I wasn’t too surprised that Proposition 8,which defended traditional marriage, passed in California because of the large number of Black and Hispanic Democrats who voted against it.
Their votes were actually about how people traditionally live together, and the place of marriage in society, but fifty years after the sexual revolution, one doubts that the mainstream media still remembers such things.
The sexual revolution preached: all forms of sex is okay “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone”. A nice idea that paints copulation as harmless fun.
Ah, but the reality is something quite different: the millions of women who aborted their child after being abandoned, the mothers struggling to raise kids without a husband, and the children harmed by divorce…
Those most vulnerable to these social problems are the Black community and the recent immigrants, mostly Hispanic.They know first hand that government programs are needed to help families (which is why most of them are Democrats). But they also know that unless you strengthen the family, you will not solve the problem of poverty, and it’s side effects of despair, violence, and drug use.
Passing a law that allows two promiscuous gay men who live together to be “married” is not going to go down well in some neighborhoods, not because unmarried sex is unknown in the neighborhoods, but because those raising children have a daily job protecting their children against the sexual predators that are destroying their own neighborhoods.
There are all types of sexual exploitation of youth. Selling your body for money to live, or for drugs is the one that get in the headlines, of course. But if you live in a poor neighborhood, it also involves rich men cruising by and openly propositioning poor women for sex, as if every woman who is poor is a prostitute. Most vulnerable are the young teenage girls, who are given little or no support to “say no” by society. But there is another problem that few know about or discuss : the sexual abuse of young boys, that is common in these neighborhoods.
From the Journal of the American Medical Association:
Prevalence (of sexual abuse of males) estimates varied widely (by definition used and population studied), ranging from 4% to 76%. Boys at highest risk were younger than 13 years, nonwhite, of low socioeconomic status, and not living with their fathers. Perpetrators tended to be known but unrelated males. Abuse frequently occurred outside the home, involved penetration, and occurred more than once. Sequelae included psychological distress, substance abuse, and sexually related problems. Evaluation of management strategies was limited.
Is it no wonder that the reason Propsition 8 did not pass is because the Black pastors and the Hispanic community objected to it?
But no one wants to talk about the real reason behind “homophobia”, any more than people want to talk about violent crime as the reason behind a lot of racism: because it is unfair to condemn an entire group for the sins of a minority.
Of course, there are good secular, ethical and sociological arguments in favor of retaining traditional marriage as a norm, but don’t expect to see these arguments discussed in the mainstream media. The fight to preserve traditional marriage is is being framed only one way in the media: Opposition is the same as supporting “discrimination”, and only religious bigots who are unreasonable would oppose such a law.
But here the PC run into a problem: Those who support traditional marriage (i.e. Black Christians, including President Obama, and most Hispanics) know about discrimination first hand, so are not really going to be cowed by being told that their support is “discrimination”.
So who can be attacked?
The Catholics of course. But too many bishops are being cowed into silence by their own toleration of sexual abuse in the past to get into the headlines in this fight. And a lot of Catholics, who tend to see the world through communal (family) eyes probably think that why not welcome this nice couple into the church along with the rest of us sinners.
That leaves the Baptists.
But a lot of those Baptists are black, so nix that idea.
A HA! Let’s blame the Mormons!.
“The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!” warned ads placed on newspaper Web sites in three Eastern states last month. The ad was rejected by sites in three other states, including Maine, where the Kennebec Journal informed Californians Against Hate that the copy “borders on insulting and denigrating a whole set of people based on their religion.”
Religious bigotry in the US is usually against Catholics. Kennedy was supposed to make the US a theocracy…. Galileo was arrested by the Inquisition…. the Know-nothing rioters who insisted that papists could never become real Americans…All our priests are homos who hit on altar boys…And then, there was a more subtle discrimination, making it hard to get jobs or decent housing…(No Irish need apply…Polish are dumb jokes…all Italians are rosary carrying Mafia types).
But how many Americans know about the persecution of the LDS church that drove them to migrate to what was then Mexican territory? And how many know about the struggles of the church to be accepted? Did you know that Governor Romney probably lost the Republican nomination because of anti LDS bigotry?
So the next PC target for ridicule and hatred will be your LDS neighbors.
Presumably we’ll see a PC movie to remind people of the Mountain Meadow massacre along with more “Big love” type exposes, all with the “wink wink” implication that Mormons are dangerous cult followers.
Why bash the Mormons?
Because they can.
