Signs of the Times

‘Gay Marriage’ is a Public Threat

Robin Phillips — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:13:09 +0000

Is opposition to gay ‘marriage’ about warding off a public threat, or policing private morality? Is it about imposing religiously-derived categories onto a secular public, or protecting our way of life?

These questions recently came to mind when I stumbled across an article written thirteen years ago by Frederica Mathewes-Green.

Mrs. Mathewes-Green is one of the most helpful and lucid thinkers of our era. Her writings and public speaking have been a source of much rich blessing for both my wife and me over the years. So I was naturally interested when I read some questions Frederica posed on her website about what she calls “anti-gay activism.”

Frederica Mathewes-Green

I fall into the category of what would probably be considered an “anti-gay activist” since I have been very involved in both Britain and the United States campaigning against the promotion of homosexuality in the schools and, more recently, same-sex ‘marriage.’ But perhaps these efforts are misplaced. Does the gay agenda really threaten marriage? Is homosexuality really a political issue, or just a question of private morality? These were some of the questions that Frederica’s thought-provoking article raised. Since the time when she wrote that article, David Dunn has argued that gay marriage will definitely not affect traditional marriage in any way. I’d like to suggest that both Mathewes-Green and Dunn may be being too optimistic and that the evidence from Canada shows that legalizing same-sex ‘marriage’ can be considered a public threat.

To be fair, at the beginning of the 21st century when Mathewes-Green wrote the above article, it was still possible to assume that gay rights only affected the homosexual community, and that what happens in the secular realm need not affect what happens in the rest of the world. But things have rapidly changed since then, and it has become increasingly clear that the goals of the gay community, if realized, would affect everyone, not merely themselves. To put it simply, gay rights in general, and gay ‘marriage’ in particular, represents a significant public threat.

At least, that is what I have argued in two articles I wrote for the Christian Voice website. In these articles I surveyed just a few of the many areas in which same-sex ‘marriage’ represents a threat to the public common good. To read these articles, click on the links below:

Liberty Is No War on Women

Salvomag — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:35:17 +0000

Here’s a book I wanted to bring to your attention. The description from Amazon:

The Left has accused supporters of limited government of waging a “War on Women.” In Liberty Is No War on Women, Lukas and Schaeffer take this charge apart. They demonstrate that liberals’ recipe for ever-bigger government backfires on women by eroding opportunity and true financial security, and explain how returning power to the people is the real key to women’s freedom. As Lukas and Schaeffer conclude, the “War on Women” rhetoric is fundamentally insulting to independent women and should be soundly rejected by all Americans.

Salvo had an interview with Ms. Carrie Lukas a while back. It’s well worth your time.

In the chapter “The Myth of Having It All,” you examine why it is that some women have been deceived—or have deceived themselves—into thinking they can have both a career and a strong family. Are these expectations the result of our culture actively promoting female supremacy?

Certainly much of the culture creates unrealistic expectations and a sense of entitlement. But the problem women face is that we often have conflicting desires. I talked to a lot of college women in the course of writing my book, and it was very common for these intelligent and ambitious young people to tell me that they expected to be both full-time moms and CEOs of major companies. Now, I’m not saying that no woman can accomplish both of these goals, but she’s going to have a tough time doing so. Often, “women’s studies” classes and groups like NOW [National Organization for Women] make it seem as though the problem women face in balancing work and family is caused by bad public policy or men who won’t do their share of the housework. But the real problem is simply a consequence of being human: We can’t be two places at once, and there are only 24 hours in a day. This means that we are going to face tough decisions and real tradeoffs when allocating our time.

from Fem. Fatale: An interview with post-feminist author Carrie Lukas

Gay Marriage Activist Reveals Movement’s True Agenda: Destroy Marriage

Robin Phillips — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:52:41 +0000

Consequences of Legalizing Same-Sex ‘Marriage’

Robin Phillips — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:01:54 +0000

Marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman, and it is simply not possible to foresee the consequences of tampering with such an ancient and enduring institution.

The most significant ramifications of the Supreme Court opening the door for the federal definition of marriage to be changed would probably be long-term and should be measured in terms of centuries not years. It is simply not possible to foresee all the long-term consequences that could arise from tampering with such an ancient and enduring institution as marriage.

Having said that, one possible consequence that could come fairly quickly, however, in the area of paedophilia. A California Bill was recently put forward to prohibit giving a minor therapy to change his or her sexual orientation, even if the minor requests it. Republicans wanted to add an amendment specifying that, “pedophilia is not covered as an orientation” but Democrats defeated the amendment. Rep. Alcee Hastings justified this by saying that all sexual lifestyles should be protected under the Bill. (Read more about this in the article ‘Pedophilia Is A Sexual Orientation Under CA Bill?‘)

Let’s take the Democrats logic one step further. Once we legalize same-sex ‘marriage’ on the grounds that its prohibition represents discrimination against a certain orientation (namely homosexuality), then it will be hard to argue against those who suggest that we should legalize marriage to children on the grounds of not discrimination against those with the sexual orientation of paedophilia.

Such an argument would be strengthened by the biological determinism that is increasingly coming to characterize debates about paedophilia. An article earlier this year by Alan Zarembo for the Los Angeles Times website noted that “Like many forms of sexual deviance, pedophilia once was thought to stem from psychological influences early in life. Now, many experts view it as a sexual orientation as immutable as heterosexuality or homosexuality. It is a deep-rooted predisposition — limited almost entirely to men — that becomes clear during puberty and does not change.”

Another fairly obvious consequence that we could see quite quickly is an overhaul to the prohibited degrees of kinship based on consanguinity and affinity. These laws were originally based on the idea on the notion, not simply that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, but that it is a specifically sexual union publically recognized because of its potential fecundity. This idea was eroded long before same-sex ‘marriage’ came on the scene thanks to the contraception mentality. As a result, the purpose of marriage gradually shifted to little more than a romantic relationship pursued for individual fulfilment among two consenting adults. If same-sex ‘marriage’ is legalized, this will be the nail in the coffin of the idea that marriage has any natural organic relationship to procreation.

Think about it. If the institution of marriage is not at least about procreation (whatever else it may be about), then why should a man be prohibited from marrying his sister? Or why should a man be excluded from ‘marrying’ his brother (if he is a homosexual), or his son’s daughter (if he is heterosexual), or his husband’s daughter’s daughter (if he is bisexual)?

