Now that lesbian Penny Wong has challenged her own leader and declared her support for same-sex marriage, I would like to ask her and all other such supporters why she does not really believe in full marriage equality. I would like to know why she still so blatantly supports unfair and unjust discrimination.
There are countless people around the world who would love to marry, but cannot, due to archaic and oppressive marriage laws which prevent them from publicly celebrating and highlighting their relationship. Why are all these people being so cruelly discriminated against?
Consider just one obvious example: Sam. He is an adult, he is in love, and is entitled to his rights, yet every day he sees that he is being discriminated against. He sees that his love is not being recognised. He is not allowed to marry, and he is therefore being treated as a second class citizen.
Sam so very much loves his Sarah – and his Steve. But bisexual Sam is being cruelly discriminated against and cannot express his deep love for his beloved Sarah and Steve. Why is there no marriage equality for poor Sam? Why must he be so blatantly discriminated against?
Surely it is nothing more than prejudice, ignorance, and narrow-mindedness that is keeping love-sick Sam from being allowed to marry. Why cannot we have genuine marriage equality here? Why is society so unjust to deny Sam his fundamental human rights?
After all, Sam is an adult, as are Sarah and Steve. Their love is fully consensual, and just as real as that of any heterosexual couple. And surely what they do in the privacy of their own bedroom should bother no one else. Governments really should butt out of such arrangements. All societies should obviously be less discriminatory here.
And surely Sam’s marriage to Sarah and Steve would hurt no one else. How would his deeply committed love relationship in any way harm marriage if this lovely threesome were allowed to wed? How can this love be denied and be rendered invisible by such heartless governments?
If straights can marry, and if the same-sex marriage proponents are right to make their case, then surely bisexuals can also argue for their basic human right to marriage. Indeed, any and all claims to adult love should also be fully recognised.
All group marriages should also be instantly recognised by law. After all, it is voluntary, consensual love by adults. How in the world can governments object to that? How can they interfere with such deep love relationships? Why the terrible discrimination?
Fortunately there are plenty of marriage equality lobby groups out there working tirelessly for the right of polyamory and all sorts of other love combinations. It is the height of bigotry and intolerance to not allow five deeply committed and fully in love people the right to marry. We must end all this unjust discrimination now. Full marriage equality must be immediately enacted. Governments must not deny people their fundamental right to marry.
Indeed, we must smash all outdated and oppressive laws which hinder genuine equality. Thus if a father deeply loves his daughter, and the feelings are mutual, how in the world can any bigoted government stand in the way of such real love?
If a woman is deeply in love with her cocker spaniel, and the dog is obviously deeply committed to his owner, then how can governments stand in the way and deny this loving couple their right to express their affections publicly? Why should they be discriminated against from showing their love in marriage?
Indeed, we all know it is only a handful of religious bigots who are keeping society from ushering in a new era of complete marriage equality. It is unconscionable that those conservatives and religious folk should keep all these wonderful loving combinations and permutations from full fruition.
Come on folks, this is the 21st century after all. We have all moved on from those dark old days of religious bigotry and intolerance. We are no longer in the Stone Age. We now know that love is all that matters. And as long as two or more people love each other, and it is consensual, then surely they have every right to marry.
Indeed, why even discriminate in terms of numbers? Why cannot a person fully in love with himself be allowed to marry? Why this clear prejudice against singles? Who in the world decides what number constitutes marriage? After all, we all know that marriage has nothing to do with one man and one woman and any offspring they may produce.
So we must end this blatant and unjust discrimination against autoeroticism. Those people who are deeply in love with themselves should have the same rights as anyone else. It is only intolerant and outdated prudes who would deny such a person his or her full human rights.
Love is the only consideration here. Numbers, gender and other artificial considerations are totally arbitrary and unjust. We should forever rid ourselves of these archaic notions that marriage must somehow be reserved for just two people, and those of the opposite sex. How bigoted and biased is that?
We all know that marriage is a social construct. It has no inherent meaning or boundaries. Any idiot knows that marriage is always evolving and changing over time. There is no fixed nature to marriage. Marriage is whatever we decide it should be.
Lovers of the world unite! Now is the time to end all unjust sexism, genderism, ageism and numberism. Those restrictive and oppressive concepts have no place whatsoever in a modern, enlightened and progressive society. The sooner they are stamped out altogether, the better.
And the sooner Sam and Sarah and Steve can live in happy matrimony, the better. If anyone dares to deny them their rights, they should be locked up as enemies of progress, freedom, equality and justice. Indeed, all those opposing Sam’s right to marry are surely public enemies who should not be allowed to voice their bigotry in public.
Why do we allow these intolerant fools the right to commit these hate crimes? The sooner they are locked up the sooner true equality and justice will be allowed free reign. Then real marriage equality can flourish, and true love will bloom everywhere. Utopia here we come. Death to all the heterosexual marriage bigots so that real love and tolerance can flourish.
75 Replies to “Time For Some Real Marriage Equality”
Good point Bill, why not?
Well, um, maybe we end up in chaos, with an unidentifiable definition of marriage altogether.
Anne Van Tilburg
Bill,
I have often had many of these thought myself. But as a wise person once said, “Be careful what you wish for!”
I know this post was “tongue-in-cheek”, but what you propose may just be over the horizon. How long will it be before someone says, “Hey, this Muehlenberg guy is right. What wrong with group marriage, or intra-familial marriage?”
Steve Rocke
Thanks Steve
It is already happening big time. Simply google the word ‘polyamory’ for example and see how many hits you get.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
What about those who love children? Victorian law already acknowledges that 10 year olds are mature enough to become sexually active, surely they are also mature enough to choose their sexual partner as well. What is wrong with an adult loving a child aside from societies narrow social constructs?
P.S. I’m not voting for you at the next election!
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
There are plenty of groups already out there calling for the complete legalisation of “intergenerational sex” as they call it. We refer to it as paedophilia. And I wouldn’t vote for myself either if I were promoting all this lunacy.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
It is frightening that so many people cannot see the results of applying their beliefs consistently.
Arguments for homosexuality hold up for all kinds of sexual deviancy. Arguments for abortion hold up for infanticide, which is probably already practised in Victoria.
Kylie Anderson
Absolutely Bill. After legalising ssm there remains no logical objection to demanding the state bless any and all desires. Which means there remains no objection to the state punishing those who form institutions that disagree with acting on those desires.
Equality rights are just the boring old left’s new way of trying to eliminate religion from public life – a perennial obsession to these people. Only Christianity remains to prevent statists from completely determining the values of a country and their intrusion into once private realms. This desire is especially intense for for modern day leftists.
Clearly the state has an interest in preventing unjust discrimination on the basis of unchosen traits like sex, age, race, physical disability, and sexual orientation. But taking a felt desire, deliberating upon it, incorporating into a world view and acting on it is a decision! How does a Christian speak in public about a decision that is given the same status as race in law without being completely marginalised as a bigot??
What these equality rights people are really asking for is that their world view be established as a quasi state religion and that it receive concomitant legal protection. All at the expense of Christian churches whose public standing would logically reduce to that of bigoted organisations like the Klu Klux Klan. In effect they are seeking control of the state such that may rule: “You may keep your private bigoted moral beliefs but you many not express them in public and expect to remain free of legal sanction. You are free to organise but you do not have the freedom to request equal respect before the law in terms of education, non-profit tax exemption or institutional influence in public life generally. We will order the general revenue and government institutions so as to ensure your children are made to feel ashamed of their parent’s bigoted beliefs and will work as a nation to undermine your very identity as Biblical Christians”
Martin Snigg
Yes quite right Martin
This is no little battle, but in fact a war of worldviews as you suggest. These are two competing views of humanity, sexuality, morality and society. Make no mistake about it, if the militants prevail, then those who resist such moves will become active targets of government persecution and censure.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Keep pounding the message, Bill. Do you have any indication as to how many non-believers read your blog? That is to say, is this message getting wide circulation in the general community?
Steve Swartz
Thanks Steve
My articles tend to not just stay here but circulate all over the place, including cyberspace. And various indicators tell me that many non-believers indeed do view this site, including the many comments (whether nasty or polite) that roll in here from these non-believers. Whether they are happy or agree with my position is another matter altogether. But as I keep saying, we all must do our bit to get truth out into the public arena.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill why didn’t you go for the Royal Flush: marriage between a great grand person of no gender and all the great grand children of varying genders, a herd of cattle, an assortment of dead relatives and thrown in for good measure some second hand washing machines and Welsh cross dressers. In theory it must be possible for all participants, as long as they are deriving pleasure from this marriage, and they are consenting, to go at it simultaneously.
