Thursday, 6 June 2013

The New Birds and the Bees

For all of their intelligence, sophistication, and cosmopolitan ways, Westerners are increasingly uncomfortable with where babies come from.

I realize it’s a humorous and ironic claim to suggest that moderns—who dwell in an over-sexed, over-sensualized world—might actually be uncomfortable with the subject matter of sex. But I’m serious. They’re growing increasingly uncomfortable with where babies come from.

Confused?

While over 98 percent of babies are still generated by vaginal sexual intercourse—the clinical term I use so that everyone understands what I’m saying—it’s become increasingly commonplace to disassociate sex from babies in the mind.

Birth control is widely practiced, and almost an assumption. Surrogacy is surging. Artificial reproductive technology (ART) is too, and not just due to rising reliance on in vitro fertilization. Additionally, alternative forms of heterosexual sex—in which ejaculation occurs outside the vagina—are increasingly common in accounts of sexual relationship behavior (and in porn are normative). In step, reported use of “withdrawal” as a contraceptive method has actually increased over time—from 41 percent in 1995 to 59 percent in 2008. Homosexual sex doesn’t involve ejaculation at all—in the case of women—or, with men, is not poised to fertilize anything.

Thus “sex” is an inclusive word. In that sense it’s a bit like “hooking up,” a catch-all term that leaves to the imagination the details of what did or did not happen between a couple. Unless, however, such sex is “unprotected.” We know what that means.

In other words, what we mean when we think of sex has shifted—and expanded—rather dramatically. Some celebrate this, concurring with Huxley’sBrave New World character that “fertility is merely a nuisance.” Some lament it. Others struggle to have it both ways, echoing the words my wife and I heard one physician’s assistant utter: “Isn’t it strange how we spend our twenties trying our best to avoid pregnancy, only to spend our thirties doing the opposite?”

Yes, we are increasingly uncomfortable with where babies come from, no doubt about it. Our lingo betrays us. And it doesn’t take a social conservative to perceive it.

Read more at Public Discourse.

NOM's Chairman's Explosive IRS Testimony Before Congress

Yesterday Eastman was invited by Congress to testify about the illegal disclosure of NOM's confidential tax documents, along with five other heads of conservative organizations that were targeted by the IRS. What made Eastman's testimony different — and explosive — was the fact that NOM's case is far more egregious, because our private donors were exposed to intimidation and harassment when President Obama's political allies were given our confidential information.

See how Eastman responded to the "scurrilous" attacks made against NOM, conservatives and marriage supporters by some of the members on the committee — completely shutting them down and leaving them speechless:

Here's the line of Eastman's that everyone is quoting, when he responds to an attack by Rep. Earl Blumenaur claiming marriage supporters shouldn't be allowed to participate in the public square:

"Representative Blumenauer, it's your kind of statements that have empowered IRS agents to make determinations about which organizations qualify for the public good and which do not. The notion that defending traditional marriage doesn't qualify as a defense of the public good is beyond preposterous."

Wow!

Mutable or Immutable?

Science has been enlisted to depathologize homosexuality in so far as it can lend credence to the assertion that homosexuality is an immutable condition. The immutability issue is as irrelevant to the moral nature of homosexual behavior as it is to alcoholic behavior. Alcoholics, by definition, are alcoholics for life. If they wish to remain sober, they may never drink again.

Are homosexuals like this, also? Will they forever suffer from (or celebrate) their inclination? There is mixed evidence regarding this. Of those wanting to change, some have been able to; some have not. However, except in the very real terms of personal hardship, it does not really matter. After all, everyone is disposed in some morally disordered way or another. The immutability of the condition or of the inclination is irrelevant to the moral character of the acts to which they are disposed.

Of course, some homosexual apologists find the genetic excuse exculpatory. Therefore, they need it for the rationalization of their behavior: if I am this way bynature, how can I help what I do? However, the alcoholic could use the same justification for his drunkenness. In neither case does the inclination neuter free will or responsibility for actions.

However, this issue is extremely important here in the US because homosexual activists wish to establish the immutability of their condition in order to constitute themselves as a “class”. Legally, a “class” can be determined only by accident of birth, by such traits as race or sex. This explains the enormous interest in establishing sexual orientation as genetic or biological. Homosexuals want to be designated a “class” so they can game the legal system for the spoils of discrimination. Therefore, this issue has huge legal and financial consequences.

We can see the burgeoning significance of this matter in Attorney General Eric Holder’s 2011 letter to Congress, explaining why the Obama administration would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, in court. A group can be defined as a “class”, explained Mr. Holder, if individuals “exhibit obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics that define them as a discrete group”. Therefore, everything hinges upon whether homosexuality is an unchangeable characteristic. Mr Holder announces that, “a growing scientific consensus accepts that sexual orientation is a characteristic that is immutable”. So great is this consensus that, according to him, claims to the contrary “we do not believe can be reconciled with more recent social scientific understandings”.

