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May 19th, 2008

This Is All The Fault Of Luther

Shorter Rod Dreher:  Protestantism is to blame for same sex marriage.

It is astonishing, though, how quickly gay marriage went from being something as unthinkable by most people as legalized polygamy is today, to being considered a constitutional right by high courts, and accepted by roughly half the populace. I was thinking today that there’s a parallel between what happened to the Catholic Church, especially in Europe, in the 20th century — how it went from being apparently strong and vital to facing all kinds of crises in the blink of an eye. As those familiar with the arguments know, there is a tendency among the right to blame the Second Vatican Council, but the truth is if the Church were as strong as she seemed, things wouldn’t have fallen apart so rapidly.

So it is with the institution of marriage. Gay marriage is and is not a sudden shift in the meaning of marriage. It started with the Reformation. The reason I think gay marriage cannot be stopped, only delayed, is because it is only the latest manifestation of deep social trends in the West going back centuries. These currents run so deep in our civilization they carry us all along without many of us being aware of how far from shore we’re receding.

Ah…for the good old days, when heretics, witches and homosexuals were burned at the stake.  Dreher has tried, oh so hard in recent months, to seem like a decent man.  A love the sinner, hate the sin kind of man.  Not a bigot…just someone who has very strong moral values.  And then California goes and does this to him.  One good thing to come from the California Supreme Court ruling the other day is that reflexive release of stench from that open sewer Dreher’s kind like to call a conscience.  We don’t hate homosexuals…honest…really…we just don’t want THEIR PRESENCE DEFILING OUR SACRED INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE!!!  We need to get these from time to time, so we don’t start believing all that crap about them kind actually being anything other then somewhat more publishable in family newspapers then the Westboro Baptist Church. 

And Much more verbose.  Fred could distill Dreher’s entire column of crap down to a single poster sign that reads: GOD HATES FAG AMERICA.  No kidding…go read the damn thing.  Dreher is literally calling same-sex marriage a symptom of the inevitable destruction of the west that began with the Protestant Reformation.  Take that all you Christian fundamentalists who oppose gay rights.  You’re just as much a threat to western civilization as homosexuality as far as Dreher is concerned.

This is why I don’t see any hope of stopping gay marriage. It did not come out of nowhere, but emerged as the working-out of the logic of our civilization and its exaltation of individualism.

You know…all that American stuff about freedom and liberty and justice for all.  Why Dreher doesn’t come right out and say that the very existence of United States Of America is a symptom of the inevitable decline of the west too I’ve no idea, other then he likes having that stars and stripes thing on his passport.  Oh…and the standard of living in a free country is kinda swell too.

I think the most common, and superficially common-sensical, questions that comes up in discussions of this issue is, "How does Jill and Jane’s marriage hurt Jack and Diane’s?" The idea is that unless you can demonstrate that a gay marriage directly harms traditional marriage, there is no rational objection to gay marriage.

But this is a shallow way to look at it. We all share the same moral ecology. You may as well ask why it should have mattered to the people of Amherst, Mass., if some rich white people in Charleston, SC, owned slaves. Don’t believe in slavery? Don’t buy one.

Look at that carefully.  Dreher may seem to be throwing moral relativism back in the face of liberals, but what he’s actually doing is employing it as a weapon.  What mattered about slavery was the wrong done to slaves, regardless of who did or did not choose to own any.  The question remains, what is the wrong done to Jack and Diane if Jill and Jane are free to marry.   But Dreher has an answer for that too…

Redefining marriage to include same-sex partners within its definition radically changes the institution, reinforcing the idea that it has no transcendental meaning, but can be changed at will.

Transcendental meaning.  Same sex marriage destroys marriage, by depriving it of its Transcendental meaning.  And whatever that Transcendental meaning is, it’s something that only heterosexuals can bring to it.  By virtue of their being…well…heterosexual.  Whatever it is that same sex couples bring to a marriage, it cannot be marriage because it cannot have that Transcendental meaning.  Only heterosexual coupling can possess that Transcendental meaning.  Which means that only heterosexual families possess that Transcendental meaning.  Because only heterosexual love possesses that Transcendental meaning.  