However Martin, the human rights are evolving all the time and one must assume that the next absolute right will be the right not to be forced to identify according to any of the descriptors that you listed based upon gender, age, sexuality, transexuality, disability, race, belief – or even sanity. To have to disclose how one identifies oneself is no one else’s business and will be seen as a violation of absolute individual rights.
Quite right Bill. It’s funny how hypocrites often stand from their narrow view point and declare everyone else to be narrow minded.
The real truth is, we are constantly trying to understand them and trying to find some way to help them through their pain. Like you have previously stated it is not about marriage it is about having their lifestyle ratified.
My concern Bill, is the next step, and the apathy of the general church community.
If SSM is legalised, our ministers and pastor will begin to spend their valuable time in court fighting discrimination charges. Because even if the Bible excludes it, the law will demand marriage celebrants to marry anyone who makes a formal request. And you can bet same sex couples will be knocking on the doors of the churches asap. Because government recognition of lifestyle is one thing, but gods recognition is the ultimate.
Sorry I’m blogging here, Bill. But I feel the church need to be very firm on this Now or it will be to late.
And after giving out flyers on the weekend I have become even more concerned. Not because the greens and sex parties are gaining strength, because they are not! But because the lies are being pushed and prettied up to look like truth. I suppose the father of lies has not really changed his game plan much.
Continue to speak the truth in love and authority Bill, you’re doing good things. Will be praying.
Peter Baldry
There is no reason why government should interfere in people’s personal relationships. Relationships happen already, the world is no worse off for it.
We simply need consent between adults to be in a relationship. You get that? Between adults, so we are only talking about adult relationships, and why shouldn’t people be allowed and protected in those relationships through formal recognition.
I am yet to read or hear a single convincing argument that allow protection to all citizens in a free an open registration system (call it marriage) will in any way diminish the meaning of existing relationships (i.e. those already married)
Gregory Storer
Thanks Gregory
It is great to have our Secular Party of Australia campaigner come along and spills the beans. Thanks for that. While many will want to deny that any of what I propose here can or should ever happen, you come along and very nicely make my case for me. Yep, anything goes, according to those progressive secularists.
And to be honest, I have a feeling that someone so entrenched in their secular ideology would not recognise a cogent argument for the uniqueness and importance of heterosexual marriage if it bit them on the nose. So I won’t attempt to do that here. Suffice it to say, I have many dozens of articles on this site where I do seek to make this case, and those who are still open-minded, and not beholden to rigid secularist ideology and atheist fundamentalism, may well find some compelling arguments here.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Illustration: Maxine Morand, ALP for Mt Waverley District, Minister for Early Childhood Development State of Victoria, spoke out in favour of “gay marriage” for Victorians; was preferenced by the Greens Party in the election; lost her seat to Michael Gidley of the Liberal Party by a significant margin – in fact he won an absolute majority (52.03% of first preferences: http://www.tallyroom.vic.gov.au/state2010tallyroomelectorateMountWaverleyDistrict.html )
Keep going Senator Wong, and we will be happy to see the departure of you and the Greens Party before too long.
John Angelico
Thanks guys
Interestingly, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association has just called Canada’s marriage laws “discriminatory” because they prohibit polygamy. Where have we heard these sorts of arguments before?
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
There is an excellent web blog devoted to exposing your bigotry and lies. I have just seen that a comment I posted on it has been approved.
If you wish to compare gay marriage to bestiality then I will compare religionists to the clinically insane. F**k your religious views.
Maurice Colbourne
Thanks Maurice
Ah, once again the sweet reason and gracious tolerance from the other side. Always such a joy to behold in polite society.
Of course anyone who can read or think straight will know that I have not at all compared same-sex marriage with bestiality. What I did do was argue that if we embrace SSM, then the very same arguments can be extended to all sorts of other “loving’ relationships. And that is already exactly what is happening. I just read recently of a man in Germany “marrying” his pet cat, for example. So stop shooting the messenger already.
And you are a real barrel of contradictions. You regularly come to this site spraying your ugly poison and unprintable hatred. Then when I don’t print your hate-filled comments, you accuse me of censorship! So now I will print your hate-filled comments (slightly toned down with the asterisks), and I am sure you will find something else to rage and rant about. Anything but offer a rational and cogent argument. But venting spleen is always so much easier than actually making a rational and non-ad hominem argument, isn’t it?
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hi Bill
One of the aspects of your article is that it highlights the inability of so many people to look at, or even be aware of basic logic and, perhaps more importantly, consider ahead of time the consequences of their views, especially when those views breach basic biblical principles.
Even worse, as your fan Maurice (can I also be tongue-in-cheek?) has so ably demonstrated, when that lack of awareness of logic or consideration of consequences is pointed out, the reaction tends to be a vitriolic, ad-hominem attack completely devoid of any logic.
I recall many years ago when I was at Bible College and doing a unit on women in ministry that I was concerned at some of the basic logic being used to justify the ‘yes’ case, specifically the use of Gal 3:28 (simplistically, that there is neither male nor female). The problem arose when I voiced my concern that if that particular verse was accepted as the basic argument to justify women in ministry, it would also open up the possibility of homosexuals using the same verse and argument to justify their case. (As an aside, some years later, when studying homosexual liberation theology, the first book I read, on its first page, used Gal 3:28 as its opening position).
The reaction to my comment was ‘enlightening.’ It was not a case of “Is this a valid objection?” but rather “How DARE you compare women to homosexuality?” Now I might have been naïve, or wrong, or both in making my comment, but I wasn’t actually trying to link women with homosexuality – I was trying to look at the validity of an argument and its potential for abuse elsewhere. The problem at that stage was that no one was listening and I came under a staggering personal attack from the people running the College!
Given that was in a Bible College environment where we were supposedly debating the meaning of a particular verse within basic hermeneutical principles, how much worse do those attacks become when our atheistic friends wish to cast aside all biblical principles and restraints to take us down an untested path of social engineering?
So, the sad reality is that whereas the logic in your article is perfectly valid, don’t be surprised when your mates like Gregory and Maurice fail to see the hypocrisy either in their own position or the toxic content of the way they attack you.
Equally, don’t be surprised when these ‘progressive’ social engineers have conditioned our society to the point where they WILL use your logic, however tongue-in-cheek it was intended to be, to push for the acceptance of the very things mentioned!
Roger Birch
Did you send Ms. Wong a copy, Bill? I’m not sure she would comprehend it though. Bigotry is blind, apparently.
Scott Kroeger
Welcome Maurice, good to see that you are oblivious to the irony of your statement. Bill hasn’t compared bestiality with SSM, yet that is what you and the SSM crowd are doing with heterosexual marriage and homosexuality unions.
There is just as much common ground between heterosexual marriage and homosexuality unions as there is between homosexuality and bestiality.
Think about it. Now, isn’t it a pain when your own argument bites you on the backside? Ouch.
Garth Penglase
Thanks David for the link to the Baroness Deech speech. I quote:
“It is, however, odd that same sex couples, or some of them, should be so exercised about wanting the right to marry, as distinct from entering civil partnerships, which are *just as replete with rights and responsibilities as marriage*; for this is an age when heterosexual couples are apparently deserting marriage in favour of cohabitation, and when we are told that marriage is nothing but a piece of paper, which may be ignored or overlooked; or that it is a male plot to dominate women and preserve free household labour and childcare, a cloak for abuse and overwork. ”
[* highlighting is my own]
Methinks there’s a lot more at work in the SSM push than “equality” perchance, or have I let the cat out of the bag? To quote Bill’s article on Online Opinion http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11268
Lesbian Paula Ettrick “Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. … As a lesbian, I am fundamentally different from non-lesbian women. … In arguing for the right to legal marriage, lesbians and gay men would be forced to claim that we are just like heterosexual couples, have the same goals and purposes, and vow to structure our lives similarly. … We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s views of reality.”
SSM is a reaction, born out of insecurity, against the constraints of society to the proper and correct discrimination that is in marriage for religious and familial reasons. SSM has as it’s goal the destruction of marriage not the celebration of it’s uniqueness and purpose.
Garth Penglase
Bill,
I applaud you for your response to Maurice. He is the epitomy of why there is no such thing “liberal talk radio” here in the US (with a few notable exceptions).
