The mainstream media today does not cover news – it creates news. The MSM does not report the news – it determines what’s news. It does not strive for objectivity and neutrality – it pushes agendas. The MSM does not educate – it indoctrinates.
That is because the MSM is now dominated by one group: the politically correct secular left. It is hostile to faith, hostile to family, and hostile to anything which does not fit in its leftist agenda. So Christianity especially takes a regular beating in the MSM, as do the institutions of marriage and family.
A tiny handful of homosexual activists are aided and abetted by the MSM. The push for same-sex marriage and homosexual adoption rights is featured continually by it. Consider yet one more example of this. On Friday the Melbourne Age featured a major opinion piece by a leading homosexual activist calling for the legalisation of same-sex marriage.
In fact, the web version of the paper on that day actually had two articles pushing for SSM. There you go again – two homosexual activists on one day pushing their radical agenda, with nothing to the contrary. So I thought I would do my bit for democracy and offer the Age an article giving the case for heterosexual marriage.
To be honest I knew my chances of getting it published were next to nil. But I dutifully did everything right. The activist’s article was 830 words – so was mine. His was topical, relevant and timely – so was mine. His was well written – so was mine.
His was published – mine was not. Why is that? For one simple reason: the Age has totally capitulated to the homosexual agenda, and refuses to allow any contrary points of view on the topic. So it effectively censors any alternative to its own PC viewpoint.
So in a very real sense we no longer have a free press, but a press which is into pushing radical agendas by indoctrination and the oppression of competing views. This is why the alternative media has arisen. Freedom of information is vital in a democracy, and if the MSM will not allow for the free flow of information, then other media outlets will have to do it.
So the readers of the Age will only see the pro-homosexual line on this issue. But for those not wanting a spoon-fed version of events, I offer this contrary voice. What follows is the article that the Age did not want you to read:
Saying Yes To Heterosexual Marriage
There are plenty of reasons why we should not confuse same-sex marriage with the real thing. Indeed, I offer seven such reasons in the recent debate book I co-authored with Rodney Croome, who appeared on these pages Friday. Let me here present several reasons.
Marriage is a universal and historical institution which serves tremendous social purposes. It regulates human sexuality, and it procures the well-being of any offspring from the sexual union. Thus it is not a mere private matter, but a vitally important social institution.
Governments have an overwhelming interest in heterosexual marriage. They have no reason to confer special rights and privileges on other types of sexual relationships. People are free to engage in those relationships, but they cannot expect to see their relationships elevated to that of heterosexual marriage.
Indeed, talk of inequality and discrimination is off base here. Those arguing for same-sex marriage are mixing apples with oranges. Everyone is entitled to the benefits of marriage as long as they meet the conditions and requirements of it.
Homosexual relationships simply do not meet the criteria – the most basic being to have one man and one woman. Governments have no obligation whatsoever to treat unequal things equally, or to grant the benefits of marriage to those who refuse to meet its minimum requirements.
Of course various social goods are denied to all sorts of people for various reasons. A driver who cannot meet the obligations of low insurance rates (too young, too many accidents, etc) will not be eligible to receive those benefits. That is how life operates. If anything, it is a necessary and just discrimination.
To survive, all societies engage in discrimination all the time. However, discrimination can be good as well as bad. Societies have always discriminated in favour of heterosexual unions and the children they produce because of the social good derived from them.
Procreation and the raising of children is an overwhelmingly important social good, and the mother-father unit cemented by marriage is an overwhelmingly superior way of ensuring the best outcomes for children. Therefore societies everywhere extend favours and benefits to married couples they do not extend to other types of relationships.
The restrictions on marriage apply equally to everyone, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Thus there is no discrimination. The homosexual lobby is seeking to fundamentally rewrite the rule books on marriage to get all the benefits while avoiding the obligations.
And if we redefine marriage out of existence in order to placate the homosexual activists, then why stop there? There are all sorts of other sexual relationships that people are demanding recognition of. Polyamory, or group love, is a growing movement demanding the rights to marriage as well.
