is treating marriage equally or not is if we know what marriage is. Because every state law will draw lines between what is a marriage and what isn’t a marriage. If we want those lines to be drawn on principle, if we want those lines to be drawn on the truth, we have to know what sort of a relationship a marriage is as compared to other forms of consensual adult loving relationships.

He sets up the speech answering three questions:

•                      What is marriage?

•                      Why does marriage matter for public policy?

•                      What are the consequences of redefining marriage? 

His definition argument for defining marriage as the permanent commitment between a man and a woman keys on the biological fact of offspring.  

Whenever a child is born, a mother will always be close by. That’s a fact of biology. The question for culture, and the question for law is, Will a father be close by? And if so, for how long? Marriage is the institution that different cultures and societies across time and place developed to maximize the likelihood that that man commits to that woman, and then the two of them take responsibility to raise that child. 

He offers up just a sampling of social science data, of which there is a mountain, that children are most likely to have best outcomes when raised by a mother and a father—one of each gender, not interchangeable. He quotes President Obama, showing this is not dismissible as a conservative anachronism:

We know the statistics that children that grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.

So, if we start with the premise that procreating and raising children are important to society, and that it is valuable to have the mother and father who bring life to the child stay together to raise the child, then public policy should, at the very least, not interfere with that preferred condition, and would be better to encourage that condition.

He referred to the change in the out-of-wedlock birthrate over the past 50 years (which I noted last week as well): “At one point in America virtually every child was given the gift of a married mother and father. Those numbers right now—more than 50% of Hispanic children are born outside of wedlock; more than 70% of African-Americans are born outside of wedlock. And the consequences for those children are really serious.” There’s no way out of poverty without turning this trend around.

He uses the language of the opposition to address the policy:

So everything that you can care about if you’re someone who cares about social justice and limited government—if you care about freedom and liberty and you care about the poor—is better served by having the state define marriage correctly to ensure that men and women commit to each other and take responsibility for their children, while then leaving other consenting adults to live and to love how they choose, without redefining the institution—the fundamental institution of marriage.

Much of the rest of the speech addresses the results of redefining marriage, using not presupposition, but actual outcomes from changes that have happened.

First is the reorientation of “the institution of marriage away from the needs and rights of children and towards the desires of adults.”  This point ties back in to the social science argument: “If the biggest social problem we face right now in the United States is absentee dads, how will we insist that fathers are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional?” Redefining marriage would multiply the likelihood of fatherless children.

Second concerns the three basic components of the traditional definition: man/woman, exclusivity, and permanence. If you declare these three attributes of marriage to be “irrational,” what do you replace them with to delimit a definition?

He refers to three new words, invented to refer to sexual relationship combinations that are claiming comparable value.

·        Throuple—a three-person couple. If you remove the importance of the one man and one woman who come together to parent a child, then you remove the principle that limits the number of participants in the “marriage,” without adding anything of value to society.

·        Wedlease—a temporary arrangement, removing the permanence of the relationship that has been of value to children, who take a long time to raise to adulthood.

·        Monogamish—more or less retaining the two-person marriage, but removing the exclusivity, so that sex with partners outside the marriage is accepted as part of the marriage.

The third result of redefining marriage concerns liberty, specifically religious liberty. He points out that in Massachusetts, in Washington, DC, and in neighboring Illinois, Christian adoption agencies were forced to stop offering their services.

These agencies said, We have no problem with same-sex couples adopting from other agencies, but we only want to place our children with a married mom and a dad. We have religious liberty interests. We also have social science that suggests children do better with a married mom and a dad. In all three jurisdictions they were told they could not do that.

Because of the redefinition of marriage, it became illegal for anyone to purposely prefer to place orphans with a mother and father—the best situation those innocent, voiceless unfortunate could have had.

Additionally, there have been court cases against photographers, bakers, florists, and innkeepers—individuals who presumably still have their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion—who are coerced by activist judges to act against their conscience. In none of these cases have the accused attempted to deprive the plaintiffs of services; they have only reserved the right not to accept their business. Courts have ruled that they can and should be deprived of their religious liberty and be forced to take on business they find objectionable—or else close their businesses and serve no one.

This coercion can only happen in a tyranny. If such cases are allowed to stand, we no longer have Constitutional guarantees of freedom.

What we do not find is an example of a place where redefining marriage has not resulted in loss of religious liberty. So those who argue, “That would never happen here,” are either lying or blinded.

So, what do we get if we redefine marriage? A small segment of the population (of the approximately 3% of the population that is homosexual, the even smaller percentage who choose to commit to one other person) can call their romantic relationship equivalent to marriage, with no benefit to society as a whole.

What is the cost? Fatherhood and motherhood are declared irrelevant. Children are abandoned and left in poverty. People who for religious or social science reasons value man/woman parenting, permanence, and exclusivity are coerced by the brute force of government (not to mention a fair amount of media and peer bullying) to behave against their beliefs. By any measure, it’s not a fair exchange.

Here is the video, if you’d like to hear the whole speech.

 

Kleptomania Analogy

In Wednesday’s post we were talking about analogies that show the absurdity of claiming behavioral urges make a person “be” something, which leads to the assumption that the behavior should be accepted, even honored, so as not to offend the person. In passing I mentioned a piece I’d written some years ago, and I’m sharing that today. 

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.