Most liberal arguments for just about anything are dispensed with after a few short arguments, leaving nothing else to talk about. The liberal is left with nothing but accusations and inflammatory exclamations, the likes of which we have seen from our friend, Maurice.
Keep up the good work!
Steve Rocke, US
Wow! What a Pandora’s Box we could have Bill. I mean if this is about my happiness, forget the other person/people/animals/products etc. Why should I be penalized if I enjoy enslaving/mutilating or even killing/destroying a person/object etc. Let’s forget the unfair move to only add “Gay Marriage” and just go for “Legalized Chaos”. Is there any difference? It would make for such a Gay World.
Michael McCrohan
Bill
So right you are even if tongue-in-cheek. Brave New World here we come!….kicking and screaming! There is a point though for those who truly can’t get married or who do but cant live in the same country! Why do these people have any less rights than same sex marriages? They are but a small part of what is discriminated against in our current legal marriage system, inter racial, inter faith, inter country.
Fix that first before adding more problems.
Ali Murphy : )
Hi Gregory
I don’t think you quite understand the point we are trying to make, or maybe we did not make it clear enough.
No one is telling anyone not to have a certain relationship.
Anyone can live with whoever they want to.
All we are saying is “DON’T MESS WITH THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE!”
Anne Van Tilburg
I had to smirk when reading this article. I agree whole-heartedly and these SHOULD be the concerns that propel us to continue to stand up against this proposed legislation.
Pro-SSM like to think that it’s an isolated issue that will not bring forth any further groups who will stand up and demand the unjust to be made “right”. But law is all about finding a precedent, and we must not let the approval of SSM in Australia be the precedent for all of these things that you speak of in this article.
Thanks Bill and keep it coming.
Jess Hagen
Oh my! How hilarious is that response from Gregory? In the first paragraph he claims the government should not stick its nose into personal relationships, yet in the very next paragraph he wants “formal recognition” …presumably by the government sticking its nose into personal relationships.
The one defining thing about the left/secular extremists is their double standards.
Presumably Gregory also thinks that if you could legitimately advertise a Datsun 120Y as a Rolls Royce it would in no way diminish the value of the real article.
As for Maurice, he can’t even repeat Bill’s argument correctly. Newsflash, Maurice – Bill was very clearly not making comparisons (that would be a very different article), he was explaining tongue-in-cheek that the ‘justification’ for same-sex ‘marriage’ can logically be used for other situations. But facing up to your own bigotry and ingrained hatred – so brilliantly demonstrated by your closing remark – is probably going to be difficult for you.
Mark Rabich
Oh Anne Van Tilburg, I understand the point that Bill is making, and I disagree with him.
The question that none of you ever answer in a satisfactorily way is why not change the institution of marriage? The world will not collapse just because marriage becomes available to anyone who wants to partake of it.
As to the toxic attacks, I have always said that Bill and those who comment here are entitled to your opinions. Just because we disagree doesn’t mean we can’t converse. Bill is pretty strict with his comments and fair enough, it’s his blog. It is not my intention to use this forum for a ‘toxic attack’.
Gregory Storer
Thanks Gregory
As I already said, there are plenty of articles – and even books – that I and others have written, dealing with your very objection. So I suspect it is not so much a case of you not finding a compelling argument, as you not wanting to accept those arguments, which is quite a different matter.
As I have frequently documented, the more honest homosexual activists are quite candid about their intentions to radically change the very institution of marriage. They want to alter its fundamental makeup, effectively destroying it. And the sorts of things I mention in my article above will be the inevitable result. This may not bother you, but most other people are and will be very concerned indeed about such radical changes.
The bedrock of all human societies will be no more, and the unique and protective environment for the raising of children will also be obliterated. But I am quite aware that many folks on your side don’t give a rip about such very real consequences. As long as adults can force their selfish desires onto the rest of society, who cares that marriage, society, and children will all suffer as a result.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out how homosexuals who get married to a same sex partner, breed!?!
Scott Kroeger
Hi Maurice
No one is holding a gun to your head to be part of this debate.
There are ways, and ways to present your argument.
Stick to your ‘excellent web blog’.
Anne Van Tilburg
Satire has a tough time these days. Half the population will simply take you at face value, Bill.
Peter Barnes
I of course disagree with the notion that there will be adverse consequences in simply recognising marriage for all those that want it.
Not everyone who wants to get married wants children, and here’s a news flash, people in all sorts of relationships already have children, some of them turn out ok, some of them don’t. Why not extended protection the children need based on the needs of the child, not on the needs of those who want to restrict marriage to one man and one woman.
And you’re right Bill, I don’t see any harm coming from protecting relationships and I don’t see it as a radical change, it’s more a formal recognition of those relationships, because the relationships already exist.
Sorry Mark, I didn’t see your comment, I’ll have a look now.
Gregory Storer
Thanks Scott
Of course the obvious answer is they don’t and they can’t. Marriage has always been a public institution concerned about two fundamental things: the regulation of human sexuality, and the ideal means to rear and raise the next generation. SSM obviously smashes both components, leaving us with, well not marriage, that’s for sure, but its complete destruction.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks Gregory
But you miss the crucial point here. It is exactly the wellbeing of children that should be at the heart of this discussion. And as I have documented so often here, thousands of social science studies have made it crystal clear that children do best by every indicator when raised by their own biological mother and father cemented by marriage. This is of course something homosexual couples and all sorts of other arrangements cannot offer children. Children and their wellbeing should come first here, not the selfish wants of adults to do their own thing.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
No, I’ve seen that crucial point many times in your blogs. And yes, it is crystal clear.
Children grow up in all sorts of relationships, some of them do well, some of them don’t. The research always hinges on the term ‘do best’ and that’s the key phrase that needs to be understood. Sometimes it means that they have better paying jobs, or a better education, sometimes it means that they are happier but rarely does it mean all of those things. And it’s a folly to suggest that only children from a married relationship ‘do best’ because the reality is that a range of children from a range of relationships do best.
What’s needed here is an acceptance that in the best interest of the child, our nation should be more suited to actually supporting all parents equally, regardless of the status of their relationship.
And as much as there are ‘gay’ parents that want children for selfish reason, there are also ‘straight’ parents who want children as a status symbol, they are just as selfish.
Gregory Storer
Gregory,
You keep harping about ‘formal recognition’, but let me ask you this – why does your relationship need to be about that? With that logic could I not argue (because I’m not married), that the lack of formal recognition of my friendships somehow makes me a ‘second-class citizen’? Do I not love those people? Why should I be ‘discriminated’ against? Why can’t they be called marriages by your logic?
I don’t buy it. Marriage is defined a certain way and I don’t seek to redefine it if I want to participate. The fact that it is defined a certain way is what makes it special. Change the definition to be more open and it will certainly be less special. That is true of this, as it is with a Rolls Royce.
A man and woman is the only pairing that can beget children. Yes, it is unique – and critical to even just the existence of the next generation of people. No other relationship can do that. It makes sense for a government to take some interest in that and leave the others alone.
Mark Rabich
Thanks Gregory
No, you do not, or do not want to understand.
Where would you have been if it was not for your
FATHER AND MOTHER!
Anne van Tilburg
Well Bill, I’m staggered. All that Left-wing propaganda must have had the desired effect. You have finally seen the light!!!! I soon hope to be able to marry the beautiful shrub I have in a pot on my front veranda. We’ve been batting eyelids for months.
Seriously though, I usually cry at weddings but the other day I pictured myself at the wedding of two men. Not sure if I would laugh or throw up all over the person sitting in front of me.
David Williams
Thanks Gregory
You say: “it’s a folly to suggest that only children from a married relationship ‘do best’”. But that is exactly what the social science research tells us. Of course with anything there are exceptions, but the overwhelming conclusion of all the research on this is exactly what you don’t want to acknowledge. But that is always how ideologues operate: they prefer spinning their own agenda rather than let the facts and evidence speak.
And homosexual parents are inherently selfish in a way normal married heterosexual parents can never be, since they willfully deny a child the fundamental right to his or her own biological parents.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Yeah, what is it with the gay brigade. I read how lesbians are wanting to change birth certificates so that they don’t show the father’s name. How self-centred is that? It’s turning the birth certificate, a document about the heredity of a child, into a banner for homosexuality. Similarly they are trying to turn the institution of marriage into a symbol of homosexual acceptance… talk about forcing one’s beliefs onto others. It’s a sad day when minorities take over the process of democracy.
Garth Penglase
Bill,
What a magnificent spoof! Why don’t you submit this article to Online Opinion and wait for the reaction?
