The gay marriage advocates have been producing some slick videos to promote their cause. This is from a site called Advocate.com. It is worth watching, especially for those who are on the front line of the Church's defense of natural marriage.
For a start, the ad is seen from the point of view of someone in love with a man. There appears to be some 'courting' involved (all very innocent), a nice holiday somewhere with a female friend, happy times and sad times when the 'partner' is comforting the man who is with his dying mother. Then, at a huge family party, involving loads of children, a ring is produced and a wedding proposal is made on bended knee, no less. Then, to our huge surprise, it turns out that the 'partner' is a man. Wow! You would never have seen that coming!
For those now facing the difficult task of defeating the arguments put forward by the lobby that dare not cease lobbying, or for those, indeed, seeking to produce 'light, not heat', the video is worth some analysis, not least because it neglects to portray some of the sadder sides to the gay man's story. That's not too surprising, of course, because all propaganda wants to show us the manifold goodness and merit of the message despite the negative elements overlooked by the message itself. Aren't those negative elements just so inconvenient!? In the video is the key premise of the gay marriage advocates argument and it all revolves around the normalisation of, and desire for total societal acceptance of, homosexuality. If you watched that video and thought something negative, then well, I'm sorry, but you're just an evil fascist.
The video is trying to tell us that all of those beautiful features of romantic love between man and woman are present in the gay relationship. Its trying to tell us that this is love, that this love is normal and healthy. In this sense the video is quite seductive. "Who is anyone to say that these guys aren't in love!? They make each other happy! They look so healthy! And happy!" say the audience. And, to a point, that assessment would be right. You know, even the pecks on the cheeks or lips are innocent enough. You see straight men in Greece doing that all the time.
What is more, the emphasis appears to be on agape, rather than eros, which I find rather interesting from our point of view. It actually shows friendship at its best. This goes to show that gay marriage advocates realise that the more raunchy side of the gay scene, that is, the reality of what they advocate (because, let's face it, nobody in the gay community is advocating chaste, brotherly love) is inherently either (a) unnatural in the eyes of the viewing public, (b) off-putting, (c) both or (d) potential soft porn to be watched at a more convenient time.
No. In fact, the only way in which they can 'normalise' the gay relationship is by showing it as innocuous, innocent, fun, involving rollercoasters and holidays and resulting in a wedding ring in which the whole family rejoices. Hurrah! Yep, even the kids. If you omit the wedding ring bit at the end or replace the ring with a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, you could even have this video produced by a Catholic organisation and at the end have the slogan: 'It's time...for chastity'.
Of course, what the video doesn't show is the reality of what it advocates. It doesn't show or even hint at the gay sex, for modesty's sake and the reasons outlined above. It doesn't show one of the men being dominated or abused in any way by the other. It doesn't show the fact that the relationships between many gay men and their fathers are usually not actually that close and, indeed, far from it. It doesn't show the guilt or sorrow or shame that many gay men experience even in the most 'stable' and 'loving' gay relationships. It doesn't show the sterility of the relationship itself which has been known to drive men to a rather more unstable relationship with alcohol or drugs.
It doesn't show that gay men are like all men in that men are obsessed with sex and the pursuit of the pleasures of sex, the fulfilment of lust and that this can end up becoming more important than the relationship itself or even an end in itself. This can happen in any relationship of course, but with two men any pretense that the relationship is about anything else but lust can be swept away far more easily, with little afterthought, and two men don't have to deal with a female's deeper and more complicated emotional needs. Hence St Paul talked about men 'burning' in their 'unnatural desires' or something.
It doesn't show the gay men breaking up and one of them ending up propping up a bar when he doesn't look so hot and is now being ignored by younger, attractive men. It doesn't show the fact that perhaps neither the Mother nor the Father are 100% a-ok with this relationship and are putting on a brave face for the sake of the son and because a liberal society tells them they are evil if they don't feel great about it. It doesn't have the parents telling their neighbours that their son is a homosexual only to be greeted with surprised 'I thought your family was odd' looks. It doesn't show the neighbour gossiping about it to another neighbour and the news circling like wildfire around the neighbourhood. It doesn't show one of the men coming back from a sexual health clinic with a positive diagnosis for HIV or HPV. It doesn't show the Dad breaking down in tears when his son tells him he is a homosexual or the mother comforting the father. It doesn't show the guilt of the parents who think 'Where did we go wrong?' It doesn't show the resulting mixture of shame and anger of the gay son.
Why? Well, obviously, because the message is the most important thing. Secondly, though, because the natural, social, moral, spiritual and physical consequences of the homosexual lifestyle need to be airbrushed from the video because the gay community, despite all the evidence to the contrary, wants to persuade the general public that even to think for one second that there could be anything negative at all about this kind of relationship at all is 'evil' and wrong because, 'Who are we to think negatively of the happy couple? They're so happy and healthy!' You see, to the gay community, even for the Mum and Dad to be uncomfortable with their son's homosexuality is evil and wrong. It cannot be perfectly natural. To the lobby, homosexuality is as natural as birdsong at dawn. Therefore, for the Mum and Dad to even think that their son's sexuality is in any way unnatural, or a perversion or, Heaven forfend, a 'disorder', is evil and if you are the parent of a homosexual and you aren't as thrilled as those parents about your son publicly dragging the institution of marriage through the mud then you should feel very, very guilty. This whole family love and accept homosexuality, so why don't you? Freak!
