From Ron Prentice:
In 2005, The Advocate, a national homosexual magazine, named 17 year-old Kerry Pacer their “Person of the Year” after she successfully took her fight to a U.S. District court to permit the formation of a gay-straight alliance club at her Georgia high school. She claimed it was needed to teach tolerance of lesbians, gays and transgender kids because she had been bullied after having “come out” when she was 12.
Fast-forward four years, and we now learn that Ms. Pacer is living happily with…. her boyfriend and their baby daughter. This real life story doesn’t help the genetic argument for homosexuality. The champion of homosexual tolerance in Georgia high schools, self-declared lesbian and The Advocate’s youngest “Person of the Year” is straight.
For years, the homosexual community has asserted, “Being gay is not a choice. No one would choose to lead a life wrought with incessant harassment. We were born that way.” And, they’ve argued that being transgender is also a genetic condition. Backing this up with research seems important, doesn’t it?
Indeed, somewhere along the continuum between “choice” and genetic causation lies the truth. Few homosexuals, especially men, have chosen their sexual orientation. Yet it is also true that no reliable studies confirm the “born that way” claims. If we’re listening, we’ll hear an abundance of testimony from living, breathing former homosexuals such as Kerry Pacer. In fact, I’ve stood with hundreds of them, brought together by their shared experience of leaving homosexual behavior and finding freedom.
At a Los Angeles high school, a young man who claims a female orientation uses the girls’ locker room, alongside the girls, to dress for P.E. Across the country in Maine, the Human Rights Commission ruled that a fifth grade boy who sexually orients himself as a girl should be allowed to use the school’s girls bathroom.
According to another story quoting Dr. Tracy Marsh, a Walden University faculty member in the School of Psychology, transgender is "a dynamic experience on a continuum, not a fixed point,” and that “…it honors that there are many expressions of gender, not just two." This perspective promotes a free-for-all society and adds to “tolerance” as the new god to be worshipped, while the concept and practice of social order, religious freedom, and even disagreement, is silenced.
Through all of this, we keep coming back to the definition of sexual orientation having no primary biological cause. In the case of Ms. Pacer, her sexual orientation as a 17 year-old clearly has changed. In the case of the Maine elementary school child, who’s to say that he won’t have a different preference in the coming years?
~Pearl
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9 comments:
No one will believe her now that she's turned to the dark side of female/male relationship. It's too bad she's still contributing to the destruction of marriage and the family by having a baby out of wedlock.
“This real life story doesn’t help the genetic argument for homosexuality.”
Of course, it doesn’t hurt it, either. Clearly, there is a continuum of sexuality, from hard-wired straight through bisexual through hard-wired gay. Perhaps Ms. Pacer is bi – or perhaps she just couldn’t help falling in love with a man – but I won’t presume to make assumptions about her sexuality, as I don’t know her.
More fallacious and relevant, it seems to me, is the statement, “…they’ve argued that being transgender is also a genetic condition.” I don’t know of anyone who has made this argument, and since I am transgendered, and have studied it in some depth, it seems a bit weird that I wouldn’t have heard of it. In any case, there is NO evidence, that I know of, that being trans is genetic. There IS evidence that it is affected by hormones, both naturally occurring anomalies in the womb and through environmental pollutants, including prescription drugs; and that these hormonal influences affect the physiological structure of the brain, so that the BSTc of the trans woman is identical in size to a female BSTc, and that of a trans man is identical to cisgendered men.
In any case, sex, gender, and sexuality all lie on different continua, independent of each other. That’s reality. Accepting it does nothing to promote worship of any particular god, theory, or dogma – it’s just reality. And I can’t see how accepting reality needs to silence or sacrifice social order, religious freedom, or disagreement. Are we not peacefully disagreeing right now? Are not both you and I freely practicing the religion of our choice right now? And is there not a social order in the warmth of home and family, in the freedom of each one of us to live as we wish, and express our individuality in the styles with which we adorn ourselves, and even in the peace and comfort with which I share the women’s room every day?
And you’re wrong, Euripedes. Why should she not be believed? If she’s found love, I celebrate that with her, and pray for happiness for them all. As for not marrying, I wonder how that choice was influenced by the fact that, as a lesbian, it would be forbidden her? When draconian laws cheapen the marital estate, is it any surprise one would choose not to enter it?
