Judica Me, Deus

Give judgment for me, O God




 

27 February 2008

Some pertinent points on the homosexual agenda and the attack on the traditional family

One of the most informative websites on the internet is Arts and Letters Daily. It provides a selection of articles, commentaries and book reviews drawn from newspapers, magazines and periodicals from around the English-speaking world. There is much here to interest the philosophical conservative, both for and against a conservative point of view. An example is a recent review by F. Carolyn Graglia of two books on marriage. I urge the reader to follow the link and read for full review. In this comment I would like to highlight several passages that provide crucial facts about marriage in our modern liberal democratic society.

The opponents of traditional marriage have sought to downplay the effects of broken marriages on children, and to water down (or even eliminate) the notion of marriage as being essentially the sacred bond in nature between the female and male, a bond sacralised and formalised by all societies through history. The author (Kay Hymowitz) of one of the books reviewed claims that the breakdown of traditional idea of the union of female and male being essentially for producing and rearing children has resulted in a split in Western societies. She says that

 
...marriage's separation from reproduction and its redefinition as a "state-stamped intimate relationship between two adults"—the work of the feminist movement and the sexual revolution—has made children "incidental," no longer the focus of a union devoted to their rearing. Yet there is a vast divide between the educated middle-class women who are more likely to marry before bearing children and the less educated, frequently black, women who constitute the bulk of single-parent families. Hymowitz tells us that "children of single mothers are less successful on just about every measure than children growing up with their married parents regardless of their income, race, or education levels: they are more prone to drug and alcohol abuse, to crime, and to school failure; they are less likely to graduate from college; they are more likely to have children at a young age, and more likely to do so when they are unmarried."

It is a measure of the delusion seizing modern liberal society that such results of marriage breakdown have to be the subject of a study to demonstrate the point. Fifty years ago any parent with a normal degree of commonsense could have told you as much. The specific point Hymowitz is making here is that the changes in attitudes to marriage have resulted in a split with married couples with children in a socially more successful group than single parents (mostly mothers) with children.

Children in the top quartile, Hymowitz explains, have mothers who not only are likely to be married but also are older, more mature, better educated, and nearly three times as likely to be employed (whether full- or part-time) as are mothers of children in the bottom quartile. And not only do top-quartile children have what are likely to be more effective mothers; they also get the benefit of more time and money from their live-in fathers.

The crucial point made here in my view is the presence of a father whose level of responsibility towards his children will also be determining with regard to their character and social adjustment. There are a number of studies demonstrating that a father's sympathy and encouragement is critical to a daughter's healthy development, a deeply objectionable fact to feminists whose hatred of men and maleness provides their living.

The second book reviewed (The Future of Marriage by David Blankenhorn) analyzes the social repercussions of "same-sex marriage". Blankenhorn is a liberal and democrat but feels obliged to oppose the demands of homosexual activists.

He does so because he believes that to grant them would destroy marriage as a public institution dedicated to the production and rearing of children by their two biological parents.
Analyzing the historical record, Blankenhorn describes the origins, purpose, decline, and attempted recovery of marriage, and he demonstrates that the institution will be further damaged if same-sex marriage is made legal. While same-sex marriage advocates focus on the needs of adult homosexuals, Blankenhorn focuses on children:
What children need most are mothers and fathers. Not caregivers. Not parent-like adults. Not even ‘parents.' What a child wants and needs more than anything else are the mother and the father who together made the child, who love the child, and who love each other.

He answers the charge made by homosexuals that the high incident of marriage breakdown is hardly a recommendation for it by making the obvious point that allowing an illegitimate redefinition of marriage would further harm nature's institution. Caving in to the homosexual campaign on same-sex unions is like handing a can of petrol to the arsonist, asking him to go put out the fire.