Last, but by no means least, the promo video does not suggest, for even a moment that, for the gay man marrying the man he loves, this is the end of the family line, because we only get up to the engagement. In a way, it encapsulates the wide-eyed romanticism of the gay movement. So, you get married to a man. So...er...where are the babies? What does this 'marriage' actually mean? You had all those great times together. You shared in each others joy and grief, you're 'in love', but where is the fruit of that relationship? What will bind you together as a unit aside from 'great times' and shared grief? The pub? Sex? The TV? The opera? Basketball? In what way do 'great times' and shared grief make a marriage? Commitment? The ring? Surely, that is just a symbol that you've stolen from traditional marriage. What will really bind you together?
You don't require marriage for any of the aspects of the relationship portrayed in the ad. All that is required is lifelong friendship. Neither do you need the State to recognise your lifelong friendship or even your sex life. The viewer is even left wondering whether the couple have actually even kept chaste especially for marriage so that they can remain together and live happily forever after in some weird gay fantasy in which they will never raise their own children. Yes, the video encapsulates the fantasy of the gay marriage, precisely because it doesn't show what happens after the wedding.
It doesn't show the couple discussing whether they are going to have children or in what sense they even can have children. It doesn't show them not having children at all, but instead going round friends houses and going to parties all the time because, since you don't have children, there is really very little else to do. It doesn't show that the gay relationship perpetuates hedonism and/or a sense of inner longing and loneliness for something that even 'a really great guy' that you're in love with can't fulfill. It doesn't show the couple presenting themselves at an adoption agency, browsing through a catalogue and saying "Oh, that little boy/girl looks charming, we want him/her."
It doesn't show them saving up loads of money and borrowing loads of cash to pay off a surrogate mother or shell out loads of cash on IVF treatment to get a baby using the sperm of one man, making just one of the men a father, the other an onlooker in a process in which most likely the mother will never again be heard or seen by the baby. It doesn't show the couple looking a little uncomfortable about the fact that they've obtained a baby and the mother is nowhere to be seen. It doesn't show the weird feelings of one partner who isn't the father but is kind of an uncle who pretends to be a parent. It doesn't show the child growing up without their mother, or the very real sense in which the child will grow up without any real roots, with all the negative social consequences that will have for the child. It doesn't show the child getting picked on at school because both parents are dads. It doesn't show the bullying kids getting detentions or suspensions for homophobic bullying. It doesn't show the child wondering why 32 of his class of 33 children have a mummy and a daddy but he's got two daddies and where who and on Earth is his mummy?
I could go on, of course, I just wanted to expose the vacuousness surrounding the arguments in favour of gay marriage. Oh, also, I wanted to tell you where I found the link to this video. Why! I found it on the Facebook Wall of the Soho Masses (LGBT Catholics) webpage, of all places!
Archbishop Vincent Nichols: It looks like you have your work cut out, Your Grace. It looks also rather like there are some gay marriage enthusiasts at those Soho Masses. Now, there's a surprise. How much harder it is for His Grace to fight the Government's plans for gay marriage when public proponents of gay marriage are actively working for its promotion inside the parish Church about which we must hold our tongues totally contradicting His Grace's unequivocal message!
 |
| Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory last year |
While I don't think it fitting that a Catholic Church should be used in this way as a gigantic memorial for a worthy secular cause (because AIDS is bad and we can all agree with that), isn't there a sense in which it also suggests that, you know, maybe more active homosexual relationships maybe aren't such a great thing? You know, what with people dying young from it and all and the suggestion here at this LGBT Church event is that LGBT people they know are contracting AIDS. Why? Because chastity is an evil teaching from an evil Church and an evil Pope who hates gays!
Finally, a word on St Paul. That 'burning' he talked about. He mentions it (at least) twice. Once, when discussing the issue of 'unnatural relations' as outlined above and secondly when he discusses unmarried lads and lasses, saying of them, 'it is better to marry, than to burn'. Why did St Paul say that? Well, because marriage raises sexual activity out of paradise lost and into the divine plan for the transmission of human life. It is children that deepen the bond of married persons, it is children that are the visible fruit of marriage and ultimately, it is children who help the couple to grow and deepen in love for each other and their family and it is children who help a couple enter more profoundly into the beautiful mystery of God's love.
It is 'better to marry than to burn' because marriage, in its real sense, brings about new life for all concerned in union with God's design. The love of a man and a woman pro-creates new life and their lives are changed. It is romantic, and many enter into it with naive expectations, but while it may not always be a bed of roses, at least it is not grounded in the Disneyland fantasy romance portrayed in the video above in which there can be no real happy ending. In fact, I believe that children are the introduction of reality and dare I say sanity into marriage because suddenly the World doesn't revolve around the couple anymore. There is a new dimension and a new dynamic to the relationship. Babies! Gay marriages can't make babies, they can only obtain them from others or buy them.
As far as I can see, the arguments in favour of gay marriage are not particularly strong. Homosexual marriage is unnatural and sterile. Heterosexual marriage , that is, real marriage, is natural and fecund. Marriage is not about holidays, sex, love, great times, great guys, great friends, rollercoasters and parties. Marriage isn't even just a 'celebration of our love'. Marriage is fundamentally about the unique and complementary love of a man and a woman bearing fruit in new life - children. The parties and the rollercoaster rides, married friends will tell you, belong to the kids. The gay marriage advocates, through their propaganda, tell us that the main reason their project should be rejected is not because those who challenge it are evil. No. It is because it is becoming more obvious that these 'advocates' have no idea what marriage is. Still, that won't stop them from plying us with nauseating propaganda like the video above until everyone, even the Holy Church of God, Herself accepts 'gay marriage'!
No comments:
Post a Comment