And there already is quite the reaction to that piece, with nearly 100 comments so far, including all the mudslinging, lies and hate speech from the other side.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Garth, so far I think Peter Tatchell is our best source of homosexual truth. In his numerous articles entitled “Beyond Equality” we get statements like this
“Whereas GLF saw marriage and the family as a patriarchal prison for women, gay people and children, today the LGBT movement uncritically champions same-sex marriage and families. It has embraced traditional heterosexual aspirations lock stock and barrel. How ironic. While straight couples are deserting marriage, same-sexers are rushing to embrace it: witness the current legal fight in California for the right to marry. Are queers the new conservatives, the 21st-century suburbanites?”
“We get equality, but at a price. The cost to our community is the surrender of our unique, distinctive queer identity. The unwritten social contract at the heart of law reform is that lesbians and gays will behave respectably and comply with the heterosexual moral agenda. No more cruising, orgies or sadomasochism! In return, the “good gays” are rewarded with equal treatment. Meanwhile, all the sex-repressive social structures, institutions and value systems remain intact, and the “bad gays” remain sexual outlaws. This nouveau gay reformism involves the abandonment of any critical perspective on straight culture. In place of a healthy scepticism towards heterosexual morality, it substitutes naive acquiescence.”
“In contrast to this shallow reformism, queer emancipation groups like OutRage! have a post-equality agenda. We seek the extension of sexual freedom and human rights in ways that benefit everyone, regardless of sexuality. Many in the lesbian and gay community are jumping on the same-sex marriage bandwagon, endorsing either Dutch-style gay marriages or Danish-style registered partnerships (which are basically civil marriage by another name). OutRage!, in contrast, argues for a more democratic, egalitarian option. We offer a modern, flexible alternative to traditional heterosexual wedlock.”
David Skinner, UK
Speaking of satire does anyone recall the Simpsons episode where Homer became a marriage celebrant who was willing for a price to marry any two entities?
Terry Darmody
Maurice you protest too much. Why should you become full of moral indignation if there is no absolute measure against which to say whether something is right or wrong, true of false? To what court in the universe do you present your charges against Bill if there is no court? What I think really fills you with rage is the thought that there really is a power to which, whether you like it or not, you bend the knee and in the words of Bob Dylan.
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
However, and thank you for this Maurice, because your comment opens new doors into the labyrinthine and tortured mind of the queer, that deserves a study all of its own. Queers are intensely religious. The overwhelming majority are not atheists but idolaters.
Very well put Bill.
The sad thing is that even after pointing out how ridiculous it is to move away from the logical, and obviously natural, construction of marriage, and the many consequences it will have, there are still those who refuse to see it.
People are generally not concerned about the well-being of society. Because we are selfish beings we are concerned about our own rights more than anything else, and the only time we step in for the ‘rights’ of others is when we want to do something ‘good’, something politically correct, something which would make others say ‘oh, how considerate of him/her’ about us, something which boosts our ego and public image.
Our definition of love is: let other people do whatever they like (even if it might hurt or kill them or others) as long as they don’t interfere with me doing whatever I like. That is obviously not what love is but that is how we tend to live out love.
Servaas Hofmeyr, South Africa
Maurice Colbourne, you manifested classic atheist behaviour in your argument above. You put up a strawman and aim to destroy it whereafter you tell your Christian opponent off by using the F-word. (Sadly, some people call themselves Christians and use the same tactics as well which probably refutes my statement that it is classic atheist behaviour, rather just bad debating tactics)
If you consider the article again you would notice that no comparison was made between gay-marriage and bestiality. The point being made is that someone who wants to marry an animal would be able to get such a practice legalised should they use the same argument used by those who lobby for gay-marriages to be made legal. In other words, if gay-marriages are made legal on those grounds and government is truly secular and fair, they should not proclaim all the other types of marriages to be illegal either.
Servaas Hofmeyr, South Africa
Maurice Colbourne is typical of the mud-slinging gays, so thin on argument. It’s people like him who convince me that, for the good of society and particularly young children, gays should be treated for sexual orientation realignment, which is proven to work in 95% of cases, and is only not enforced for liberal political reasons.
Just as we don’t accept people going around murdering, we shouldn’t accept anyone who wants to fundamentally tear society apart to justify their own diseased personalities.
I can’t tell you how mad it’s made me to read someone using foul and abusive language to somebody as considered as Bill. Disgusting. No wonder he’s gone off with his tail between his legs.
Gregory your thesis that children are brought up just as well nowadays in different families that come in all shapes and sizes is a lie. The vast majority of queer families, ie, with children that act as human trophies and human shields, are all lesbian. The reason our boys are under achieving in schools throughout the West is because feminists have been allowed to airbrush men out of the equation. The vast majority of boys who underachieve come from families and schools where there is not a man in sight.
I thought it prudent to respond again to Gregory’s ‘big question’:
“I am yet to read or hear a single convincing argument that allow protection to all citizens in a free an open registration system (call it marriage) will in any way diminish the meaning of existing relationships (i.e. those already married)”
His question is actually upside-down.
The real question is this:
What benefit does society get from formally recognizing any relationship outside of marriage?
The onus is not on us to prove why the definition of marriage should not be changed, but on activists like Gregory to prove the advantages to others that changing it will bring. You don’t play games with bedrock social institutions just to suit a minority. Far too much is at stake for that.
Mark Rabich
What would it profit a man if he gain the right to ‘marriage’ (by changing the earthly law definition) but lost his own soul in Hell eternal because of breaking God’s eternally perfect, Holy and moral laws?
Thanks Bill for your creative writing piece… it shows us that people are always willing to push God’s boundaries with their own selfish sinful behaviour.
Michael Dawson
You think same sex marriage is bad. Just wait for same sex divorce….
Anthony McGregor
Thanks Anthony
But of course that is already happening in countries and states where same-sex marriage has been legalised.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Did anyone see the TV show ‘Glee’ the other night? One of the main characters attempted to marry herself…but she was always the weird one. But thankfully that didn’t really happen, and was contrasted with the parents of two of the main students marrying each other in a normal (albeit song and dance filled) ceremony.
Christie Ewens
If homosexuals want to be conservative let’s let them.
Sex is only permitted within marriage, which is entered into voluntarily for life.
They want to be able to be married like the Christians perhaps we should ask them to behave sexually as Christians are expected to within marriage.
Aside from the issues Bill has already pointed out, I fear that SSM would open the door for open slather adoption and ART for homosexual couples.
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
Actually some homosexual activists seek to make that argument: let’s have marriage as it will turn generally promiscuous homosexuals into monogamous ones. But this is incorrect. It is not marriage as such which tames the promiscuous male, but women – that is, wives. That is the real ingredient in taming and domesticating the wandering male. And of course that ingredient is entirely missing in homosexual marriage.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Actually Bill that ingredient is entirely missing in male-male homosexual marriage. There is a double dose in female-female homosexual marriage. Some of the arguments don’t hold up as well if woman are taken into account as well as men.
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
But I did choose my words carefully, and said “homosexual” in distinction to “lesbian” which is the common way to distinguish the two. They use the word “gay” to cover both. But in neither case do we have anything like real marriage. I do not consider the two men in a SSM to be husbands, nor do I consider the two women in a SSM to be wives.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
No for a real marriage the sexes must compliment each other. I was just pointing out that there are two types of gay relationships.
I have always understood homosexual to mean same-sex (either) and gay to be men while lesbian is the term for women.
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
Sorry, I must be getting old. Yes you are quite right. Ignore my above comment!
Bill that last link is the writing on the wall. Already we have had cases where the social services have taken children away from grand parents, or other close relatives who wanted to look after their grand children or nephews who for one reason of another find themselves in care an placed with homosexual couples. No doubt now grandparents who do not sign up to diversity regulations will find their grandchildren placed into the care of paedophiles.
David Skinner, UK
So it’s OK for child sex offenders to adopt children but a Christian can’t because they might tell the child homosexuality is wrong. This world is crazy.
Kylie Anderson
Yes it certainly is Kylie.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
To consider heterosexuality as being at one end of a spectrum and homosexuality being at the other, with bisexuality coming in the middle is a marvelous piece of deception.
It is chastity, the state of monogamous, enduring marriage between a man and woman, as describe by Jesus Christ which is at one end of the spectrum, with maybe necrophilia or sex/cannibalism at the other end, with a range of polysexual perversities, including fornication, adultery, sodomy, incest, bestiality coming in the middle. Straights and same sex participants can be found in all those categories. They can all, including the relationships of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles and Prince William and Kate Middleton be classed as queer or polysexual perversion. This is what it means by Peter Tatchell telling us that we will all become queer.