Ah, but there we are, peacefully disagreeing once again.
Seda:
You're granting the individual aspect of homosexuality, but are not thinking of the social aspect, with gay activists trying to push their homosexual behaviors past acceptance to privileged status. Pacer will not be believed in this community, or will be disfranchised because of her choice.
Love is to be celebrated, yes. However, marriage is more than the expression of love, it is also a social and legal institution to establish legal relationships and to protect responsible procreation. I objected to Pacer's neglect of her children by not establishing a legal marriage contract and question her responsibility in procreating because of it.
That she proclaimed herself to be a lesbian does not now preclude her from marrying her boyfriend and protecting her family.
Those draconian laws, as you put it, are natural laws based on men and women united in order to form the foundation of society through the responsible procreation of children. (And no, a man and a woman who are unable to have children are not, and have never been precluded from the marriage contract.) They have only become "draconian" under the establishment of so-called gay rights - the attempt to establish protected class status based on the ephemeral basis of sexual preference.
Hey, Euripedes,
From the little I’ve seen on this subject on the net, it’s the conservatives making a big deal and trying to use it for political gain, and the “gay activists” (like me, I suppose) who celebrate her happiness and grant her the freedom to love as she will. I don’t see a loss of acceptance or credibility for her from my community. But it would surprise me if there weren’t some who are so fragile they’ll condemn her.
I wouldn’t presume to accuse Pacer of child neglect just for not getting a marriage license. I know too many people who’ve been living together as man and wife for years, raising their children together and even sharing their names, as if they had been married. However, as you say, marriage is indeed more than an expression of love. But “responsible procreation” is a smokescreen, and I don’t buy it.
By “natural law,” I assume you mean the religious or quasi-religious philosophy, in which case it is just one school of opinion among many, and lacks authority. If you mean “law of nature,” you’re wrong. The man-woman thing would qualify for rule of nature, but the prevalence of exceptions kicks it right out of the “law-of-nature” realm.
Nice to chat with you again! It’s been a while.
Hello Seda:
You must run with a different group, since many of the gays and gay activists I know defend the gay gene as dogma. The point that Pacer chose a man over a woman now places her outside of the gay community. She was once lauded for her "courage" in standing up to her school board in order to create PRIDE. Now? Nothing about the courage of her choice.
So yes, she's now become the poster child of conservative bloggers.
To dismiss responsible procreation from marriage denies the reality and purpose of marriage. As long as there has been marriage, the key point was the protection of a child's birthright and claim on parents to raise the child to enter into society. How is that a smokescreen? If marriage isn't about raising the children born to a man and a woman, what possible reason is there to get married? Those who treat it and children differently expose our society to removing its very foundation.
I don't buy into the definition of marriage as merely a means to obtain political entitlements. Unfortunately, that's what neutering marriage does - reduces it to a means to entitlements.
No, natural law refers to the state that nature demands on us. It has absolutely nothing to do with religion. You dismiss it fairly easily, even though natural law dictates our lives. For example, we are all subject to death. That is natural law. None of us can avoid it. Natural law also dictates that to reproduce, we must do so sexually, with a male and a female of the species. Humans have not yet spontaneously changed sex in order to imitate frog sex, so we're stuck with the male/female dichotomy. Maybe when we clone humans, we can get rid of that pesky procreative nature altogether.
Your use of "rule of nature" instead of natural law merely changes words to suit your own argument. It does nothing to explain the fact that procreation still takes sperm and an egg.
Hey, Euripedes,
Sounds to me like she’s a courageous woman all the way around. As for the gay gene, it’s undoubtedly more complicated than that, and an incident like Ms. Pacer falling in love with a guy doesn’t have much implication for whether a gay gene exists or not.
