Speaking Up for the Family

A week ago the administration put out the news, quietly, on a Friday, that they were doing something earth shaking and historic. Which they didn’t want to call undue attention to? It was “the first ever national gender strategy to advance the full participation of all people, including women and girls, in the United States and the world.”

You can read the fact sheet here, which includes a link to the full Gender Strategy Report.

This was brought to my attention a few days ago in commentary by Glenn Beck. He read from the report, and then made some comments. And I’ll get to his. But first I want to cover a couple of things I notice—which may not be anything beyond an editor’s eye.

Glenn Beck talks about the new National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality,
screenshot from here

There is a high saturation of abstract words: fundamental, essential, ensuring, opportunity, potential, imperative, inflection, exacerbated, underscored, systematic, interconnected, priority. It’s not wrong to use such words—unless you’re using them to hide plain meaning. I’ll leave that issue for another time.

Another thing that caught my attention is a list of priorities:

The strategy identifies ten interconnected priorities: 1) economic security; 2) gender-based violence; 3) health; 4) education; 5) justice and immigration; 6) human rights and equality under the law; 7) security and humanitarian relief; 8) climate change; 9) science and technology; and 10) democracy, participation, and leadership. These priorities are inherently linked and must be tackled in concert.

The first one that jumped out at me was 2) gender-based violence. Certainly that’s something we don’t want. But number 1 was something I’m assuming we’re supposed to want—as are the remaining 8. Why is there a priority to avoid among a list of priorities to aim for? Without clarification? It appears, then, that it is a priority to achieve greater gender-based violence. No, I don’t think that’s what they literally intend; but I think that unclear writing shows unclear thinking. So there’s that.

Then there are the priorities containing “and.” Why is “justice and immigration” a single item; why is there not a separate priority for justice and for whatever it is you want related to immigration? Or, if it’s something about immigration that ought to have justice and doesn’t, why not “immigration justice,” whatever that might be? How do "justice and immigration" fit together as one thing?

I don’t really have a problem with “human rights and equality under the law,” other than that, for clear-thinking people, equality under the law is a human right already, so it’s redundant.

Then there’s “security and humanitarian relief.” Security, in government terms, is like border security, and protection from our foreign enemies (military defense), and protection from domestic enemies to the people of the nation (FBI, or lawbreaking involving multiple states). Humanitarian relief is not a bona fide enumerated power, but as it happens we give aid to foreign nations, ostensibly to improve our relationships with them. But the connection of those two things as a single item is odd—unless they’re doing some conflation of security and economic stability and assuming that’s a government responsibility instead of the natural outgrowth of appropriate limited government.

“Science and technology” probably do go together, no problem there. But then there’s a three-part item: “democracy, participation, and leadership.” Why those three words together? All three abstractions sort of relate to self-government of the people, but what are the separate aspects of them requiring all three to be mentioned, and the common elements that make them together one item? I don’t know. And I suspect whoever wrote this doesn’t know either; they just thought it sounded weightier.

The real issue with this statement hidden on a Friday afternoon release is what Glenn Beck identifies: it attacks the family.

Here at the Spherical Model, we identify the essentials of civilization: 1. Civilization requires a religious people—including honoring God, life, family, truth, and property ownership; 2. Family is the basic unit of civilization. You see family come up twice—because it’s such a big deal. Family is what enables the perpetuation of both the species and the civilization. The Spherical Model has three overlapping spheres: political, economic, and social. And we have a long article identifying the principles in each, leading respectively to freedom, prosperity, and civilization—and away from tyranny, poverty, and savagery. In the section on civilization, we have a large sub-article on family, and why it’s essential to civilization.

So I’m on the same page with Glenn Beck. Beyond that, I recognize the words he’s using—because he’s referencing, and doing a lot of quoting from, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” signed and sent out to the world September 23, 1995. I wrote about it for the 20^th anniversary. In that I tell the story of the late Richard Wilkins, who helped institute the World Congress on Families, when he attended his first international conference on families:

He told me that he spoke about the Proclamation on the Family, issued shortly before that by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which he was a devout member (as I am). At the time it came out, the issues in the Proclamation were such standard doctrine to us that he said he wondered at the reasoning. Since that time, he says he sees it as prophetic; every line in it is challenged in the world today. But in 1996 he happened to take a brochure of the Proclamation with him and had it in his pocket. When he shared those ideas, the opponents to the family (the previous speakers) hissed their disapproval, but the room at large gave him a standing ovation. They came up to him afterward to thank him for speaking what so many of them believed, and they formed long-standing alliances to work toward protecting the natural family from the international onslaught.

I remember that feeling at the time it was given, of “Why are we being told this? Isn’t this all obvious?” It was obvious then. But I look at it now, and it seems even more prophetic than it did six years ago. The family, sex and its purpose, procreation, gender, marriage—all of it. It’s all still true, but you might get yourself booted from social media, or fired from your job, for saying what was so obvious in 1995 that we didn’t even know it needed to be said. And it will put you at direct opposition to our current government.

So, as Glenn Beck speaks the words, they sound very bold. They need to be said—again. I’ve transcribed the last 6 minutes of his clip and include that in full: 

I want to share with you the fact that the family is under attack. That the sacredness of being a man, and the sacredness of being a woman, is under attack. And it’s under attack to do one thing: destroy the family. That’s it. This is the most evil plan I have ever encountered—to destroy the family.