This bestows upon homosexuals the privilege of being a class, just as are blacks, Hispanics, or women. As a class, they can be discriminated against. Has there been such discrimination?

Mr Holder answers that, “there is, regrettably, a significant history of purposeful discrimination against gay and lesbian people, by governmental as well as private entities, based on prejudice and stereotypes that continue to have ramifications today”. One of those ongoing ramifications is the restriction of marriage to one man and one woman by the Defense of Marriage Act. Thus, he concludes, this law is discriminatory against homosexuals as a class and, therefore, unconstitutional and indefensible.

Read more at Mercator.Net.

The Boy Scouts' Doomed Compromise

Whatever else one thinks about the new policy, this much is certain: It can’t last. No doubt many of the delegates thought they would be buying peace and quiet by enacting this compromise, but they are bound to be disappointed.

The compromise policy’s short life is predictable, in the first place, in light of the kind of people it is meant to placate, people that the Scout delegates have seriously misjudged. Socially liberal political activists don’t believe in compromise. They believe in winning.

If they believed in compromise, there would be no constitutional “right” to abortion, but a variety of more or less permissive abortion regimes across the states. If they believed in compromise, there would be no legal crusade for same-sex marriage, but a willingness to accept same-sex civil unions.

Indeed, proponents of gay-friendly scouting, the very activists whose demands the present compromise is meant to satisfy, have already proclaimed that the fight will go on: The next goal is to open the Scouts to openly homosexual Scout leaders.

The new policy’s eventual doom, however, is ordained not only by the incorrigible aggressiveness of American social liberals, who cannot bear to see any traditional institution untransformed according to their own vision of the good, but also by its own incoherence.

Read more at Public Discourse.

Lessons from France on the Myths of Same-Sex Marriage

The other myth that the French pitilessly debunked was the myth of the lovable gay lobby. Since I’ve spent almost my whole life immersed in the LGBT community, I’ve known good and bad people who identify as “gay.” But the attacks of LGBT activists against people who disagree with them are matched by their willingness to subvert other people’s interests to their own. The lobby’s mistake was to try to butter up the French with the usual platitudes about love and bullying.

The French are a tough crowd. I learned this when I took to the stage at theMarch 24 manif and fielded the boos from over a million marchers at the mention of “homophobia.” They weren’t booing me, thank goodness; they were booing the idea of people accusing someone of homophobia for asking obvious questions about the logistics of surrogacy contracts for gay men like Perez Hilton. The crowd cheered me on for most of my six-minute talk. But the moment was educational.

Whereas in the English-speaking world we observe some British conventions of privacy and politeness, it is never a good idea to tell French speakers that some questions are off- limits. They are a blunt people. It’s one thing to get booed by a few hundred people in a gymnasium. It’s completely another to stand below the Arch of Triumph and hear over a million French people boo at the same time. You feel the zeitgeist with much more force. It seems like the buildings, the sky, the trees, and even the birds overhead are groaning at you. This is not a scenario that will allow you to fudge facts.

Read more at Public Discourse.

Lesbians Ban Men from Streets in San Francisco

Imagine the fury there would be if anyone put up a sign saying “no lesbians allowed”. Liberals would be enraged and storming that it was bigotry and hate…but they are happy to let lesbians ban men from public places, in fact they SUBSIDIZE it.

The annual lesbians’ parade will be held in San Francisco on 29th June 2013 and as usual men are banned, Yes, that is correct, all men, boys, guys, gents of all ages, any male members of the species will be prohibited from exercising their human rights and citizens’ rights to walk down the public street their taxes pay to maintain. They will be warned off by the police they pay for.

Cuomo's Women's Equality Act Will Harm Women

Americans should be concerned about the future of women’s health in New York State. In an effort to push a radically pro-abortion bill through the state legislature before the end of its session on June 20, Governor Andrew Cuomo has finally released the terms of his “Women’s Equality Act.”

Though he kept the details of this ten-point plan unsettled for months, we now know that the WEA will permit abortions after twenty-four weeks—a time when a significant number of babies are able to survive outside the womb—simply to preserve the mother’s “health,” a term that is nebulous at best.

This move is both unnecessary for and harmful to women’s health. Why unnecessary? New York law already permits late-term abortions to save the life of the mother. Even in those cases, we’ll argue, abortion is never absolutely necessary to save the life of the mother, let alone her “health.” And why harmful? The WEA will invite more women to undergo needlessly a procedure fraught with immediate and long-term risks.