The exact arguments used by those pushing for same-sex marriage are being used by the polyamorists. If we legalise the former, is it not discriminatory and unjust to outlaw the latter? They too claim that it is all about love, and that they should have the same rights as heterosexual couples.
The truth is, not many homosexuals even want marriage. Mr Croome himself not long ago argued against it. Perhaps next month he will change his mind again. Indeed, how many homosexuals actually avail themselves of it when it becomes legally available? Same-sex marriage has been legal in Holland since 2001, yet only about four per cent of Dutch homosexuals married during the first five years of legalisation.
Also, same-sex marriage demands are inexorably tied up with demands for homosexual parenting rights. But 40 years of social science research has overwhelmingly demonstrated the crucial importance two biological parents play in the well-being of children.
The studies make it clear that every child should have the basic human right of being raised by his or her own mother and father. And a recent Galaxy poll found that a full 86 per cent of Australians believe that children should be raised by their biological parents.
This of course is stolen away from them in same-sex households. But in this debate, the selfish desires of adults are at centre stage, while the well-being of children and the good of society are simply ignored.
Heterosexual marriage is society’s most profound and valuable institution. It has been the bedrock of nations from time immemorial. To radically alter the nature of marriage and family is a recipe for trouble.
As Simon Leys has noted, “The family has stood as the most enduring and successful experiment in the entire cultural history of mankind … In the history of the civilised world, no substitute has ever been found for the family. Any society that allows it to disintegrate, or endeavours actively to destroy it (as we are now doing here) does it at its own horrific risks and costs … That such a matter of common sense could become now a subject for challenge and debate is a telling sign of the times. Chesterton said it well: when common sense ceases to be common, a society is in terminal decay.”
Recently, I was doing an interview for a marriage conference called “Love Worth Fighting For” and was asked what I thought of “gay marriage”. I later thought more deeply about the subject. That phrase doesn’t even make sense and confuses terms. Marriage is defined by God. He defines it in His Word as a covenant union between one man and one woman, for life. There is no other kind. To say “straight marriage” would be redundancy. Anything else is not marriage, it’s… well, something else. I know a man who struggled with homosexual thoughts, became a Christian, and waged war against his sin. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, guided by the light of Scripture, he “put to death the deeds of the flesh” and was “transformed by the renewing of [his] mind,” and “washed by the water of the Word”. While some cry for the “right” to redefine holy institutions, those who have Christ living within them grow increasingly away from deformities, faults, and error, into loveliness, honor, and spiritual beauty. Notice this is a process. A walk, Paul says. Step by step, growing over time, into the perfect likeness of Jesus himself. God’s solution to homosexual desires is not to change the definition of marriage, but to change the desires of the man by making him more like Jesus.
– Kirk Cameron
Paul Wakeford
Hi Bill,
Are you able to provide a link to the Age article you are referring to?
Jane Petridge
Don’t quote me but I’m fairly sure that every U.S. state Rodney mentions has come about through the courts and not by vote of the people. Even California didn’t vote in favour of it right under prop 8?
Tim Slatec
Tim,
You’re quite correct about the US – when it’s actually put to the people (imagine that!), so far, it has always gone down, including California and Maine, hardly the bastions of conservatism. 31 out of 31 times now. It’s only when the courts defy the will of the people that it gets through. But FYI, Prop 8 has been challenged in the courts, because as usual the activists refuse to accept the vote yet again.
I don’t think some people get that it’s nothing like civil rights for things like interracial marriage – most blacks in California (who voted for Obama in big numbers), also overwhelmingly voted for Prop 8… Obviously they don’t see a parallel.
btw, if anyone ever tells you that God was/is against interracial marriage, dutifully point them to Numbers 12. Cushites were dark-skinned (compare Jeremiah 13:23), and God turning Miriam white as snow was His judgement on her little issue… Amazing what you can learn by actually studying the Bible and not just swallowing PC lines about it…
Mark Rabich
The best article never printed in The Age!