Incest produces genetically unhealthy children, but Tauriq Moosa at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, has already pointed out that because of contraception this shouldn’t concern us anymore. He writes:

“people claim that incest creates ‘deformed’ children…..this assumes sex acts are solely for having children, whereas this is nonsense, since we have effective contraceptives and other measures to prevent pregnancy. …why should the sexual activities of two consenting adults concern us? This is the same question we can ask those who are ‘against’ homosexuality (which is like being against having blue eyes). It is none of our business what two consenting adults wish to do (as long as no one else is harmed/involved without consent).”

Then there’s the equality angle to the whole thing. Certain adjustments to the rules about consanguinity and affinity will probably seem reasonable within a same-sex context since members of the same sex can’t produce children together. So even if you could justify a prohibition on a woman marrying her brother, this wouldn’t apply if the same woman wanted to “marry” her sister. However, once those adjustments are introduced, you would either need a two-tier system, which shows that same-sex ‘marriage’ really is qualitatively different, or else those same adjustments would have to be mapped over onto the laws regulating real marriages. After all, are we going to say that a homosexual man can marry his brother’s son but deny a heterosexual man the privilege of marrying his brother’s daughter? Are we going to allow a lesbian to ‘marry’ her ‘wife’s’ sister’s daughter but deny a heterosexual woman the right to marry her husband’s sister’s son? These are the difficult questions that few people are asking.Then there’s the constitutional angle, which parallels issues that arose last year in the debates surrounding the constitutionality of Obamacare. The four liberal Supreme Court justices claimed that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act should be upheld as part of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce delegated to it in the Constitution. Critics pointed out that if the federal government could force people to buy health insurance as part of commerce regulation, then in principle it might also be able to force people to buy vegetables or certain cars as part of this same authority. In a similar way, it needs to now be pointed out that if the 14th Amendment really does allow the federal government authority to force states to recognize same-sex unions in the legal definition of marriage, then in principle the constitution also allows the federal government authority to force states to accept many other unions as legal marriage, including those currently prohibited by the laws of consanguinity and affinity.

Further Reading

Questions and Answers about Gay Marriage

How Homosexuality Stretches our Normalcy Fields and why the Future Will Always Feel Boring

Robin Phillips — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:42:19 +0000

In some of my Salvo articles I have used neuroscience to explain how errors and perversions become accepted through the plasticity of our brain structures. (For example, see my articles ‘Sex and the Kiddies’ and ‘The Neuro Transformers’.) But it is also possible to understand the process of normalization through parallels with the way technologies reach us.
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In his fascinating article ‘Welcome to the Future Nauseous,’ Venkatesh Rao describes a phenomenon he termed “manufactured normalcy field.” A normalcy field is essentially the mechanism by which a novelty is incorporated into the larger conceptual metaphors built out of familiar experiences, so that when the novelty finally arrives it seems normal, and sometimes even boring.
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Rao uses the example of the the internet, which was incorporated into our normalcy field by tapping into the document metaphor. By thinking of web pages in terms of documents, the cognitive effort required to assimilate the internet into existing human experience was minimized. The internet might have evolved through other metaphors being stretched to cover it, such as architecture. Imagine, for example, that instead of opening web pages (document metaphor) you went into people’s web houses (architectural metaphor). The actual metaphors we adopted to appreciate what is happening with the internet were governed by that technology’s historical path of descent, and also by the path of least cognitive resistance.

The historical descent of the i-phone determined that it would be situated within the phone metaphor even though voice is one of its least interesting features. Indeed, it would be just as accurate to think of the i-phone as a calculator with enhanced features. Judging from the way i-phones are used, it would also be just as accurate to think of the i-phone as the adult equivalent of a baby’s pacifier. However, our ability to assimilate the i-phone into our normalcy field—and for it consequently to not seem novel and fantastic—is the result of it reaching us through the phone metaphor.

When the future arrives, it feels normal because of the stretchiness of our collective normalcy fields.

This helps us to understand why the future, when it arrives, is comparatively boring, and it never feels like we have entered into a sci-fi world, even though in a sense we have. Our cell phones work better than Captain Kirk’s communicator, and we have many other technologies that the Star Trek team didn’t even encounter when they landed on the most technologically advanced planets. Yet the reason it doesn’t feel like we are in the type of future a Star Trek viewer might have imagined back in the 1970s is because our time travel at a velocity of one second per is accompanied by a continuous state of manufactured normalcy. Changes only occur as quickly as the normalcy field can accommodate it.

In the 90’s Steven Roberts built a bicycle-type device (knows as Behemoth) that possessed many features of the i-phone, but pairing it with the bicycle meant that it was always too much of a novelty for culture to accommodate. Even though the technology of the Behemoth is now outdated, it still seems like a novelty, while the i-phone (the pinnacle of our technological advance and capable of performing feats that at one time would have been considered magic) seems normal. It seems normal because we think and talk about the i-phone as if it were just a fancy phone. The i-phone can actually perform functions that at one time would have required dozens of entire office complexes: it is a supercomputer that you can hold in your hand. When someone holds an i-phone in their hand and see in real time what someone on the other side of the planet is doing, or instantaneously access an almost unlimited amount of data about any conceivable subject, they don’t feel like they are in a Star Trek movie because the i-phone has come to us through the extension of existing media. Similarly, when phones were first introduced in the late 19th and early 20th century, they felt normal because we thought of them as extensions of speaking tubes.

If anything might seem novel and exciting, air travel should. Yet the full novelty of air travel has still never reached us thanks to a manufactured sense of normalcy. You are whizzing through the air at almost unimaginable speeds and yet it doesn’t feel like a roller-coaster ride: it feels like you’re just sitting in a stationary cabin while the world around you moves. In other words, air travel feels more normal and less novel than what our ancestors would have experienced on a fast chariot. Now the sense of normalcy we feel in an airplane doesn’t just happen; rather, it is manufactured through a network of conditions from climb rates to bank angles to acceleration profiles. Put all these things together and after take-off flying doesn’t feel like flying. In fact, skying at 5 mph feels more like flying at 500 mph in a 747.
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Normalizing Homosexuality
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The above observations are a summary of some points in Venkatesh Rao in his fascinating article ‘Welcome to the Future Nauseous.’ What is really interesting is that many of these same psychological principles apply to moral innovation as much as to technological innovation. Rao doesn’t make these connections, but they seem pretty evident.
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When it comes to novel moral and sexual practices, normalcy happens in much the same way that technological normalcy is mediated to us. Changes that would at one time have seemed novel become widely accepted only in so far as they become incorporated into the larger conceptual metaphors, categories and paradigms embedded in familiar group experiences.