Some organizations, like BLM, have that in their manifesto—to destroy the family. This is now going to be implemented by the federal government, through our banking systems and ESG [Environmental, social, and governance]. And through everything else. It will touch every aspect of your life.

screenshot of the BLM beliefs page, August 24, 2020
since removed from their website.

 

So I’m gonna go through a few things that are true. And, if you disagree with them, well, then we can still be friends, but I don’t think we’re on the same side. You may be fighting for the wrong side. And I want to share what I hold to be self-evident truth.

I’ll give you 90%, 95% Agree 95%? Great. Let’s fight together. If not, we should part ways.

Now, if one of your objections to what I’m about to tell you is that there is no God, see if you can work around that objection. I truly believe there is one, and we need to implore Him for His help. But if that is your objection, see if you can’t get around that to go with all of the other truths that I’m’ about to speak.

All human beings, male and female, were created in the image of God. They were created for a purpose male and female. Each—each has a divine nature and a destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of that eternal identity and its purpose. You were born a male or a female for a reason. And there are only two genders. God commanded, at the beginning, to multiply and replenish the earth. And that still should be our goal. It still is in effect. And procreation, and the powers that it takes to procreate should only happen between a man and a woman who are lawfully wedded as husband and wife. 

The beginning of The Proclamation on the Family

[sigh] Have I gone too far now?

Which means that, because that is a sacred power, to procreate, and it should be happening between a man and woman lawfully wedded as husband and wife, it means that that life that you create is divinely appointed. And thus all life is sacred, and abortion is murder. 

Husband and wife together have a responsibility to love and care for each other and their children. Parents together have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for the physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another; to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. That is the responsibility of mothers and fathers, and they will be held accountable if they fail to discharge those obligations.

The family is sacred. It is the basic, fundamental building block. Thus, a marriage between a man and a woman is essential to, not only God’s plan, but to the universe.

Children are entitled to be born within the bounds of matrimony, to be reared by a father and a mother who honor their marital vows with complete fidelity. And happiness in family life is found most likely in the followings of the Judeo-Christian values and principles.

Successful marriages are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreation. 

from The Proclamation on the Family

As a dad, I am responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection of my family. My wife is primarily responsible for the nurture of our children. But we help each other on both of those things as equal partners. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t special cases. Of course there is. And extended families should lend support when needed.

But the disintegration of the family—the destruction of the family—will bring upon us as individuals, our communities, and our entire world calamities beyond your imagination. That’s why I believe: family first. You must stand up for these principles first.

 

The warning near the end of 
The Proclamation on the Family

 

A lot has changed in our world in the relatively brief 26 years since that proclamation was written. But every word of it is still true. And we do face calamities in our world, in our communities, when these words are abrogated. 

Sometimes I use big, less familiar, possibly abstract words too.
But I try to do that when it's the right word for meaning.

Conversely, many of the ills in the world would be relieved if we valued family so much that a critical mass of intact functional families civilized our savage world.

I stand for the family. When necessary, I declare opposition to the government in order to stand for the family. I hope at least some of us can avoid the calamities.

Wisdom and Learning

I’ve been thinking about education lately—mainly because we’ve been celebrating so many graduations. Daughter Social Sphere and her husband graduated from college the last weekend of April, and the following weekend son Political Sphere earned his juris doctorate. Yay!

So, clearly, we approve. We’re proud of their efforts and accomplishments, and we trust the learning will put them in a good place for enjoyable ways to support themselves and their families in the decades to come.

But, while the degrees are good mileposts in their lives, I’m more concerned with their virtues than their knowledge. Learning is good, when combined with faithful following of God’s laws. It can make you better able to serve, and to be a happier person.

So I was attuned to thinking about higher education as I came across a few things recently.

I read an interview with Dennis Prager, about why the Ten Commandments are still the best moral code. Since that’s an assertion I make in the Civilization portion of the Spherical Model, I was interested in what he said. One of his discoveries, during college years, was that if there is no God, there is no wisdom.  He said,

Without God, there are no moral truths. There are only moral opinions. There are good atheists, there are bad religious people. Everyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear knows that. If an atheist has similar opinions to the Ten Commandments, I breathe a sigh of relief. But that’s irrelevant to the question of whether there is moral truth if there is no moral God. When I debated at Oxford, I debated an atheist professor of philosophy on this very issue. The first thing he said was, “Dennis Prager is right, if there is no God, ethics are subjective.”

Prager added this comparison:

It is as if a man or a woman who has been trained their whole life in medicine sees some unbelievably obvious sign of skin cancer and just says, “This person has this lesion on his skin” and then describes every cancer symptom but not once mentions cancer. Nor does the oncologist note that the patient had been a lifeguard for 15 years, standing under the sun with their skin exposed to the sun all that time. And that’s not even as absurd as this professor not mentioning the absence of God and religion. It shows you how deep the rejection of God is in academia that you could see all the symptoms of absence of God and not mention God.

Prager and the interviewer go through the Ten Commandments in turn. When dealing with “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me,” he mentions education as a substitute for God:

Take education, for example. Education is magnificent. That’s the reason it’s a false God—because it is so wonderful and so valuable. But education as an end in and of itself produces well-educated barbarians. I’ll give you a very dramatic example. In 1941, there was a conference at Wannsee, outside of Berlin. The Wannsee Conference was where the Nazis decided to exterminate the Jews of Europe. There were 14 high-ranking Nazis there, deciding on the genocide of the Jews. Of the 14, seven had Ph.D.’s. That should be sobering.

