Monthly Archives: October 2015

Polemics

Implications of the Supreme Court’s “Obergefell v. Hodges” decision

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Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

I am linking to an article posted at the Stream about an important new book by marriage defender Ryan T. Anderson, entitled “Truth Overruled”. I have already bought myself a paperback copy of it.

Anyway, here’s the excerpt:

Anderson lays out soberly all the radical, counter-intuitive and just-plain-crazy implications of the Supreme Court decision in June, Obergefell v. Hodges, that overturned all state laws predicated on the natural, timeless structure of marriage as one man and one woman, hopefully till death:

  • Marriage is not about protecting children and helping to form future free citizens. It exists to cater to the fleeting emotional needs of adults.
  • The state recognizes marriages in order to validate the “dignity” of citizens — that is, to boost their self-esteem.
  • Men and women are exactly the same, and therefore completely interchangeable as parents.
  • Children do not need or deserve continuity of care from their biological parents. Any adult present will do.
  • The U.S. Constitution has no permanent, substantive meaning. It is instead a means by which social and legal elites can override democratic majorities whenever they feel that the time is ripe to impose new philosophical premises on the populace.
  • The free exercise of religion is no more extensive than simple free speech, and can be restricted when a religious group’s views diverge from the Court’s majority view of what the Constitution means at the moment.
  • The connection between sexual activity and human reproduction is simply accidental, a quirk of biology that has no implications for morality, law or society.
  • Those who deny any of these points are morally equivalent to white racists, and will be treated by the government with no greater deference.

Anderson is not alone in recognizing the sheer radicalism of Obergefell v. Hodges; indeed, four justices of the Court, including its Chief Justice, John Roberts, issued a stinging dissent that raises most of the objections which Anderson coolly unpacks in the course of his book. Advocates of same-sex marriage were quick to brush such arguments aside, and cast their opponents as isolated, irrational extremists, motivated only by fideistic reliance on ancient religious texts. Anderson makes it clear that this tactic is fundamentally dishonest, expanding on the dissenters’ points and fleshing each of them out with reference to history, biology, social science — and yes, even religion.

Anderson rightly avoids the temptation to simply play whack-a-mole with every specious argument offered by those who claim to advocate “marriage equality.” While he answers such objections, he also does the reader the service of clarifying and simplifying the terms of the debate, showing how it is finally, starkly, the face-off between two irreconcilable views of marriage:

  1. A “comprehensive — permanent and exclusive — union of sexually complementary spouses who engage in a comprehensive act that is inherently ordered toward a comprehensive good: the procreation and rearing of new human life.”
    and
  2. An “intense emotional union — a romantic, care-giving union of consenting adults.”

As Anderson demonstrates, the first view is the one that has existed in every human society of which we have any record, even those that tolerated polygamy and extra-marital homosexual relationships. The second, impoverished view is the program of the Sexual Revolution, whose gradual implementation (beginning with no-fault, unilateral divorce) has seen the virtual collapse of marriage, the enormous suffering of children, the disappearance of two-parent families in large swathes of society — in other words, domestic chaos.

Anderson cites solid, peer-reviewed research to show the grave harm this social change has done to the most vulnerable people in America: the children of the poor. Our prisons are disproportionately full of boys who grew up without fathers, and our welfare rolls of young girls who were sexually exploited and made pregnant as young teenagers, in part because they had no father to protect them. They in turn are likely to raise children without their biological fathers. This cycle of dysfunction can all be traced to the loosening of the marriage bond, which is only further weakened when the law itself — and even the U.S. Constitution — is invoked by our nation’s highest authorities to affirm that sex has no permanent unitive meaning, and that children’s interests must play second fiddle to the emotional needs of adults.

You might think that same-sex “marriage” could improve the well-being of children, but Anderson cites statistics showing a clear correlation between its legal adoption in particular polities, and declines in the marriage and even the birth rate.

No man is an island, and no woman neither. But least of all are children, those fragile and needy creatures who depend on us for their present, who will populate our future. The acceptance of same-sex marriage, as Anderson doggedly demonstrates, is only the latest stage in our culture’s narcissistic rejection of responsibility toward the vulnerable.

Federal enforcement of a new, invented Constitutional “right” poses a threat to religious liberty and freedom of association. Anderson lays out the well-known (and some of the lesser-known) cases of same-sex marriage advocates using the state’s coercive power to harm innocent citizens who were acting on their conscience, who declined to assist with same-sex marriages. He correctly notes the grave danger posed to churches, citing the now-infamous exchange between Obama’s solicitor general and Justice Samuel Alito, in which the former admitted that churches who decline to perform same-sex marriages may well face the same legal and tax penalties applied in the past to segregationist sects.