Homosexuality is a prime example. For many years homosexuals have sought public legitimization of their activities, yet they are now realizing that the way to manufacture the sense of normalcy is to piggy-back onto categories that the public already have the conceptual apparatus for appreciating, such as liberty, marriage or equal rights.

Just as the i-phone might have come to us through the calculator metaphor (imagine someone saying “I can speak to someone through my calculator”), so same-sex marriage might have come to us through different ideological channels. For example, it could have arisen out of mid twentieth-century feminism’s fixation with heterosexual marriage being oppressive because it allegedly institutionalizes prostitution. Imagine that a bunch of feminists like Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon had got together and started saying things like, “Marriage allows men to control women, so we need to undermine the hegemony of the traditional family by stretching the boundaries for what can count as family. What better way to do this than same-sex marriage.” Had same-sex marriage come to us via that path of descent, it probably would have fallen on deaf ears and only been appreciated by a few radicals, in much the same way as it didn’t work to build a prototype of the i-phone on the model of a bicycle. For despite massive family breakdowns throughout the last half of the twentieth-century, the core values of traditional marriage are still too pervasive for same-sex marriage to have come to us via a direct attack on the traditional family. Instead, same-sex marriage is coming to us through a clever appropriation of family values. Indeed, it is being presented as a tribute to marriage, as if all that is needed is simply a quantitative enlargement of the pool of people eligible to marry and not a quantitative shift in the very idea of what marriage actually is.

We saw a similar dynamic in the abortion debate last century. Abortion could have come to us via the eugenics movement, and many of the original abortionists were in fact propelled by eugenics theory. Or abortion could have come to us via the population control movement, as a way to thin out the number of people. These paths of descent have worked in bringing abortion to other parts of the world (for example, in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union the government defended abortion as a tool for eugenics, while the China uses it as a tool for population control). However, it wasn’t until abortion became a metaphor for liberty and freedom of choice that it became widely accepted in nominally Christian nations like Britain and America. By tying abortion rights to market metaphors like consumer choice, and political values such as liberty, abortion activists were able to stretch existing normalcy fields. As a result, it is opposition to abortion that now strikes many people as strange.

Given the slippery slope that is already occurring in nations that have legalized same-sex ‘marriage’, it seems clear that after same-sex ‘marriage’ is legalized, people will begin seeking legal legitimization for further perversions such as polyandry and pedophilia, perhaps even under the category of ‘marriage.’ Had we gone straight from real marriage to polyandry, it would have been like going directly from speaking tubes to the i-phone, which is something that few people in the public would have had the been able to smoothly assimilate. However, if perversions such as polyandry ever achieve legal sanction, it will be because such perversions feel normal, and the reason they will feel normal is because they were preceded by homosexual ‘marriages’, just as the novelty we feel about the i-phone is diminished by thinking of it as simply a fancy phone. It is not hard to see how polyandry could be packaged as simply an extension to the logic of same-sex ‘marriage’: after all, if “love has no gender”, then is it really rational to think that love has a number? If same-sex ‘marriage’ is a necessary consequence of the maxim that “government must stay out of the bedroom”, then polyandry may be simply one more application of this same principle. However, as Alastair Roberts points out in his article ‘Why Arguments Against Gay Marriage Are Usually Bad‘, when this state of affairs is realized, it won’t feel like sliding down the slippery slope at all: same-sex ‘marriage’ will already have shifted the normalcy field sufficiently so that these new perversions will feel just as normal and natural as same-sex ‘marriage’ feels now for many people.
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Union of Persons
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Just as the cell phone tapped into the metaphor of the telephone instead of the calculator, and thus participated in a line of descent going back to speaking tubes, so the idea of same-sex ‘marriage’ has tapped into a line of descent going back to traditional marriage, but mediated through the intermediary notion that marriage is little more than a committed relationship between two adults. It was that idea—that marriage is a union of persons—that created the co-ordinates whereby the changes we are now seeing can be integrated into the existing normalcy field. Elsewhere I have argued that this “marriage is a union of persons” idea has two primary historical antecedents. First, industrialization helped to contextualize marriage less in terms of the emotional fulfillment the relationship promised to provide (see here), while feminism has undermined the necessity of gender in this relational matrix (see here). But regardless of the origins, the fact remains that we tend to see marriage as little more than a romantic relationship of persons, while the intrinsic goods attached to marriage (the legitimacy of children, the integrity of inheritance, etc) are seen as secondary. The ease with which people accept the completely fallacious fertility objection (“procreation can’t be intrinsic to marriage because otherwise infertile couples couldn’t marry”) is a testament to this fact. The fact that we view marriage in this way allows the normalcy field to be sufficiently stretched so that now same-sex ‘marriage’ doesn’t strike many people as anything strange.

Another way to make the same point would be to say that same-sex ‘marriage’ doesn’t seem novel to us because it hides a complex moral evolution underneath concepts that have become familiar to us, in much the same way as Rao describes advertising and technology “[hiding] a complex construction process underneath an apparently familiar label.”

I showed in another article that some gay activists are open about the fact that what is really at stake is the normalization of homosexuality. Things like tax breaks and fiscal advantages are by and large a smoke screen. Their true goals is for us to move past toleration to approval, and they know this can only happen by changing the normalcy fields so what might once have seemed perverted and strange strikes us as simply one more lifestyle choice.

Gay Infertility

Robin Phillips — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:34:14 +0000

In his article CA Legislation Would Require Insurance for Gay “Infertility”,Wesley J. Smith points out that “Legislation has been filed that would require group insurance to cover gay and lesbian infertility treatments just as they do heterosexual. But, as I note elsewhere, AB 460 isn’t limited to a finding of actual infertility. Nor does it require that gays and lesbians have tried to conceive or sire a child using heterosexual means, natural or artificial. Rather–as with heterosexual couples–merely the inability to get pregnant for a year while having active sexual relations is sufficient to demonstrate need for treatment, meaning if the bill becomes law, it would require insurance companies to pay for services such as artificial insemination, surrogacy, etc. for people who are actually fecund. Indeed, since the bill prevents discrimination based on marital or domestic partnership status, theoretically every gay and lesbian in the state could be deemed infertile for purposes of insurance coverage merely by the fact that they don’t wish to engage in heterosexual relations.”

Wow! That sounds like a Salvo fake add. Too bad it’s true.

Marriage: Union of Persons?

Robin Phillips — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 17:30:58 +0000

In the Question and Answer I did for the American Family Association about same-sex ‘marriage,’ I argued that marriage is not a union of persons, but a specifically sexual union between a man and a woman publically recognized because of its potential fecundity. But this raised a question: how do I know marriage is a union of a man and a woman? How do I know marriage is not simply a union of persons?