David Skinner, UK
Preserving the traditional definition of marriage is about preserving civilisation. Sure the human race will continue to breed if there were no such institution as marriage, but society would be far less civilised.
And to paraphrase the wisdom of Syndrome from The Incredibles, “When everyone’s married, no one will be”!
David, you forgot unRev Dr Neil G Thomas of MCC, who bought out http://www.jesus.com – at the opposite end of the moral spectrum is Rev Dr Neil J Thomas of InnerLife Christian Church, Australia ( http://www.ntm.org.au )
Grant Vandervalk
David, my teaching experience has been during foreign mission, but I totally agree. Woman-dominated homes, schools, and even churches… Where are the positive male role models? No wonder so many turn queer! I can say that because I was one that was headed that way before conversion
Back to what I first said, aren’t we Christians all foreigners in this world, and all called to be missionaries in our families, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and even our own Churches?
Good point Bill, why not?
Well, um, maybe we end up in chaos, with an unidentifiable definition of marriage altogether.
Anne Van Tilburg
Bill,
I have often had many of these thought myself. But as a wise person once said, “Be careful what you wish for!”
I know this post was “tongue-in-cheek”, but what you propose may just be over the horizon. How long will it be before someone says, “Hey, this Muehlenberg guy is right. What wrong with group marriage, or intra-familial marriage?”
Steve Rocke
Thanks Steve
It is already happening big time. Simply google the word ‘polyamory’ for example and see how many hits you get.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
What about those who love children? Victorian law already acknowledges that 10 year olds are mature enough to become sexually active, surely they are also mature enough to choose their sexual partner as well. What is wrong with an adult loving a child aside from societies narrow social constructs?
P.S. I’m not voting for you at the next election!
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
There are plenty of groups already out there calling for the complete legalisation of “intergenerational sex” as they call it. We refer to it as paedophilia. And I wouldn’t vote for myself either if I were promoting all this lunacy.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
It is frightening that so many people cannot see the results of applying their beliefs consistently.
Arguments for homosexuality hold up for all kinds of sexual deviancy. Arguments for abortion hold up for infanticide, which is probably already practised in Victoria.
Kylie Anderson
Absolutely Bill. After legalising ssm there remains no logical objection to demanding the state bless any and all desires. Which means there remains no objection to the state punishing those who form institutions that disagree with acting on those desires.
Equality rights are just the boring old left’s new way of trying to eliminate religion from public life – a perennial obsession to these people. Only Christianity remains to prevent statists from completely determining the values of a country and their intrusion into once private realms. This desire is especially intense for for modern day leftists.
Clearly the state has an interest in preventing unjust discrimination on the basis of unchosen traits like sex, age, race, physical disability, and sexual orientation. But taking a felt desire, deliberating upon it, incorporating into a world view and acting on it is a decision! How does a Christian speak in public about a decision that is given the same status as race in law without being completely marginalised as a bigot??
What these equality rights people are really asking for is that their world view be established as a quasi state religion and that it receive concomitant legal protection. All at the expense of Christian churches whose public standing would logically reduce to that of bigoted organisations like the Klu Klux Klan. In effect they are seeking control of the state such that may rule: “You may keep your private bigoted moral beliefs but you many not express them in public and expect to remain free of legal sanction. You are free to organise but you do not have the freedom to request equal respect before the law in terms of education, non-profit tax exemption or institutional influence in public life generally. We will order the general revenue and government institutions so as to ensure your children are made to feel ashamed of their parent’s bigoted beliefs and will work as a nation to undermine your very identity as Biblical Christians”
Martin Snigg
Yes quite right Martin
This is no little battle, but in fact a war of worldviews as you suggest. These are two competing views of humanity, sexuality, morality and society. Make no mistake about it, if the militants prevail, then those who resist such moves will become active targets of government persecution and censure.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Keep pounding the message, Bill. Do you have any indication as to how many non-believers read your blog? That is to say, is this message getting wide circulation in the general community?
Steve Swartz
Thanks Steve
My articles tend to not just stay here but circulate all over the place, including cyberspace. And various indicators tell me that many non-believers indeed do view this site, including the many comments (whether nasty or polite) that roll in here from these non-believers. Whether they are happy or agree with my position is another matter altogether. But as I keep saying, we all must do our bit to get truth out into the public arena.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill why didn’t you go for the Royal Flush: marriage between a great grand person of no gender and all the great grand children of varying genders, a herd of cattle, an assortment of dead relatives and thrown in for good measure some second hand washing machines and Welsh cross dressers. In theory it must be possible for all participants, as long as they are deriving pleasure from this marriage, and they are consenting, to go at it simultaneously.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/03/05/trans-woman-fighting-for-pension-rights
However Martin, the human rights are evolving all the time and one must assume that the next absolute right will be the right not to be forced to identify according to any of the descriptors that you listed based upon gender, age, sexuality, transexuality, disability, race, belief – or even sanity. To have to disclose how one identifies oneself is no one else’s business and will be seen as a violation of absolute individual rights.
Reading Baroness Deach’s address on marriage is like being allowed to breath after being suffocated in the stench of this fetid, queer air. Come Lord Jesus, come.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=991
David Skinner, UK
Quite right Bill. It’s funny how hypocrites often stand from their narrow view point and declare everyone else to be narrow minded.
The real truth is, we are constantly trying to understand them and trying to find some way to help them through their pain. Like you have previously stated it is not about marriage it is about having their lifestyle ratified.
My concern Bill, is the next step, and the apathy of the general church community.
If SSM is legalised, our ministers and pastor will begin to spend their valuable time in court fighting discrimination charges. Because even if the Bible excludes it, the law will demand marriage celebrants to marry anyone who makes a formal request. And you can bet same sex couples will be knocking on the doors of the churches asap. Because government recognition of lifestyle is one thing, but gods recognition is the ultimate.
Sorry I’m blogging here, Bill. But I feel the church need to be very firm on this Now or it will be to late.
And after giving out flyers on the weekend I have become even more concerned. Not because the greens and sex parties are gaining strength, because they are not! But because the lies are being pushed and prettied up to look like truth. I suppose the father of lies has not really changed his game plan much.
Continue to speak the truth in love and authority Bill, you’re doing good things. Will be praying.
Peter Baldry
There is no reason why government should interfere in people’s personal relationships. Relationships happen already, the world is no worse off for it.
We simply need consent between adults to be in a relationship. You get that? Between adults, so we are only talking about adult relationships, and why shouldn’t people be allowed and protected in those relationships through formal recognition.
I am yet to read or hear a single convincing argument that allow protection to all citizens in a free an open registration system (call it marriage) will in any way diminish the meaning of existing relationships (i.e. those already married)
Gregory Storer
Thanks Gregory
It is great to have our Secular Party of Australia campaigner come along and spills the beans. Thanks for that. While many will want to deny that any of what I propose here can or should ever happen, you come along and very nicely make my case for me. Yep, anything goes, according to those progressive secularists.
And to be honest, I have a feeling that someone so entrenched in their secular ideology would not recognise a cogent argument for the uniqueness and importance of heterosexual marriage if it bit them on the nose. So I won’t attempt to do that here. Suffice it to say, I have many dozens of articles on this site where I do seek to make this case, and those who are still open-minded, and not beholden to rigid secularist ideology and atheist fundamentalism, may well find some compelling arguments here.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Illustration: Maxine Morand, ALP for Mt Waverley District, Minister for Early Childhood Development State of Victoria, spoke out in favour of “gay marriage” for Victorians; was preferenced by the Greens Party in the election; lost her seat to Michael Gidley of the Liberal Party by a significant margin – in fact he won an absolute majority (52.03% of first preferences: http://www.tallyroom.vic.gov.au/state2010tallyroomelectorateMountWaverleyDistrict.html )
Keep going Senator Wong, and we will be happy to see the departure of you and the Greens Party before too long.
John Angelico
Thanks guys
Interestingly, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association has just called Canada’s marriage laws “discriminatory” because they prohibit polygamy. Where have we heard these sorts of arguments before?
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
There is an excellent web blog devoted to exposing your bigotry and lies. I have just seen that a comment I posted on it has been approved.
If you wish to compare gay marriage to bestiality then I will compare religionists to the clinically insane. F**k your religious views.