Here…let me decode that: Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.  Only now the thinking is we don’t even have that.  We only have make-believe sex.  Mere genital stimulation.  Nothing more then that.  Certainly nothing Transcendental.  We are shallow, empty beings.  Creatures who only resemble true humans.  Our hearts can hold none of that Transcendental Meaning that heterosexuals wake up to and regard favorably in the bathroom mirror every morning.  Our brief barren assignations are just pitiful imitations of true heterosexual love.  And by demanding that our pseudo unions be regarded in marriage as being on the same Transcendental plane as the rich and noble and truly human heterosexual unions are, we do more then mock their genuine human capacity to love…we destroy the institute that enriches and sustains it.  And take down western civilization with it.  And thus, the Protestant Reformation finally achieves its goal.  Praise Satan.

That pretty much sum it up Rod?

Over at Box Turtle Bulletin and Ex-Gay Watch the discussion is about how to reach out to the other side.  But you can’t.  Not to the other side.  To your neighbor…yes.  Even if they oppose gay rights bitterly.  Neighbors must always be reached out to.  But you need to understand this…the other side isn’t the anti-same sex marriage side.  Listen to Dreher again.  Here is the other side:

This is why I don’t see any hope of stopping gay marriage. It did not come out of nowhere, but emerged as the working-out of the logic of our civilization and its exaltation of individualism.

This is the side that has been bitterly opposed to everything fine and noble a human being could ever become since the caveman days.  This is the side that would rather make you bow down to the gods and beg forgiveness for being born with a heart and a brain, then live in a world where the human spirit can soar.  Because the sight of everything a human can be, that they cannot, is more offensive to them, more frightening, then a landscape of beaten bent and broken humans in chains.  When Rod Dreher accuses liberals of using the rhetoric of slave masters, he’s laughing in your face, and then spitting in it.

It is one thing to reach out to a neighbor, and another to reach out to the one who presumes to be your master.  They get only the finger, and that so long as they keep their hands to themselves.  So…in the spirit of dialogue…Go Fuck yourself Rod…

You and all the other haters of humanity, and everything fine and noble human beings are capable of, and all the beauty they are capable of making, and giving to one another.  I’ve got your decline and fall of western civilization right here you gutter crawling bigot…

And if this image frightens you less then the sight of a devoted loving same-sex couple being joined in marriage in the eyes of the law, never mind your Nazi Pope’s, then you can just go fuck yourself because it isn’t the death of western civilization you are worried about because western civilization isn’t anything to you but a perch to shit and squawk on.  You never had to go through anything like this to marry the one love of your life…

…so save your pusillanimous rhetoric about the Transcendental Meaning of marriage for someone who thinks you really give a flying fuck about it more then pissing on the courage of lovers who would walk through fire for the sake of their love.  Would you go through the gauntlet gay couples have to go through for the woman you married?  Would you hold her hand in public if it meant the two of you might get your skulls bashed in?  Would you take her hand in marriage if it meant that someday some fanatic might decide to kill both of you to avenge the institution of marriage and prevent the fall of western civilization?   Would you have the nerve to love, if you had to have the nerve gay couples do?  I doubt it.  Because only cowards try to incite passions toward minorities.

And that’s what bothers you isn’t in Dreher.  Not that in our struggle for equality people come to see our humanity after all, but that they’ll finally see what a bunch of runts your kind are.  It isn’t the end of western civilization that keeps you awake nights.  It’s the end of pretense.

  
 

2 Responses to “This Is All The Fault Of Luther”

  1. Chris Says:

    The website of the Westboro Baptist Church (Godhatesfags.com) actually made me feel sick. Not because of all the hateful writings, I found that part amusing, and interesting in a dark humor/sarcastic kind of way. (Did you know the bible preaches hate!) What made me sick was the photos of kids being forced? Coerced? into spreading this church’s message of hate. I am all for free speech, but not when they are forcing there views upon children who don’t know any better, and then in turn using kids as pawns in their own goddamn war. (Ok, now I am just pissed and sick …) That website was worse then two girls one cup…

  2. Perry Says:

    Wow! Thank you for all of that!

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