To answer this question, I did a Reductio ad absurdum on the opposite view. I asked my readers to consider what it would mean is marriage actually did mean the union of two consenting adults. I explained that there would then be only two options. I quote:
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The first option would be that while marriage hasn’t always been the union of persons, this is what marriage ought to be now. The second option is that marriage always has been the union of two consenting adults.

If marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman, then saying that this discriminates against same-sex couples would be like saying that a club
which has always been for golf discriminates against tennis players.

Now if both these options are problematic—and I will argue that they are—the only option left is to say that marriage is not a union of persons per se, but the union specifically of a man and a woman.
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So let me explain why the first option—that while marriage hasn’t always been the union of persons, this is what marriage ought to be now—is so problematic. The problem with saying that marriage ought to mean the union of persons while acknowledging that historically this just hasn’t been the case, is that the whole case for same-sex ‘marriage’ then collapses. This is because 99% of the case for same-sex ‘marriage’ rests on the notion that what is being sought is not a qualitative change to the definition of marriage but simply a quantitative enlargement of the pool of people allowed to marry. But if we acknowledge that up to now the institution of marriage has never meant a union of persons, then that is essentially to concede the argument, since it implies that no one has been discriminating against couples of the same sex any more than they have been discriminating against an individual who wishes to “marry” himself or individuals who might wish to include polyandry in the definition of marriage. If up to now marriage has always meant the union of a man and a woman, then while we might be able to speak of a government discriminating against a black man by denying him the right to marry a white woman, it would not be coherent to talk about government discriminating against people wanting to marry someone of the same sex since such a contingency is incoherent according to the terms of the institution itself. Indeed, if marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman, then saying that this discriminates against same-sex couples would be like saying that a club which has always been for golf discriminates against tennis players. The only way to get around this and to still maintain that marriage has previously referred to a union of a man and a woman would be to simply assert that the definition ought to be changed. That would be like saying that the golf club ought to become a golf-and-tennis-club. But this is not what is being pushed, because if it was, then it would negate the claim that homosexuals have been victims of unequal treatment. In reality they are no more the victims of unequal treatment than tennis players who are told they can only play golf at the golf club.
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The other option left is what I mentioned a minute ago, namely that marriage has not previously referred exclusively to the union of a man and a woman, but that it always has been the union of persons. That would be like someone claiming that the golf club had actually always been a golf-and-tennis club. Now suddenly the issue becomes an empirical question that can be verified on historical grounds. Someone taking this position would need to maintain that the gender of the persons has always been accidental in an Aristotelian sense. But notice what follows — We are then claiming that the union of a man and woman has always been a variant of the union of persons; that biology and the possibility of reproduction were never at the core of what marriage is, but additions to it; that consummation was never central to the completion of a marriage since only practical when the “union of persons” happened to be members of the opposite sex; that “man and wife” were never something that made a relationship a marriage but were always a species of the genus “union of persons.” These are historical claims that we can verify empirically, in the same way as we could verify it if someone claimed the golf club had always been a golf and tennis club.
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As we look at the facts, we find that this has never been how the institution was understood, even among cultures like ancient Rome, which might have been most inclined to understand marriage as the union of persons. Given the fact that it was only fifty years ago that marriage stopped being understood in conjugal terms, it simply will not do to say that “man and woman” has always been a subset of “persons.” Ergo, those who take the view that marriage always has been the union of persons are pushed into the corner of having to acknowledge that throughout most of human history, the laws, customs, culture and language built up around marriage was based on a misunderstanding of what marriage actually was, for until recently no one understood that marriage has actually always been the union of persons. That would be about as absurd as saying that everyone in the golf club had really belonged to a golf-and-tennis-club or a golf-and-water-sports club or a golf-and-chess-club without realizing it.
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Let’s be clear, the fact that marriage has never been understood as a union of persons does not itself prove the new concept to be faulty. However, at a minimum it does establish that it is a new concept, a novel definition that is discontinuous with the institution of marriage as it has been understood and practice for thousands of years. This is something the champions of gay marriage are reluctant to acknowledge since their case for “equal access” depends on maintaining some degree of continuity with the norms of an existing institution. They want to appropriate these norms to themselves without having the courage to admit that what they are really doing is restructuring, rearranging and changing the essence of the institution itself.

Consider
what it would mean is marriage actually did mean the union of two
consenting adults. There would then be only two options. The first
option would be that while marriage hasn’t always been the union of
persons, this is what marriage ought to be now. The second option is that marriage always has beenthe union of two consenting adults.Now if both these options are problematic—and I will argue that they
are—the only option left is to say that marriage is not a union of
persons per se, but the union specifically of a man and a woman.

So let me explain why the first option—that while marriage hasn’t
always been the union of persons, this is what marriage ought to be
now—is so problematic. The problem with saying that marriage ought to
mean the union of persons while acknowledging that historically this
just hasn’t been the case, is that the whole case for same-sex ‘marriage’ then collapses.
This is because 99% of the case for same-sex ‘marriage’ rests on the
notion that what is being sought is not a qualitative change to the
definition of marriage but simply a quantitative enlargement of the pool
of people allowed to marry. But if we acknowledge that up to now the
institution of marriage has nevermeant a union of persons, then that is
essentially to concede the argument, since it implies that no one has
been discriminating against couples of the same sex any more than they
have been discriminating against an individual who wishes to “marry”
himself or individuals who might wish to include polyandry in the
definition of marriage. If up to now marriage has always meant the union
of a man and a woman, then while we might be able to speak of a
government discriminating against a black man by denying him the right
to marry a white woman, it would not be coherent to talk about
government discriminating against people wanting to marry someone of the
same sex since such a contingency is incoherent according to the terms of the institution itself.

Indeed, if marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman,
then saying that this discriminates against same-sex couples would be
like saying that a club which has always been for golf discriminates
against tennis players. The only way to get around this and to still
maintain that marriage has previously referred to a union of a man and a
woman would be to simply assert that the definition ought to be
changed. That would be like saying that the golf club ought to become a
golf-and-tennis-club. But this is not what is being pushed, because if
it was, then it would negate the claim that homosexuals have been
victims of unequal treatment. In reality they are no more the victims of
unequal treatment than tennis players who are told they can only play
golf at the golf club.