Similarly, overwhelmingly the only people in the West who supported Stalin were intellectuals. The record of intellectuals, secular intellectuals, is a moral disaster.

That brought to mind the scripture at the top of this post. Connect learning with counsel from God, and you’re a better servant to God. But learn while ignoring God’s counsel, and you’re proud but miserably stuck in the savagery zone.

During the past two weeks I’ve been looking over the oral arguments before the Supreme Court regarding marriage. It puzzles me when very well educated people miss some basics, such as the importance of a mother and a father to a child, the importance of family as the basic unit of civilization, and the difference between a right to marry a person of the opposite sex according to law and millennia of practice and the “right to marry” anyone one chooses.

Enough of that for today, but I was reminded of a conversation I had a decade or so ago with Richard Wilkins, a constitutional law professor who valiantly fought to defend marriage. We were discussing some of the chain of SCOTUS decisions leading to where we are now, and I, with my mere bachelor’s degree, said, “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” not because I couldn’t understand, but because I could see clearly. He said (I’m paraphrasing, because of inexact memory), “It takes years of advanced education to come to a conclusion that wrong.”

Another story I came across this week was about a professor at the University of Warwick, England, who makes the claim that reading bedtime stories to your children puts unfairly disadvantages children who don’t have parents who read to them. There’s a simple solution: encourage parents to read to their children. But that’s not what this PhD elite suggests: the good parents should withhold reading from their children in their own home, to even things out—or, at the very least, those good parents ought to feel guilty about it. And he thinks any kind of alternative to public schooling “cannot be justified.” He even toyed with the idea that we ought to do away with families, except that he couldn’t, unfortunately, get around the natural benefits to children from caring parents.

I would logically conclude this man is an idiot—except for his obvious ability to read, study, gather information. He simply lacks the ability to draw reasonable conclusions from obvious information. He lacks wisdom. Because, “when they are learned they think they are wise…wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.”

You know the story of the Emperor's New Clothes? The hero of the story is the young boy who told the truth—thus freeing everyone else to admit they saw the truth too. We need more of those hero children.

As Gordon B. Hinckley said, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” [This quote is attributed to many people, possibly earliest to Alexander Hamilton. But I first heard it from President Hinckley.] Stand with God, and you stand on a firm foundation that will last through rain wind, and earthquakes. Stand firm no matter what the madding crowd may say.



Captain America instructs Spiderman
in Amazing Spider-Man #537

Defense of Marriage Collection

A couple of weeks ago, when the Spherical Model blog reached the 400^th post, I posted a “best of” list for three days, relating to the three spheres: Political, Economic, and Social/Civilization. However, there are some topics that I cover fairly frequently, and over time I intend to offer links to those collections. One of those is the collection of pieces I’ve written about defending marriage.

After last week’s Supreme Court ruling declaring a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional—the part that allows the federal government to define the term—the majority took the opportunity to defame the majority of humankind as “enemies of the human race.” They include me in that definition.

Personally, I believe anything that sets out to undermine the basic unit of society is an enemy of the human race. But, while I think their ideas have that savagery-inducing effect, the people themselves are not de facto subhuman—just wrong. They’re deceived in the way the Old Testament prophet Isaiah predicted:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!—Isaiah 5:20

While I still have the freedom of speech to express these ideas (a freedom which tends to become illegal wherever same-sex “marriage” becomes the law), I offer examples of what I believe is both a logical and humanity-loving point of view. These examples are more or less limited to the definition of marriage, so there’s a lot about motherhood, fatherhood, population decline, and family that I’m not including in this list. (In other words, as long as this list is, it could be longer.) I did include two on the Boy Scouts, related to the homosexual agenda but not specifically to same-sex “marriage.”

·         My Rational Belief in Traditional Marriage, June 24, 2011

·         New York—If Only You’d Asked, We Have Answers, June 27, 2011

·         Devaluing Marriage and Family = Decay of Civilization: Part I—Vico and Unwin, June30, 2011

·         Devaluing Marriage: Part II—Death of Marriage in Scandinavia, July 1, 2011

·         Devaluing Marriage: Part III—Decay of Civilization, July 7, 2011

·         Speaking Up, August 31, 2011

·         One Small Victory, November 18, 2011

·         War against Women and Children, March 19, 2012

·         In Defense of Marriage, reprint, April 25, 2012

·         Defining Marriage and Making Cream Sauce, reprint, April 30, 2012

·         Controversy Still (The Gay Marriage Fantasy, reprint), May 4, 2012

·         Why Protect Marriage (Why Texans Will Vote Yes to Protect Marriage, reprint), May 8, 2012 

·         Loving and Logical, May 14, 2012

·         Tolerance—You Keep Using That Word, May 16, 2012

·         Remembering Richard Wilkins, November 30, 2012

·         Each Life That Touches Ours for Good (Remembering Richard Wilkins, Part II), December3, 2012

·         Defending the Boy Scouts, Part I, February 11, 2013

·         Defending the Boy Scouts, Part II, February 14, 2013

·         Supreme Court and the Definition of Marriage, March 27, 2013 

·         SCOTUS on Marriage, Part II: The Gotcha Question, March 29, 2013

·         SCOTUS on Marriage, Part III: Outcomes of the Cases, April 1, 2013

·         Marriage Rulings, June 28, 2013

Family Ties to Economics

We’ve talked here before about the formula for success in America (which I wrote about here and here):

1.         Don’t have sex before age 20.

2.         Don’t have sex until after marriage.

3.         Stay married.

4.         Obtain at least a high school diploma.

I first had this formula spelled out in a speech from Richard Wilkins in 2001, the first time I met him. While going through various tributes following his early death (this is a good one, from Sharon Slater, who worked with him for Family Watch International), I found a link to one of his last speeches (full speech here) Richard Wilkins was the keynote speaker at the June 2012 UN event Standing for the Family: The Family in the Context of Human Rights. The speech is called “The Family as the Cradle of International Human Rights,” and again he asserts that the necessary solution to poverty and other social and economic issues worldwide depends on strengthening marriage and family. As always, it is clearly laid out and well documented.

