Surprise! You are now a Bigot
This great article comes from my diocesan newspaper, The Boston Pilot. It is written by Dr. Michael Pakaluk, a fine man and a good Catholic. The article speaks to our situation here in Massachusetts, regarding indoctrination in homosexual ideology, which, even if you do not live in Massachusetts, will most likely be coming to a school near you in the not-to-distant future.
He addresses the ripples in the pond of culture caused by the rock of same-sex marriage that has been thrown in spite of the efforts of those who know better trying to prevent it. Most of these cultural ripples are not fully understood yet. This decision to destroy the common understanding of marriage will effect so many more than those directly involved. This article covers just a few of those ripples.
He addresses the ripples in the pond of culture caused by the rock of same-sex marriage that has been thrown in spite of the efforts of those who know better trying to prevent it. Most of these cultural ripples are not fully understood yet. This decision to destroy the common understanding of marriage will effect so many more than those directly involved. This article covers just a few of those ripples.
All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.
Questions and comments are welcome and appreciated.
God love you,
God love you,
Father V.
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Surprise! You are now a bigot
In my last column, I argued in effect that Catholic parents should no longer send their children to public schools in Massachusetts. Seek a private or parochial school, instruct your child at home, or simply leave the state. Why? Because public schools are now required by law to be instruments of indoctrination in gay ideology.
Few Catholic parents seem to grasp this point, because they do not yet appreciate the revolution that has been worked in our laws over the last four years. They think that when “same-sex marriage” was recognized legally, the only thing that changed was that tolerance was extended to a handful of people. Not so. What really happened, is that the apparatus of the state changed its direction of support. Those laws that used to support you (admittedly, only in a vestigial and minimal way) have now been turned against you.
In order to see how the schools must now act, it helps to reflect carefully on the civil rights movement of the ‘60s. Think first about the long decades of segregation in the South and “separate but equal.” Think about the absurdity of a black-skinned man not being able to use the same water fountain or restaurant as a white-skinned man, because his skin was a different color. When you recall these things, are you feeling angry again? Now think of that righteous anger as expressed in the zealous efforts of the civil rights activists. Think of all the righteousness and moral fervor that was directed by those activists in the North against any bigots and white supremacists in the South who defended segregation.
Think next about how the public schools became enlisted in efforts to combat racism. I do not mean desegregation and busing. I mean: Black History Month; textbooks which prominently displayed interracial couples; films about how wrong prejudice is; discussions about the importance of accepting different people regardless of their appearance. The schools, rightly so, saw it as their solemn duty to educate children against racism. They aimed to eliminate racism, and the entire curriculum in the school was adapted to this goal.
I am asking you to contemplate these things because, as a Catholic parent, you won’t have the slightest idea what you are up against unless you appreciate that now you are on the receiving end of a similar assurance of moral righteousness.
“Same-sex marriage” is ultimately based on a misguided analogy with racism. It presupposes that, just as we shouldn’t treat someone differently based on the color of his skin, so we shouldn’t treat someone differently based on his sexual proclivities and patterns of sexual behavior.
Don’t get me wrong: I agree that the analogy rests on a hundred confusions. Skin color is irrelevant to our character (as Martin Luther King famously said), but how we act sexually is not irrelevant. There is no “natural” skin color, but there is a natural and right use of sex organs. Male and female are complementary, but it’s nonsense to speak of complementary skin colors. Again, the fact that some men desire to have relations with other men no more inevitably settles their identity as “gay,” than the fact that most men desire to have relations with all other attractive women inevitably settles their identity as “promiscuous.”
But it hardly matters that the analogy makes no sense. That might have mattered, if a law proposing “same-sex marriage” were ever debated by the people and voted on, because then the arguments bearing on its nonsensicality could have been stated and discussed. But there was no public discussion, and there was no vote. Four whacky justices were abetted by one weak-willed governor and a hundred cowardly legislators.
Now the analogy is firmly embedded in law. But then so is a chief consequence of the analogy, namely, that anyone who rejects “same-sex marriage” is an irrational bigot whose hateful views should be suppressed. And that (I trust) includes you.
Suppose you are a decent family man, not unlike David Parker in Arlington, working hard at a job and trying to raise a family. You take it for granted, as something unquestioned, that only a man and a woman can get married. The alternative strikes you as ridiculous, not even up for debate. Perhaps you are religious and you base your views ultimately on the Bible or Church teaching, or perhaps you simply have good sense. As for homosexuality, you perhaps distinguish between the feelings and the actions; and you wouldn’t think it a good thing to engage in the latter, even if you had the desire to do so.
In the state of Massachusetts, something happened to such a person between 2003 and today. Four years ago he was a good family man and an upstanding citizen. His views were still reflected in the law and supported in the schools. Today, however, that same man is a bigot. The law is against him, and public schools on principle must teach that such a person is filled with hatred (a “homophobe”) and despicable. Indeed, the schools are obliged to teach his own children that he is a bigot. More than that, they’ll do so convinced that they are fulfilling their high moral duty. And any sign of resistance on his part will be interpreted by them as only more evidence of the man’s bigotry.
They’ll no more listen to him than the SJC, the governor, or the Legislature did before them.
They’ve left such a man little alternative but to vote with his feet.
Few Catholic parents seem to grasp this point, because they do not yet appreciate the revolution that has been worked in our laws over the last four years. They think that when “same-sex marriage” was recognized legally, the only thing that changed was that tolerance was extended to a handful of people. Not so. What really happened, is that the apparatus of the state changed its direction of support. Those laws that used to support you (admittedly, only in a vestigial and minimal way) have now been turned against you.
