By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
October 11, 2000
The Los Angeles Times yesterday published an article by staff writer Megan Garvey which claims that "Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney stood his ground Monday in the face of sharp criticism by some conservative Christians who say his tolerance for gay relationships is directly at odds with the beliefs of some of the party's most stalwart supporters.
"…During last week's vice presidential debate, Cheney was asked if he believed gays and lesbians should have "all the constitutional rights enjoyed by every American citizen."
"I think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into," Cheney responded, although he said the issue of gay marriages was "a tougher problem."
He said he believes that issue should be left to the states to decide.
Cheney said Monday he had answered the question "truthfully and accurately."
Criticism of Cheney's comments has been bubbling within Christian conservative groups ever since the debate. The anger became public Sunday with an op-ed piece in the New York Times by former Republican presidential hopeful Gary Bauer.
"I can say with certainty that the delegates who nominated Mr. Cheney and the many voters who support him overwhelmingly disagree with that," Bauer wrote. "This view, embraced by both vice presidential candidates, is wrong--and out of step with the beliefs of the many Americans who consider marriage to be a God-ordained institution between a man and a woman."
I rather suspect Dick Cheney ALSO considers marriage to be a God-ordained institution between a man and a woman. And what was God's purpose in instituting marriage? It was not for the purpose of collecting benefits from the government. He is reported to have said, at the occasion of the first marriage, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." The primary purpose of marriage is not sexual entertainment. It is to bear and raise the next generation. Obviously that cannot happen until there is a male and a female involved in the marriage.
Of course, babies can and do appear without marriage. So, why is marriage needed in the first place? I find, in talking with many young people, many of whom are children of the Sixties generation free-sex crowd, than many of them have never heard WHY marriage was important. While in America the average married man lives almost exactly twice as long as the average homosexual, the greatest value of marriage is to protect the children and the mother of the children.
After more than thirty years of heterosexuals denigrating marriage as an institution, with their rebellion against their parents values, all the sudden we find ourselves faced with a people who don't want anything to do with the opposite sex demanding the "right" to marry - one of those outdated concepts that, according to those who were there describe as a:
"period of the sexual revolution 'an orgy of open-mindedness.' This was a period in which morals were left up to the individual and individual pleasure was what we wanted. . . . the sexual revolution of the 1960s was more about instant sexual gratification, in which long-haired, paint-faced hippies and 'flower children' preached 'free love'."(25) Birth control pills, then new thing, quickly became extremely popular among many young girls. Among popular sexual promiscuity, there was also a popular demand for the use of drugs. Drugs such as marijuana and LSD were used on a regular basis."
Only, time clearly shows that the "free-love" revolution was not free. It brought with it an incredible amount of misery - disease, loneliness, poverty, broken-hearts, a sky-rocketing crime rate.
It appears that the "free-love" revolution of the 1960s has turned into a movement to allow homosexuals to marry each other. Why? For much the same reason that in the 1960s we saw a generation of young people marching and picketing and flouting their lifestyle, as they did at Woodstock. They wanted public approval for their destructive lifestyle. Homosexuals now are demanding much the same. They want the public to approve their destructive lifestyle, even though there is deadly evidence that it leads to disease, misery and an early death.
Would public approval eliminate the consequences of their private behavior? It didn't affect the consequences of the "free love" movement. It won't affect the consequences of the movement to approve homosexuality as a lifestyle either.
That is not to say, however, that either the promiscuous "free-love" advocates of the 1960s or those who demand public approval for homosexual behavior today should be denied the same constitutional rights enjoyed by adulterers and free-love advocates.
That hardly seems to be the issue anyway, the right wing notwithstanding. What is actually going on is the exact opposite. We are watching in community after community a concerted effort on the part of homosexuals and their allies to deny constitutional rights to the Boy Scouts of America for daring to maintain their standards in the face of the current movement to legitimize their dangerous sexual practices.
The Supreme Court has already spoken on the matter and defended the right of the Boy Scouts to exercise their constitutional rights. What is happening in the current drive to deny the Boy Scouts access to public facilities, i.e. schools, parks and government buildings as meeting places, is a blatant attempt to redefine the Constitution to ALLOW discrimination against children who wish to do their duty to God and remain morally straight.
The "conservative Christians" would do well to understand that, if the efforts to destroy the Boy Scouts succeeds, they, and their constitutional rights under the first Amendment, will be the next target.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
To help the Scouts: http://www.saveourscouts.com
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