He points out the founding UN documents that validate the family as the basic unit of society, and then laments the failure to abide by those founding principles.

During the past 65 years there has been great (and laudable) progress in individual rights and freedom, particularly with regard to equality for women. But the family—and the associated civic virtues of hard work, tolerance, patience, kindness, forbearance and forgiveness that are taught to children by wise and loving parents—has been ignored. It is well past time for the international community to acknowledge the fundamental roles played by the family and to take appropriate action to strengthen and support the family.

He spends the body of the piece outlining the specific benefits to men, women, and children—and to society as a whole—provided by marriage and family, well-documented by mounting social research. He then outlines social problems stemming directly from family breakdown. And ends with a call to strengthen family:

Because families are the fundamental unit of society, governments and other social assistance actors should not bypass the unit that can best strengthen society. Fathers and mothers, by and large, love their children. Policies and assistance that permit fathers and mothers to work together to strengthen their families to improve the condition of their children will not only be more successful than other possible approaches, they will strengthen society itself. By building a healthy family, we build a healthy society and—ultimately—a healthy world.

In the shadow of some looming economic catastrophes in our own country, I think we need to make the connection to family breakdown as the root cause and stronger families as the ultimate only solution.

Paul Rahe
Photo from Uncommon Knowledge interview

While I was thinking this, I happened to be doing a little catch-up watching of things I got behind on, and tuned in to Glenn Beck’s November 30^th show—last Friday. Glenn wasn’t there that day. BYU History Professor Paul Kerry  hosted, and his  main guest was Professor Paul Rahe of Hillsdale College (I recognized him from Week 3: “The Greek Miracle,” from Hillsdale’s free online History 101 course). Much of the hour talked about the need for a long-term view, and what perpetuates that view. Family is one of those things. Starting at about 21 minutes in, the discussion gets somewhat specific:

Paul Rahe: Let me give you some statistics that I think will shock you and surprise you. In 1940 what was the rate of out-of-wedlock births, in other words the percentage of children born who were not born to people who were already married? The answer is somewhere between 2 and 3%. That was true in 1950,2-3%. It went up to 5%, a shocking number, in 1960. And, among African-Americans, it went considerably higher than that, to about 12%, which caused Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was an assistant secretary of labor, to work on the so-called Moynihan report about the crisis of black families.

Paul Kerry: And a Democrat as well…

Paul Rahe: Yes. By 1980 it was 18.4%. Last year it was 39.6%. Now, think about that. We are approaching a situation in which half of the children born in the United States are born to young women who are not married. This is a very good example of a lack of long-term planning. Because they’re taking on heavy responsibilities that it’s hard enough for two parents to manage, especially with one working full time and the other at home (which was the old pattern) to manage. And they’re doing this without thinking.

Now, it’s even worse than I say. Because, if you go back to 1940, there’s almost no form of contraception available. So, in the absence of contraception, the out-of-wedlock birthrate was 2-3%. With the presence of contraception, it’s 39.6%. And I’ve left abortion out of the picture. In 1940 there are almost no abortions; last year in the United States there were three-quarters of a million abortions. There have been 50 million abortions since 1973.

So the pattern, which is among young people—because 50-year-olds aren’t having this problem, since they’re not giving birth—the problem is a lack of impulse control. The problem is a lack of long-term planning. The problem is that a moral revolution has taken place.

So a question you  might want to ask yourself is, can a republic sustain itself in a world in which people are acting on impulse and irresponsibly—and I say irresponsibly, because there are other human being involved, not only the sexual partner but the offspring—can a republic be sustained in those circumstances? Because the women who have children out of wedlock are in fact going to be dependents on the state. And what they’re going to do is call upon other people to pay their bills, to take care of them. Not the father of the child, but welfare, food stamps, things along those lines.

It was a nice connecting of the dots. Who teaches impulse control and encourages a long-term outlook that helps individuals and communities? Families do that. Who does it in broken homes or single-parent households? No one. Especially if the broken family situation happened because of choosing short-term impulse over long-term perspective. In those cases the burden to teach the values falls on someone who does not hold those values.

The solution to economic problems is not to forcibly take income from successful people and hand it unearned to people whose behavior led to dire circumstances; the solution is to strengthen families, where the formula for success is taught. A backup is for churches and schools to also teach the values traditionally inculcated in families, rather than working against them. The social problems caused by an out-of-wedlock birthrate of 2-3% are much easier for society to solve than the overwhelming 39.6% rate. Too many problems, and too few successful society members to make up for the problems.

We know the formula for success. We know the path to take. Some of us will take that path no matter what. The question is, why isn’t that the direction followed by everyone who ever sought to be a leader? Because a leader moving people in any other direction cannot lead to success.