This little excerpt is a very good summary of the issues, and how marriage fits into the overall fight to defend the rights of children to their moms and dads, and a stable childhood where both parents sacrifice themselves for the good of their children. We need to get that culture back. If you are pro-same-sex marriage, then you are part of the problem. It doesn’t matter what you do in your personal life. If you are voting for this, you are harming society, and harming children, all for the self-esteem of self-centered grown ups. I urge all my readers to get informed about marriage and to be persuasive when talking about marriage to their neighbors.

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Canadian federal election is today: please vote for Stephen Harper!

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

I try to keep up with elections in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, so I know that there is a Canadian election today. I want to encourage all my Canadian readers to vote, and to help me answer your concerns about Stephen Harper, I have an absolutely marvelous post from Catholic writer Denyse O’Leary.

She writes:

Why are traditional religious communities dying?

[…][I]n a secular society, religious traditions are usually mediated through private institutions. Each decline in the importance of such institutions shuts off a passage to the life beyond that they mediate.

A child can grow up in a religious home today and discover that there are really only two players that matter: himself and big government. The only mediator and advocate is his entitlement card.

As he loses all interest in traditional spiritual life, he discovers the true faith of the progressive society:

Government controls more and more important stuff, and free association controls less and less. Government grants “freedom” to indulge oneself, of course, but that is almost a sacrament, and one that tends to weaken the citizen.

The transformation does not happen all at once, but by degrees. Recently, I was informed by a woman who considers herself a Catholic that abortion and euthanasia are mere “boutique issues,” compared to the awful things Stephen Harper is doing.

Just take in her basic idea for a moment:

The fundamental duty of government is to protect and advance human lives, but progressives know that their real business is currying favour with the growing numbers of fashionable identity groups. Increasingly, such groups will finance their advances on the public dollar. Some of the largesse may come from stripping traditional religious people and institutions of their property (possibly also in fines for non-compliance with some secularist belief). Most people we run into in the plaza will just be “nice” about the whole thing, no matter what is happening.

How do Christians respond?

Much as I sympathize, bracing for storms to come, I think Christians are mainly victims of ourselves.

Consider the excuses I hear (I am talking about legitimate Christian ones, not fundamentally anti-Christian ones, like the “boutique issue” claim above):

* “But Harper did nothing about abortion!”
Oh, for heaven’s sakes! As someone who dealt at close quarters with the abortion lobby for decades, I know they will gladly shut down free speech and freedom of conscience altogether to gain their ends. The euthanasia people will likely do the same. Until their fangs are drawn, nothing can really be done. Harper knows that drawing their fangs will be a serious struggle. And if you are not in it for the fight of your life, don’t interfere by demanding useless demonstrations of loyalty. Other parties will advance and cement their interests more than Harper’s will.

* “A spell of persecution would do us good”
Why is it always Western Christians who think this, not the Middle Eastern Christian and Yazidi girls sold into sex slavery, partly a result of the policy choices of progressive government? Reality check: Persecution causes the worst of human nature to flourish in our own communities as well as the best. Most communities cannot handle the strain. Do any of the Seven Churches of Asia exist today? Even one? Why is that?

[…]What should we do? It will take decades to send progressivism to its deserved reward. I will start by voting for the only party that is not actually hostile to our traditional values (like the right to live, and to speak freely).

[…]We need to grow up and stop funding, and voting for our enemies, and making excuses for anti-Christian bigots. (All the while making pathetic scolding noises.) If we need to change our bank accounts, our votes, our alumni donor policies, we do it individually because that is the responsible thing for an individual Christian adult to do.

And you don’t have to take her word for it, you can just look over to Europe and see how things are going in left-turning countries that embrace social justice. It’s a Christianity-killer.

Here’s a fairly recent paper (PDF) that explains it:

What accounts for cross-national variation in religiosity as measured by church attendance and non-religious rates? Examining answers from both secularization theory and the religious economy perspective, we assert that cross-national variation in religious participation is a function of government welfare spending and provide a theory that links macro-sociological outcomes with individual rationality. Churches historically have provided social welfare. As governments gradually assume many of these welfare functions, individuals with elastic preferences for spiritual goods will reduce their level of participation since the desired welfare goods can be obtained from secular sources. Cross-national data on welfare spending and religious participation show a strong negative relationship between these two variables after controlling for other aspects of modernization.

Kudos to Denyse for understanding what is happening in her country. At least one Canadian Christian understands the relationship between the Christian church’s influence and the size of government.

