Originally published by Communities @ Washington Times
SAN DIEGO, June 8, 2013 — Is legalized same-sex marriage the final objective for militant gay activists, or is it instead another step along the road to eventual silencing of dissenting opinion?
Let’s be fair; militant gay activists do not speak for all homosexuals. Many gay people simply wish to be left alone. Others, such as openly lesbian radio talk show host Tammy Bruce, bravely challenge the militant agenda by writing books like The New Thought Police.
Likewise, a single writer cannot speak for all conservatives, but if it were a given that legalized gay marriage would settle all remaining legal discussions relating to homosexuality, many of us have less of a problem with it. We would still have concerns, but we could live with them. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the militant gay movement plans to embrace legalized marriage as a complete fruition of their goals. This latest sought after “right” is only a small part of a much bigger agenda.
With each new right, it becomes all the easier to obtain another, much the way fighting for civil unions broke ground for full legal gay marriage in many states. This is why it is important to look at more than a few still photos of a movement; we should watch the entire film.
Apparently, the true militant gay agenda is to someday make it against the law to say that homosexuality is wrong. This goal has been openly, shamelessly stated for quite some time.
“We are no longer seeking just a right to privacy and a protection from wrong. We also have a right — as heterosexual Americans already have — to see government and society affirm our lives” (From homosexual spokesperson Jeff Levi in a speech for the National Press Club in Washington, 1987).
How do you insist that an entire society affirm something without challenging freedom of speech? What about those who cannot in good conscience affirm a homosexual lifestyle for religious or other reasons? When one group of people demands affirmation, how does the First Amendment apply to everybody?
At the moment, legal marriage is one kind of affirmation. Once accomplished, it only makes sense to insist on other kinds of affirmation.
Activists have been smart enough to chip away at the legal and cultural wall one inch at a time. Marshal Kirk hammered out a blueprint for his ambitious gay agenda with some co-authors in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The plan was first published as a magazine article and later expanded into a book called, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Hatred of Gays in the 1990’s.
This manifesto was an open, strategic campaign to launch a patient, persistent legal and media movement. The goal was not only to obtain full legal rights for gays, but to also convince the country that criticism of the homosexual lifestyle is an archaic practice which our country needs to shed.
The strategy included lovable gay characters on sitcoms who encounter old fashioned, narrow minded friends. In a November, 1987 article in Guide Magazine, Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill wrote:
“The visual media, film and television, are plainly the most powerful image makers in Western civilization. The average American household watches over seven hours of TV daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan horse might be passed. As far as desensitization is concerned, the medium is the message ? of normalcy. So far, gay Hollywood has provided our best covert weapon in the battle to desensitize the mainstream. Bit by bit over the past ten years, gay characters and gay themes have been introduced into TV programs and films … But this should be just the beginning of a major publicity blitz by gay America.”
But television was only one battlefield. In the midst of debates, the soldiers of this cause were to portray anyone who disagreed with homosexuality as some kind of hate monger.
“To be blunt, they must be vilified. … We intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types.”
Some of the methods Kirk prescribed in After the Ball should produce chills:
“Our effect is achieved without reference to facts, logic, or proof … through repeated infra logical emotional conditioning, the person’s beliefs can be altered whether he is conscious of the attack or not. Indeed, the more he is distracted by even specious, surface arguments, the less conscious he will be of the true nature of the process. In short, jamming succeeds insofar as it inserts even the slightest doubt and shame into the previously held unalloyed beliefs regarding heterosexuality and homosexuality.”
Such cultural battles go hand in hand with supporting legislation. The winds of change are blowing all over the world.
In Ireland, the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 forbids “incitement to hatred on account of race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.” This law includes public speaking, broadcasts and written materials. One would think that a “hateful motive” would be in the eye of the beholder but not in Ireland. Violation of this law includes “insulting” and that actual word is used in the language of the law. Similar laws exist in England, Norway, Canada and Sweden.
America is fast on its way to embracing similar legislation under terms such as “hate speech” and “hate crime.” Congress passed a Hate Crimes Protective Act in 2009. Since violent crime is already punishable under the law, getting into the head of a person to interpret “hate” carves a thin line between hate crime legislation and hate speech legislation. Next time we may just see a law about “hate” without any other crime.
Last year, a judge in New Jersey ruled against a Christian retreat house that had declined permission for a same-sex civil union ceremony to be conducted on its property. The Judge said the Constitution allows “some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals.”
Many argue for same-sex marriage by employing the familiar phrase, “separation between church and state.”
“Christians can define marriage any way they want in church,” they say, “but in secular society, religion cannot dictate to the rest of us.”
Fair enough. But lately, the separation does not seem to be working both ways. If a judge can rule that a Christian retreat house must accomodate a gay wedding, even in a state like New Jersey which does not currently recognize same-sex marriage, just imagine what kinds of lawsuits will unfold should gay marriage be legally recognized in all fifty states!
Rest assured, the right to same-sex marriage is not the only legal battle going on. The right to freedom of speech trails closely behind. Redefining marriage merely paves the way.
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