Defining Marriage and Making Cream Sauce--Reprint

I co-wrote the piece below in April 2004, with Richard Wilkins. It was originally published at online Meridian Magazine, and is archived here. (Actually, it didn’t come up for me, but appears when you request to print it.) He was at that time a constitutional law professor and head te World Family Policy Center and Defend Marriage, a project of United Families International. For the past several years he lived in Qatar and headed the Doha International Institute for Family Studies and Development. He very recently retired from that position, and I’m hoping before my travels are over this month to visit with him and find out what comes next.  

The purpose of the piece was to identify the ways in which the conversation about preserving traditional marriage has become so difficult. For those of us who love civilization, the truth has to be spoken nevertheless.

Defining Marriage and Making Cream Sauce

By Richard G. Wilkins and Linda Nuttall

________________________________________________________________________

We have both written recently on the need to preserve marriage as a sexual union of a man and a woman. One young reader commented that our points were "interesting."  She asserted, however, that we would be “creamed” in a debate.

We have engaged in many debates on marriage.   We also admit that it is hard to determine who gets “creamed.”  But, if we have been “creamed,” it is because the legal constructs surrounding marriage have been rendered unintelligible.  Numerous fundamental (and still compelling) arguments in favor of "tradition," "old rules" or "conventional morality" have been reworked, deconstructed and ridiculed to the point that many Americans – and particularly our young people – are embarrassed by the simple suggestion that a case for the classical definition of marriage even exists.  

Contempt for marriage abounds.  The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently asserted that the “everyday meaning” of marriage is irrational.[1]  Irrational, according to the dictionary, means “[m]arked by a lack of accord with reason or sound judgment” or “[a]ffected by loss of usual or normal mental clarity; incoherent, as from shock.”[2]  If these eminent jurists are correct, human civilization has suffered a collective “loss of usual or normal mental clarity” for millennia.  The ancient and consistent practice of encouraging, protecting and fostering the union of a man and a woman for the purpose (among others) of bearing and rearing children is “not endowed with reason,” is “incoherent,” reflects societal “shock,” and is “marked by a lack of . . . sound judgment.”  

No wonder many Americans are fearful to acknowledge that they believe in marriage. 

We will try to explain what has been happening by using the image invoked by our young critic – the culinary uses of "cream.”  In particular, we will ask whether one must use cream to make a cream sauce.  It was once simply accepted that, in order to make a cream sauce, one had to include some cream.  Traditional folk, like us, continue to believe that a cream sauce requires the use of cream.  But, if homosexual advocates (including an alarming number of judges) were creating the recipe, they would insist that the very notion of equating cream with cream sauce is absurd.  In their recipe milk, water or virtually anything else, even tomato paste, will do. 

We believe that, once Americans understand the new and unusual recipe now being promoted as the guide for public policy, they will resoundingly support maintaining an institution that reflects the collective wisdom of the ages – an institution that provides the best known environment for the physical, mental, emotional, economic and social development of women, men and children.  We believe that it is those who would abandon and drain marriage of all normative force and social meaning, not those who defend it, who now display a “loss of usual or normal mental clarity.”

I.          The Post-Modern Cookbook

As with other cooking philosophies, the anti-marriage post-modern recipe requires certain practices or rules.  To make post-modern cream sauce, you’re required to follow these three:

First, all ingredients are relative and “everything is equal.”  This first rule teaches cooks to value tolerance above all else.  In evaluating the utility of possible ingredients in making a cream sauce, no one can properly require cream, because any such insistence impermissibly taints the sauce with intolerance.  Any liquid will do. 

Second, cooks must accept “what happens.”  After all, not all sauces are made with cream.  And, since the first rule decrees that ingredients are relative and equal, the second rule renders sauces made with milk or water (or virtually anything) equivalent to cream sauce.  Sauces are interchangeable, whatever their intended purpose.  Any sauce can be cream sauce.

Finally, ignore differences.  It is impolite to notice (and perhaps criminal to discuss) distinctions between sauces made with cream and those made with milk or water or whatever.  Yes, even if the sauce is watery or bluish.  Such differences must no longer be noticed (at least by civilized society).  Reality is reconstructed.  A sauce is a cream sauce when (and if) the cookbook’s editorial staff says it is.

This recipe, of course, would hardly impress the vast majority of cooks, or indeed anyone who has tasted real cream sauce.  However, post-modern taste is gaining ground with judges and commentators (perhaps because they are principal staff writers for the new cookbook).  But this exotic cuisine is also gaining favor with otherwise common-sense Americans who now, oddly enough, wonder whether there is any need for cream in cream sauce.

We believe that cream sauce requires the use of cream.  We also believe that marriage requires a man and a woman.  Why?  Consider how the post-modern cooking rules apply to the traditional recipe for marriage.

Rule 1: Everything is Equal and Distinctions are Hateful

Again, the first rule of all post-modern cooking is simple:  ingredients are relative.  Cooks must acknowledge, along with cream, the culinary utility of water, milk and vinegar.  Insistence upon cream in cream sauce violates the prime directive:  tolerance.  All liquids are equal.

The same approach is now applied to marriage.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in announcing that all sexual unions qualify as "marriages," decreed that – because all consensual adult sexual relationships are equal – there is no rational distinction between hetero- and homo- sexuality (a conclusion that would have astonished our junior high biology teachers).  According to the court, the state may not link marriage and procreation because doing so “confers an official stamp of approval on the destructive stereotype that same-sex relationships are inherently . . . inferior to opposite-sex relationships.”[3]  Society, in short, cannot acknowledge that children are possible only through the union of a man and a woman because that very acknowledgment demonstrates that heterosexuality has more social utility than homosexuality.