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
“The exact arguments used by those pushing for same-sex marriage are being used by the polyamorists” – quite right, but I wonder how many of the general public realise this? And the same arguments are being used by the “zoos” (people claimimng the right to sex with animals), and “paedos” (with consenting childrem). You most likely know these facts, Bill, but again, how many other people do? interestingly, I have read that some gay activists are appalled at polys using their arguments/strategy – hypocites!
John Thomas, UK
The media is willing to denigrate marriage, like the article in Newsweek recently stating the case against marriage;
Yet they print pieces like the one in The Age that gets all hysterical that gays can’t marry. If the institution is no big deal then why should gays care?
Also, Miranda Devine is superb on the most serious of the fruit of our culture of divorce and single parenthood – child abuse;
They didn’t actually claim to be arguing for the “legalisation” of SSM did they?
I wasn’t aware it was “illegal” to “marry” someone of the same sex in this country. Who is actually being put in jail exactly?
I wish they could at least be honest and talk about wanting state regulation of their relationships in the same way heterosexuals are regulated. At least that would be honest.
I know, I know, I am dreaming if I think there can ever be an honest discussion of this sort of topic.
Jason Rennie
You refer to a tiny handful of homosexual activists. The question immediately arises as to why these people have over several decades consistently advanced their agenda in societies that have majority Christian populations, given that the gay agenda is anti-Christian. The question has been asked before. In the seventies Christian Denmark suddenly allowed live porn shows and sado-masochism fairs, as described with distaste by David Holbrook in his “The Pseudo-Revolution: A Critical Study Of Extremist ‘Liberation’ In Sex”. How is it possible for a society to switch in a few years from public norms given by a deeply spiritual religion to specious norms given by perverts and sexual sociopaths?
On the matter of attacks on the family, a basic unit in all societies, this is nothing new. It goes back to the French Revolution at least. The attack seems to be a persistent vice of the Left, nominally idealistic but often vicious. Unsuccessful practitioners of the vice have ranged from Himmler to Lenin to Jewish designers of the socialist kibbutz. Christians as defenders of the family have had ample historical warning. It has always intrigued me that the vast majority of American Christians, well-monied, did not unite and politically annihilate the gay attack on the conventional, biologically sound idea of marriage and family.
John Snowden
Thanks John
Yes you are quite right. Sadly the silent majority has been just that: silent. And apathetic, indifferent, asleep, and comatose. And it has bought into the poisonous concept that we all must be tolerant and accepting of everything and everyone. So in many ways we have been our own worst enemy here. We have handed the other side one victory after another, simply by default.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Good stuff, Bill and helpful comments to date also. Here in the USA the recent Supreme Court date has not a few evangelicals who should be more vocal in the face of crazy judiciary people making laws rather than elected legislatures, taking the ‘we prayed about it’ and ‘we waited to see’ and now it is in remand back to you guessed it, California courts! to ‘prove’ the Christian Legal Society was NOT singled out for special application of the law which it WAS. And now we are SILENT Again, Waiting to see.
Hopefully we are doing ministry as we always have or with more boldness and love. But my guess is this PC abuse of power is translating into quiet and waiting that isn’t being still and knowing He is God or praying fervently, but just keeping our heads down so we aren’t associated with those hit by the unfair lightening of tyranny. The intimidation factor of these kinds of court decisions and news source censorship and perception creating, is ..well.. frankly.. evil.
Thanks for exposing it every way you can and doing so without returning ‘fairness’ and ‘tolerance’ in kind. It would be tempting to do so but as usual you are in the Spirit’s fruit with grace and truth.
Joe Whitchurch, Indiana, USA
My letter submitted to all main newspapers, Will it get printed?
“No, we don’t redefine the family. Strong marriages build strong families, strong families build a strong community, strong communities build strong states and strong states build a strong nation.
Just what would happen when people support and endorse the basic universal foundation of society? One man with one wife for life. Our nation will go from strength to strength.”
Bill, thanks for standing strong God’s only right one way.
