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STRAIGHT TALK
Re: Jim Hlavac's letter (under "Gay by Constitution") in Reader
Mail's The Blame
Shame:
Jim Hlavac's extended diatribe demonstrates one aspect of
gay "progress" -- the "Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name"
has morphed into the "Love That Won't Shut Up."
-- Stuart Koehl
Falls Church, Virginia
Jim Hlavac has written a long and rambling letter which weaves in and out with a long list of questions the purpose of which is to render paralysis to his opponents by the sheer weight of the unanswerable. To top it all off, Mr. Hlavac subtly has set himself up as judge, jury and prosecutor in that the only answers he deems valid are those that satisfy his sense of reason. His list of questions is too long to deal with in detail; but I’ll confine myself to a few points.
1.) MARRIAGE. Strictly speaking, marriage is not a right in the sense we normal speak of rights nor is marriage a creation of the state. Instead, marriage is a “pre-existing institution.” That is, marriage is a social/religious bond recognized and supported within and across human societies according to their particular traditions and customs. Marriage existed before any one particular state and will exist long after the demise of any particular state. As such, the State’s authority in marriage is exceptionally limited. For the state to redefine and remake marriage according to its own lights or purposes, such encroachment can be only done by a degree of coercive power no state should ever have. Socially recognized marriage between two homosexuals has never been sanctioned anywhere at anytime until the present day and even then only in a select few locations. Even these few instances only came about by judicial fiat. The plain fact is that for gay marriage to exist it could only exist as a creation of the state.
2.) CONSTITUTION RIGHTS AND NATURE AS DEFAULT Mr. Hlavac writes: “If gays are created by our Creator, then surely we are entitled to certain inalienable rights, regardless of others' repugnance of the acts in bed, on which so many seem to be fixated. And we should be free from all legal penalty and prohibition.” This begs the question and (as they say) assumes facts not in evidence. The mere existence of homosexuals does not by necessity indicate homosexuality exists by the intentionality of God.
The assertion is made that since homosexuality exists to the degree that it does it is within all reasonable definitions of “natural.” As such, homosexuality is a part of God’s creation which He pronounced was “good.” It is additionally claimed that, when the “gay gene” is finally discovered, the divine blessing and intentional creation of homosexuality will definitively confirmed. There are a number of objections. Elements in this line of reasoning do not necessarily mean what the arguer thinks they mean.
The most apparent problem comes from observation. There is too much in the “created” world that are not good and we are loath to say are as God willed. Is it God’s will that so many children are born deformed? Does God “bless” a child by giving him spina bifida? Is it God’s will that some children will be stricken with cerebral palsy? Is it God’s will that young boys and girls will have genetic diseases that will kill them before they reach adulthood?
There is also a theological complication. Most Christians take the doctrine of “The Fall” seriously. In short, Adam’s sin and fall from grace brought death and alienation from God into the world. The Fall not only broke Adam. The Fall broke and torn asunder all of creation. Nothing is as it was meant to be. lements are not where they are supposed to be. Thus it would remain an open question whether some undiscovered “gay gene” many feel so confident is there is part of the Lord’s plan or shrapnel from a broken world. Note. None of the above actually says anything about God’s intention or non-intention for homosexuality in His creation. It is a demonstration that as a form of argument “proof from existence” does not work.
IS THERE REALLY SUCH A “THING.” The fundamental problem is one that is passed over much too often. When we call a man or a woman a homosexual, we all know what we mean. But is there really a different type of human being whose fundamental nature mind, bone and sinew differs from those of their heterosexual friends and neighbors? We readily recognize that there are men and women who engage in homosexual acts. But does this single behavioral trait justify the notion of a “third or fourth sex.” Most homosexuals believe they are “organically”, genuinely different from heterosexual men and women body and soul. But is this actually the case? There is no objective scrape of evidence for this. We hear about scientists here and there finding a physiological distinction between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Yet either the sample population is too small or the findings cannot be replicated.
To tell you the truth, I’d rather be on the other side of this
question. The trouble is all the arguments put forth are
found wanting. I have to be intellectually honest with
myself and be forthcoming that I remain unconvinced and cannot
with any integrity “get there.” Perhaps the day will come
for so many of us will be compelled to think
otherwise. Until then, peace on your house. You still
remain and will always remain a part of the moral community we
all share.
-- Mike Dooley
Comments
Leave a Comment
Appleby | 11.19.08 @ 9:58AM
"Get Out Of My Way" was exactly the advice (command?) that John Galt gave when he turned nimbly at the dinner to show that he was speaking with a gun in his back.
Now that the gun is pointed at the backs of every productive and law-abiding person in the world, what do you suppose we should all stand up and say?
I vote for "See you at Galt's Gulch."
Karin Scott | 11.19.08 @ 10:59AM
My God, who had time to read all of Jim's diatribe? Some of us work. Who has the time or patience to devote to Jim's sex life?
