06/20/2005
The Essence of Moral Truth
There's a massive article in the Sunday NYT magazine by Russell Shorto regarding the conservative Christian stance against gay marriage and what motivates these people to behave the way they do.
Here's the crux of it:
"But for the anti-gay-marriage activists, homosexuality is something to be fought, not tolerated or respected. I found no one among the people on the ground who are leading the anti-gay-marriage cause who said in essence: ''I have nothing against homosexuality. I just don't believe gays should be allowed to marry.'' Rather, their passion comes from their conviction that homosexuality is a sin, is immoral, harms children and spreads disease. Not only that, but they see homosexuality itself as a kind of disease, one that afflicts not only individuals but also society at large and that shares one of the prominent features of a disease: it seeks to spread itself."
The story looks at several people involved in the pursuit to strike down gay causes in Maryland, including stay-at-home mom Laura Clark, who figures prominently. Shorto describes how the Massachusetts gay marriage legislation galvanized her to action: "She looked at the development not as an effort by members of a minority to win rights that others have long enjoyed but as an attack on society's most basic institution by forces bent on creating an amoral, anything-goes culture."
Since then, her wider views on homosexuality have been clarified to include a warped view of hate crime legislation in Maryland: "The purpose of the hate-crime legislation seems to be just to silence those of us who oppose homosexuality.'' And her opinion of why gays want to be allowed into the medical decision-making process: ''We know it's a back-door way for the homosexual activists to get gay marriage.''
It's an eye-opening article, full of ridiculous assertions by these people: ''Once you start this, you could have a 45-year-old man wanting to marry a 9-year-old boy. That could be O.K. in 20 years. That's what you get with relative moral truth. Whereas with absolute moral truth, what was O.K. 50 years ago will still be O.K. 20 years from now.''
Pastor Brian Racer laments the co-opting of the word gay: ''The male is the piercer; the female is the pierced. That is the way God designed it. It's unfortunate that homosexuals have taken the moniker 'gay,' because their lifestyle and its consequences are anything but. Look what has happened in the decades since the sexual revolution and acceptance of the gay lifestyle as normal. Viruses have mutated. S.T.D.'s have spread. It shows that when we try to change the natural course of things, what comes out of that is not joy or gayness.''
Until these people are convinced (which may never happen) that homosexuality is not a choice, but is part of God's great plan, we're up against a huge ignorant force of people. This article is somewhat terrifying and shows the work that must be done to mobilize in order to retain and achieve our most basic human rights.
What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part) [nyt magazine]
Posted 3:30 PM EST by Andy in Gay Marriage | Permalink
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I started reading this and my head started to ache. So I put it down threw on some clothes and went to our little pride festival in Lehigh Valley PA. And, I felt much better for doing so.
These people are the ones who are sick and they have perverted view of the world. I could almost pity them if they were not hell bent on my (our)destruction.
Posted by: Donald | Jun 20, 2005 3:39:04 PM
People who make arguments against gay marriage should just be honest and admit they don't like gay people, and think that homosexuality is a sin, etc. At least you can respect their opinions and convictions. But they start to sound really ridiculous when they try to make quasi-scientific or sociological arguments.
For example, the best part of the article is when someone says to the author that because of gay marriage in Scandinavian countries, there has been an increase in out-of-wedlock births.
Has there now? You've just about got to be Superman to make a logical leap like that. Although it is interesting that in Scandinivia married gay people can apparently procreate (and do it out-of-wedlock to boot!).
Posted by: Tom | Jun 20, 2005 3:59:34 PM
These people's form of "Christianity" is a blight upon the world and needs to be stamped out in the same manner that they would stamp us out. These "Dominionists" don't belong to your mother's church. They're whacko's of the first order and must be stopped, now.
Posted by: Robert | Jun 20, 2005 4:06:59 PM
Unfortunately, you're preaching to the choir, Andy. I'm glad you picked this up, though, and even more glad that the NYTimes had the gumption to print this article. You're right--it's damn terrifying the amount of ignorance that we as a people have to fight against. But until the MSM gets more people to actually do some anyalytical writing like this, we've got one hell of an uphill battle. We need to make sure that we're involved in our communities and getting our real faces and real lives out there to shatter their mythos of us as sex-crazed degenerates. (I'm only degenerate on Fridays.)
Posted by: Hyper | Jun 20, 2005 4:20:47 PM
Isn't it amazing how people who supposedly preach love actually end up hating worse than those who preach nothing.
Posted by: Nathan Peters | Jun 20, 2005 5:14:04 PM
hey wait, I know those boys !
thats my boyfriend !
haha.. jk, well.. he is now ;)
Posted by: Frank | Jun 20, 2005 5:59:05 PM
Andy - I was wondering when you would get to this (I know, I
know, it's only Monday). I'd like to add that AGM activators strike me as
classical racists, as Hannah Arendt described them in The Origins of
Totalitarianism. Like all racists, they fear corruption by impurities.
(My take is on the Shorto piece is linked from my name.)
Posted by: R J Keefe | Jun 20, 2005 7:01:43 PM
We ignore, underestimate these people at our peril, but I fear that's exactly what our national "leaders" are still effectively doing. They're still going around the country, hoovering up more and more money to perpetuate the corporate empires they've built, drooling on and on about how it's really not as bad as some of us think while these countless mini Ralph Reeds breed like characters passing out the pods in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The party is over folks.
Posted by: Leland | Jun 20, 2005 8:45:29 PM
Morrissey once crooned these lines about Margaret Thatcher, but they apply to the people in that mind-numbing article as well:
It's people like you
That make me feel
So old inside
When will you die?
Posted by: Jim | Jun 21, 2005 3:43:40 AM
That was a great video. I dunno why I think you talking to that roach was so funny
Posted by: Mike | Mar 19, 2006 2:07:20 PM