Thus, the first post-modern rule –“equality and tolerance above all” – is exceptionally powerful.  Whether or not it turns water into cream, equality and tolerance have transformed the biological facts of reproduction into a modern taboo.  Advocating mass murder is less acceptable in civilized circles than arguing in favor of a “destructive stereotype,” but not by much. 

No wonder the new cookbook makes defense of marriage difficult and embarrassing.  Only the most benighted do it.

Rule 2: Accept and Celebrate Whatever Happens

The second post-modern rule provides that – in light of the wide variety of sauces, ingredients and ways to combine them – neither cooks nor consumers may insist upon particular ingredients (or a combination of ingredients) in any given sauce.  Cream sauce may be nice, but it is not the only sauce.  Ragout happens.  

It certainly does.  And so does homosexuality.  So what?  Are we to believe that simply because it happens, homosexuality is no different from heterosexuality? 

Monkeys in zoos and overpopulated rats exhibit homosexual behavior (more likely an act of aggression than sexual orientation, but we’ll grant that the behavior exists in the animal world).  Does this really support the argument that homosexuality must be encouraged and celebrated?  Other animals eat their young and kill their mates.  We still have laws against homicide. 

The second rule – accept and celebrate whatever sauce happens – ignores a vitally important question:  is there a reason (or reasons) for using cream in cream sauce?  In the context of marriage, are there reasons that a marital union requires (and throughout history has been defined as) the union of a man and a woman?  Homosexual advocates strenuously wish to avoid this question.  Rule two of the new cookbook, combined with rule one, makes avoidance possible.

Rather than focusing on the pragmatic social interests that justify an ancient institution designed (among other things) to restrain sexual impulses within a stable and reproductive sexual union, rule two (accept and celebrate reality) turns everyone’s attention to the unquestionable existence of alternative sexual appetites.  At this point, rule one (equality and tolerance) demands that these appetites be accorded full social recognition, acceptance and encouragement. 

Thus, under rules one and two, any talk of norms, ideals, social expectations or “what is best” for the rising generation is irrelevant or naïve.  Whatever the role of marriage throughout history, and however convincingly modern sociologists demonstrate that the welfare of children is linked to the presence (or absence) of a stable biological relationship with a father and a mother, rules one and two demand recognition of all sexual relationships as marriage.  Those who persist in the parochial belief that cream sauce differs from ketchup are either hopelessly intolerant or unconscionably ignorant of reality —they can simply be shouted down.

Or, better yet, they can be referred to rule three.

Rule 3: Disregard any Differences or Reconstruct Reality

In the event that not all are persuaded that “advanced palates” either can’t or shouldn’t  distinguish between cream sauce and ketchup, rule three settles the matter.  Any possible distinctions must be ignored – even if this requires reconstructing reality.

In Lawrence v. Texas[4] (the recent sodomy case which provided the basis for the Massachusetts high court's redefinition of marriage), the U.S. Supreme Court asserted that there is no “long-standing history” condemning homosexual sodomy.[5] This can only be true, of course, if—like the Court—we simply ignore the Old Testament (the very word, after all, is derived from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah).

But more than the Old Testament must be reconstructed in the quest to disregard all traditional rules.  Every contrary recipe book has to be thrown out.  Taken out back and burned, if necessary. 

These traditional recipe books are discarded with cunning subtlety.  Modern cooks are reminded again and again that culinary artists throughout history have substituted milk for cream in an occasional sauce.  True enough.  But no generation of cooks or consumers in history has ever been asked to ignore the differences between sauces made with milk and cream, nor to disregard the consequences of using alternative ingredients in exceptionally important recipes. 

We are reminded again and again that Rome and Greece were tolerant of homosexuality.  However, these reminders avoid two disturbing facts.  First, neither Rome nor Greece ever went as far as we are being pressed to go.  Roman and Grecian law never equated homosexual relations with "marital" or "familial" unions.  Homosexuality was tolerated as a sensual experience; it wasn’t promoted.  It was hardly discussed.  Accusations of effeminate behavior in men remained steadfastly derogatory.  The idea of homosexuals publicly declaring to be a couple was absurd.  Homosexual relationships were never equated with the legal rules governing the bearing and rearing of offspring.[6]

Furthermore, decadence—emphasis on self-indulgence and sensual experience over and above duty—did not enrich the Roman Empire; it led to its steep and irreversible decline.  Until recent homosexual "deconstruction" of the history books, it was widely accepted that the decline of public and private morals—significantly related to eroticization and homosexualization of the empires—was a primary cause of the fall of Rome and Greece.  Look in some earlier cook—we mean, history books:  for example, the multi-volume Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon, as well as first century satirist Juvenal.[7]

Under rule three, none of the above is relevant to the modern discussion of marriage.  All disturbing facts related to homosexuality (e.g., the incredibly high numbers of sexual partners among homosexual males,[8] their shockingly high incidence of physical and mental health problems,[9] and the undeniable linkage between male homosexuality and pedophilia[10]) are dismissed as hateful.  History is rewritten, and every other relevant fact is simply ignored.

II.        The Taste Test

This is the recipe now being used by courts to make a product infinitely more important than cream sauce.  The question is whether this recipe will produce palatable results.

