Some Musings on Evolving Thoughts

Note: This essay was originally written & posted on Facebook on 9 May 2012.  I have brought it here, four years later—to the very day—and edited it.

Fundamentally the issue of "gay marriage" comes down to a basic application of what you believe about absolutes.   Yes, what you believe affects how you live.

If you believe that there are fundamental rights and wrongs which are defined in sacred text and you believe that God has a set of laws that are not constantly evolving, you are most likely to be against redefining marriage.

If you do not see any sacred text as anything other than a set of nice principals (at best) that we can learn a little from so as to be nice to one another, and if you do not see anything as fundamentally or absolutely right and wrong, then you probably have no problem asserting that it is only fair that the gays and lesbians be given the right to marry too.

I have a few basic problems with this.

Yes, I can hear the arguments: And John Lennon himself said “It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love.”

Really?  Then why does our society look down on pedophiles and polygamists?  Why are teachers who cavort with their students (even if technically of "legal age") shunned and prosecuted?  Yes, I know that these do not "love"--they are using the younger person.  Using and abusing.  But to the people within these relations it seems like love.  Couldn't the argument be made that it is wrong for us to impose our antiquated beliefs and morals on their progressive view of love?  I mean, it only matters that you love, right?

I can hear the arguments to what I just wrote.  "That is so different.  That is comparing apples to bananas.  It's not even close."

Maybe.  But consider how public opinion changed in the space of less than forty years or so.  Homosexuality was shunned and not talked about in open, polite society.  Yes it existed, but it was not paraded about except in a few places.  And now?  Public opinion has tilted in favor of homosexual marriages--at least in some places.

But I ask:  Marriage -- something that has been the working definition of human society since the dawn of recorded history.  If we redefine marriage so that it is NOT "one man, one woman," then what prevents it from being redefined to something else in a few more years?

Seriously.

There are groups that are starting to push to legalize polygamy.

There are groups that advocate "love" between men and boys, or men and girls.

Some want to marry their pet.

Society now thinks that is either a little weird or abhorrent.  But are there any absolutes that would prevent popular opinion a few years down the road from giving approval to such redefinitions?  You can't say, "O nobody would EVER go that far."  Why not?  Most people seventy years ago would have NEVER thought that same-sex marriages would EVER be considered.

You have to ask these questions if you do not believe in absolutes.  You can't just assume that "it would NEVER happen that....."  Why not?  Societies change.  If there are no absolutes, then what we consider wrong and taboo might well be accepted as good and normal in a different society.  This also was a major part of the minority opinion in the recent California State Supreme Court decision.  "Is polygamy next?"  (2010, Hollingsworth v. Perry, Justice Marvin Baxter.)

    The bans on incestuous and polygamous marriages are ancient and deep-rooted, and, as the majority suggests, they are supported by strong considerations of social policy. Our society abhors such relationships, and the notion that our laws could not forever prohibit them seems preposterous. Yet here, the majority overturns, in abrupt fashion, an initiative statute confirming the equally deep-rooted assumption that marriage is a union of partners of the opposite sex. The majority does so by relying on its own assessment of contemporary community values, and by inserting in our Constitution an expanded definition of the right to marry that contravenes express statutory law.

    That approach creates the opportunity for further judicial extension of this perceived constitutional right into dangerous territory. Who can say that, in 10, 15, or 20 years, an activist court might not rely on the majority’s analysis to conclude, on the basis of a perceived evolution in community values, that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified?

I can hear that some would say that no society ever had child marriages.  I would say, do a little more research.  Some would say, well, there have been societies that have tolerated or even condoned homosexual relationships.  Yes, Greeco-Roman culture is one that comes to mind.  But were they on the ascent or the descent when widespread acceptance of homosexuality came about?  But regardless, those societies never changed the definition of marriage.

I do not believe in the absence of absolutes.  I am a Christian and I see that God has written a specific code of behavior that is how He wants His creation to live.

I also know that some would point to this verse or that verse in the Bible and say, then if there are no homosexuals allowed then we can't eat pork.  You have to understand the difference between laws that God wanted the nation of Israel to follow because they were a theocracy and laws that are moral and reflect God's character.  And if you have a hard time with that, forget the Old Testament for a moment.  The New Testament has specific references to God's view of what marriage is supposed to be and what it is NOT supposed to be.

