Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Same-sex marriage: Instead of insults, stick to the actual issues

Why is it that when liberals attack conservative positions, they so often resort to personal insults and unsubstantiated denunciations of motive? Case in point: in the last issue of The Citizen, Mike Boylan accused persons opposed to gay marriage of “hating” homosexuals and harboring some irrational fear that gays were after their children.

This self-serving notion fails completely to address the substance of the argument, but rather seeks only to discredit the persons making the argument.

For the umpteenth time, my and others’ opposition to gay marriage has NOTHING to do with animosity towards homosexuals themselves. It has nothing to do with wanting to deny homosexual their “civil rights.”

I oppose gay marriage because it fundamentally alters the definition and reality of marriage in a way that will be injurious to society in ways we can barely conceive.

The crisis in our society now primarily stems from the dissolution of the family unit, which has been exacerbated, if not caused by, a cheapening of marriage in society, the media, and the courts.

On a separate but related point, Mr. Boylan points out that when his wife’s gay friends got married, nothing horrible happened. I guess this is an argument for the appropriateness of gay marriage, but it presumes that if something is wrong, the earth will shake and the heavens roar when that wrong thing is done. This is simply not the case.

Case in point: When I first smoked a cigarette at the tender age of 14, something which was without a doubt “wrong,” nothing happened. I was not smitten by lightning nor was I filled with dread and fear. But that didn’t make the act “right.”

This lack of immediate effect is a basic characteristic of evil. When Adam and Eve first ate the apple, nothing happened, even though God told them that they would die if they did so (of course, later on they did die of old age, which is something the serpent left out of the conversation).

When the first abortion was performed after Roe v. Wade, nothing happened, at least nothing noticeable to the media and society at large. When Nazis first began gassing Jews to death, no one took any notice.

Silence in the aftermath of an evil act does not negate the evil. Rather, that silence reflects a lack of an ability to discern what is and is not evil on the part of the protagonists, a problem which horribly plagues and pervades our society.

Back to my original theme: In another letter, a writer accuses Christians who are moved by Mel Gibson’s film as perhaps taking sexual pleasure in Christ’s torture. Excuse me? What is this based on? The author’s own perverse imaginings, perhaps.

In any case, to impugn Christians who take the message of “The Passion” seriously in this manner begs the question: How do you know what is going through the mind of a viewer?

I have seen the movie and although the violence was hard to watch, I was moved intensely by the fact that Jesus would willingly undergo such torture for my redemption. The greater his pain, the more my gratitude.

I have a feeling that those who have a true relationship with Jesus Christ see this movie and feel indebted to Christ for the suffering he underwent. Those who don’t simply see it as a repugnant exercise in masochism, perhaps because they feel guilty at their own rejection of this suffering.

Whatever their thoughts or motives, I certainly wouldn’t simply say that Mr. Boylan or the other gentleman are motivated by a hateful, sadistic prejudice towards Christians. I can’t possibly know that and wouldn’t pretend to.

Rather, I would ask that they and all liberals stop accusing conservatives of things they cannot prove (critics’ empty-headed accusations of Bush’s going to Iraq for “oil money” come to mind).

Stick to the substance of the issues if you want to have any chance of winning these debates. Otherwise, you come off as angry, petulant crybabies who resort to playground-style name-calling when the chips are down.

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.