HOPE Against Hope
By DONALD DeMARCO
“Marriage is not an arbitrary convention and is not meant to change with the times.”
Not too many years ago, there would be little reason to frame such a sentence. It would obvious to virtually everyone and from time immemorial that marriage had a distinct and fundamentally unalterable nature. The fact that it was a union between a man and a woman was unquestioned.
If this sentence had been composed in earlier times, critics may have found that its only flaw lay in its redundancy. If something is not an arbitrary convention it surely would not change with the times.
Two things make this sentence pertinent to our present times. First, it needs to be said. People have forgotten what marriage is. Secondly, it was written by a man who identifies himself as “an openly gay male” (Ethics & Medics, December 2002, vol. 27, n. 12) and is staunchly opposed to same-sex marriage. Not all who oppose same-sex marriage are “homophobic.”
Keith Mills and Paddy Manning, both Irish citizens, expressed their strong opposition to same-sex marriage prior to the referendum in Ireland.
The former is homosexual, agnostic, and a dedicated blogger on Eurovision. One need not be a Catholic or a theist to support traditional marriage.
The latter is homosexual, Catholic, a celebrity blogger and political pundit.
The former argues that children deserve a mother and a father. He contends that too many defenders of real marriage have been bullied into silence.
The latter concurs, stating: “Marriage is, at heart, about children and providing those children with their biological parents.”
“Recognizing difference,” he adds, “is not discrimination.”
A predominant argument in favor of same-sex unions is the notion that childless heterosexual marriages are equivalent to same-sex marriages since both are without offspring. But this is like saying the following: Apple trees sometimes do not produce apples. Fig trees do not produce apples. Therefore, fig trees are apple trees.
One does not grasp the nature of something by looking at its defects, but by looking at its nature. It is in the nature of a heterosexual union that procreation is possible; this is not the case in a same-sex relationship.
The irony here is that we know far more than ever before about the pathological consequences of same-sex congress. Nonetheless, all this information is simply tossed out the window.
The case is similar to abortion. We know more about fetology and neonatology than did scientists of yesteryear, yet so many in society continue to deny the humanity of the unborn. With regard to euthanasia, pain-control medicine and palliative care are much more advanced. Yet, we have the current clamor for legalizing euthanasia.
Society appears to suppressing knowledge that could bring about progress, in favor of imposing a political agenda that can only facilitate regress. The new version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is not a comedy.
There is a multitude of reasons to support traditional marriage and to oppose same-sex unions. But, in these changing times, reason does not seem to count for very much. What counts, on the other hand, are “pride parades,’ pressure politics, media support, fake studies, and intimidation.
And this is why John McKellar, the author of our opening sentence, founded HOPE, the acronym for “Homosexuals Opposed to Pride Extremism,” in 1997. He established this organization, in his words, to “expose the lies, myths, distortions, and propaganda of modern gay activism.”
He does not allow the miasma of political correctness to blur his vision of real marriage, for he sees it as “an institution whose four prohibitions — you can only marry one person at a time, only someone of the opposite sex, never someone beneath a certain age, and not a close blood relative — have been grounded in morality and in law for millennia.”
McKellar, like so many others, employs the now disparaged argument that “children need a biological mother and father.” He realizes that some same-sex partners will have children through adoption, if not by means of various forms of reproductive technology. For him, this is tantamount to child abuse.
Also, the attempt on the part of homosexual men to live without women, he observes, given their descent “into a bacchanalia of narcissism and promiscuity” (making AIDS an epidemic), has “failed catastrophically.”
Heterosexual defenders of marriage are generally reluctant to speak out so forcefully.
Looking back on the Irish vote, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told the Irish Times that the referendum amounts to a social revolution and the Catholic Church needs to do a reality check.
“Most of those people who voted yes,” he went on to say, “are products of our Catholic schools for 12 years.”
Archbishop Martin spoke after the May 22 referendum which saw 62 percent vote in favor of legalization with 38 percent opposed. Sixty percent of 3.2 million eligible voters cast their ballots in the poll.
But it might be more accurate to say that the vote was not a “revolution,” but an upheaval, for it has repudiated both the Old and New Testaments, ignored the lessons of history, disregarded the lore of biology, psychology, and sociology, and rejected the natural law.
It may be regarded as an aftershock of significant seismic proportions that was prepared and preceded by the acceptance of contraception, divorce, abortion, pornography, same-sex civil marriages, and a secular lifestyle.
Dire consequences are inevitable.
Since we opened with McKellar, we will accord him the final words:
“Again and again, it has been shown that whenever humankind fails to protect time-honored political, moral, and social institutions, whenever humankind attempts to embrace pride as a virtue and mainstream behavior that contravenes natural law, civilization fails — always and without exception.”
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review.
(His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That is Going Mad; Poetry that Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