Of course, I'm not going to run roughshod over you and force you at sword-point to believe what I do.  I will talk with you, try to reason with you, but it's your choice.  We live in that sort of country. 

But before you go and say that the Bible doesn't count, it doesn't say how we are to live, make sure that you know by what standard you are living.  Is it your own?  Is it defined by popular culture?  If you have no absolute standard, you merely have a slippery slope, ever changing and evolving to fit the latest version of whatever accommodates and feels good to the majority of society.

There are consequences for all actions.  I do not see the end result of a redefinition of marriage as good.  But I also believe in a civil dialogue.  I'm not going out and fire-bombing anything.  I hope that my writing here will cause some to think.  Think carefully about what you are basing your assumptions on and what your assumptions will lead you (and society) to if unchecked.

Target and the Bathroom Wars

I'm beginning to think that I'm in a large-scale sit-com where all the events of the day are meant to bring shock or laughter from an unseen audience, timed to fit with an unheard laugh-track.  Or maybe it's worse.  This is all a part of some over-arching plan to break down my resistance and make me think the same as everyone else and thus become assimilated into the larger Collective.

Crazy?

Yea, maybe.

Yet we're arguing over potties.  We're having a discussion over how many genders there are.  Some people are couching the argument in terms of "safety" or "uncomfortableness" and there is something to be said for some of those arguments.  But that is not the fundamental issue.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room is there are fundamentally two and only two genders.

Yet those of us who insist that are being beaten down with the cruel bludgeon of new-speak.  It is like watching a retelling of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Chain of Command," where in Captain Picard is captured and taken to an interrogator, Gul Madred, who uses a number of torture methods, including sensory deprivation, sensory bombardment, forced nakedness, stress positions, dehydration, starvation, physical pain, and cultural humiliation to try to gain knowledge of the Federation's plans for Minos Korva. Picard refuses to acknowledge Madred's demand for information. Madred attempts another tactic to break Picard's will: he shows his captive four bright lights, and demands that Picard answer that there are five, inflicting intense pain on Picard if he does not agree.

You can watch part of the interrogation here.

The person trying to break Picard wants Picard to say there are FIVE lights even though there are plainly only FOUR.  It's a small thing, isn't it?

"How many lights are there?"

"Four!"

Zap—pain induced.  Picard falls down.

Isn't that the same thing going on with The Bathroom Wars and its related issues?  It's not really that bad, is it?  It won't really affect you, will it?

"How many genders are there?"

"TWO."

Zap—call out the media and the PC-police to take such a one down.

For the Christian this is an absolute.  God spoke and made male and female and said that it was good.  Any confounding of that issue is a ploy to undo what God has made.   I'm not talking about the obvious exceptions.  It is NEVER wise to design for the exceptions first.  No, in programming as in science, design of code or of a model is geared to the majority of cases first, then the instances that do not fit are examined and further refinement of the code or the model happens to account for those.

Start with the majority of cases:  male and female (men and women, boys and girls) then implement exceptions as necessary with all grace, dignity and decorum.

When did this become the battle cry and mantra:

 "The needs of the One outweigh the needs of the Many!"

And one final point: "Self-identify"?

What sort of medicine allows  patients to self-identify their disease and cure?

"Hello, I self-identify a case of strep- throat.  Please ready a prescription of ampicillin for me.   I'll be by to pick it up at 4 this afternoon."

Yeah.  Right.  Sure.

Self-identify?  Isn't that a bit like the inmates run the asylum?  Has anyone really thought through the reality of what that means?

"I feel like a ........."

The doctor should take that under consideration and then measure reality with observed symptoms.

"Self-identify"?  Seriously?  Then why can't people self-identify as another race? (Oh, they did and were laughed at.)  Why can't they self-identify as another species?  (Oh, they are and some are accommodating them.)  Why can't they self-identify as..... [fill in the blank].  And then doesn't reality take a back seat to what the individual wants it to be?  A grownup version of "You can be anything you want when you grow up!"