Jim Hlavac | 11.19.08 @ 1:14PM
I marvel at several things:
First, that you published my letter; thanks.
Two: Karin Scott -- who has time to devote to the human rights of several millions of people? I do. As for my "sex life" -- I did not mention my sex life, I merely posed a list of questions. I didn't mention sex at all. In fact, I said that straights, and too many gays, spend too much time talking about the act, and not about the causes, the rights or the reasons. But one can follow her reasoning pretty good as an analogy: who has time to read all that stuff on economics? Some of us work. So let's just not be bothered with any thought on the subject. Exactly as I said, not much thought gone into the subject. Thank you Ms Scott for showing you care not to think about it, but please, do allow me to do so, and to ask others to do so.
Stuart Koehl calls my letter a "diatribe." Questions on the life, liberty and pursuit of happines of millions of people are not a "diatribe." Does he speak English? I make no polemical arguments, I do not say "this is so," "that is thus" -- the stuff of Diatribes. I ask questions, as any inquiring mind should when dealing with any subject. Isn't asking questions a human trait? Isn't this the stuff of science?
And, "the love that won't shut up."? -- Well, at least he calls it love and not base-acts. However, I do recall that we all have the right to speak in the Republic, and the Spectator was free to not publish what I wrote, indeed I was suprised they did. But are we now to go for censorship on subjects that Mr Koehl doesn't want to hear about it.
The second Ms. Scott and Mr. Koehl read my opening words they could have quickly clicked away, but it seems they did not. Anyone is free to read or write was they want; well at least I thought so. Maybe we should return to the pre-1976 days when it was still illegal to mail anything to anyone pertaining to Homosexuality.
As for Mr. Dooley -- I did not give a "long and rambling" anything. I wrote a laundry list of questions on an apparently important question to the health and welfare of society, given the enormous amounts of press, ink and broadcast time given to the question. And the gnashing of teeth about the impending downfall of society as we know it if some unknown number of gay people are allowed to have a civil mariage ceremony in the church or city hall of their choice.
A list of questions, however, can not be said to ramble.
I also gave no answers. I started by saying I had none. I had questions.
Then after he says the questions are "unanswerable," he goes on to answer them. Rather oddly, in his diatribe about theology.
Well, his theology is his. Mine is mine. We disagree. So who gets to set the law of the state in the meanwhile? Much as Jewish theology says don't eat pork or shrimp but a Christian's theology says that's not prohibited, but meat on Fridays was. But furthermore, how does he propose then to make policy and law on unanswerable questions, for policy and law are indeed answers to questions.
Also, when was this pre-state existence? And when will this post-state existence start? For marriage as "an institution" to have existed, there must have been an "institution" to certify or sanctify it. In the meanwhile, alas, we live within our state, today, and it either giveth or taketh the rights of individuals.
As for the "existence" of gay marriage, it has always existed, for history is replete with men living with men, and women with women, in apparent wedded bliss. It just has never been recognized by the state, and that's the rub.
As for gay genes, well, I asked why doesn't anyone even bother look for one? If there is one, did it come about by some other means than God creating it? How? If God did not create the genes for spinal bifida or other deformations, then evolution did? OK, so how did and why did evolution come up with a gay gene? But we don't know if there is or there is not a gay gene, for, as I said, no one has looked.
And finally, he falls back on the very thing that has guided the whole debate -- gayness is in the act, not the person. That means, however, that gay people are straight, but do gay things. And if that is the case, should the "thing" be legal, criminal, proscribed or what?
Our minds, bones and sinews are exactly the same, but something is surely different. For else how can so many millions say they are gay? And virtually unanimously agree that they were gay from the moment they first conceived of a sexual nature. Why are we wrong about what we feel, and the other side so sure that we are wrong? What then is the difference between gay and straight? And why is no one looking? Neither the anti-gay or the pro-gay. That's what I asked.
I have followed a lonely road asking these questions of both sides -- pro and anti-gay rights -- which affected whether I would wind up in jail, dismissed from a job, ostracized by family and so many other issues. I still have no answer.
I am not inclined to give an answer until further study, which is what I proposed people do, and not just give their opinions on what they think is right.
Again, thanks for publishing the first bit, it very much surprised me.
Yours,
Jim Hlavac
Marc Jeric | 11.19.08 @ 1:49PM
Homosexual marriage does not bother me - it is the financial part of it that does. Man$woman marriage is protected by the state in order to provide for children - future taxpayers. Social security payments to wives are designed for that purpose. So what is the cost of same-sex marriage? Pension rights, health care benefits, social security benefits, etc.?
David | 11.19.08 @ 5:29PM
Mr. Hlavac, I would like to challenge several of your comments, make a few comments of my own, and pose a few questions to YOU. Let's see if you are as good at answering questions as you are at asking them.