Voter Guide

By the way, here is a voter guide to the positions of the 3 parties that will be of interest to voters:

Voter Guide (click for much larger image)
Voter Guide (click for much larger image)

It was posted by my Canadian friend Coralie. She follows these things quite closely.

Notice that both  the leftist parties want to get rid of income splitting and tax-free savings accounts. Income-splitting for seniors allows one spouse to retire, and the income of the working spouse is split with the non-working spouse, so they pay less taxes. Families with young children also are eligible for income splitting, which is a boon to stay-at-home moms. And the tax-free savings account is like a ROTH IRA, except better – you can pull out all the tax-free gains at any time, for any reason, and the gains are NEVER taxed. We have nothing like that in the USA. It has changed the character of Canadians to value saving over spending, making them more responsible and independent from government. TFSAs are how you change the character of a nation.

Why vote for Stephen Harper?

My Canadian friend McKenzie is conservative now, but she was not always, and I remember her asking me a while back to explain what conservatives stand for. Well, I found an article that re-caps what Stephen Harper has achieved in the last 9 years. The article lists 100 accomplishments, with links to each one.

Here are some that stuck out to me:

  • Adoption Expense Tax Credit increased — from a one-time $13,100 to 15,000 in 2014
  • Age of Consent Legislation — raised from 14 to 16 effective May 1, 2008
  • Beyond the Border Agreement with the U.S. — passed in late 2011, on perimeter security co-operation
  • Canada Apprentice Loan Program — up to $4000 for those registered in any Red Seals apprenticeship training announced in January 2015
  • Canada/EU Trade Agreement — although ratification still required, an `End of Negotiations`Agreement signed on September 26, 2014
  • Canadian Wheat Board Monopoly Ends — Bill C18 removed the CWB’s monopoly regarding decisions made by many Western farmers to market their wheat
  • Columbia Free Trade Agreement — went into force on August 15th, 2011
  • Consumer Product Safety Act — came into effect June 20, 2011 to ensure manufacturers do not market dangerous products
  • Corporate Tax Rate — reduced from 18% to 16.5% effective January 2012, with another 1.5% reduction in 2012 to 15%
  • Corrupt Regimes Act (C-61) – allows Canada to act upon the request of a foreign state to freeze the assets that their former leaders and members of their entourage, including family members, senior officials and associates, may have placed in Canadian financial institutions
  • Employment Insurance Premiums Reduced —  in the fall of 2014 by 15% for to encourage small businesses to hire
  • Exploited Persons Act — legislation that received Royal Assent to protect against drug, organized or prostitution type of crime
  • Express Entry Immigration into Canada Program — when skilled immigrants to Canada will get quick entry so that they can contribute to economy
  • Fairness at the Pumps Act (C-14) – protects Canadian consumers from inaccurate measurements when purchasing gasoline effective August 2014
  • Family Caregiver Tax Credit — Bill C-13 established a new $2000 tax credit on December 15, 2011 to help families dealing with challenging medical expenses
  • Family Income Splitting — families with children under 18 will be allowed to split income beginning in 2014 up to $50,000 with credit capped at $2000.00
  • Federal Infrastructure Plan — longest long-term plan in Canadian history supporting projects that enhance economic growth, job creation and productivity
  • Free Trade Agreement — signed on July 2, 2009 — between Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland
  • Gun Registry Scrapped — as the legislation passed Third Reading
  • GST /HST– Goods & Services Tax Cut — From 7% to 6% and then to 5%
  • Honduras Free Trade Agreement — completed and signed on November 5th, 2013 and will enter into force on June 19, 2014
  • Income Splitting for Canadian Seniors — a change to the Income Tax Act for pensioners starting in 2006
  • Jordan Free Trade Agreement — went into force on October 1st, 2012
  • Kid’s sport tax credit — up to $500 per child
  • Mission Against ISIL extended March 30, 2015 — to aid the people of Iraq and Syria
  • Ombudsman for Victims of Crime — Established
  • Panama Free Trade Agreement — went into force on April 1st, 2013
  • Peru – Canada Free Trade Agreement — adopted by Parliament June 18, 2009
  • Protecting Victims from Sexual Offenders — signed on December 15, 2010 to protect children against sexual predators
  • Safe Streets & Communities Act — passed March June 13, 2012 to protect children and communities against terrorism
  • South Korea Free Trade Agreement Signed on September 22, 2014 — 1st Asia Pacific Agreement with final legislative steps for full implementation on November 26, 2014
  • Tax cuts made 160 Times — since the Conservatives took office in 2006
  • Tax Free Savings Account with an initial annual limit of $5500.00 — which was raised to $10,000 in April 2015 budget
  • Taxpayers Bill of Rights
  • Taxpayers Ombudsman
  • Temporary Foreign Workers Program — reforms made so that Canadians are hired first
  • Universal Child Care Benefit — in 2006 $1,200.00 per year for every child under age six
  • Universal Child Care Benefit Enhancement — effective January 1st, 2015, beginning July 1st, 2015, parents will receive $160.00 per child per month up to age six and $60.00 for each child aged 6 to 17
  • Victims Bill of Rights — Bill C-32 passed on June 18th, 2014

It’s important to know what you are voting for, not just what you are voting against.