The other option left is what I mentioned a minute ago, namely that
marriage has not previously referred exclusively to the union of a man
and a woman, but that it always has been the union of persons. That
would be like someone claiming that the golf club had actually always
been a golf-and-tennis club. Now suddenly the issue becomes an empirical
question that can be verified on historical grounds. Someone taking
this position would need to maintain that the gender of the persons has
always been accidental in an Aristotelian sense. But notice what follows
– We are then claiming that the union of a man and woman has always
been a variant of the union of persons; that biology and the possibility
of reproduction were never at the core of what marriage is, but
additions to it; that consummation was never central to the completion
of a marriage since only practical when the “union of persons” happened
to be members of the opposite sex; that “man and wife” were never
something that made a relationship a marriage but were always a species
of the genus “union of persons.” These are historical claims that we can
verify empirically, in the same way as we could verify it if someone
claimed the golf club had always been a golf and tennis club.

As we look at the facts, we find that this has never been how the
institution was understood, even among cultures like ancient Rome, which
might have been most inclined to understand marriage as the union of
persons. Given the fact that it was only fifty years ago that marriage
stopped being understood in conjugal terms, it simply will not do to say
that “man and woman” has always been a subset of “persons.” Ergo, those
who take the view that marriage always has been the union of persons
are pushed into the corner of having to acknowledge that throughout most
of human history, the laws, customs, culture and language built up
around marriage was based on a misunderstanding of what marriage
actually was, for until recently no one understood that marriage has
actually always been the union of persons. That would be about as absurd
as saying that everyone in the golf club had really belonged to a
golf-and-tennis-club or a golf-and-water-sports club or a
golf-and-chess-club without realizing it.

Let’s be clear, the fact that marriage has never been understood as a
union of persons does not itself prove the new concept to be faulty.
However, at a minimum it does establish that it is a new concept, a
novel definition that is discontinuous with the institution of marriage
as it has been understood and practice for thousands of years. This is
something the champions of gay marriage are reluctant to acknowledge
since their case for “equal access” depends on maintaining some degree
of continuity with the norms of an existing institution. They want to
appropriate these norms to themselves without having the courage to
admit that what they are really doing is restructuring, rearranging and
changing the essence of the institution itself.

- See more at: http://instantanalysis.net/afa-blogs/2013/04/04/qa-about-same-sex-marriage#sthash.Q6yhveq2.dpuf

On Thomas Nagel

Salvomag — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:57:29 +0000

There’s a great article in The Weekly Standard about Thomas Nagel. He’s the atheist philosophy professor who wrote the book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. He is really feeling the heat from those who have no choice but to cling to their superstitions about the universe. You know, it’s basically a combination of Star Trek (the multiverse) and X-men (punctuated equilibrium).

The Heretic: Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him?. I suggest you give it a read at The Weekly Standard website, but here’s a bit of it that I found particularly insightful.

Nagel’s reliance on “common sense” has roused in his critics a special contempt. One scientist, writing in the Huffington Post, calls it Nagel’s “argument from ignorance.” In the Nation, the philosophers Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg could only shake their heads at the once-great philosopher’s retrogression from sophisticated thinking to common sense.

“This style of argument,” they write, “does not, alas, have a promising history.” Once upon a time, after all, our common-sense intuitions told us the sun traveled across the sky over a flat earth. Materialistic science has since taught us otherwise.

Not all intuitions are of the same kind, though. It is one thing for me to be mistaken in my intuition about the shape of the planet; it’s another thing to be mistaken about whether I exist, or whether truth and falsehood exist independently of my say-so, or whether my “self” has some degree of control over my actions. Indeed, a person couldn’t correct his mistaken intuitions unless these intuitions were correct—unless he was a rational self capable of distinguishing the true from the false and choosing one over the other. And it is the materialist attack on those intuitions—“common sense”—that Nagel finds absurd.

Coincidentally, the new issue of Salvo has articles on both Nagel and on academia’s disdain for “common sense.”

Five Gay Marriage Myths

Robin Phillips — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:21:31 +0000

Myth #1: Marriage is fundamentally a voluntary union of persons in a committed relationship

We tend to think of language as something posterior to thought. A thought comes into your mind and then you find the right words to express it. Anthropologists and neuroscientists are currently doing some fascinating work on the relationship between thought and speech and have discovered that things are a little more complicated. Speech does not merely proceed from our thoughts like a one-way street. Rather, researchers have been finding that there is also traffic flowing in the other direction: how we speak affects how we think about the world on a level that our conscious minds may never even be aware. As psychologist Lera Boroditsky put it in a Wall Street Journal article summarizing some of this research, “the structures in languages (without our knowledge or consent) shape the very thoughts we wish to express”.

There are fascinating examples of this from all over the world, but the phenomenon is just as evident close to home. In the last forty years, we’ve seen how the way people speak about unborn children (i.e., calling them “foetuses” or “lumps of tissue” instead of babies) has had an unconscious effect on how so many people think about the ethics of abortion. Or again, how we think about homosexuality has been enormously influenced by pairing homosexuality with words that already had a positive semantic range, such as gay. In David Kupelian book The Marketing of Evil, he showed that these and many other language shifts did not just happen, but arose out of a deliberate strategy for changing the way Westerners perceive certain key issues.

By introducing changes in how we speak, the media often changes how we think.

The same thing is now occurring in the debate over same-sex marriage. Almost without anyone taking notice, our society has begun to talk about marriage as a voluntary union of persons in a committed relationship, rather than a union of a man and a woman. Never before has marriage been spoken about in this way and the implications are profound. Because of how the brain works, this shift in how we talk about marriage has been attendant to a shift in how we think about marriage. Unconsciously we begin wondering: if marriage is really the union of persons in a committed and loving relationship, why shouldn’t gay people be allowed to participate in this institution?

As same-sex marriage was discussed in the public discourse of various English-speaking countries (first Canada, then Britain, and now America), it was almost universally taken for granted not simply that marriage ought to refer to the union of persons, but that the essence of marriage always has been the union of persons. As a result, less and less people, even among the Christian community, understand marriage to be intrinsically and inviolably heterosexual.

Let’s consider what it would mean if marriage has always been the union of two persons, with the gender of those persons being accidental in an Aristotelian sense. We are then claiming that the union of a man and woman has always been a variant of the union of persons, that biology and the possibility of reproduction were never at the core of what marriage is but additions to it, that consummation was never central to the completion of a marriage since only practical when the “union of persons” happened to be members of the opposite sex, that “man and wife” were never something that made a relationship a marriage but were always a species of the genus “union of persons.”

The only problem with construing marriage in these terms is that this has never been how it was understood, even among cultures like ancient Rome which might have been most inclined to understand marriage as the union of persons. Those who take this view are thus pushed into the corner of having to acknowledge that throughout most of human history the laws, customs, culture and language built up around marriage was based on a misunderstanding of what marriage actually was, for until recently no one understood that marriage has actually always been the union of persons.

