A Pioneering Step? 
By Steve Cable

Pro-gay leaders in Vermont are now eagerly pressing for gay marriage, yet it affords no additional legal benefits beyond civil unions. These leaders universally describe legalizing homosexual marriage in terms like "a step forward…," "the next step…," "a pioneering step…," and "a step further…" Although the implication is that gay marriage is the "final" step, this is never the case in the slow march of cultural change: There is never a "last step."

This simple truth begs the questions: Where is this slow march leading us? What lies beyond gay marriage?

To know where we are headed, we must look back to where we’ve been.

In the 1950’s and early 1960’s, aside from the regionalized blight of racial inequality, the U.S. was a good place to raise a family – crime rates were low, incomes the best in the world, and our education system was the world’s role model.

In the 1960’s, under familiar banners of "a step forward" and "personal freedoms," the United States changed dramatically. Younger generations sought to re-engineer society, demolishing the societal self restraints of nearly 400 years of American Christianized culture, especially in the area of sexual morality. The result? A hedonistic explosion of sexual license, violence, and crime. In the 21 year period from 1960 to 1981 – less than one generation - profound changes occured:

• The crime rate quadrupled (Vermont rapes increased 1,400 percent per capita)
• Divorces doubled
• Drug abuse soared
• Gonorrhea infections tripled
• Teenage pregnancies increased five-fold
• Abortion became legal and accepted: 10.5 million babies had been aborted (now approaching 50 million)
• Single female parent households increased 250 percent
• Education declined sharply: SAT Scores dropped 80 points, per-pupil spending quadrupled, top school problems shifted from talking in class to rape and murder.
• Federal spending on welfare programs increased ten-fold, and increased by that amount again by 2000.
• On the crest of a massive wave of homosexual promiscuity, the age of AIDS began.

Let’s look at the principle arguments in favor of gay marriage: "It’s about equality and civil rights," and "It’s been six years since civil unions and the sky hasn’t fallen yet."

As to "civil rights," gay marriage advocates willfully ignore the fact that a voluntary sex act cannot be equated with unchangeable characteristics such as race, gender, etc. – the basis for all civil rights legislation. Just ask any African-American elder.

Regarding "equality," the primary relationship in marriage is sexual union. The pro-gay argument that homosexual relationships are "equal" with heterosexual counterparts frankly implies that all adult consensual sex is equal (i.e."morally neutral"). If this is true, then all relationships based on consensual adult sex must be given equal standing, thus dictating that these "civil rights" must be administered equally. This clever strategy is at the center of gay efforts to extend "marriage" benefits to everyone– without limit.

This argument presented by pro-gays is now creating a Pandora’s Box of legal and ethical challenges. If we take "the next step" by saying "yes" to homosexual marriage it will be nearly impossible to say "no" to the myriad "alternative" relationships promoted by homosexual leaders - collectively known as "polyamory": i.e. multi-partner "marital" arrangements, including group marriages, and child-rearing by multiple homosexual households as a single "family."

Lest the reader believe this is merely fringe thinking, I would draw attention to a manifesto of 2006 entitled "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage," which seeks to utterly redefine marriage toward a "contract" between any number and gender of consenting adults, thereby celebrating "sexual diversity." "Families" would include "committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner" and " queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households…However we choose to live, their must be a legitimate place for us." This document – authored by high ranking officials from the largest homosexual organizations in America, including three members of the Board of Directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) - was prominently referenced in the New York Times in Nov. 2006 and signed by nearly 300 prominent gay activists. Signatures included some 90 professors and department heads at virtually every major university in the U.S.: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Brown, NYU, Dartmouth, U.C. Berkley, etc.

NGLTF policy director Paula Ettelbrick (who teaches law at U. Michigan, NYU, Barnard and Columbia) has openly stated the organization’s goals to move discussion well beyond gay marriage by "radically reorder(ing) society’s view of the family...Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex and family, and in the process transforming the very fabric of society" Matthew Foreman, long-time NGLTF president, is equally zealous in their goal to "…create different ways in which people can form relationships and families that don't come with all the baggage and the downsides of marriage."

This "next step" is being given serious discussion at respected American law schools like Cornell and Harvard, and is a central talking point in dozens of books and internet articles by prominent gay authors. Indeed, such radical ideas have already become law in Minnesota, where a court granted parental rights to two lesbians and a gay sperm donor: a legalized polyamorous "family" of three parents. If three is OK, why not five, or six? Where is the limit? Is the sky falling?

Before you throw these ideas into the dumpster labeled "The sky isn’t falling", prepare for a reality check. Who would have thought in 1972 that within 35 years the then published "Gay Rights Platform" would have accomplished most of its major goals, including "repeal of all laws prohibiting transvestism" (essentially fulfilled this year in Vermont)?

We should be nervously looking over our shoulders at where we’ve been, as well as where we are headed.

In a prophetic twist, Germany, who legalized gay marriage in 2001, is now grappling with the same vexing legal problems we previously described. You see, German citizens Patrick and Susan Stuebing are brother and sister, are lovers with four children, and they want to overturn Germany’s laws against incest. The problem? They just might win, since their arguments are virtually identical with the successful homosexual arguments used in Germany and Vermont to adopt gay unions. The couple’s supporters claim that the law is "out of date and breaches the couple’s civil rights," and that they "are not harming anyone. It is discrimination." The couple’s statements are eerily familiar: "We’ve done nothing wrong. We are like normal lovers. We want to have a family. We would like society to recognize us, as any other normal couple." Is the sky falling? You be the judge.

How can we say yes to gay marriage (and polyamory), but no to this couple?

The hallmark of a responsible citizen is to worry – not about ourselves, but about the culture to be inherited by our children – our posterity. As responsible, informed citizens, we are worried about "the next step" – very worried. Are you worried too, Vermont?
 

Stephen Cable, President
Vermont Center for American Cultural Renewal