Only 48% of Americans personally know a Mormon, it’s easy to tell lies about them.And other churches who believe that Marriage is instituted by God will stay quiet, for fear of being associated with that ” devil worshiping group” (one smear common on anti Mormon sites).
This is the same tactic that worked back in the 1960’s, when a lot of Protestant churches who opposed abortions were cowed into silence for fear of being associated with the “anti-christ Papists”.
It’s just history repeating itself.
Targeting the Mormons is only the tip of the iceberg, for it hints of the legal issues that could face traditional churches and mosques that will make the Boy-Scout lawsuits look petty.
But of course, it won’t work. The LDS church remembers it’s history, and any church that tells it’s children how their great grandmothers walked to Zion pushing a handcart so that they could have religious freedom is not exactly going to disappear because of ridicule or threats.
And the publicity could very well result in Christians from liberal churches checking into the beliefs of their LDS neighbors, and finding their emphasis on personal morality and their strong family oriented theology attractive. And not just Christians…
So one unseen side effect of Kargar’s campaign might be an increase in converts to the LDS church.
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. She is Catholic.
She writes about human rights at MakaipaBlog.
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18 users commented in " Hey, Let’s bash the Mormons! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback“Of course, there are good secular, ethical and sociological arguments in favor of retaining traditional marriage as a norm, but don’t expect to see these arguments discussed in the mainstream media. ”
Which are ….? It’s interesting how people always says things like this, but leave it open-ended, and never give any “good” reasons in favor of retaining “traditional” marriage as the norm. Please enlighten me, and tell us what these “good” reasons are!
Ah, that would be a book.
What is missing is an understanding of the roll of marriage in traditional societies. In the US, thirty years of propaganda and no fault divorce laws have weakened marriage into “two people who love each other”.
This is not true of most societies, except for the modern welfare state where big government has to take over much of the social aspects that in the past were done by families.
1) tradition.
Tradition is the way that societies codify what works and what doesn’t work to make a strong society.
Marriage in traditional societies is about limiting male freedom in order to protect women and children, and care for the sick and weak. It is about sacrificing your own desires so that the family can survive. And it is about transmitting customs to the next generation.
Gay marriage is about two equal people who love each other living together with society’s approval, which is not quite the same thing.
2)Neurobiology.
A lot of the unspoken arguments behind the push is the idea that men and women are the same, and that gender is a social construct.
But science shows men and women differ, no matter how much a feminist like myself would wish otherwise.
So a lot of the arguments about “discrimination” are not about homosexual behavior per se, but are based on gender theory that has a limited basis in reality.
Destroying marriage is part of the feminist agenda to make women “free” but in the real world, it translates as making women free to act like men, not free to be mothers.
3)Evolution.
Humans are limited pair bonding societies. So without law, most men will stay with their wives, but some won’t. Societies with strong marriage customs help to protect women and children and help men to stay faithful.
4) promiscuity versus self control.
Andrew Sullivan once said that gay marriage would loosen the puritans to be more tolerant to “open marriage” where partners have outside relationships.
My point exactly. It destroys the idea of fidelity as part of marriage.
5)it makes the “enemy” those who are the hardest working and most stable citizens.
Let’s face it. If society falls apart, it is areas with strong traditional families that will survive.
Kinda hard to take your blog seriously when your very first statement is wrong - Prop 8 DID pass. If you can’t get the basics correct, what does that say about the rest of ytour argument ?
Ed: thank you for your correction. I have changed it in the article.NR.
Nancy, thank you for your analysis on intolerance and bigotry within the gay political movement. As a Mormon, I can honestly say that I have never in my life seen such discrimination against religious individuals as I see today. After Prop 8 passed in California, there was widespread blacklisting of Mormon citizens that exercised their right to vote. Mormons lost their jobs just for being Mormon, just for voting, just for holding an opinion that differed from the uber-liberal Hollywood agenda. Threats against Mormon lives and property were routinely made online and on street corners. Mormons are consistently ridiculed and mocked in the media because of their belief in the traditional family. Such anti-Mormon sentiment is comparable to the current (and frightening) spike of anti-Semitism among ultra-conservative political movements in Europe.
Thank you for speaking out and standing up against this terrible movement.
Having been a Mormon for 40 years, I can tell you that the push by Mormons for the passage of Prop 8 was from the top down and was indicative of the way that they operate on a number of issues. Homophobia is alive and well in the Mormon Church. For example, one of the lies told within the Mormon Church for the support of Prop 8 was that gays would be allowed to marry in their “sacred” temples. This discrimination is protected by separation of church and state, so this claim is completely unfounded.
