On Wednesday the Herald Sun ran an opinion piece by former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett. It was undoubtedly one of the most silly and intellectually vacuous pieces you will ever see supporting homosexual marriage. Yet there it got pride of place in this paper’s opinion pages.
I wrote a response to this, but it has thus far not seen the light of day. I do not really expect it to either. The MSM has all but declared that there can be only one position on this issue, and the other side simply will not get a hearing. So much for freedom of speech and a balanced press.
Thus I have had to use my own website to offer this rebuttal. Until the PC zombies decide to close down the alternative media, we have at least this avenue to have our voices heard. This then is what I said in response to his piece:
Dear Jeff, can I ask you a question? If I demand that a group of vegetarians include me – a ravishing meat-eater – in their group, do you think they might have some compelling reasons why they would say no to my request? Would they not rightly argue that to admit a carnivore will not just redefine their core message, but define it right out of existence?
To accept meat eaters into a vegetarian organisation is of course to destroy it: it is no longer a vegetarian group. In the same way to claim out of the blue that marriage somehow has nothing to do with a man and a woman and should be open to any gender combination is of course to destroy marriage.
How much historical amnesia do we have to somehow think that heterosexual marriage is merely some recent invention – indeed, some construct of 1961 as you suggest? How bizarre is this historical revisionism. Basically every culture throughout human history has had a recognisable form of marriage involving a man, a woman, and any children that come forth from that union.
Yet we are now being told that marriage can be anything we want it to be. “As long as we all respect each other, and obey the laws of the country, surely that is all that matters.” Really Jeff? That is the only consideration regarding marriage – end of story?
Then what will you tell bisexual Joe who loves equally and passionately Sally and Bob? Will you simply tell them, ‘as long as we all respect each other, and obey the laws of the country, surely that is all that matters’? And what about the happy foursome who are “law-abiding citizens” whose “lives are short” as you put it?
Or the group of eight who do so dearly love each other. I guess you will be fully endorsing their “rights” as well to go for their nice group wedding? And why not, once you destroy the most essential, core feature of marriage, and insist that it can now mean whatever people want it to mean?
Indeed, a man may so love his daughter, and she him, that it would be gross discrimination to deny them their love – life is so short after all, and they really are good law-abiding citizens. And the woman who so loves her dear dog – just who are we to say that she cannot celebrate this love in a very public marriage ceremony?
You are concerned about mental health issues – as we all should be. But you simply have fallen for the mythology of the activists here. There is a very simple refutation to the unfounded claim that “homophobia” is somehow the reason for higher than average mental health problems and suicide rates amongst homosexuals.
Simply examine the data from the world’s most homosexual-friendly cities on earth, be it Amsterdam, or Sydney, or San Francisco. Guess what? The same high rates are found there as well. It really is hard to think of San Francisco as being so very homophobic.
Even the homosexual medical community admits to this, highlighting the very real physical and mental health risks associated with the lesbian and homosexual lifestyles:
glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageID=690
www.glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageID=691
Perhaps there is something about the homosexual lifestyle itself that causes these higher than usual rates of social pathologies. Why blame it on those who simply uphold the normal understanding of marriage, and are concerned about the wellbeing of children?
To say that legalising homosexual marriage is going to magically make all these problems disappear is reckless and unempirical nonsense. You really want to destroy the millennia-old institution of marriage simply because you think a few people might have a better self-image or higher self-esteem afterwards?
And we are supposed to accept this as a rational and logical argument for the destruction of the most enduring and vital social institution ever known to man? If this is the best your side can come up with, then can I simply say we just are not very impressed.
And we are “discriminating” against others by affirming the fundamental nature of marriage? Oh really. So is your beloved Hawthorn Football Club discriminating against you and me if we were to demand that they instantly accept us as players for the rest of the season and they refuse us?
Should we insist they also allow Essendon players to join in on their training and strategies sessions? It would be quite discriminatory to bar them wouldn’t it be, Jeff? And should we accept Rugby League players, rules, coaches and officials into the AFL in the name of inclusion, tolerance and anti-discrimination Jeff? If not, why not?
Clearly there is such a thing as good discrimination. Recognising a social institution which has contributed so many benefits to society, including the raising and rearing of the next generation, is not discrimination or hate. It is basic common sense.
Treating different things differently is the height of common sense and sound public policy. Homosexual relationships are not at all the same as heterosexual ones, so please stop pretending they are. If children had nothing to do with this issue, then governments would have no interest at all in the marriage question.
But the union of a man and a woman does have something to do with procreation, and that is why the state has a keen interest in recognising and endorsing heterosexual marriage. This simply does not exist with barren homosexual unions, so there is no compelling reason why governments should confer special recognition and privilege upon them.
And what in the world does the Catholic Church have to do with any of this ? I have not mentioned the R word once. The case for marriage and the wellbeing of children can be, and has been, made without any appeal to religion. And I am not even a Catholic anyway. So why all this sectarian bigotry here Jeff?
Regrettably you are so uninformed on the social science data here that it is rather embarrassing to see you even writing what you do. Indeed, you even admit that you have not read the doctors’ submission. So in complete ignorance you are bashing them. That is real sensible and fair; a great way to carry on an informed debate.
Why not try reading what you attack first? You will find in their submission a wealth of social science data, drawing upon numerous studies conducted over four decades which show that children do best, by every social indicator, when raised by their own biological parents, cemented in marriage.
Yet you think you can dismiss all this without even having read a word of it. Wow, that really does a lot for your intellectual credibility. These studies – and there are many thousands of them now – are utterly clear, and have come from all around the world; and none of them have anything to do with Catholicism. Yet you just attack a bogey man, and think you have somehow won the debate.
Sorry Jeff, but that is just not how proper debate and intellectual discourse is conducted. Attacking people’s imagined religious views without actually addressing any of the facts or evidence does not an argument make. But it does demonstrate that we are dealing with a very closed and prejudiced mind. Hardly helpful Jeff.
So please start dealing with the actual evidence, and stop setting up straw men to knock down. When we have something as important as the attempted destruction of the most fundamental social institution of human history, we really deserve some careful argumentation here, not moral and mental mush dressed up as an opinion piece.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/australians-must-embrace-gay-marriage/story-e6frfhqf-1226356692553
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