Fewer and fewer people, even among the Christian community, understand marriage to be intrinsically and inviolably heterosexual

Now let’s be clear: the fact that marriage has never been understood as a union of persons does not itself prove the new concept to be faulty. However, at a minimum it does establish that it is a new concept, a novel definition that is discontinuous with the institution of marriage as it has been understood and practice for thousands of years. This is something the champions of gay marriage are reluctant to acknowledge, since their case for “equal access” depends on maintaining some degree of continuity with the norms of an existing institution. This pretence of continuity enables them to form their arguments in quantitative terms, as if they were merely expanding the pool of people who can get legally married, rather than qualitatively altering the very essence of what marriage is.

Myth #2: Gay marriage legislation would remove the ban on same-sex couples getting marriage

The issue of same-sex marriage is often framed in terms of a choice between either preventing or allowing gay people to get married. When the issue is framed in these terms, that is usually a good indication that the person has fallen victim to another key myth. The reality is that legislation to introduce gay marriage would not remove a ban on same-sex couples getting married because no such ban exists. There is no more of a ban on same-sex couples getting married then there is a ban on two-wheeled unicycles or square triangles. The very nature of what marriage is necessarily excludes same-sex unions.

Now government could always change the definition of marriage. However, as I pointed out in my earlier article, ‘Apples, Oranges and Gay Marriage‘, few people on the other side of the debate are upfront that this is what they are pushing for. Instead they will almost always frame the question in terms of giving same-sex couples access to an existing institution. The reality—which Douglas Farrow drew attention to in his book Divorcing Marriage—is that a ban on same-sex couples getting married only exists if you first start out by assuming that marriage is a union of persons rather than a union between a man and a woman. But to assume this is already to presuppose the conclusion of one side of the debate, which is why most arguments for same-sex marriage are ultimately circular.

There is more going on here than merely a lapse in logic. By framing the issue in terms of a supposed “ban” on same-sex marriage, the media has followed the gay-rights lobby in subtly altering the categories in which the debate is taking place. This is analogous to the way the media altered the terms of the abortion debate by deliberately framing the issue in terms of ‘choice.’

Myth #3: Gay marriage is the most tolerant option

Senator Rob Portman is among the growing contingent of Republicans who believe gay marriage to be the most tolerant option

The small but growing wing of the Republican Party that supports same-sex ‘marriage’ is trying to package it within the context of a libertarian political philosophy. Senator Rob Portman reflected this move when he wrote, “We conservatives believe in personal liberty and minimal government interference in people’s lives.”

The problem with this argument from liberty is not simply that it is false, although it is. The problem is that it is the exact opposite of the truth, as I have already suggested in my article ‘Will the Real Enemies of Liberty Please Stand Up!’ It is those who oppose same-sex marriage who are the true champions of liberty. Indeed, if gay “marriage” is ever legalized, it is likely to result in unprecedented restrictions on freedom of speech and even thought. This was a point that S. T. Karnick drew attention to back in 2008. The Director of research for The Heartland Institute pointed out that,

The issue, it’s important to remember, is not whether society will allow homosexuals to ‘marry.’ They may already do so, in any church or other sanctioning body that is willing to perform the ceremony. There are, in fact, many organizations willing to do so: the Episcopal Church USA, the Alliance of Baptists, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Unity School of Christianity, the Unitarian Universalists, the Swedenborgian Church of North America, the Quakers, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, and the United Church of Christ, among others. Such institutions either explicitly allow the consecration or blessing of same-sex ‘marriages’ or look the other way when individual congregations perform such ceremonies.

No laws prevent these churches from conducting marriage ceremonies—and nearly all Americans would agree that it is right for the government to stay out of a church’s decision on the issue. Further, any couple of any kind may stand before a gathering of well-wishers and pledge their union to each other, and the law will do nothing to prevent them. Same-sex couples, or any other combination of people, animals, and inanimate objects, can and do ‘marry’ in this way. What the law in most states currently does not do, however, is force third parties—individuals, businesses, institutions, and so on—to recognize these ‘marriages’ and treat them as if they were exactly the same as traditional marriages. Nor does it forbid anyone to do so.

An insurance company, for example, is free to treat a same-sex couple (or an unmarried two-sex couple) the same way it treats married couples, or not. A church can choose to bless same-sex unions, or not. An employer can choose to recognize same-sex couples as “married,” or not. As Richard Thompson Ford noted in Slate, ‘In 1992 only one Fortune 500 company offered employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners; today hundreds do.’

In short, individuals, organizations, and institutions in most states are currently free to treat same-sex unions as marriages, or not. This, of course, is the truly liberal and tolerant position. It means letting the people concerned make up their own minds about how to treat these relationships. But this freedom is precisely what the advocates of same-sex ‘marriage’ want to destroy; they want to use the government’s power to force everyone to recognize same-sex unions as marriages whether they want to or not.

The effects of such coercion have already been felt in some places. Adoption agencies, for example, like any other organization, ought to be able to choose whether to give children to same-sex couples, or not. But in Massachusetts, where same-sex ‘marriage’ has been declared legal, these agencies have been forced to accept applications from same-sex couples or go out of business.

What’s at issue here is not whether people can declare themselves married and find other people to agree with them and treat them as such. No, what’s in contention is whether the government should force everyone to recognize such ‘marriages.’ Far from being a liberating thing, the forced recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ is a governmental intrusion of monumental proportions.

Myth #4: Gay marriage will bring greater equality

Throughout this year there have been near-daily reports of prominent folks coming out for marriage “equality.” The basic idea is simple: if heterosexual couples can get married, isn’t it simple fairness that homosexual couples can also get married?

The idea that gay marriage will bring greater equality is a total myth. The reason it is a myth is because it is not true, and the reason it is not true is because it is based on a meaningless idea and only meaningful statements can have a truth value.

In order to demonstrate the meaningless of the above idea, I’d like to consider the nature of equality. In order for something to be equal, three things are necessarily required:

Thing A
Thing B to which A is equal
Quality C that A and B share in common which renders them equal.

Consider the case of the pencil on my desk. I could say, “This pencil is equal to this pen with respect to its length” or I could say “this pencil is equal to my other pencil in respect to its pencil-ness.” Both of these statements are meaningful because the statements identify two objects that share a quality in common which renders them equal. But if I were to simply pick up the pencil and declare “This pencil is equal” or “this pencil brings equality”, I would be uttering a meaningless statement.

