3 posts tagged “gay rights”

Why California gays shouldn't celebrate state court ruling
By DAVID BENKOF
GUEST COLUMNIST

Champagne corks have been popping wherever gays and lesbians gather throughout the Golden State after the California Supreme Court's ruling in In Re Marriage Cases, which opens the way for same-sex couples to legally wed beginning next month. But the gay community shouldn't be celebrating. This decision does next to nothing for California gays and lesbians and causes real harm to people who believe in the "old" definition of marriage. It's nothing to be proud of.....MORE

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In a 4 to 3 ruling, California’s highest court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage today. This, despite voter’s not being in favor of same-sex marriage. Two dozen couples and gay rights groups petitioned lower courts, ending up at the highest court.

According to news reports, the cultural war is not over as other groups will seek to put measures on the ballots in November that will back current laws banning gay marriage by putting it the state’s constitution.

Interestingly, 6 of the 7 judges were appointed by Republican governors.

What is your opinion on the ruling?

Hate is one thing, but another form of psychopathology takes place when hate leads to murder.  The act of murder is psychopathic.  Hate and murder are not always synonymous.  While we can argue that hate is a bad thing, we can not agree it always, or even usually, leads to murder.  Some murdered victims were never known by their murderers, therefore there was no personal hate against them. Usually, the victim was one who merely got in the way. However, in a sense, it could be argued that the murderer had a generalized hate, thus leading to the crime to begin with.  However we look at murder, the evidence of psychopatholgy is clear and one that is largely absent of moral, law abiding people.

So, why is the media and education system assuming that the opposition of homosexuality is hate? And why is this so-called hate being associated with murder, to a larger generalization?  I question this as given the extreme reporting of the Matthew Shepard murder and now recently, Lawrence King, a 15-year-old boy murdered by a peer. Ellen Degeneres recently used her comedy talk show as a platform to discuss the King murder.  She even mentioned that she was “not political” but yet brought up politics bringing into the limelight the recent election race, saying “there a lot of talk on ‘change’…..check on who you are voting for…change your vote….” . If this is not a true sounding board for Obama, or the democrat party in general, then I don’t know what is.  Is Obama and the term "change" synonymous? I think so! Sure, she’s not political! 

Democrat runners Obama and H. Clinton both also made public statements about the murder.

These murders were sad, senseless, and horrible – pathological.  But likewise is the use of them as political platforms which purge sympathy for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) everywhere, molding manipulation for LGBT rights agendas in every loose direction.

Since Lawrence King's murder, there have been over 30 candlelight vigils throughout the country. This was sparked by efforts of GLSEN (a complete list of these events can be found at GLSEN.org). Diane Gramley, president of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, dropped the ball on this organization when she discovered they were encouraging students to read books such as Rainbow Boy and In Your Face : Stories From the Lives of Queer Youth.  According to Gramley,

"These books talk about, in most cases, in explicit detail, sexual encounters,…usually between male teenagers and older males."  She contended that any school that partners with GLSEN is in effect agreeing with that group’s efforts to normalize homosexuality.

Mission America conducted a review of the materials recommended by GLSEN which confirmed that the group implicitly condones criminal sexual contact between adults with minors, which was a frequent, casual theme in their recommended materials.

In my part of the country, at Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) just north of Columbus, Ohio, a Candlelight Light Vigil & Interfaith Prayer, sparked and advertized by GLSEN, is planned for Lawrence King.

While it is honorable to memorialize the murdered, OWU does not do this on a regular basis and certain does not do it routinely when other children are murdered.  Of the 1,539 children murdered in the United States in 2006, OWU was unable to provide one example of a held vigil.  Are not the murder all other children just as worthy to hold vigil and prayer? Certainly, there were plenty of opportunities.

Hate is defined rather loosely, and in some cases, used to marginalize against Christianity.  For example, Mike Heath was accused of “hate speech” for relating biblical teachings warning of God’s punishment for those who cause innocent children to sin. Heath made his comment while opposing a middle school’s plan to dispense birth control pills without parental permission.

When Christians were murdered in Colorado’s missionary training center for the group Youth With a Mission, and the murderer clearly had it out for them, even taking refuge in an online support group for “ex-Pentecostals”, it was not coined a “hate crime” and little media attention was given in the longitude even after TIME magazine coined the incident:  “Christians under fire”.

It seems when little average Johnny is murdered, you hear little about it, but when it happens to a “gay” child, it becomes an isolated issue, a gay thing, not a thing about how we can all keep children safe from all harms and bias. It seems in comparison, less emphasis is placed on the issues that leads to the murder of others and how we can bandwagon and organize prevention and awareness measures FOR ALL, regardless of the labels, and political agendas. 

Yes, efforts are needed to eliminate hate.  However, let’s not blur the boundaries between condoning how we confront issues we disagree with, or what we see contrary to our values.  We can certainly teach children that they do not have to accept someone’s LGBT lifestyle, and also teach them at the same time not to harm that person with hateful words or violence.  Our normal, average, everyday children can get that!  Psychopaths can’t!

What bugs me is the trend for organizations, mostly gay lead, that make efforts to infiltrate schools and greater society with the partisan message that LGBT is normal and something to be embraced. No, sorry we don’t have to buy that.  But at the same time, we don’t have to use hateful words or use violence (unless in self-defense).  There is a difference!