The problem people have with Mormons over Prop 8 is the same problem people had with the Mormon work to defeat the ERA in the 1970s. A minority group of Mormons organized and ended up creating influence much greater than their numbers. This caused the defeat of the ERA in at least 4 states, including Virginia, which has a minuscule Mormon population. The following year “The Year of the Woman” was a national program to promote women and equality. Mormons again organized. The Mormon Relief Society women were issued walkie talkies and sat as groups within the conferences and rallies with male leaders on the outside giving them instructions on how to disrupt the conferences. This was all managed directly by the old men in bad suits that head the Mormon Church. Yes I was there and remember it well.
With Prop 8 money was requested nationally by Mormon leadership to be sent to California. Phone banks were set up in Utah to provide blanket calling of California residents. Mormon leadership traveled from Utah to California and oversaw many parts of the operation personally. The objective was to have a disproportionate influence on the legislation.
I really don’t know how you call it religious bigotry when the religion did in fact do exactly what it is being accused of. Mormons, as a group spent a great deal of money and time to have a disproportionate amount of influence over the legislation, exactly as they have done before. They are now seeing the consequences of their collective action and calling foul and religious persecution. Calling natural consequences for behavior persecution is really quite laughable.
Marriage reflects the natural moral and social law evidenced the world over. As the late British social anthropologist Joseph Daniel Unwin noted in his study of world civilizations, any society that devalued the nuclear family soon lost what he called “expansive energy,” which might best be summarized as society’s will to make things better for the next generation. In fact, no society that has loosened sexual morality outside of man-woman marriage has survived.
Analyzing studies of cultures spanning several thousands of years on several continents, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin found that virtually all political revolutions that brought about societal collapse were preceded by a sexual revolution in which marriage and family were devalued by the culture’s acceptance of homosexuality.
When will Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Glen Beck publicize these studies?
What a wonderful article, thank you!
Nancy- thank you so much for looking beyond the scape goating and telling it how it is. This is one of the few sensible things I have read on the topic. Thank you.
Why do people care so much if people get gay married? It’s not like being gay married is the same thing as being married.
Defend_Marriage - Quote
“Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin found that virtually all political revolutions that brought about societal collapse were preceded by a sexual revolution in which marriage and family were devalued by the culture’s acceptance of homosexuality.”
What Pitirim Sonokin wrote about was increased promiscuity and the decline of civilization due to hedonism as the third phase of natural progression of society. There is nothing in his work that says it was due to the acceptance of homosexuality. Don’t misquote your sources as people who are educated will generally catch you and discredit you. Pitirim Sonokin wrote and taught in the late 1950s and early 1960s, or during the beginning of the world wide sexual revolution. Because of the advent of social diseases, the promiscuity has declined since the 1960s.
Nancy Reyes - Quote
“Passing a law that allows two promiscuous gay men who live together to be “married” is not going to go down well in some neighborhoods, not because unmarried sex is unknown in the neighborhoods, but because those raising children have a daily job protecting their children against the sexual predators that are destroying their own neighborhoods.”
Why do you assume the men are promiscuous? Why would gay men be any more promiscuous than straight men? If the men want to be married, does that not indicate that they wish to commit and are therefore not promiscuous? Where is the data that says adult Gay men have a penchance for young boys? Your arguments rely on tired stereotypes that are inaccurate in your depiction of the helpless Mormons and the evil homosexuals.
G. Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men (New York: Dutton, 1997).
David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop,
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984).
. A.
P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 308-309;
See also A. P. Bell, M. S. Weinberg, and S. K. Hammersmith, Sexual
Preference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).
David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall, 1984), 252-253.
, “Male Homosexuality in Western Sexuality:
Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times,” edited by P. Aries and A. Bejin, pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991), 124-125.
Paul Van de Ven et al., “A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men,”
Sorry, Jim Huston, the facts do not support your hypothesis.
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details taken out by editor. NR
Defend_Marriage - I was asking questions, not making hypothesis. What was written here was not supported, other than your misinformation about Pitirim Sonokin.
I personally do not have a dog in this fight, other than the manipulation of the American legislative process by the Mormon Church. They have the money and organization to be a significant influence in the legislative process. As someone who grew up a Mormon, I find their growing political presence and willingness to spend time and money to exert disproportionate influence disturbing. To me it does not matter if it is woman’s rights from the 1970s, the legal work around the Bob Jones University test case in the late 1970s on racial discrimination or Gay rights.