News

Why is the political left so committed to attacking Ben Carson?

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Pediatric surgeon Ben Carson
Pediatric surgeon Ben Carson

Jewish conservative Dennis Prager wrote a column about it, which was reproduced in the Stream.

Prager writes:

The invective against Dr. Ben Carson coming from the left is extraordinary, even for the left. Now that Carson, one of the pre-eminent brain surgeons in America, has become a viable candidate for president, the left has labeled him everything awful it can come up with. One left-wing columnist, Charles Blow of The New York Times, even disparaged his intelligence.

But there were two attacks made this past week that should be beyond the pale even for the left.

I want to focus on the second attack, because I actually heard Prager debate this with the writer from The Forward who attacked Carson in the most despicable way.

Prager explains:

But even that libel might have even outdone by the reaction to Carson’s comments about the Holocaust and guns: “The likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.”

Those comments were actually labeled anti-Semitic.

Now, while “greatly diminished” is debatable, the general view strikes me as simple common sense: Why wouldn’t it have been a good thing if many Jews in 1930s Europe had had weapons? Of course it would not have prevented the Holocaust, but it might have saved some lives; and just as important, it would have enabled armed Jews to die fighting rather than to die unarmed and with no ability to fight. If Jews in Europe had been asked, “Would you like to be armed when the Nazis come to round you up?” what do Carson’s critics think the great majority of European Jews would have answered? Indeed, what would the critics themselves answer?

No normal person thinks that armed Jews would have prevented the Holocaust (nor did Carson make such a claim). But no normal person should think that it would have not have been a good thing if many European Jews had weapons. The hallowed Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began with the Jews in the Ghetto possessing a total of 10 handguns. Imagine if they had a thousand.

In The Washington Post, David Kopel of the Cato Institute, who teaches Advanced Constitutional Law at the University Denver Sturm College of Law, cited the diaries of Jews who died in the Warsaw Ghetto. They expressed unalloyed joy at being able to kill some of their Nazi tormentors, and deep regret about not having been armed and been able to fight back sooner than they did.

But even if one believes that Carson and Kopel are wrong, how could one characterize Carson’s comments as “anti-Semitic” or “blaming the victims [the Jews]”? How could one label statements expressing the wish that the Jews of the Holocaust had been armed “anti-Semitic”? Yet, among others, a contributing editor to the Forward, a leading Jewish newspaper, wrote that these remarks were “profoundly anti-Semitic, immoral and disgusting.” And Carson was attacked by prominent Jews in Time and by the Anti-Defamation League.

The left is in full-blown smear-Carson mode. He is, after all, the left’s worst nightmare — a black Republican who is brilliant, kind and widely admired, including by many blacks.

It is a rule of left-wing life that black Republicans must have their names and reputations destroyed. The left knows that if blacks do not vote overwhelmingly Democrat, Democrats cannot win a national election.

Indeed.I think that what Carson said was 100% correct, and not offensive in the least. This shows you how far the left will go to trash conservatives – finding offensive where none was intended, and where there is no offense.

Now, Ben Carson is not my candidate, but that’s because he doesn’t have the accomplishments in the political arena that I look for. I preferred Walker, Jindal, Perry, Cruz, Rubio over Carson and Fiorina. The latter two are good, but they simply haven’t got the accomplishments to prove to me that they ought to win the primary. However, I certainly would never attack Fiorina or Carson the way the Democrats have. They simply cannot stand black conservatives. As soon as Democrats see a black conservative, they immediately heap all kinds of hatred on him or her, simply because of skin color. Democrats have a prejudice that black people should think a certain way, and when they don’t – look out, here comes hatred.

By the way, if you want to read a comprehensive article about how the Nazi Party disarmed the Jews in the 1930s, the Stream has posted a great article about that. Interesting to note that the Nazis were also a socialist party – Nazi means national socialists. The believed in bigger government, and smaller individuals. It takes a bigger government in order to do what they did.