It is also meaningless to simply announce “gay marriage will bring equality” without specifying (A) that to which gay marriage is equal to, and (B) the quality shared in common by gay marriage and that to which it is equal. However, these variables are rarely identified.

The most obvious thing someone could say is that gay marriage will make homosexuals and heterosexuals equal with respect to the ability to marry. That is, both groups should have equal access to the institution of marriage.

The problem with this position is that it again assumes the myth that homosexuals are not allowed to marry. The reality is that no one is stopping homosexuals from getting married, since they are allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex. The fact that they do not want to do this is no more relevant to the question than whether the pope wants to marry. Just as it would be absurd to change the definition of marriage to include celibacy so that the Pope can have “equal access” to the institution, so it is absurd to change the definition of marriage so that homosexuals can begin to want access to it.

(As an interesting aside here is that for nearly all of human history, homosexuals would have been adverse to the idea of same-sex marriage. Gay scholars have often warned us not to assume that just because something works in a heterosexual context that it can therefore by transplanted into a homosexual context and still work. This is a fallacy they have referred to as the “error of heterocentrism.” Realizing that not all relationships are equal with each other, some homosexuals have been openly opposing same-sex ‘marriage.’)

Myth #5: Gay marriage will not undermine the traditional family

The Republicans who now support gay marriage have been keen to emphasize that it is consistent with “family values” and that it will strengthen rather than undermine the institution of marriage. Senator Rob Portman reflected this idea when he came out for gay marriage. During his CNN interview, Portman said he now accepted same-sex marriage “for reasons that are consistent with my political philosophy, including family values, including being a conservative who believes the family is a building block of society, so I’m comfortable there now.” Portman echoed these thoughts in his article for the Columbus Dispatch, saying,

“One way to look at it is that gay couples’ desire to marry doesn’t amount to a threat but rather a tribute to marriage, and a potential source of renewed strength for the institution…. the experience of the past decade shows us that marriage for same-sex couples has not undercut traditional marriage…. We also consider the family unit to be the fundamental building block of society.”

It is, in fact, a myth that gay marriage will not undermine the traditional family. The reason this is a myth is because, once again, it is the exact opposite of the truth.

By making marriage simply the formalization of an intimate relationship between two adults, same-sex marriage does two things. First, it undermines the organic connection between marriage and child-bearing; second, it undermines the centrality of sex in marriage, including sexual faithfulness. Both of these things have profound ramifications for how we understand the relationship between the family and the state, ultimately undermining the integrity of the traditional family and, consequently, “family values.”

I take it as self-evident that gay marriage would undermine the organic connection between marriage and child-bearing, but how will it undermine the centrality of sex in marriage? The answer to this question has profound ramifications on the relationship between the family and the state.

A recurring theme in all the literature about gay marriage is that marriage is first and foremost a loving relationship, a bond of commitment and affection between two adults. It is first about the communion of souls in a committed and affectionate relationship and only secondarily about the acts those people might or might not perform with their bodies. You can find statements like this scattered throughout the gay and lesbian literature, and this is why I have argued elsewhere that same-sex marriage carries with it many Gnostic assumptions about the body.

The de-emphasis of the physical dimensions of marriage has resulted in the UK government announcing that the concept of consummation and non-consummation will be inapplicable to ‘marriages’ conducted by homosexuals. When the news surfaced that the government had decided that both consummation and adultery couldn’t be committed by two people of the same sex, many people puzzled at this, even though it was the logical outworking of the sex-less descriptions of “union” propagated amongst the agitators for gay marriage. You see, once our understanding of “union” in marriage is reduced to “a loving relationship between two committed adults”, then what two people do with their bodies becomes extrinsic rather than intrinsic to that union. But in that case, it is possible, in principle, for gay marriages to occur between two people who are celibate. By contrast, for a heterosexual marriage to be “consummated” (that is, to be a fully complete marriage), there is an act the husband and wife must perform with their bodies.

Now notice the difference between defining marriage as “A union between one man and one woman” vs. defining it as “a committed and loving relationship between two adults.” In the first definition, since “union” is implicitly understood to involve a sexual component, there is an empirical reality we can point to when establishing whether a relationship is really a marriage. But there is no corresponding empirical reality that can constitute what it means to be in a marriage regulated by the second definition. Indeed, a person might have a “committed and loving relationship” with any number of other persons without it being marriage. Because of this, the only way that a committed and loving relationship can be upgraded into marriage is if the state steps in and declares that relationship to be a marriage, in much the same way as the state might declare something to be a corporation or some other legal entity. By contrast, traditional marriages have and could exist without the state’s recognition because it is fundamentally a pre-political institution. Marriage is pre-political in the sense that it has intrinsic goods attached to it, not least of which is the assurance of patrimony and thus the integrity of inheritance. Such goods do not exist by the state’s fiat even though the state may recognize, regulate or protect them.

An imaginary example should make my meaning clear. If an unmarried man and a woman are shipwrecked on an island together with no one else around, and they decide to be husband and wife, it is meaningful to talk about them getting married and having a family even in the absence of a civil government. To be sure, a legitimate marriage almost always involves recognition by the wider community, but because the community is recognizing something that is existentially independent to itself, there can and have been situations in which the recognition of the community is posterior in time to the marriage itself. This is why the type of families created by traditional marriage have an a priori claim on the state. By contrast, one cannot say the same about two homosexual men or two homosexual women on an island who decide to get “married”. Without the mechanisms of the state to confer the status of marriage upon two members of the same sex, there are no acts that organically mark the relationship out as being marriage within a state of nature. Indeed, the philosophy behind same-sex marriage is one which makes both marriage and family entirely the construct, and therefore the province, of positive law.

The only way that a committed and loving relationship can be upgraded into marriage is if the state steps in and declares that relationship to be a marriage. Without the mechanisms of the state to confer the status of marriage upon two members of the opposite sex, there are no acts that organically mark the relationship out as being marriage within a state of nature.

Now let’s take my island scenario one step further and imagine a scenario involving three persons: a 35-year old man named George, an 18-year old girl named Mary, and a 40-year old man named Kevin. George and Mary have a sexual relationship with each other and perhaps they even have children, while George also enjoys a homosexual relationship with Kevin. Now, looking at this situation from the outside, there are a couple possibilities. One possibility is that George and Kevin are in a gay marriage, with Mary being their adoptive daughter whom George is pursuing an incestuous relationship with. But a second possibility would be that George and Mary are husband and wife, with George simply being unfaithful to Mary by having a relationship with another man (or even acting with Mary’s consent because she understands her husband’s bisexual urges). Now here’s the important point: without the state there to declare one of these relationships to be ‘marriage’, we simply can’t say which of these two options are correct. Looking at the situation from the outside, there is just no way to tell who is married to whom. Unlike heterosexual marriage, which has an existential fixity that can be recognized within a state of nature, gay marriage is meaningless without the mechanisms of government to legitimize it.

