Obama, Same-Sex Marriage, and Bioethical Fallout
Yesterday President Obama threw his support behind same-sex marriage. Thank God! The mask is off, six months before the election and about a year since he announced that he was willfully violating his Oath of Office by ordering the Justice Department to cease defending the law in court. Specifically, he ordered an end to defending The Defense of Marriage Act.
It is the duty of the Executive Branch to see to it that the duly constituted laws of the land are executed and defended by attorneys general. Hasn’t that been the battle cry of Catholic governors who plead their personal opposition to abortion, but must uphold the law of the land with all of the resources of the Executive?
What Obama has done is actively define dictatorship by the selective upholding and prosecution of the laws. This eviscerates the legislative branch of government and turns the law into the personal prerogative of one man. If anyone claimed ignorance in voting for Obama the first time, he has made his agenda plain for all to see this time around. In not defending the Defense of Marriage Act and now openly declaring support for the redefinition of marriage, the president has declared war on the central institution of all organized religion. The question arises in many quarters…
“So What?”
It’s actually not so benign. For openers, heterosexuals have made a mess of marriage, with no-fault divorce and divorce rates hovering in the 50% range for decades. Still, if we have made a mess of our institution, the truth remains that it is OUR institution to fix.
A core reason for marriage is the universally recognized need of children to have a biological mother and father, each of whom brings their complementary strengths to bear on the formation of their new human beings. Modern research has overwhelmingly borne out the truth that children do best when raised by their biological mother and father, who both reside with the child under the same roof. The pathologies in children increase in proportion to the degree to which the biological parents drop out of the child’s life. That’s not conservative talking points. That’s well-established social scientific data.
Part of the pathology of gay/lesbian marriages (and most divorces in heterosexuals) is the belief that a child can do just fine without a mother or a father. At least in divorce the reality of one-parental involvement is a tragic consequence. In gay and lesbian unions it is a principled and celebrated world-view.
Worse still is the implicit validation of what some in the homosexual community call heterosexuals aloud: breeders. Gay men who donate sperm for IVF and surrogate motherhood merely use women as barnyard livestock. (So do the heterosexuals who pioneered and grew this beastly industry.)
Breeders.
Lesbian couples seeking sperm donations for either insemination or IVF do as much with men: Stud animals.
The entire affair signals the collapse of Western/Christian Civilization. We have lost sight of who we are, what our children require, and have subordinated their needs to our narcissistic and hedonistic obsessions.
There is nothing sweet and benign about two men determining that they are just as good as a mother. Such belief betrays their hostility toward women at the biological and metaphysical core of womanhood. The same for lesbians with men.
Bioethics has as a prerequisite that we know who we are, what our nature is and is not. It is concerned with the right use of technology and prudential judgement. When society embraces such institutionalized pathology it is impossible to have a coherent national discussion about how we treat ourselves and one another.
If we can’t agree on who and what we are, then anything goes.
If we cannot agree on who and what we are, then we will have that dictated to us by the government. Never in the history of any human civilization has a dictatorial government acted with beneficence or charitable forbearance. They have all treated their people as so much livestock. This time around, it is the people who have thus defined themselves. Tragically, there will always be a willing dictator ready to oblige.