Keep the fires burning.
Judith Bond
I don’t suppose we have too far to go now, to reach the utter depth of depravity. I trust God for the final outcome but feel very sad for all the youth facing such challenges. Everywhere innocence is under attack, simple joys are not enough for people anymore, family picnics, walks in the bush! There seems to be a crazed pursuit of pleasure, endless noise and demands for more, more, more. Your article was temperate, balanced and accurate Bill —– so you may as well not have posted it to The Age!
Anna Cook
Surprise surprise Bill, who would have ever guessed that this would happen? The government sponsored same-sex organsiation ‘Way Out’ just happened to choose a Christian owned camp for a bit of R&C. This group I believe reaches out to school children who believe they may be homosexual. The camp manager of course politely suggested they look for a secular run camp and now the camp owners who are Bretheren are facing the music at VCAT. http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/07/07/2946912.htm
Keith Lewis
Great, hardhitting blog, Bill. It’s funny but just today, I had to subject myself to an old Sydney Morning Herald as I had obtained a pile of two week old papers (just about the time they were about to usher in Comrade Gillard). As I ripped it into pieces for my papier mache project, I thought I was going to be ill. There was a big spread eulogizing homosexual high court judge, Michael Kirby (enstated incidentally by Paul Keating, another Labor gem). In the article, he ‘bravely’ comes out and talks about the ‘love of his life’. This is the man responsible for several evil court decisions and who calls himself a Christian (Anglican). As I flicked over the pages, every page contained an assault on Christian morality. There was another full page article on Lindsay Lohen’s decision to play a porn star (Linda Lovelace) in her new movie, of course loudly applauded. I personally attended a church in the U.S. where Lohen’s father, a Christian, implored the congregation not to judge but to pray for his daughter.
I don’t know how you can wade through their filth, Bill, let alone take them on. You truly are a warrior for righteousness. We should all be praying for you regularly.
Dee Graf
Many thanks indeed Dee.
Yes I certainly covet those prayers.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Praying for Bill and his awesome work!
Jane Byrne
For people to equate refusing homosexuals marriage as being the same as refusing to let them sit on buses or be served in restaurant is nonsense. For a start it presupposes that the individual’s right to sit on a bus or be served a cup of tea is absolute. But If any one can show just cause why anyone should not lawfully be allowed to sit on a bus or be served a cup of tea, in accordance with the law, they are to speak up speak. Well there be a host of legitimate reasons; for instance if the person’s life or that of others were in danger. No one has an absolute right to stand up, sit down, turn around, clap, shout or do anything especially if it is going to harm others.
This is why bans are read prior to and during wedding services in churches: “Into this holy union W.W. and M.M. now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else for ever hold your peace.” Then the Celebrant says to the persons to be married: “I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God’s Word, you do now confess it.”
Though a vicar might still just about be allowed to say this to a man and woman, he will not to a gay couple, whose physical unions have no limits put upon them. The rights of homosexuals to place their members up one another’s waste passages and call it marriage has become absolute.
David Skinner, UK
Interesting that as I scanned the comments on the said article there seemed to be as many wanting to keep marriage as marriage as those wanting gay marriage tho some views were a bit hard to follow. Did the Age close it to further comments in case they got someone lucid pro Christian marriage?
– Kirk Cameron
Paul Wakeford
Hi Bill,
Are you able to provide a link to the Age article you are referring to?
Jane Petridge
Thanks Jane
Yes here it is: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/australia-lags-shamefully-on-gay-marriage-20100701-zqia.html
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Don’t quote me but I’m fairly sure that every U.S. state Rodney mentions has come about through the courts and not by vote of the people. Even California didn’t vote in favour of it right under prop 8?
Tim Slatec
Tim,
You’re quite correct about the US – when it’s actually put to the people (imagine that!), so far, it has always gone down, including California and Maine, hardly the bastions of conservatism. 31 out of 31 times now. It’s only when the courts defy the will of the people that it gets through. But FYI, Prop 8 has been challenged in the courts, because as usual the activists refuse to accept the vote yet again.