To spend the money and time to influence legislation then claim that they are being persecuted shows the level of their self delusion. They mobilized to defeat the ERA and attempted to influence the courts over racism in their private universities. They were caught by the Boston Globe in active support of Romney for his bid for the presidency. It is the Mormon program of legislative interference to which I object.
As support for my contentions, from US News and World Report by John Aloysius Farrell.
“Opposing gay marriage in Utah (as the church did in 2004) is one thing, but taking a lead public role in a national campaign to deprive a persecuted minority of a right shared by all other Americans is another. It would be seen as a sign that the days of low-key tactics are over, and that the current Mormon leaders are prepared to give, and get, the political bruising that occurs when religion mixes with politics in America.”
Claiming religious persecution in light of the facts rings hollow.
I always like it when a Mormon talks about “traditional marriage, when a truly traditional Mormon marriage (as defined by the marriages of the first two leaders of the LDS) included multiple wives.
For more on “traditional marriages” go to youtube and do a search on “the license keithhartman1″. Nancy, I hope you have a “traditional marriage” as defined by the prophets of the LDS church, or by the traditions of the past.
Nancy Reyes doesn’t even know the difference between the words “for” and “against,” as evidenced in her very first sentence and 9th paragraph of her diatribe.
As a result of her grammatical handicaps she can’t even formulate “arguments” using the correct terminology. Never mind that her “arguments” are fatally flawed to begin with:
“Passing a law that allows two promiscuous gay men who live together to be ‘married’…”? …that’s a pretty bold generalization coming from someone who styles herself a physician. That claim also bluntly reveals a startling lack of observational skills: there are more real people in the real world than Ms. Reyes is apparently aware of.
As for Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, and other politically motivated religious extremists, their two-thousand years of bullying, coercion, persecution of others, inability to get along peacefully with other religions of the world, and eagerness to gain money, power, and political influence are adequately documented. And one only need reflect for a few hours to discover that their homophobia and hatred are driven by antagonism against a community over whom they have no control — a community of people (humans, in fact) who are not afraid of their Christian god-fueled hatred, bigotry, and fearmongering.
Stick to dispensing pills, Ms. Nancy Reyes (if medicine really is what you practice): it is painfully obvious that when it comes to complex social issues your devotion to mindless cults automatically pulls the plug on your ability to reason. In doing so you make yourself an embarrassment to your profession.
Good luck with that.
flattopSF said,
“As for Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, and other politically motivated religious extremists, their two-thousand years of bullying, coercion, persecution of others, inability to get along peacefully with other religions of the world, and eagerness to gain money, power, and political influence are adequately documented. And one only need reflect for a few hours to discover that their homophobia and hatred are driven by antagonism against a community over whom they have no control — a community of people (humans, in fact) who are not afraid of their Christian god-fueled hatred, bigotry, and fearmongering.
Stick to dispensing pills, Ms. Nancy Reyes (if medicine really is what you practice): it is painfully obvious that when it comes to complex social issues your devotion to mindless cults automatically pulls the plug on your ability to reason. In doing so you make yourself an embarrassment to your profession.”
Mr Flattop… you sound just like those you describe. Full of hate and bigotry.
SEPARATION OF RAUNCH AND STATE
(It’s still legal - and always God-honoring - to air messages like the following. See Ezekiel 3:18-19. In light of government backing of raunchy behavior (such offenders were even executed in early America!), maybe the separation we really need is the “separation of raunch and state”!)
In Luke 17 in the New Testament, Jesus said that one of the big “signs” that will happen shortly before His return to earth as Judge will be a repeat of the “days of Lot” (see Genesis 19 for details). So gays are actually helping to fulfill this same worldwide “sign” (and making the Bible even more believable!) and thus hurrying up the return of the Judge! They are accomplishing what many preachers haven’t accomplished! Gays couldn’t have accomplished this by just coming out of closets into bedrooms. Instead, they invented new architecture - you know, closets opening on to Main Streets where little kids would be able to watch naked men having sex with each other at festivals in places like San Francisco (where their underground saint - San Andreas - may soon get a big jolt out of what’s going on over his head!). Thanks, gays, for figuring out how to bring back our resurrected Saviour even quicker!
If you would care to learn about the depraved human “pigpen” that regularly occurs in Nancy Pelosi’s district in California, Google “Zombietime” and click on “Up Your Alley Fair” in the left column. And to think - horrors - that she is only two levels away from being President!
Most Catholic priests don’t molest alter boys. They bugger each other.
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