There often are serious health consequences with anal intercourse. Ask any gastroenterologist. Our rear-ends were not made for sex. You can contact the Center for Disease Control and learn that the life expectancy of one who engages in homosexual activity is under 50. Why isn't this common knowledge so people know the risks? Shouldn't our children be taught that in our public schools - just as they are discouraged from smoking and doing drugs?
You are completely wrong that opponents of homosexual marriage are concerned about what is happening in the bedroom. That we didn't care has alway been the homosexuals wish, or so they claimed. While opponents of homosexuality may have felt that way many years ago, that certainly is not true today. We don't care what goes on in homosexuals' bedrooms. What we do care about is their desire to drag what goes on in their bedrooms into the streets and into our children's school classrooms. What we do care about is force-feeding our children the notion that homosexuality is normal and acceptable while we tell them the opposite. No doubt your side is winning that battle in the classrooms, but that is still not enough for your side.
Suppose that in your quest to find the "reason" homosexuals are attracted to the same sex, that a gene IS found to be the cause. Further suppose that the gene can be identified and altered prior to birth resulting in birth of a heterosexual. Do you suppose most pregnant mothers and parents would have it altered? Do you suppose homosexuals would be enraged by the mother's decision? I wonder why? After all, it is the mother's body - correct? I guess that would pit the homosexual activists against the pro-abortion activists.
No society in human history has recognized marriage as anything but between men and women. A couple of years ago, the highest court of the liberal and politically correct France rejected the idea that the state had to recognize homosexual marriage.
The idea that homosexuals don't have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples when it comes to inheritance, visiting sick partners in the hospital, etc., is simply not true. Through properly drafted and/or filed legal documents, homosexuals can have the same rights as partners in traditional marriages. Wills, Powers-of-Attorneys, and other documents that control heterosexual marriages and their families are contested all of the time and have to be solved in the courts. What homosexuals want is a pass on going through the legal system as everyone else is required to do. You want special rights and privileges for homosexuals that are not available to traditional families.
If the state, any state, happened to accept and condone homosexual marriage, then we would have to consider the issue of fairness. Fairness to all those "consenting adults" who also feel and believe they deserve recognition by the state for whatever idea of marriage they may have. I don't know how a society could fairly, morally, or legally deny the rights of consenting adults who want to participate in polygamous marriages, whether mutliple men, multiple women, or any imaginable combination. Neither would we be able to deny incestous marriages from taking place. Fathers could marry daughters, sisters and brothers could marry, etc. Your argument may be that society has an interest in prohibiting incestous marriages because of the problems associated with their off-spring. But is that really a problem in a society where abortion is legal virtually throughout all nine months of pregnancy and for any or no reason at all?
American society has gradually come to the point that homosexuals are generally accepted and respected as individuals. But that isn't enough. What your side truly wants is for society to say that what you do is normal - and what better way to ease your tension than for the state to say you are "married".
Stuart Koehl | 11.20.08 @ 7:30AM
To Jim Hlavac,
On your response to my characterizing your letter as a diatribe, QED.
On the rest of your response, you make the fundamental error of thinking that marriage is "merely" a private contractual relationship, instead of a fundamental, organic social structure, the basic building block of society. Throughout all of history, in every human culture, there has never been a society that called the relationship between two people of the same sex "marriage". Even cultures that tolerated homosexuality never devised rites to solemnize such relationships, nor legal codes to establish their status (and please, don't bring up Boswell--his shoddy scholarship has long been discredited by people who could actually read the Greek and Slavonic documents on which he relied).
There is a reason why marriage has been defined universally as a union between a man and a woman: not only is this the natural order of things, but from a pragmatic standpoint, it has proven to be the most effective form of family structure for raising children and ensuring social stability. It is no accident that totalitarian regimes, on both the right and the left, when the wish to remake society, always begin by undermining the basic family unit of husband and wife.
Whether you like it or not, expanding the definition of marriage to include two persons of the same sex, or multiple persons in various combinations, dilutes and degrades the meaning of the word and the nature of the institution. It therefore is not merely something that affects you and your ilk, but all of us, even we despised breeders; we have a stake in the preservation of marriage, and this is recognized at such an intuitive level that not even slick propaganda can overcome it.
I have no desire to pry into your personal life, or constrain what you do in the privacy of your own home with other consenting adults. You can make whatever private contractual arrangements you want or need to make; you can petition your employers for whatever types of benefits you want (though I don't think they need to indulge you, and considering the actuarials of gay men, I would have to insist you pay a much higher premium) But do not presume that a very small minority can insist that society fundamentally reorder itself for your benefit, by judicial fiat, no less.
And do not clothe yourself in robes of martyrdom--the gay rights movement is not at all akin to the civil rights movement, not is gay marriage akin to the repeal of misegenation laws: race does not alter the ontological nature of marriage; sex does.
Here endeth my diatribe.