I don’t think some people get that it’s nothing like civil rights for things like interracial marriage – most blacks in California (who voted for Obama in big numbers), also overwhelmingly voted for Prop 8… Obviously they don’t see a parallel.
btw, if anyone ever tells you that God was/is against interracial marriage, dutifully point them to Numbers 12. Cushites were dark-skinned (compare Jeremiah 13:23), and God turning Miriam white as snow was His judgement on her little issue… Amazing what you can learn by actually studying the Bible and not just swallowing PC lines about it…
Mark Rabich
The best article never printed in The Age!
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
“The exact arguments used by those pushing for same-sex marriage are being used by the polyamorists” – quite right, but I wonder how many of the general public realise this? And the same arguments are being used by the “zoos” (people claimimng the right to sex with animals), and “paedos” (with consenting childrem). You most likely know these facts, Bill, but again, how many other people do? interestingly, I have read that some gay activists are appalled at polys using their arguments/strategy – hypocites!
John Thomas, UK
The media is willing to denigrate marriage, like the article in Newsweek recently stating the case against marriage;
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/11/i-don-t.html
Yet they print pieces like the one in The Age that gets all hysterical that gays can’t marry. If the institution is no big deal then why should gays care?
Also, Miranda Devine is superb on the most serious of the fruit of our culture of divorce and single parenthood – child abuse;
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/evil-were-too-afraid-to-confront-20100702-zu0m.html
Damien Spillane
They didn’t actually claim to be arguing for the “legalisation” of SSM did they?
I wasn’t aware it was “illegal” to “marry” someone of the same sex in this country. Who is actually being put in jail exactly?
I wish they could at least be honest and talk about wanting state regulation of their relationships in the same way heterosexuals are regulated. At least that would be honest.
I know, I know, I am dreaming if I think there can ever be an honest discussion of this sort of topic.
Jason Rennie
You refer to a tiny handful of homosexual activists. The question immediately arises as to why these people have over several decades consistently advanced their agenda in societies that have majority Christian populations, given that the gay agenda is anti-Christian. The question has been asked before. In the seventies Christian Denmark suddenly allowed live porn shows and sado-masochism fairs, as described with distaste by David Holbrook in his “The Pseudo-Revolution: A Critical Study Of Extremist ‘Liberation’ In Sex”. How is it possible for a society to switch in a few years from public norms given by a deeply spiritual religion to specious norms given by perverts and sexual sociopaths?
On the matter of attacks on the family, a basic unit in all societies, this is nothing new. It goes back to the French Revolution at least. The attack seems to be a persistent vice of the Left, nominally idealistic but often vicious. Unsuccessful practitioners of the vice have ranged from Himmler to Lenin to Jewish designers of the socialist kibbutz. Christians as defenders of the family have had ample historical warning. It has always intrigued me that the vast majority of American Christians, well-monied, did not unite and politically annihilate the gay attack on the conventional, biologically sound idea of marriage and family.
John Snowden
Thanks John
Yes you are quite right. Sadly the silent majority has been just that: silent. And apathetic, indifferent, asleep, and comatose. And it has bought into the poisonous concept that we all must be tolerant and accepting of everything and everyone. So in many ways we have been our own worst enemy here. We have handed the other side one victory after another, simply by default.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Good stuff, Bill and helpful comments to date also. Here in the USA the recent Supreme Court date has not a few evangelicals who should be more vocal in the face of crazy judiciary people making laws rather than elected legislatures, taking the ‘we prayed about it’ and ‘we waited to see’ and now it is in remand back to you guessed it, California courts! to ‘prove’ the Christian Legal Society was NOT singled out for special application of the law which it WAS. And now we are SILENT Again, Waiting to see.
Hopefully we are doing ministry as we always have or with more boldness and love. But my guess is this PC abuse of power is translating into quiet and waiting that isn’t being still and knowing He is God or praying fervently, but just keeping our heads down so we aren’t associated with those hit by the unfair lightening of tyranny. The intimidation factor of these kinds of court decisions and news source censorship and perception creating, is ..well.. frankly.. evil.