Maurice Colbourne
Thanks Maurice
Ah, once again the sweet reason and gracious tolerance from the other side. Always such a joy to behold in polite society.
Of course anyone who can read or think straight will know that I have not at all compared same-sex marriage with bestiality. What I did do was argue that if we embrace SSM, then the very same arguments can be extended to all sorts of other “loving’ relationships. And that is already exactly what is happening. I just read recently of a man in Germany “marrying” his pet cat, for example. So stop shooting the messenger already.
And you are a real barrel of contradictions. You regularly come to this site spraying your ugly poison and unprintable hatred. Then when I don’t print your hate-filled comments, you accuse me of censorship! So now I will print your hate-filled comments (slightly toned down with the asterisks), and I am sure you will find something else to rage and rant about. Anything but offer a rational and cogent argument. But venting spleen is always so much easier than actually making a rational and non-ad hominem argument, isn’t it?
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hi Bill
One of the aspects of your article is that it highlights the inability of so many people to look at, or even be aware of basic logic and, perhaps more importantly, consider ahead of time the consequences of their views, especially when those views breach basic biblical principles.
Even worse, as your fan Maurice (can I also be tongue-in-cheek?) has so ably demonstrated, when that lack of awareness of logic or consideration of consequences is pointed out, the reaction tends to be a vitriolic, ad-hominem attack completely devoid of any logic.
I recall many years ago when I was at Bible College and doing a unit on women in ministry that I was concerned at some of the basic logic being used to justify the ‘yes’ case, specifically the use of Gal 3:28 (simplistically, that there is neither male nor female). The problem arose when I voiced my concern that if that particular verse was accepted as the basic argument to justify women in ministry, it would also open up the possibility of homosexuals using the same verse and argument to justify their case. (As an aside, some years later, when studying homosexual liberation theology, the first book I read, on its first page, used Gal 3:28 as its opening position).
The reaction to my comment was ‘enlightening.’ It was not a case of “Is this a valid objection?” but rather “How DARE you compare women to homosexuality?” Now I might have been naïve, or wrong, or both in making my comment, but I wasn’t actually trying to link women with homosexuality – I was trying to look at the validity of an argument and its potential for abuse elsewhere. The problem at that stage was that no one was listening and I came under a staggering personal attack from the people running the College!
Given that was in a Bible College environment where we were supposedly debating the meaning of a particular verse within basic hermeneutical principles, how much worse do those attacks become when our atheistic friends wish to cast aside all biblical principles and restraints to take us down an untested path of social engineering?
So, the sad reality is that whereas the logic in your article is perfectly valid, don’t be surprised when your mates like Gregory and Maurice fail to see the hypocrisy either in their own position or the toxic content of the way they attack you.
Equally, don’t be surprised when these ‘progressive’ social engineers have conditioned our society to the point where they WILL use your logic, however tongue-in-cheek it was intended to be, to push for the acceptance of the very things mentioned!
Roger Birch
Did you send Ms. Wong a copy, Bill? I’m not sure she would comprehend it though. Bigotry is blind, apparently.
Scott Kroeger
Welcome Maurice, good to see that you are oblivious to the irony of your statement. Bill hasn’t compared bestiality with SSM, yet that is what you and the SSM crowd are doing with heterosexual marriage and homosexuality unions.
There is just as much common ground between heterosexual marriage and homosexuality unions as there is between homosexuality and bestiality.
Think about it. Now, isn’t it a pain when your own argument bites you on the backside? Ouch.
Garth Penglase
Thanks David for the link to the Baroness Deech speech. I quote:
“It is, however, odd that same sex couples, or some of them, should be so exercised about wanting the right to marry, as distinct from entering civil partnerships, which are *just as replete with rights and responsibilities as marriage*; for this is an age when heterosexual couples are apparently deserting marriage in favour of cohabitation, and when we are told that marriage is nothing but a piece of paper, which may be ignored or overlooked; or that it is a male plot to dominate women and preserve free household labour and childcare, a cloak for abuse and overwork. ”
[* highlighting is my own]
Methinks there’s a lot more at work in the SSM push than “equality” perchance, or have I let the cat out of the bag? To quote Bill’s article on Online Opinion http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11268
Lesbian Paula Ettrick “Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. … As a lesbian, I am fundamentally different from non-lesbian women. … In arguing for the right to legal marriage, lesbians and gay men would be forced to claim that we are just like heterosexual couples, have the same goals and purposes, and vow to structure our lives similarly. … We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s views of reality.”
SSM is a reaction, born out of insecurity, against the constraints of society to the proper and correct discrimination that is in marriage for religious and familial reasons. SSM has as it’s goal the destruction of marriage not the celebration of it’s uniqueness and purpose.
Garth Penglase
Bill,
I applaud you for your response to Maurice. He is the epitomy of why there is no such thing “liberal talk radio” here in the US (with a few notable exceptions).
Most liberal arguments for just about anything are dispensed with after a few short arguments, leaving nothing else to talk about. The liberal is left with nothing but accusations and inflammatory exclamations, the likes of which we have seen from our friend, Maurice.
Keep up the good work!
Steve Rocke, US
Wow! What a Pandora’s Box we could have Bill. I mean if this is about my happiness, forget the other person/people/animals/products etc. Why should I be penalized if I enjoy enslaving/mutilating or even killing/destroying a person/object etc. Let’s forget the unfair move to only add “Gay Marriage” and just go for “Legalized Chaos”. Is there any difference? It would make for such a Gay World.
Michael McCrohan
Bill
So right you are even if tongue-in-cheek. Brave New World here we come!….kicking and screaming! There is a point though for those who truly can’t get married or who do but cant live in the same country! Why do these people have any less rights than same sex marriages? They are but a small part of what is discriminated against in our current legal marriage system, inter racial, inter faith, inter country.
Fix that first before adding more problems.
Ali Murphy : )
Hi Gregory
I don’t think you quite understand the point we are trying to make, or maybe we did not make it clear enough.
No one is telling anyone not to have a certain relationship.
Anyone can live with whoever they want to.
All we are saying is “DON’T MESS WITH THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE!”
Anne Van Tilburg
I had to smirk when reading this article. I agree whole-heartedly and these SHOULD be the concerns that propel us to continue to stand up against this proposed legislation.
Pro-SSM like to think that it’s an isolated issue that will not bring forth any further groups who will stand up and demand the unjust to be made “right”. But law is all about finding a precedent, and we must not let the approval of SSM in Australia be the precedent for all of these things that you speak of in this article.
Thanks Bill and keep it coming.
Jess Hagen
Oh my! How hilarious is that response from Gregory? In the first paragraph he claims the government should not stick its nose into personal relationships, yet in the very next paragraph he wants “formal recognition” …presumably by the government sticking its nose into personal relationships.
The one defining thing about the left/secular extremists is their double standards.
Presumably Gregory also thinks that if you could legitimately advertise a Datsun 120Y as a Rolls Royce it would in no way diminish the value of the real article.
btw, Gregory, are you going to reply to my questions from one of Bill’s previous articles any time soon? Here’s the link in case you missed it.
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/11/21/homosexual-marriages-myths/#comment-217252
As for Maurice, he can’t even repeat Bill’s argument correctly. Newsflash, Maurice – Bill was very clearly not making comparisons (that would be a very different article), he was explaining tongue-in-cheek that the ‘justification’ for same-sex ‘marriage’ can logically be used for other situations. But facing up to your own bigotry and ingrained hatred – so brilliantly demonstrated by your closing remark – is probably going to be difficult for you.
Mark Rabich
Oh Anne Van Tilburg, I understand the point that Bill is making, and I disagree with him.
The question that none of you ever answer in a satisfactorily way is why not change the institution of marriage? The world will not collapse just because marriage becomes available to anyone who wants to partake of it.
As to the toxic attacks, I have always said that Bill and those who comment here are entitled to your opinions. Just because we disagree doesn’t mean we can’t converse. Bill is pretty strict with his comments and fair enough, it’s his blog. It is not my intention to use this forum for a ‘toxic attack’.
Gregory Storer
Thanks Gregory
As I already said, there are plenty of articles – and even books – that I and others have written, dealing with your very objection. So I suspect it is not so much a case of you not finding a compelling argument, as you not wanting to accept those arguments, which is quite a different matter.
As I have frequently documented, the more honest homosexual activists are quite candid about their intentions to radically change the very institution of marriage. They want to alter its fundamental makeup, effectively destroying it. And the sorts of things I mention in my article above will be the inevitable result. This may not bother you, but most other people are and will be very concerned indeed about such radical changes.