In order to see how the schools must now act, it helps to reflect carefully on the civil rights movement of the ‘60s. Think first about the long decades of segregation in the South and “separate but equal.” Think about the absurdity of a black-skinned man not being able to use the same water fountain or restaurant as a white-skinned man, because his skin was a different color. When you recall these things, are you feeling angry again? Now think of that righteous anger as expressed in the zealous efforts of the civil rights activists. Think of all the righteousness and moral fervor that was directed by those activists in the North against any bigots and white supremacists in the South who defended segregation.
Think next about how the public schools became enlisted in efforts to combat racism. I do not mean desegregation and busing. I mean: Black History Month; textbooks which prominently displayed interracial couples; films about how wrong prejudice is; discussions about the importance of accepting different people regardless of their appearance. The schools, rightly so, saw it as their solemn duty to educate children against racism. They aimed to eliminate racism, and the entire curriculum in the school was adapted to this goal.
I am asking you to contemplate these things because, as a Catholic parent, you won’t have the slightest idea what you are up against unless you appreciate that now you are on the receiving end of a similar assurance of moral righteousness.
“Same-sex marriage” is ultimately based on a misguided analogy with racism. It presupposes that, just as we shouldn’t treat someone differently based on the color of his skin, so we shouldn’t treat someone differently based on his sexual proclivities and patterns of sexual behavior.
Don’t get me wrong: I agree that the analogy rests on a hundred confusions. Skin color is irrelevant to our character (as Martin Luther King famously said), but how we act sexually is not irrelevant. There is no “natural” skin color, but there is a natural and right use of sex organs. Male and female are complementary, but it’s nonsense to speak of complementary skin colors. Again, the fact that some men desire to have relations with other men no more inevitably settles their identity as “gay,” than the fact that most men desire to have relations with all other attractive women inevitably settles their identity as “promiscuous.”
But it hardly matters that the analogy makes no sense. That might have mattered, if a law proposing “same-sex marriage” were ever debated by the people and voted on, because then the arguments bearing on its nonsensicality could have been stated and discussed. But there was no public discussion, and there was no vote. Four whacky justices were abetted by one weak-willed governor and a hundred cowardly legislators.
Now the analogy is firmly embedded in law. But then so is a chief consequence of the analogy, namely, that anyone who rejects “same-sex marriage” is an irrational bigot whose hateful views should be suppressed. And that (I trust) includes you.
Suppose you are a decent family man, not unlike David Parker in Arlington, working hard at a job and trying to raise a family. You take it for granted, as something unquestioned, that only a man and a woman can get married. The alternative strikes you as ridiculous, not even up for debate. Perhaps you are religious and you base your views ultimately on the Bible or Church teaching, or perhaps you simply have good sense. As for homosexuality, you perhaps distinguish between the feelings and the actions; and you wouldn’t think it a good thing to engage in the latter, even if you had the desire to do so.
In the state of Massachusetts, something happened to such a person between 2003 and today. Four years ago he was a good family man and an upstanding citizen. His views were still reflected in the law and supported in the schools. Today, however, that same man is a bigot. The law is against him, and public schools on principle must teach that such a person is filled with hatred (a “homophobe”) and despicable. Indeed, the schools are obliged to teach his own children that he is a bigot. More than that, they’ll do so convinced that they are fulfilling their high moral duty. And any sign of resistance on his part will be interpreted by them as only more evidence of the man’s bigotry.
They’ll no more listen to him than the SJC, the governor, or the Legislature did before them.
They’ve left such a man little alternative but to vote with his feet.
Michael Pakaluk is currently finishing three books:
a textbook on accounting ethics;
a translation of Aristotle’s ethics;
and a biography of Ruth V.K. Pakaluk.
4 comments:
I make no arguments, the author of the article does. However, I don't think 'sexual orientation' is equated to sexual behavior. One may have an inclination to any number of abberant desires, and this does not equal acting upon them. (Further, "sexual orientation" is a turn of phrase I am uncomfortable with, there is but one orientation, everything else is a deviation from that.)
On another note, I have no clue to what you are refering. No where in the article are the topics mentioned in your response raised.
Lastly, your last comment is rather ignorant and completely off topic.
I am not a Christian but consider it outrageous to treat homosexual orientation as more of an excuse for homosexual activity than alcoholism is an excuse for getting drunk!
Persons being of the same sex should suffice to render sexual activity between them deplorable,and the reason they may wish to engage in it is irrelevant.And standards of conduct are not "bigotry".
Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.
Eleanor Roosevelt
WGW, it's not about religion, but about natural law. Take God out of the picture, and even Nature didn't intend sexual relations between men. The proof? Our sexual organs are also our reproductive organs. It's about natural complementarity, cultural norms, and societal understanding of what a family is.
When people don't have a valid reason for disagreeing with something, they are quick to jump to the "don't thrust your theology on me!"
Is the alcoholic, the man with a violent temper, the pederast, the over-eater not to believe that God didn't make them that way, so it's okay? This argument is nonsensical. All of us have flaws and appetites and desires that need to be controlled. The author makes note of this. Only in the sexual realm, and only in modern times, do we feel the need to justify every carnal urge with "God made me that way." Rubbish. It doesn't hold water.
The authors points are valid, have been proven right. Which points haven't been?
I do not equate homosexuality (more properly referred to as 'Same Sex Attraction Disorder') with evil. It is a disorder as so many sins are. I do however label "homosexual marriage" as an evil, and it enshrines a deviant and destructive practice into the rule of law and corrupts the very institution that gives birth the the family, our society's most basic building block.
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