Thanks for exposing it every way you can and doing so without returning ‘fairness’ and ‘tolerance’ in kind. It would be tempting to do so but as usual you are in the Spirit’s fruit with grace and truth.
Joe Whitchurch, Indiana, USA
My letter submitted to all main newspapers, Will it get printed?
“No, we don’t redefine the family. Strong marriages build strong families, strong families build a strong community, strong communities build strong states and strong states build a strong nation.
Just what would happen when people support and endorse the basic universal foundation of society? One man with one wife for life. Our nation will go from strength to strength.”
Bill, thanks for standing strong God’s only right one way.
Keep the fires burning.
Judith Bond
I don’t suppose we have too far to go now, to reach the utter depth of depravity. I trust God for the final outcome but feel very sad for all the youth facing such challenges. Everywhere innocence is under attack, simple joys are not enough for people anymore, family picnics, walks in the bush! There seems to be a crazed pursuit of pleasure, endless noise and demands for more, more, more. Your article was temperate, balanced and accurate Bill —– so you may as well not have posted it to The Age!
Anna Cook
Surprise surprise Bill, who would have ever guessed that this would happen? The government sponsored same-sex organsiation ‘Way Out’ just happened to choose a Christian owned camp for a bit of R&C. This group I believe reaches out to school children who believe they may be homosexual. The camp manager of course politely suggested they look for a secular run camp and now the camp owners who are Bretheren are facing the music at VCAT.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/07/07/2946912.htm
Keith Lewis
Great, hardhitting blog, Bill. It’s funny but just today, I had to subject myself to an old Sydney Morning Herald as I had obtained a pile of two week old papers (just about the time they were about to usher in Comrade Gillard). As I ripped it into pieces for my papier mache project, I thought I was going to be ill. There was a big spread eulogizing homosexual high court judge, Michael Kirby (enstated incidentally by Paul Keating, another Labor gem). In the article, he ‘bravely’ comes out and talks about the ‘love of his life’. This is the man responsible for several evil court decisions and who calls himself a Christian (Anglican). As I flicked over the pages, every page contained an assault on Christian morality. There was another full page article on Lindsay Lohen’s decision to play a porn star (Linda Lovelace) in her new movie, of course loudly applauded. I personally attended a church in the U.S. where Lohen’s father, a Christian, implored the congregation not to judge but to pray for his daughter.
I don’t know how you can wade through their filth, Bill, let alone take them on. You truly are a warrior for righteousness. We should all be praying for you regularly.
Dee Graf
Many thanks indeed Dee.
Yes I certainly covet those prayers.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Praying for Bill and his awesome work!
Jane Byrne
For people to equate refusing homosexuals marriage as being the same as refusing to let them sit on buses or be served in restaurant is nonsense. For a start it presupposes that the individual’s right to sit on a bus or be served a cup of tea is absolute. But If any one can show just cause why anyone should not lawfully be allowed to sit on a bus or be served a cup of tea, in accordance with the law, they are to speak up speak. Well there be a host of legitimate reasons; for instance if the person’s life or that of others were in danger. No one has an absolute right to stand up, sit down, turn around, clap, shout or do anything especially if it is going to harm others.
This is why bans are read prior to and during wedding services in churches: “Into this holy union W.W. and M.M. now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else for ever hold your peace.” Then the Celebrant says to the persons to be married: “I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God’s Word, you do now confess it.”
Though a vicar might still just about be allowed to say this to a man and woman, he will not to a gay couple, whose physical unions have no limits put upon them. The rights of homosexuals to place their members up one another’s waste passages and call it marriage has become absolute.
David Skinner, UK
Interesting that as I scanned the comments on the said article there seemed to be as many wanting to keep marriage as marriage as those wanting gay marriage tho some views were a bit hard to follow. Did the Age close it to further comments in case they got someone lucid pro Christian marriage?
Katherine Fishley