With that one out of the way, on to the same old thing.
I engaged someone on Twitter recently who challenged me to reconcile my Catholic faith's commandment to love my fellow man with my opposition to gay marriage. As I seem unable to use words sparingly, I took a great many tweets to tell him that it is precisely my love for my fellow man that drives my opposition. The traditional, nuclear family is the bedrock of civilization and it should not be equated with anything else. Right on schedule, an interview with Ben Carson and an essay by Juan Williams came along.
Here's a bit of Ben.
(W)hat has made Carson a hero to opinion leaders like Juan Williams and Allen West is his courage — shared by Bill Cosby and Clarence Thomas — to speak honestly about inner cities' most vexing problem: Family implosion.
Raised by a single mother, Carson says his family situation was the exception to the rule in the 1950s. Today, absent fathers are an epidemic — 80 percent of Detroit children are raised in single-parent homes — at the center of Detroit's pathologies: Child poverty, low high school graduation rates, 49 percent adult illiteracy, sky-high crime rates.
"It wasn't anywhere near that intense in the inner cities back during the time when you had intact families," Carson says of his childhood. "It didn't have so much to do with the economic status as it did with whether or not you had that intact nuclear family. When you don't have that, you're like a ship out to sea without a rudder."...
"We've pretty much given away our sense of values for the sake of political correctness," Carson laments. "In a politically correct world, there is no gold standard in terms of a family situation. If (youth) don't have a well-established, intact family with lots of good values, they're going to get them from . . . negative peers."
And now some Juan*.
I dunno, it seems to me that if we wanted to show our love for children, women and minorities, we might want to totally endorse the foundation upon which a stable and productive society is built.
If you really cared about civil rights, you might want to care about everyone's civil rights, not just the gays'.
* - Some Juan, get it? SomeJuan? Someone? Get it? No? Sigh. I thought that was a pretty good one. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
In speaking about social breakdown in those minority communities, the president put the gun issue in the context of high rates of out-of-wedlock births that lead to high rates of childhood poverty. "I wish I had a father who was around and involved," the president said, in words that echoed loudly through black and Latino neighborhoods nationally because he revealed a pain so common, yet so rarely confessed, among young people of color.
The shame and silence is enforced by civil-rights leaders who speak in support of gun control but never about a dysfunctional gangster-rap culture that glorifies promiscuity, drug dealers and the power of the gun...
Almost 50 years ago, when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, the national out-of-wedlock birthrate was 7%. Today it is over 40%. According to the CDC, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for white children was just 2% in the 1960s. Today it is 30%. Among black children, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has skyrocketed from 20% in the 1960s to a heartbreaking 72% today. The Hispanic out-of-wedlock rate, which has been measured for a much shorter period, was below 40% in 1990 and stands at more than 50% as of the 2010 census.So the experiment is over and we now know that the traditional, married family is the key to civilization. It has no peers. So what are we all in a lather about? Are we shaking our fists and marching for stronger families and a return to traditional values? No. We're prancing about, waving signs, trying to equate gay marriage and traditional marriage.
I dunno, it seems to me that if we wanted to show our love for children, women and minorities, we might want to totally endorse the foundation upon which a stable and productive society is built.
If you really cared about civil rights, you might want to care about everyone's civil rights, not just the gays'.
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| His civil rights trump yours. If you don't agree, you're a hate-filled bigot. |
That's Sean Penn in the picture, by the way.
ReplyDeleteHow can we call this a free country when the majority of people live in fear of being judged politically incorrect? Must we bow to emotion where wisdom is hard?
ReplyDeleteIf everyone is the same, then what value is the individual? Definitions matter. They are redefining everyone ELSE.
This post has a premise, that traditional families are superior at creating free individuals who govern themselves. There is no evidence to the contrary in the entire debate about "Gay Marriage" only a call to make something untested "equal."
DDE, I quite agree. There's another post rolling around in my head where I might posit that the essence of being progressive is the inability to tell anyone, "No."
ReplyDeleteSo, this is twice that you've expressed concern about getting repetitious. One thing you might try:
ReplyDeleteFor a long time, you've mainly just been stating what you see as being wrong with society. But, you're pretty light on suggestions on what to do about it. Frankly, I think your postings are mostly the equivalent of the guy with a sandwich board on the street corner, railing about how the end of the world is coming. And we know how successful those guys are in actually accomplishing anything.
So, how about discussing what, if anything, we can actually do to encourage people to raise children as married couples instead of as individuals?
Tim, I think we have to get churches into the communities more. Churches that teach traditional values. And they have to get back into the business of charity. People now are going around giving thanks to Obama for the food on their table. When they are doing that they are not giving thanks to God or his followers. Of course, this would mean that the government would have to get out of the business of charity, as well. There's really no way for responsibly managed charity to compete with Bernanke-fueled spending orgy welfare.
ReplyDeleteWhat Ivyan said.
ReplyDeleteTim, I love ya, man.
ReplyDeleteI'll take your suggestion to heart.
Right after I yell about the end of the world one more time. ;-)
In all seriousness, your suggestion opens up a whole new realm of positive and creative work. Thanks!
Ivyan, how about this?
ReplyDeleteGovernment is just an organization we hire to do certain things. No more, no less. If you're looking for meaning in life, looking to the government (or allowing them to dictate it) is like looking to General Electric for meaning.
Something to brighten your day:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/21/archbishop-cordileone-gay-marriage-catholic-church/2001085/
a full, good interview.
Sample:
Q: Has it become more difficult to oppose gay marriage over the years? Does it seem the tide is turning against you?
A:There is a problem here – an injustice, really – in the way that some people are so often identified by what they are against. Opposition to same-sex marriage is a natural consequence of what we are for, i.e., preserving the traditional, natural understanding of marriage in the culture and in the law.
But of course people who are for the redefinition of marriage to include two men or two women are also against something: They are against protecting the social and legal understanding that marriage is the union of a husband and wife who can give children a mother and father.
So there are really two different ideas of marriage being debated in our society right now, and they cannot coexist: Marriage is either a conjugal union of a man and a woman designed to unite husband and wife to each other and to any children who may come from their union, or it is a relationship for the mutual benefit of adults which the state recognizes and to which it grants certain benefits. Whoever is for one, is opposed to the other. ...
Those of us who favor preserving the traditional understanding of marriage do not do so because we want people who experience attraction to their same sex to suffer. We recognize and respect the equal human dignity of everyone. Everyone should be treated equally, but it is not discrimination to treat differently things that are different. Marriage really is unique for a reason.
(sorry about horrible typing, the princess is on my lap)