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appreciate Stanley
Kurtz's kind words and also his candor. He acknowledges that
he does "not personally view homosexuality as sinful,"
and endorses "some of the sexual loosening that has emerged
in the wake of the Sixties."
This helps
explain why an intelligent, articulate writer like Mr. Kurtz can
shrug at the homosexual agenda in all but marriage. If you don't
see anything wrong with two men or two women having sex, you can't
object much to sexual license, including the homosexual variety.
The sexual
revolution, which began in earnest with Alfred Kinsey's fraudulent
sex studies in the late Forties, is about much more than sex. It's
about rejecting natural law (created by God) and substituting the
relativistic concept that sin is a matter of individual taste.
I am puzzled
as to how America has benefited from the "loosening" of
sexual mores. Marriage has been cheapened, divorce is rampant, and
then there is the floodtide of promiscuity and pornography and the
sexualization of children. Government has exploded, largely to pick
up the pieces from the sexual "loosening." The biggest
victims have been among the poor, where marriage has virtually collapsed.
In the 1950s,
health authorities contended with syphilis and gonorrhea. Now they
deal with more than 25 sexually transmitted diseases, including
the incurable AIDS, herpes, chlamydia, and Human Papillomavirus
(HPV — the primary cause of cervical cancer). All too many of the
patients in STD and abortion clinics are 14 years old.
Mr. Kurtz says
he would not want to go back to the "system of the Fifties."
For all its flaws, that decade had a marriage-centered culture that
discouraged homosexuality, kept the historical ban on abortion,
and maintained social stigmas for sex outside marriage. This is
the rational and workable alternative, not some extreme, utopian
position. In fact, it is the only thing that has worked over the
centuries in all successful cultures. Sexual morality was not invented
in the 1950s by prudes. It is the heartbeat of family life, without
which we will not remain a self-governing people.
Sanctioning
homosexual behavior is not the "muddled middle ground."
If homosexual behavior is not one of the "more extreme expressions
of the sixties," then what is? Homosexual pressure groups say
they just want to live and let live, but they are trying to fashion
a system that brooks no dissent. Mr. Kurtz's assurance that "strong
and conservative religious communities" can exist outside his
"moderate middle ground" sounds a bit like authorizing
Indian reservations for the devout.
Mr. Kurtz has
done an admirable job taking apart Jonathan Rauch's case for "gay
marriage," but he still shares a foundational, faulty premise:
There is nothing wrong with homosexuality.
Once you abandon
morality, you must rely solely on utilitarian arguments. This is
one of the weaknesses of the current campaign for the Federal Marriage
Amendment: Its defenders have purposely avoided making moral arguments.
No constitutional amendment campaign can succeed without a great
moral principle driving it. Curbing judicial power is appealing,
to be sure, but it is not enough to motivate the mass movement necessary
to generate success. Nobody goes into the trenches to preserve a
"national debate." Just because homosexual pressure groups
are attacking the proposal with vehemence does not mean it is the
best vehicle. They react with outrage at any resistance to
their agenda.
Mr. Kurtz,
as well as Robert Bork in his recent Wall Street Journal
column, argues eloquently as to why the very adoption of a constitutional
amendment ends any concerns over unconstitutionality.
Likewise, both
would probably argue that the federal ban on slavery is not an infringement
on states' rights, since slavery violates the "unalienable
rights" guaranteed by the Constitution (not to mention our
Creator). The authors of the 13th Amendment added the phrase "involuntary
servitude" to the ban on slavery, lest anyone get ideas about
practicing slaveholding in all but name. Similarly, there is no
"right" to create counterfeit marriage by other means,
whether through a legislature or a court decision. Demolishing natural
law is already forbidden under our Constitution. Americans have
an unalienable right to live where marriage is preserved and protected.
As for Mr.
Kurtz's fear that a stronger amendment would strip the states of
"constitutionally delegated authority over a whole range of
family law matters," that is a red herring that could be applied
as well to the Federal Marriage Amendment. The states would retain
their traditional authority to set requirements for marriage licenses,
such as age and residency. They just could not create counterfeits.
Mr. Kurtz says
that because the Founders did not mention marriage in the Constitution,
my quarrel is with them, not with the Federal Marriage Amendment.
But I think I would be in good company with the Founders on this.
Imagine Mr. Kurtz, on the other hand, trying to persuade James Madison,
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and John Adams that states should
have the right to create counterfeit marriage. These men would be
appalled that the sodomy laws are no longer on the books in many
of the original states. They'd glance at the AIDS epidemic and ask:
"Are you people mad?"
Homosexual
strategists understand that civil unions will eventually doom marriage.
New York Blade Executive Editor Chris Crain noted on August
3 that because many straight couples are signing up for partner
benefits, thus creating competition for marriage: "…a
popular and easier alternative is increasingly available. There's
your threat to traditional marriage. … It is ironic that the
short-term resistance from some quarters to recognition of gay marriage
has contributed significantly to the very harm that our foes fear
the most-the piecemeal destruction of traditional marriage."
Mr. Crain is
right. Anything short of an amendment protecting marriage and its
benefits from tampering will not only fail to do the job; it will
invite counterfeits.
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