The bedrock of all human societies will be no more, and the unique and protective environment for the raising of children will also be obliterated. But I am quite aware that many folks on your side don’t give a rip about such very real consequences. As long as adults can force their selfish desires onto the rest of society, who cares that marriage, society, and children will all suffer as a result.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out how homosexuals who get married to a same sex partner, breed!?!
Scott Kroeger
Hi Maurice
No one is holding a gun to your head to be part of this debate.
There are ways, and ways to present your argument.
Stick to your ‘excellent web blog’.
Anne Van Tilburg
Satire has a tough time these days. Half the population will simply take you at face value, Bill.
Peter Barnes
I of course disagree with the notion that there will be adverse consequences in simply recognising marriage for all those that want it.
Not everyone who wants to get married wants children, and here’s a news flash, people in all sorts of relationships already have children, some of them turn out ok, some of them don’t. Why not extended protection the children need based on the needs of the child, not on the needs of those who want to restrict marriage to one man and one woman.
And you’re right Bill, I don’t see any harm coming from protecting relationships and I don’t see it as a radical change, it’s more a formal recognition of those relationships, because the relationships already exist.
Sorry Mark, I didn’t see your comment, I’ll have a look now.
Gregory Storer
Thanks Scott
Of course the obvious answer is they don’t and they can’t. Marriage has always been a public institution concerned about two fundamental things: the regulation of human sexuality, and the ideal means to rear and raise the next generation. SSM obviously smashes both components, leaving us with, well not marriage, that’s for sure, but its complete destruction.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks Gregory
But you miss the crucial point here. It is exactly the wellbeing of children that should be at the heart of this discussion. And as I have documented so often here, thousands of social science studies have made it crystal clear that children do best by every indicator when raised by their own biological mother and father cemented by marriage. This is of course something homosexual couples and all sorts of other arrangements cannot offer children. Children and their wellbeing should come first here, not the selfish wants of adults to do their own thing.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
No, I’ve seen that crucial point many times in your blogs. And yes, it is crystal clear.
Children grow up in all sorts of relationships, some of them do well, some of them don’t. The research always hinges on the term ‘do best’ and that’s the key phrase that needs to be understood. Sometimes it means that they have better paying jobs, or a better education, sometimes it means that they are happier but rarely does it mean all of those things. And it’s a folly to suggest that only children from a married relationship ‘do best’ because the reality is that a range of children from a range of relationships do best.
What’s needed here is an acceptance that in the best interest of the child, our nation should be more suited to actually supporting all parents equally, regardless of the status of their relationship.
And as much as there are ‘gay’ parents that want children for selfish reason, there are also ‘straight’ parents who want children as a status symbol, they are just as selfish.
Gregory Storer
Gregory,
You keep harping about ‘formal recognition’, but let me ask you this – why does your relationship need to be about that? With that logic could I not argue (because I’m not married), that the lack of formal recognition of my friendships somehow makes me a ‘second-class citizen’? Do I not love those people? Why should I be ‘discriminated’ against? Why can’t they be called marriages by your logic?
I don’t buy it. Marriage is defined a certain way and I don’t seek to redefine it if I want to participate. The fact that it is defined a certain way is what makes it special. Change the definition to be more open and it will certainly be less special. That is true of this, as it is with a Rolls Royce.
A man and woman is the only pairing that can beget children. Yes, it is unique – and critical to even just the existence of the next generation of people. No other relationship can do that. It makes sense for a government to take some interest in that and leave the others alone.
Mark Rabich
Thanks Gregory
No, you do not, or do not want to understand.
Where would you have been if it was not for your
FATHER AND MOTHER!
Anne van Tilburg
Well Bill, I’m staggered. All that Left-wing propaganda must have had the desired effect. You have finally seen the light!!!! I soon hope to be able to marry the beautiful shrub I have in a pot on my front veranda. We’ve been batting eyelids for months.
Seriously though, I usually cry at weddings but the other day I pictured myself at the wedding of two men. Not sure if I would laugh or throw up all over the person sitting in front of me.
David Williams
Thanks Gregory
You say: “it’s a folly to suggest that only children from a married relationship ‘do best’”. But that is exactly what the social science research tells us. Of course with anything there are exceptions, but the overwhelming conclusion of all the research on this is exactly what you don’t want to acknowledge. But that is always how ideologues operate: they prefer spinning their own agenda rather than let the facts and evidence speak.
And homosexual parents are inherently selfish in a way normal married heterosexual parents can never be, since they willfully deny a child the fundamental right to his or her own biological parents.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Yeah, what is it with the gay brigade. I read how lesbians are wanting to change birth certificates so that they don’t show the father’s name. How self-centred is that? It’s turning the birth certificate, a document about the heredity of a child, into a banner for homosexuality. Similarly they are trying to turn the institution of marriage into a symbol of homosexual acceptance… talk about forcing one’s beliefs onto others. It’s a sad day when minorities take over the process of democracy.
Garth Penglase
Bill,
What a magnificent spoof! Why don’t you submit this article to Online Opinion and wait for the reaction?
Spencer Gear
Thanks Spencer
I would, but given that I just had an article on this topic there on Thursday, they may not want another one – at least not so soon. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11268
And there already is quite the reaction to that piece, with nearly 100 comments so far, including all the mudslinging, lies and hate speech from the other side.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Garth, so far I think Peter Tatchell is our best source of homosexual truth. In his numerous articles entitled “Beyond Equality” we get statements like this
“Whereas GLF saw marriage and the family as a patriarchal prison for women, gay people and children, today the LGBT movement uncritically champions same-sex marriage and families. It has embraced traditional heterosexual aspirations lock stock and barrel. How ironic. While straight couples are deserting marriage, same-sexers are rushing to embrace it: witness the current legal fight in California for the right to marry. Are queers the new conservatives, the 21st-century suburbanites?”
“We get equality, but at a price. The cost to our community is the surrender of our unique, distinctive queer identity. The unwritten social contract at the heart of law reform is that lesbians and gays will behave respectably and comply with the heterosexual moral agenda. No more cruising, orgies or sadomasochism! In return, the “good gays” are rewarded with equal treatment. Meanwhile, all the sex-repressive social structures, institutions and value systems remain intact, and the “bad gays” remain sexual outlaws. This nouveau gay reformism involves the abandonment of any critical perspective on straight culture. In place of a healthy scepticism towards heterosexual morality, it substitutes naive acquiescence.”
“In contrast to this shallow reformism, queer emancipation groups like OutRage! have a post-equality agenda. We seek the extension of sexual freedom and human rights in ways that benefit everyone, regardless of sexuality. Many in the lesbian and gay community are jumping on the same-sex marriage bandwagon, endorsing either Dutch-style gay marriages or Danish-style registered partnerships (which are basically civil marriage by another name). OutRage!, in contrast, argues for a more democratic, egalitarian option. We offer a modern, flexible alternative to traditional heterosexual wedlock.”
David Skinner, UK
Speaking of satire does anyone recall the Simpsons episode where Homer became a marriage celebrant who was willing for a price to marry any two entities?
Terry Darmody
Maurice you protest too much. Why should you become full of moral indignation if there is no absolute measure against which to say whether something is right or wrong, true of false? To what court in the universe do you present your charges against Bill if there is no court? What I think really fills you with rage is the thought that there really is a power to which, whether you like it or not, you bend the knee and in the words of Bob Dylan.
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
However, and thank you for this Maurice, because your comment opens new doors into the labyrinthine and tortured mind of the queer, that deserves a study all of its own. Queers are intensely religious. The overwhelming majority are not atheists but idolaters.
Sisters of perpetual indulgence
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2007/04/bbc_promotes_sa.html
They even believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden, Maurice.
http://www.radfae.org/
Temple of Priapus
http://www.templepriapus.org/more.htm
Directory of gay temples
http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/ear_01/ear_01_00188.html
The Lovely June Bride, Gene Robinson.
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26150
The Lovely Rev.Sharon Ferguson
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bqcs2
http://www.youtube.com/user/lgcmnews#p/a/u/2/C1nD6N6DY3Q
The High Priestess of syncretism herself
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2010/06/08/bishop-jefferts-schori-in-her-own-words-2/
Mother Earth and Paganism of The Episcopalian Church (this video is in two sections; the second one starting when the first one finishes)
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2010/05/20/mother-earth-pagan-rituals-ancestor-worship-dancing-girls-the-consecration-of-mary-glasspool/
David Skinner, UK
Very well put Bill.
