A Sleeping Giant Awakes

by Fr. Roger Landry - November 14, 2008

"Those who would legislate the composition of our families won some disturbing victories on Election Day," began Sunday's Editorial in the New Bedford Standard Times.

The newspaper lamented the fact that on November 4th, California, Arizona and Florida joined almost 40 other states in banning the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. It accused black voters in California of being bigots, for turning out in huge numbers to elect Senator Barack Obama in a triumph against racial bias while simultaneously voting overwhelmingly in favor of Proposition 8, which defined marriage to require, shockingly, a man and a woman. It finished by saying that it is a "good time" to live in Massachusetts whose judges showed the "wisdom to allow same-sex couples to live in peace with equal rights."

Apparently the editors believe that the only people who should have a right to determine "the composition of our families" should be activist justices with liberal social agendas, the type of "wise" judges who are enlightened enough wantonly to declare whatever they don't like unconstitutional. This is what happened in Massachusetts, Connecticut and California — all by 4-3 margins — before California voters rejected the hubris of their justices and overturned their decision. Massachusetts and Connecticut voters have not yet had a chance to vote by public referendum, Bay State voters being stymied repeatedly by similarly "wise" members of a legislature who think that the proper use of their office is to prevent those who elected them from having a chance to vote directly to overturn similar judicial abuses.

The 70 percent support of the black community for California's Prop 8 was a sign that, despite their huge support for Obama, they do not share many of the aspects of his radical social agenda, which included opposition to the proposition. Those who have suffered through the civil rights struggle have rejected the attempts of the gay community to fool people into thinking that the opposition to the gay agenda is equivalent to the evil of racism. African-Americans have, after all, never sought to use their skin color as a means to justify behavior that the vast majority of Americans find sinful and unnatural. They have recognized that the human and civil rights owed to us according to our dignity and citizenship and for which they have fought so long do not include the so-called "right" to "marry" people of the same-sex and receive all the benefits given to traditional families in exchange for the benefits that flow to society from the family. While the editors of the Standard-Times accuse California blacks of hypocritically making "acceptance a one-way street in California," by voting for someone who may bring an end to their struggle while voting against the struggles of those pushing the gay agenda, it's clear that African-Americans in the Golden State are simply far more nuanced and politically-savvy than the politically-correct editors of a Massachusetts newspaper want to acknowledge.

Not to let their advocacy of same-sex marriage end on a sour note, however, the Standard Times printed a lengthy op-ed by John Corvino, a gay philosophy professor from an obscure Detroit college, which argued that, despite the election day losses, "one thing is clear: [the cultural shift undeniably underway] is on the side of gay and lesbian equality." That's an admittedly bold conclusion even for an extreme gay activist. Since the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court forced their own notion of marital morality on the rest of us five years ago this month, voters in 27 states have passed constitutional marriage amendments banning gay marriage and 41 state legislatures now have statutes banning gay marriage. The only places where same-sex pseudo-marriage is allowed is where judges have basically overturned their constitutions to mandate it. So the question needs to be asked: if a sports team were 0-27, or worse 0-41, would it be credible for a sports columnist to argue, "one thing is clear: momentum is on our side"? The only possible momentum that those pushing for a redefinition of marriage can point to, it seems, is to activist judges willing to try to get away with what their colleagues have done in three states.

That's one of the reasons why what happened in California, in particular, is so heartening to those who care about defending the institution of marriage from those who want to dismantle it: citizens showed their willingness to overturn the dictates of the judicial oligarchy.

In California, so much was stacked against Prop 8. The attorney general reworded the petition in order to try to turn as many as possible against it. All the major newspapers became propaganda machines attacking it. The national gay lobby poured in close to $40 million to defeat it. Many Hollywood stars not only came out against it but some, like Brad Pitt and Ellen DeGeneres, gave over $100,000 each to its cause. Governor Schwarzenegger campaigned against it. The elites in universities railed against it.

And a coalition of ordinary people, like David against Goliath, organized and defeated it.

It's one thing when states in the Bible Belt vote to ban same-sex marriage. It's quite another when the largest state in the country, with a huge reputation for secularism, with contains the same-sex capital of the world, and which for the last two decades has voted to elect nothing but liberal senators, governors, and presidents, votes to ban same-sex marriage. If same-sex marriage cannot pass the voters in California — especially with all the advantages on its side — then where can it pass, when voters actually have a chance to deliberate the issues and vote on it?

The majority of voters in California were not fooled by the propaganda that the gay lobby used here in Massachusetts to con our Beacon Hill legislators. When gay activists tried to argue, "How will my gay marriage affect you?," there was a long list of evidence that they now could cite. They knew from here, Canada and their own state that, once same-sex marriage is approved, gay activists seek to start indoctrinating kids, as early as kindergarten, with books depicting kings kissing kings and princesses espousing princesses — all without parental consent or even knowledge. They were aware of "gay days" in school to fight "intolerance" and celebrate same-sex marriage. They were familiar with the fact that every employer becomes required to cover same-sex couples in insurance coverage and other benefits. They were conscious of photographers sued for unwillingness to film same-sex nuptials. They remembered that Boston Catholic Charities needed to get out of the adoption business so as not to violate Church teaching about gay adoption. They were also familiar with the shocking case of evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson in Alberta, Canada, who, for a rather tame letter to the editor in his local newspaper stating that homosexuality activity was sinful, was ordered in May to pay a $5,000 fine, write a letter of apology to a gay activist, and agree to "cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals." They knew that same-sex marriage affects everyone.

Moreover, the majority of California voters had come to realize that same-sex marriage isn't really even about marriage. Surveys in places where same-sex marriage is legal reveal that 96 percent of adults with same-sex attractions do not get married when given the opportunity and do not want to do so. As many honest gay activists have publicly stated, what they are after is not so much marriage as governmental validation of the gay lifestyle. "Including homosexuals within marriage," Andrew Sullivan wrote recently, "would be a means of conferring the highest form of social approval imaginable." Once governments confer legal approval, social validation comes next, through the pedagogical aspect of the law or, for those who resist their re-education, through lawsuits based on the new laws.

California voters said no to same-sex marriage and to the cultural transformation it's designed to bring. In the process, a sleeping giant was awakened from slumber and isn't likely to lie down again soon.

Rather than "disturbing" news, this is good news of great joy to all the people.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.