Is marriage a unique and important institution?  Or is it nothing more than a consensual relationship between two adults; a name and social status properly applied to all kinds of sexual and emotional associations?  The answer, viewed from any historical, anthropological or sociological perspective, is quite clear:

Marriage is more than an emotional and sexual attachment.  Much more.  

Giambattista Vico, after completing an exhaustive study of ancient history, concluded in 1725 that marriage between a man and a woman is an essential characteristic of civilization. Without strong social norms that encourage a man to direct his sexual attentions to a single woman and thereafter care for their mutual offspring, Vico concluded that chaos ensued.  Marriage, he wrote, was the “seed-plot” of society.[11]

British anthropologist J. D. Unwin reached the same conclusion some 200 years later.  In his 1934 book, Sex and Culture, Unwin chronicled the historical decline of 86 different cultures.  His exhaustive survey revealed that “strict marital monogamy” was central to social energy and growth.  Indeed, no society flourished for more than three generations without it.  Unwin stated it this way:  "In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence."[12]  

In the 21^st century, the findings of Vico and Unwin are confirmed by hundreds of sociological studies which document the impact of marital forms and marital dissolution on men, women and children.  Those studies speak with a surprisingly uniform voice: enduring marriage between a man and a woman is the best environment for the social, physical, mental, emotional and economic development of men, women and children. Without stable marriage, women suffer, men suffer – and children suffer the most. Every deviation from the ideal model of enduring monogamous marriage between a man and a woman increases the suffering of men, women and children.[13] 

Marriage, therefore, is more than an intimate association between two people.  It civilizes men.  It protects children.  It generates social energy.  It fosters individual and collective growth.  It teaches norms.  It creates culture.

Marriage, in short, is not just another sauce.

One wonders how digestible the sauce we’re cooking up will prove in three generations from now.  No one should wonder, however, whether the marriage recipe we ultimately follow will affect them.

It will.

Profoundly.

---

[1] Goodridge v. Department of Health, SJC -08860 (Mass. Supreme Judicial Court November 18, 2003) (legislative “refusal to recognize same-sex marriages ‘works a deep and scarring hardship’ on same-sex families ‘for no rational reason’”) (Reporter’s Synopsis at page one).

[2] http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irrational

[3] Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, note 1, above, slip opinion at page 15.

[4] No. 02-102 (United States Supreme Court, June 26, 2003).

[5] Id., slip opinion at 11; see generally slip opinion pages 6-12.  The Supreme Court has a point – but a highly technical one at best.  The materials cited and discussed by the Court merely establish that (for centuries) homosexuality was condemned generally along with a host of other sexual practices – including fornication and adultery.  Specific condemnation of homosexuality developed as social proscriptions on sexual conduct became more explicit and detailed.  This history, of course, hardly suggests that homosexuality was tolerated.

[6] Dupont, Florence, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, trans. By Christopher Woodall, 1989, Hatchette, pp. 117-118.

[7] Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1-6, published in sections in 1776, 1781 and 1788.  For Juvenal, see Peter Green, trans., Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires, Penguin Books, 1967, particularly the second satire.  For a discussion of Juvenal, see Leland D. Peterson, “Homosexuality & Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ (Ancient Roman Satirist Slams Gays),” New Oxford Review, January 2004.  See also Joseph Daniel Unwin, Ph.D., “Sexual Regulations and Cultural Behavior," an address given to the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society, p. 35:  “In some cases the modification of absolute monogamy was accompanied by an outburst of homosexuality.... The conclusion suggested by the historical evidence is that homosexuality is a habit that appears in a society, or in a group within the society, that has been absolutely monogamous, and is relaxing.  This is how I understand the Roman and Athenian data; and this view of the matter is supported by what has lately been happening among our middle-classes.”

[8]Meyer-Balburg, et. al., “Sexual Risk Behavior, Sexual Functioning and HIV-Disease Progression in Gay Men,” 28 Journal of Sex Research, 1, 3-27 (1991).   See also Xiridou, Maria, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV infection among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” 1029-1038 AIDS, 17 (7) May 2, 2003.  “Those with a steady partner and those without reported having an average of 8 and 22 casual partners per year, respectively.”