The sad thing is that even after pointing out how ridiculous it is to move away from the logical, and obviously natural, construction of marriage, and the many consequences it will have, there are still those who refuse to see it.
People are generally not concerned about the well-being of society. Because we are selfish beings we are concerned about our own rights more than anything else, and the only time we step in for the ‘rights’ of others is when we want to do something ‘good’, something politically correct, something which would make others say ‘oh, how considerate of him/her’ about us, something which boosts our ego and public image.
Our definition of love is: let other people do whatever they like (even if it might hurt or kill them or others) as long as they don’t interfere with me doing whatever I like. That is obviously not what love is but that is how we tend to live out love.
Servaas Hofmeyr, South Africa
Maurice Colbourne, you manifested classic atheist behaviour in your argument above. You put up a strawman and aim to destroy it whereafter you tell your Christian opponent off by using the F-word. (Sadly, some people call themselves Christians and use the same tactics as well which probably refutes my statement that it is classic atheist behaviour, rather just bad debating tactics)
If you consider the article again you would notice that no comparison was made between gay-marriage and bestiality. The point being made is that someone who wants to marry an animal would be able to get such a practice legalised should they use the same argument used by those who lobby for gay-marriages to be made legal. In other words, if gay-marriages are made legal on those grounds and government is truly secular and fair, they should not proclaim all the other types of marriages to be illegal either.
Servaas Hofmeyr, South Africa
Maurice Colbourne is typical of the mud-slinging gays, so thin on argument. It’s people like him who convince me that, for the good of society and particularly young children, gays should be treated for sexual orientation realignment, which is proven to work in 95% of cases, and is only not enforced for liberal political reasons.
Just as we don’t accept people going around murdering, we shouldn’t accept anyone who wants to fundamentally tear society apart to justify their own diseased personalities.
I can’t tell you how mad it’s made me to read someone using foul and abusive language to somebody as considered as Bill. Disgusting. No wonder he’s gone off with his tail between his legs.
Barbara Murray-Leach
Servaas, you might find this supports your argument:
http://americansfortruth.com/news/gay-icon-kameny-says-bestiality-ok-as-long-as-the-animal-doesnt-mind.html
David Skinner, UK
Thanks guys
But world renowned ethicist Peter Singer is also a great fan of bestiality: http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/2001—-.htm
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Gregory your thesis that children are brought up just as well nowadays in different families that come in all shapes and sizes is a lie. The vast majority of queer families, ie, with children that act as human trophies and human shields, are all lesbian. The reason our boys are under achieving in schools throughout the West is because feminists have been allowed to airbrush men out of the equation. The vast majority of boys who underachieve come from families and schools where there is not a man in sight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bqcs2
David Skinner, UK
I thought it prudent to respond again to Gregory’s ‘big question’:
“I am yet to read or hear a single convincing argument that allow protection to all citizens in a free an open registration system (call it marriage) will in any way diminish the meaning of existing relationships (i.e. those already married)”
His question is actually upside-down.
The real question is this:
What benefit does society get from formally recognizing any relationship outside of marriage?
The onus is not on us to prove why the definition of marriage should not be changed, but on activists like Gregory to prove the advantages to others that changing it will bring. You don’t play games with bedrock social institutions just to suit a minority. Far too much is at stake for that.
Mark Rabich
What would it profit a man if he gain the right to ‘marriage’ (by changing the earthly law definition) but lost his own soul in Hell eternal because of breaking God’s eternally perfect, Holy and moral laws?
Thanks Bill for your creative writing piece… it shows us that people are always willing to push God’s boundaries with their own selfish sinful behaviour.
Michael Dawson
You think same sex marriage is bad. Just wait for same sex divorce….
Anthony McGregor
Thanks Anthony
But of course that is already happening in countries and states where same-sex marriage has been legalised.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Did anyone see the TV show ‘Glee’ the other night? One of the main characters attempted to marry herself…but she was always the weird one. But thankfully that didn’t really happen, and was contrasted with the parents of two of the main students marrying each other in a normal (albeit song and dance filled) ceremony.
Christie Ewens
If homosexuals want to be conservative let’s let them.
Sex is only permitted within marriage, which is entered into voluntarily for life.
They want to be able to be married like the Christians perhaps we should ask them to behave sexually as Christians are expected to within marriage.
Aside from the issues Bill has already pointed out, I fear that SSM would open the door for open slather adoption and ART for homosexual couples.
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
Actually some homosexual activists seek to make that argument: let’s have marriage as it will turn generally promiscuous homosexuals into monogamous ones. But this is incorrect. It is not marriage as such which tames the promiscuous male, but women – that is, wives. That is the real ingredient in taming and domesticating the wandering male. And of course that ingredient is entirely missing in homosexual marriage.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Actually Bill that ingredient is entirely missing in male-male homosexual marriage. There is a double dose in female-female homosexual marriage. Some of the arguments don’t hold up as well if woman are taken into account as well as men.
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
But I did choose my words carefully, and said “homosexual” in distinction to “lesbian” which is the common way to distinguish the two. They use the word “gay” to cover both. But in neither case do we have anything like real marriage. I do not consider the two men in a SSM to be husbands, nor do I consider the two women in a SSM to be wives.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
No for a real marriage the sexes must compliment each other. I was just pointing out that there are two types of gay relationships.
I have always understood homosexual to mean same-sex (either) and gay to be men while lesbian is the term for women.
Kylie Anderson
Thanks Kylie
Sorry, I must be getting old. Yes you are quite right. Ignore my above comment!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Christie, you might want to have a look at this:
http://www.news24.com/World/News/Woman-marries-herself-20101107
Maybe you have seen it already.
Servaas Hofmeyr, South Africa
Here I go again, sounding like a broken record – just another instance of 2 Timothy Chapter 2 Verses 25-26!
Steve Davis
Thanks guys
And now we are being “discriminatory” for banning convicted child sex offenders from adopting: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/prohibiting-sex-offenders-from-adoption-discriminatory-says-report?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=081b6c955e-LifeSiteNews_com_Intl_Headlines12_01_2010&utm_medium=email
Bill Muehlenberg
Bill that last link is the writing on the wall. Already we have had cases where the social services have taken children away from grand parents, or other close relatives who wanted to look after their grand children or nephews who for one reason of another find themselves in care an placed with homosexual couples. No doubt now grandparents who do not sign up to diversity regulations will find their grandchildren placed into the care of paedophiles.
David Skinner, UK
So it’s OK for child sex offenders to adopt children but a Christian can’t because they might tell the child homosexuality is wrong. This world is crazy.
Kylie Anderson
Yes it certainly is Kylie.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
To consider heterosexuality as being at one end of a spectrum and homosexuality being at the other, with bisexuality coming in the middle is a marvelous piece of deception.
It is chastity, the state of monogamous, enduring marriage between a man and woman, as describe by Jesus Christ which is at one end of the spectrum, with maybe necrophilia or sex/cannibalism at the other end, with a range of polysexual perversities, including fornication, adultery, sodomy, incest, bestiality coming in the middle. Straights and same sex participants can be found in all those categories. They can all, including the relationships of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles and Prince William and Kate Middleton be classed as queer or polysexual perversion. This is what it means by Peter Tatchell telling us that we will all become queer.
David Skinner, UK
Preserving the traditional definition of marriage is about preserving civilisation. Sure the human race will continue to breed if there were no such institution as marriage, but society would be far less civilised.
And to paraphrase the wisdom of Syndrome from The Incredibles, “When everyone’s married, no one will be”!
Ewan McDonald, Vic
And now an Australian man marries his pet dog. And why not? It follows perfectly from the logic of the same-sex marriage argument. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/puppy-love-man-marries-a-real-dog/story-e6frfhk6-1225965042831
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
David, you forgot unRev Dr Neil G Thomas of MCC, who bought out http://www.jesus.com – at the opposite end of the moral spectrum is Rev Dr Neil J Thomas of InnerLife Christian Church, Australia ( http://www.ntm.org.au )
Grant Vandervalk
David, my teaching experience has been during foreign mission, but I totally agree. Woman-dominated homes, schools, and even churches… Where are the positive male role models? No wonder so many turn queer! I can say that because I was one that was headed that way before conversion
Back to what I first said, aren’t we Christians all foreigners in this world, and all called to be missionaries in our families, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and even our own Churches?
Grant Vandervalk