Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Orson Scott Card on gay marriage
Here are links to three recent thought-provoking columns by author Orson Scott Card:
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3234
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3237
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3239
Some interesting quotes, for those too lazy to click on the links:
"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. ... To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of our morality, much of which is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." (Barack Obama, quoted by OSC in first article)
" "Gay marriage" is not bad because God forbids it. God forbids it because it is harmful for us, as a society and as individuals. [Consequently] we should be able to frame our arguments in completely secular terms, not as a mere tactic, but because secular evidence and logic are just as firmly in favor of providing a special protected status for permanent heterosexual pairings as our religion is." (OSC in first article)
"Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them? And if you choose to home-school your children so they are not propagandized with the "normality" of "gay marriage," you will find more states trying to do as California is doing -- making it illegal to take your children out of the propaganda mill that our schools are rapidly becoming." (OSC, in second article)
"Here's the irony: There is no branch of government with the authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue. The laws concerning marriage did not create marriage, they merely attempted to solve problems in such areas as inheritance, property, paternity, divorce, adoption and so on." (OSC, in second article)
"No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the *same* as the coupling between a man and a woman." (OSC, in second article)
"Marriage, to be worth preserving, needs to mean not just something, but everything. Faithful sexual monogamy, persistence until death, male protection and providence for wife and children, female loyalty to children and husband, and parental discretion in child-rearing. If government is going to meddle in this, it had better be to support marriage in general while providing protection for those caught in truly destructive marriages...Society gains no benefit whatsoever (except for a momentary warm feeling about how "fair" and "compassionate" we are) from renaming homosexual liaisons and friendships as marriage." (OSC, second article)
"1. Science does *not* say that gays have no choice whatsoever. 2. Science does not say that homosexuality harms no one, and that homosexual liaisons are as valuable to society as marriage. 3. It is not unfair to give unique preference to monogamous heterosexual relationships, if that preference and those marriages benefit all of society." (OSC, third article)
"In my opinion, all homosexuals should be enraged at the notion that of all human beings, only homosexuals cannot control their sexual behavior by conscious choices...Yet this is precisely what the normalizers claim: "They can't help it." We can all agree that no one can help desiring what they desire. Desires come unasked for and often from sources we do not understand. But *every* other human impulse, natural or dysfunctional, can be recognized and controlled, at least to a degree. We expect alcoholics to be able to refrain from driving when drunk...We expect aggressive males to curb their need to fight with perceived rivals...We expect heterosexual males--males who are expressing the very drive that leads to reproduction of the genes, and which in other primate species is often expressed as rape--to be able to recognize that "no means no"...In other words, our society right now says that everybody *but* homosexuals must curb whatever innate desires are perceived, by our society, as harmful or undesirable, regardless of how natural or evolutionarily productive they might be, or how strongly they are felt." (OSC, third article)
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3234
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3237
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3239
Some interesting quotes, for those too lazy to click on the links:
"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. ... To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of our morality, much of which is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." (Barack Obama, quoted by OSC in first article)
" "Gay marriage" is not bad because God forbids it. God forbids it because it is harmful for us, as a society and as individuals. [Consequently] we should be able to frame our arguments in completely secular terms, not as a mere tactic, but because secular evidence and logic are just as firmly in favor of providing a special protected status for permanent heterosexual pairings as our religion is." (OSC in first article)
"Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them? And if you choose to home-school your children so they are not propagandized with the "normality" of "gay marriage," you will find more states trying to do as California is doing -- making it illegal to take your children out of the propaganda mill that our schools are rapidly becoming." (OSC, in second article)
"Here's the irony: There is no branch of government with the authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue. The laws concerning marriage did not create marriage, they merely attempted to solve problems in such areas as inheritance, property, paternity, divorce, adoption and so on." (OSC, in second article)
"No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the *same* as the coupling between a man and a woman." (OSC, in second article)
"Marriage, to be worth preserving, needs to mean not just something, but everything. Faithful sexual monogamy, persistence until death, male protection and providence for wife and children, female loyalty to children and husband, and parental discretion in child-rearing. If government is going to meddle in this, it had better be to support marriage in general while providing protection for those caught in truly destructive marriages...Society gains no benefit whatsoever (except for a momentary warm feeling about how "fair" and "compassionate" we are) from renaming homosexual liaisons and friendships as marriage." (OSC, second article)
"1. Science does *not* say that gays have no choice whatsoever. 2. Science does not say that homosexuality harms no one, and that homosexual liaisons are as valuable to society as marriage. 3. It is not unfair to give unique preference to monogamous heterosexual relationships, if that preference and those marriages benefit all of society." (OSC, third article)
"In my opinion, all homosexuals should be enraged at the notion that of all human beings, only homosexuals cannot control their sexual behavior by conscious choices...Yet this is precisely what the normalizers claim: "They can't help it." We can all agree that no one can help desiring what they desire. Desires come unasked for and often from sources we do not understand. But *every* other human impulse, natural or dysfunctional, can be recognized and controlled, at least to a degree. We expect alcoholics to be able to refrain from driving when drunk...We expect aggressive males to curb their need to fight with perceived rivals...We expect heterosexual males--males who are expressing the very drive that leads to reproduction of the genes, and which in other primate species is often expressed as rape--to be able to recognize that "no means no"...In other words, our society right now says that everybody *but* homosexuals must curb whatever innate desires are perceived, by our society, as harmful or undesirable, regardless of how natural or evolutionarily productive they might be, or how strongly they are felt." (OSC, third article)
# posted by John Colton @ 11:11 AM 