[9]Concerning physical health, see, e.g., Hogg, R. S., S. A. Strathdee, K. J. Craib, M. V. O’Shaughnessy, J. S. Montaner, and M. T. Schechter, “Modeling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men,” International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 26, 657-662, 1997.  “In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men.  If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65^th birthday.”   Concerning mental health, see, e.g., Theo B. M. Sandfort, De Graaqf, Bilj, and Schable, “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders:  Findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study,” 85 (Archives of General Psychiatry 85 (January 2001) (“The findings support the assumption that people with same-sex behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders”); Richard Herrell, et al., “Sexual Orientation and Suicidality,” Archives of General Psychiatry 867 (October 1999) (“Same-gender sexual orientation is significantly associated with each of the suicidality measures” and “is unlikely to be due solely to substance abuse or other psychiatric co-morbidity”); David M. Fergusson, et al., “Is Sexual Orientation Related to Mental Health Problems and Suicidality in Young People?” Archives of General Psychiatry 876 (October 1999) (“Findings support recent evidence suggesting that gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people are at increased risk of mental health problems, with these associates being particularly evident for measures of suicidal behavior and multiple disorder.”)  While some may argue that these findings are “caused by society oppression” (J. Michael Bailey, “Homosexuality and Mental Illness,” Archives of General Psychiatry 883 and 884 October 1999), this is not the only possible explanation.  The survey of findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study found a significant greater risk for psychiatric disorders among homosexuals, even though “the Dutch social climate toward homosexuality has long been and remains considerably more tolerant” than most of the world.  Sandfort, et al, above, at 89.  Other possible explanations include hypotheses that “homosexuality represents a deviation from normal development and is associated with other such deviations that may lead to mental illness,” and that “increased psychopathology among homosexual people is a consequence of lifestyle differences associated with sexual orientation.”  J. Michael Bailey, above, at 884.  Also, Sandfort et al., above, at 85-91.   (Youth are four times more likely to suffer major depression, also three times as likely to suffer generalized anxiety disorder, nearly four times as likely to experience conduct disorder, four times as likely to commit suicide, five times as likely to have nicotine dependence, six times as likely to suffer multiple disorders, and over six times as likely to have attempted suicide.  Additionally, this research originates in the Netherlands where homosexuality is much more mainstream and accepted.)  Substance abuse is an additional health concern of those in the homosexual lifestyle:  Timothy J. Dailey, “The Negative Health Effects of Homosexuality” and associated notes, Family Research Council “The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychologists reports that lesbian women consume alcohol more frequently, and in larger amounts, than heterosexual women.  Lesbians were at significantly greater risk than heterosexual women for both binge drinking (19.4 percent compared to 11.7 percent), and for heavy drinking (7 percent compared to 2.7 percent)….Among men, by far the most important risk group consisted of homosexual and bisexual men, who were more than nine times as likely as heterosexual men to have a history of problem drinking.”

[10]See Baldwin, Steve, “Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement” and associated notes, 14 Regent University Law Review 267-282 (2001-2002).  Baldwin summarizes the research as follows (at 281, footnotes omitted):

Family Research Institute founder and psychologist Paul Cameron, reviewing more than nineteen different academic reports and peer reviewed studies in a 1985 Psychological Reports article, found that homosexuals account for between 25% and 40% of all child molestation. Sex researchers Freund, Heasman, Racansky, and Glancy, for example, in an 1984 Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy article, put the number at 36%. Erickson, Walbek, Sely, in a 1988 Archives of Sexual Behavior article, places it at 86% when the children being molested are male.

However, it should be noted that homosexuals account for only 2% of the population which statistically means that a child molester is ten to twenty times more likely to be homosexual than heterosexual. In other words, heterosexual molestations proportionally are a fraction compared to homosexual molestations. More recent studies confirm this statistic. In 2000, the Archives of Sexual Behavior published an article by seven sex researchers concluding that ‘‘around 25-40% of men attracted to children prefer boys. Thus the rate of homosexual attraction is 6-20 times higher among pedophiles."

See also K. Jay et al, The Gay Report:  Lesbians and Gays Speak Out About Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles 275 (1979) (This study by homosexual activists and researchers revealed that 73% of homosexuals surveyed had sex with boys sixteen to nineteen years of age or younger); Eugene Abel et al., “Self-Reported Sex Crimes of Nonincarcerated Pedophiliacs, 2 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 3, 5 (1987) (“Child molestation, by comparison, was a relatively infrequent crime occurring from an average of 23.2 times by a pedophile (nonincest) with female targets to an average of 281.7 times by a pedophile (nonincest) whose targets were males”); R. Blanchard et al, “Fraternal Order and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles,” 29 Archives Sexual Behav. 464 (2000); K. Freund & R I. Watson, “The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children:  An Exploratory Study,” 18 Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 34, 34-43 (1992).

[11] Vico, Giambattista, The New Science, 3^rd Edition, trans. by Max Harold Fisch and Thomas Goddard Bergin, paragraphs 10-11:  “The first of these [human institutions] was marriage…For marriage, as all statesmen agree, is the seed-plot of the family, as the family is the seed-plot of the commonwealth…”

[12] Unwin, as cited above.  In 1935, renowned anthropologist Joseph Daniel Unwin tried to prove that marriage was an irrelevant and even harmful cultural institution.  He was forced by the evidence to conclude that only marriage with fidelity, what he called absolute monogamy, would lead to the cultural prosperity of a society.  Anything else, such as “domestic partnerships,” would degrade society.  The quote in larger context says this:

   “The evidence was such as to demand a complete revision of my personal philosophy; for the relationship between the factors seemed to be so close, that, if we know what sexual regulations a society has adopted, we can prophesy accurately the pattern of its cultural behavior... (p.5).
   “Now it is an extraordinary fact that in the past sexual opportunity has only been reduced to a minimum by the fortuitous adoption of an institution I call absolute monogamy. This type of marriage has been adopted by different societies, in different places, and at different times. Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the events; and there is no apparent connection between them. In human records, there is no case of an absolutely monogamous society failing to display great [cultural] energy. I do not know of a case on which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been absolutely monogamous…(pp.31-32).
  “If, during or just after a period of [cultural] expansion, a society modifies its sexual regulations, and a new generation is born into a less rigorous [monogamous] tradition, its energy decreases... If it comes into contact with a more vigorous society, it is deprived of its sovereignty, and possibly conquered in its turn (p.21).
   “It seems to follow that we can make a society behave in any manner we like if we are permitted to give it such sexual regulations as will produce the behavior we desire. The results should begin to emerge in the third generation ( p.45).

[13] The assertions in this paragraph concerning the benefits of marriage can be found, along with additional details and references to specific studies, in “Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the Social Sciences,” 2002, Institute for American Values, available at www.americanvalues.org .