Someone may object to my example by pointing out that similar confusion would abound if there was a heterosexual married couple on the island and one of the spouses engaged in illicit sex with a third party. For in that case, looking at it from the outside, we wouldn’t be able to tell who was married to whom. Very well then, let’s modify my second example so that George and Mary are still having a sexual relationship but George and Kevin are not. You might think that this would simplify things by removing the possibility that George and Kevin are in a gay marriage. However, since sex is not a necessary condition for gay marriage (for remember, gay marriage is usually described merely in terms of “a committed and loving relationship between two adults”) it is impossible to know that George and Kevin are not married merely because they are not having sex with each other. The only way we could know whether or not they were married would be for there to be civil government on the island to confer the status of marriage upon them.

My thought experiments have been complex, but my basic point is very simple: without the intervention of government, there is no a priori existential state of affairs that marks certain types of same-sex relationships out as being marriage within a state of nature. Unlike heterosexual marriage, which exists in nature and is then recognized by the state, homosexual marriage is an abstract legal entity with no natural or existential existence. Now to be sure, within the paradigm of traditional marriage there are sometimes hard cases and it is not always clear whether something can count as a marriage, but at the centre there is a recognizable reality that is pre-legal, and the hard cases arise by virtue of how far removed we are from the centre. But there is no comparative ‘centre’ for determining what a normal same-sex marriage would be within a state of nature. Indeed, what counts as “a committed and loving relationship” is incredibly vague and open to any number of interpretations or further applications. Indeed, once marriage is divorced from nature like this, then in principle there is no limit to the types of relationship that can have the status of ‘marriage’ or ‘family’ conferred on it by the state.

All this has enormous implications for how we understand the relationship between the family and the state, to return to my point that gay marriage undermines the traditional family. By rearranging the very nature of what it means to be married, gay marriage raises the question of whether family and marriage can be considered pre-political institutions on the basis of natural and biological realities and intrinsic goods. This is because such natural and biological realities are being expunged from the essence of what we are now told marriage is and always has been, namely the union of persons through a committed and loving relationship.

Since consummation is unnecessary for a same-sex union to be called a complete marriage (even putting aside the question of what would count as consummation within a same-sex context), then what determines whether or not a heterosexual marriage is complete? Either we can have two separate non-equal definitions of marriage, or we can realize the logical consequence of same-sex marriage and say that the only thing left to determine what actually makes something a complete marriage or a legitimate family is the law itself. But have we really considered the implications of saying that traditional marriages and families are entirely the construct of the state?

There is no escaping from this problem. If homosexuals and heterosexuals are really “equal” before the law, then logically heterosexual marriage must collapse into being little more than a legal construct as well. Indeed, marriage and family become mere adjuncts of the state after the removal of the de facto conditions that make the traditional family a pre-political institution in the first place. No longer is family something that, in the words of Douglas Farrow, “precedes and exceeds the state.” No longer is the family a hedge against the totalitarian aspirations of the state because no longer is the family prior to the state.

This is not mere hypothetical speculation about what ‘might’ happen if same-sex marriages are legalized. Canadian theologian Douglas Farrow has shown that after Canada legalized same-sex marriage, even traditional marriage began to be spoken about as little more than a legal construct. In his book Nation of Bastards, Farrow criticized warned that by claiming the power to re-invent marriage, the Canadian state “has drawn marriage and the family into a captive orbit. It has reversed the gravitational field between the family and the state… It has effectively made every man, woman, and child a chattel of the state, by turning their most fundamental human connections into mere legal constructs at the state’s disposal. It has transformed those connections from divine gifts into gifts from the state.”

Most people are not aware of how gay marriage will undermine the traditional family because it does so in ways that are subtle and ubiquitous. However, once gay marriage is introduced into a nation, it undermines the integrity of every family and every marriage in the nation. It does this by rearranging the family’s relationship to the state. The state which legalizes gay marriage is a state that has assumed the god-like power to declare which collections of individuals constitute a ‘family.’ But by this assumption government declares that both marriage and family are little more than legal constructs at best, and gifts from the state at worst. In the former case, marriage and family lose their objective fixity; in the latter case, we become the wards of the state.

Portions of this article will be appearing in the monthly magazine of Christian Voice, a UK ministry whose website is http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/. The article is published here with permission of Christian Voice.

Further Reading

Three Things Only a PhD Can Believe

Salvomag — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:21:49 +0000

The new issue of Salvo is back from the printer and will be arriving at your mailbox soon. Take a look at the table of contents online. We think you’ll like it! In the meantime, take a look at www.salvomag.com to read a few of the articles. Here’s the article featured on the cover, Just Brilliant! Three Things Only a PhD Can Believe by Louis Markos. We’re pleased to have Dr. Markos writing for us! He is Professor in English and Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University; he holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities. His books include From Achilles to Christ, Apologetics for the 21st Century, and Literature: A Student’s Guide.

Also, be sure to check back at the website for more articles from the new issue as well as to see our newly redesigned website (coming soon), featuring a more user friendly mobile interface.

Just Brilliant! Three Things Only a PhD Can Believe by Louis Markos

It is often believed that people who have PhDs are possessed of higher self-esteem and greater independent thought than the average population. As a PhD myself, I fully understand why people believe this. The rigorous studying, testing, and writing required to receive a doctorate should free the PhD’s mind from the idols of the marketplace and teach him that great truth that Socrates discovered: the more we learn, the more we realize what we do not know.

That’s what should happen. What I have more often found (in myself, as well as in others) is that the knowledge acquired puffs up the mind of the PhD, making him feel wiser and more in touch with the truth of things than his less educated fellow mortals. And yet—and here is the ironic part—at the same time the PhD gains a sense of his own superiority, his intellectual, emotional, and psychological need to fit in with his academic colleagues is multiplied tenfold.

At times, this academic groupthink leads PhDs to defend issues that are indefensible and to give their allegiance to causes that are immoral or unethical. At other times, it leads them to believe things that are simply and demonstrably false—things that violate objective observation, common sense, and the collective experience of mankind. Indeed, colleges and universities across Europe and America brazenly teach their students three things that are so patently absurd that only a PhD could believe them.

read the entire article.