I don’t dismiss responsible procreation from marriage, nor vice versa. Responsible procreation is a moral imperative for prospective parents, and marriage, IMHO, is an important support for it – when you can marry. I call it a smokescreen because I have yet to see a “marriage defender” use it for anything other than justification for discrimination. It is possible (and happens far too frequently) for a man and woman to marry, to impregnate, to birth, and yet remain uncommitted to the child and unwilling to invest the personal resources that should be a child’s birthright. It is also possible, and frequent, for gay or lesbian couples to be completely committed and happy to invest those resources. Responsible procreation comes from the heart, and it should be a protection to children; but it cannot be determined by outside criteria, such as who a person loves. Marriage is a protection to children, too – or it should be – and it should be granted to their parents. Yet “responsible procreation” is used only to deny gays and lesbians, and their children, the rights y’all take for granted. It’s a smokescreen for bias. I have yet to see it used in the gay marriage debate for anything except to cover a person’s personal dislike of homosexuality, and justification for an unequal application of law. Even David Blankenhorn, who calls himself liberal and pays lip service to granting equal rights to gays, will not suit actions to words.
I don’t buy marriage as only a means to entitlements, either. Nevertheless, marriage has changed over the years, and it means different things now than it did a hundred, or even fifty years ago. The meaning of marriage changed radically when the word “obey” was removed from the wedding vows. Would you put it back? “Traditional” marriage is already dead. Mourn it, if you like, but if you want to go back to it, your battle is against straight people, not gays.
Thanks for your clarification of your use of “natural law.” The draconian laws originally referred to are not laws of nature, but of man – social and political. Mankind has not the authority to change natural laws – such as gravity, or, as you mention, death, or sexual reproduction. A natural law is true in all situations and conditions – which is why it doesn’t work to apply it to pair bonding of only a man and a woman. “Rule of nature” only makes the language more precise; it changes nothing. As a rule, Douglas fir trees grow tall and straight – but sometimes, they grow twisted, or bent; growing straight is not natural law. As a rule, men and women pair bond with each other – but sometimes, they pair bond with their own sex. That pair bond is expected and assumed in marriage today, and is a large part of the meaning of it – in fact, judging from the prevalence of divorce, the heart of it. But the only natural law there is that people experience it – and, as Kerry Pacer says, you can’t help who you fall in love with.
Seda:
Your questions give me an idea for a future blog. I understand your idea of the rule of nature and agree with it. However, marriage is not based on the rule of nature but on the law of nature defining procreation and the raising of (potential) children. Just because laws and society have tried to circumvent the natural law basis, does not, in fact, change the meaning or purpose of marriage.
Euripedes,
Glad I gave you an idea! I hope it's a good one.
Marriage has always been about more than procreation. It's always been about love, or pair-bonding. It's always been about family alliances. It's always been about shared lives and resources, property exchange, and even commercial or labor exchange (or tit-for-tat). It's always been political. Certainly raising children is part of it, but if that were all of it, probably 40% of marriages wouldn't happen - especially if it was only the procreation part of children, not the raising part.
Among those there are, I think, two natural law aspects of marriage: children and pair bonding.
The following is a bit off-topic, Pearl, but I came across Seda's remarks and am very dissappointed. I'll say my piece and leave it to you to decide whether it stays or goes.
* * *
Seda your pose is fraudulent.
You and I have discussed responsible procreation at length at Opine. There you posed as understanding it and valuing it.
Here you gut it of meaning and pour into the empty shell your conveniently superficial meaning. Convenient that is because you then ascribe ill-motive.
As always, you seek to make marriage mean less and less and less. That is not disguised by the empathetic pose you strike. It seems to me you strik the pose more to satisfy your own view of yourself rather than to accord your words with reality.
Responsible procreation is not sola procreation. You know this. It was discussed and you acknowledged this. And yet here you are undoing the goodwill that was built in our discussions.
Responsible procreation does not end with childbearing; it does not begin with conception. Solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood is the birthright of the children that we bring into this world. Barring dire circumstances or tragedy, the man and the woman is responsible for their children -- as a duo. They are responsible toward each other -- even when they, as a couple, are infertile during most of each month. This is no less so when they are together past their childbearing years or if they experience infertility or subfertility. No one-sexed arrangement can be fertile and no such arrangement can therefore be infertile -- its nature is simply nonfertile. So your remarks misrepresent what you now (or at least posed as knowing) and is the smokescreen you would like to imagine responsible procreation to be. You are blowing smoke.
I could go further, but our previous discussions covered that ground already.
Frankly, Seda, it brings disgrace to you -- at least to your blogospheric persona -- to have described responsible procreation as a smokescreen. Especially since you posed as understanding it quite differently than your account above. You are either conveniently forgetful or intellectually dishonest -- there is not much room in-between for excuses.
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