Prager surmises that the reason black Americans voted for proposition 8 was efforts by the progressive community to equate the gay marriage with the civil rights movement. This makes more sense than the claim that the black community in fundamentally conservative, but are just too silly to know it.
Gay and straight activists who liken their demand to redefine marriage to black suffering under Jim Crow merely cheapen historic black suffering.
I would add to his article that observation that slavery denied the slaves the right to marriage. The bossman's ownership trumped sacraments of the church. The children dropped by slaves were products to be sold. Being denied a right makes one more protective of that right.
Since Prager's article on this subject is better than mine, I guess I will say something else.
I suppose I should mention that back in the early 1980s I was a proponent of gay marriage. My reasoning was that gay marriage might stop the spread of AIDS and might reduce the number of kids molested by gays (I kept meeting people with stories of molestation).
There were some extremely angry people in the Gay Lobby who pointed out the selfrighteousness of my viewpoint. They wanted a new radicalized world where sex was free of committment. Everyone was to have thousands of different partners. They were very strongly opposed to marriage.
Many of the people holding this view died.
The really big change came when radicals realized that if gay marriage were made a legal equivalent to hetrosexual marriage then they could use the courts to attack their enemies. You could sue a church adoption service if they refused the request of two men wanting a boy. They could sue small bridal shops that only had wedding gowns in women sizes. They could have in your face honeymoons at that quaint bed and breakfast. If the innkeeper made any form of protest, there would be a protest and lawsuit.
These people just wanted to be bullies. BTW, you know that a movement is not a civil rights movement if it leaves a large number of people forced to live silently in fear.
The last experience that convinced me that the gay marriage issue was an intentional effort by the left to create a wedge issue came when I fould people fundamentally opposed to marriage as an institution actively supporting gay marriage as an institution.
Unlike the civil rights movement which was about a group of people denied real fundamental rights. The gay marriage issue lacks real depth.
In conclusion, I would like to quote Natalie R. Collins, who is a published author who takes extreme pride in her writing and always quick to point out gaffs in her foes:
Wake up, right-wing America. The battles you are fighting in your God’s name are not battles of love, but those of hate and divisiveness.
Natalie, projecting hate and divisiveness on your opponents is an act of hatred and division. This tag line is appearing all over the place ... which is a bit scary. In a bizarre Utah twist, Natalie also makes the statement:
Gordon B. Hinckley is turning over in his grave, as all the spinning he did to bring the Church into the “mainstream” Christian fold is going to turn out for naught.
As I recall Mr. Hinckley was supportive of the civil rights movement. Ms. Collins seems to be trying to equate the civil rights movement with the gay marriage ploy ... the very thing Dennis Plager was talking about.
I doubt that any of the leading figures of the civil rights movement such as MLK, LBJ, or Kennedy would say that Proposition 8 was the equivalent of Jim Crow laws or that throwing leaflets in the Mt. Hope Church. But, I can't see inside their heads.
One day I hope someone denies you equal protection under the law using the same illogical and weakly justified argument you've used here. And when they do, I will stand up for your equality, not make excuses. Why? Because that is what being a christian, and believing that all are created equal in the eyes of God, and should be treated equal in the eyes of the state is all about. You, though, are proof that being religious and being a good person are not one in the same.
ReplyDeleteAssuming you are LDS: from one LDS to another... you should be ashamed of this article.
No one in the civil rights movement would have done what was done in CA this November. They fought for equality.
I am not LDS.
ReplyDeleteI actively supported gay marriage in the 1980s. I stopped because members of the gay lobby convinced me that gay marriage was not a fundamental to the gay community.
There are two ways that you destroy civil. The first is outright denial of rights. The second is to push for fantasy rights that over shadow the needs for others.
For example, the separate but equal that the Democratic party pushed a century ago was based on fake rights. Separate but equal was premised on the absurdity that whites had the right to drink from public fountains that hadn't been sullied by blacks. They had a right to sit on bus seats that hadn't be used by blacks and had a right to sections of the theatre that hadn't been used by blacks.
Integration was a denial of these silly rights.
Plantation owners in the South felt that they had the right to own slaves.
It is strange that you would attack the post as illogical. The founders of this nation, who actually studied logic, realized that fundamental rights are never really in conflict with each other.
Whenever you have situation where one right appears to conflict with another is an indication that one of the rights is not really a fundamental right.
Judging from your absolutist claim that "No one in the civil rights movement" would have voted for a particular law indicates to me that you had not studied logic.
There is no way that either of us could no what is going on inside other people's heads.
I guess I should also point out that openingly wishing terrible things to happen to others is a sign of small mindedness and hatred.