October 8, 2008

Latest Proposition 8 Lunacy: Homosexual Marriage Causes Sterility

I hestitate to say, “Now I’ve heard it all,” because the equality-haters never fail to amaze me with their convoluted justifications for turning gay and lesbian Americans into permanent untouchables, nor with the blatant lies they use to do it, nor with their deliberate ignorance, which is so breathtakingly astounding one can only wonder if these people were all homeschooled* by Paul Cameron.

This next example of sheer idiocy does not come from the official anti-marriage campaign — but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this doozy ends up in their next attack ad.

On a blog promoting the elimination of our legal rights in California is a long essay by one “John A. Evans,” who asks if support for Proposition is “intolerant.” It begins, surprisingly enough, with this admission:

Probably the most relevant definition of “intolerant” is “an unwillingness to grant equal freedom” to others. Certainly married heterosexuals are granted a host of legal rights and obligations that would be denied to others if those in same sex relationships cannot be “married.” There is also a degree of legitimacy and respect, associated in our culture with the institution of marriage, that might be denied to same sex couples if they are denied “marriage.” Denying rights and legitimacy to some, while granting it to others, certainly appears “intolerant.”

Nothing wrong there — but the writer’s apparent sanity is an illusion; he quickly dissolves into a comparison of “tolerating” homosexuals and “tolerating” smokers. (That probably caught Frank Schubert’s attention.)

And here, dear reader, is where the writer makes his “point”: that it is right to be intolerant of things that kill, and smoking and homosexuality both kill.

Oh, but Evans doesn’t stop there — he posits that homosexuality also causes sterility

As you read, try to keep your eyes from rolling right out of their sockets:

… Now we have become so intolerant of smoking that smoking is illegal in public buildings and those who sponsored smoking—the tobacco companies—have been required to pay billions of dollars in damages to those they lured into the habit. Why is such pronounced intolerance for smoking so acceptable?

The obvious answer is that smoking kills people—not immediately, and not everyone, but irrefutably. Health costs for everyone are increased by smokers. Even non-smokers are harmed by being in the presence of smokers. The first question in every medical check-up is “Do you smoke?” Some smokers excuse their smoking with the confession that it is a habit—a physical compulsion—that they are helpless to resist. It is part of their inherent nature, they claim, that cannot be denied. The fact that others have ceased smoking is irrelevant to those who remain smokers—they do not accept that it is possible for them to stop smoking. …

So the problem with smokers is their behavior, when they claim they were born smokers. Gee, what a clever way to equate an acquired addiction with an inherent trait.

Not.

Fail.

I’ll tell you what’s often inborn: stupid. But without access to the writer’s psych workup, it’s impossible to know whether he was born stupid, or chooses to be stupid.

Is this societal intolerance of smoking, now crystallized into law, intolerance of smokers? Generally speaking it is not. Most do not condemn smokers for smoking.

Oh, really now? Tell me more.

Most recognize they have challenges in their own lives that are as great for them as is smoking for smokers. Smokers are not denied the right to vote, or to eat where they want, or even to employment in almost any job because they smoke. …

Exsqueeze me? “Pointing to rising health costs and the oversized proportion of insurance claims attributed to smokers, some employers in California and around the country are refusing to hire applicants who smoke and, sometimes, firing employees who refuse to quit.”

But never mind all that — here’s the money quote:

How is this relevant to Proposition 8? Smoking may kill people eventually—usually decades after they become addicted and long after they have reached the age of reproduction. Smokers have had many children—many people alive in the world today are children of smokers. In contrast, homosexuality has an instant medical resul [sic] —it causes sterility. Which is more damaging to society—cancer and heart failure caused by smoking or sterility caused by homosexuality?

Paul Cameron, that is you, isn’t it?

And, gee, where have I heard something like that before? Not from Paul Cameron, I mean, but… Oh, yeah, I remember — it’s right out of the ol’ Reasons to Pull Out of Your Ass for Banning Interracial Marriage Handbook:

“It is stated as a well authenticated fact that if the [children] of a black man and white woman, and a white man and a black woman intermarry, they cannot possibly have any progeny, and such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid the intermarriage of blacks and whites.”

If a population of animals, let us say frogs, were faced with two diseases—one that caused cancer late in the life cycle of the frog and one that caused immediate sterility—which one would be the focus of major research grants searching for a cure? The frogs will suffer from the cancer, but they will become extinct from sterility.

OK, Einstein, first explain how homosexuality causes sterility, and tell us where you got this whopper.

Second, explain why animals — all of them — aren’t extinct. “No species has been found in which homosexual behaviour has not been shown to exist, with the exception of species that never have sex at all, such as sea urchins and aphis.”

Tell me why the bonobo (or dwarf chimpanzee), especially, still exists, when the entire species is bisexual, and 95% of the population is just as happy to establish a primary relationship with a MOTSS as with a MOTOS.

Tell me how the Amazon dolphin ever managed to survive, when its males are such big, gay perverts, they’ll happily penetrate each other through the blowhole, making the Amazon “the only example of nasal sex we have in nature.”

Oh, I know the old “reasoning”:

You: “Homosexuality is unnatural!”

Me: “Homosexuality is perfectly natural throughout the animal kingdom.”

You: (sputtering) “People are not animals!”

Finally, if this “homosexuality = sterility” idiocy were true, tell us why you might want to “cure” sterility in a group of people you’d rather see extinct in the first place.

Here’s a little tip, Skip: If you want to “cure” (i.e., eradicate) homosexuality, you can’t do it through these bullshit “ex-gay” programs you’re thinking of. They don’t work. If you want to “cure” homosexuality, you’ll have to kill all the heterosexuals, ’cause, Baby John, heterosexuality causes homosexuality.

With all the Radical Right’s yammering on about how only a penis and a vagina make a family, they just can’t handle the truth — the undeniable, unimpeachable truth — that 100% of all homosexuals are the result of heterosexual breeding.

Suck on that, Johnny.

Does the government have a legitimate role in opposing, or at least not encouraging, sterility? Admittedly many in America today support the nihilistic doctrine that humans are an ecological disaster and that the fewer humans there are, the better off the earth would be. That is the official policy of the Chinese government. But should that be the policy of our government? …

Is there an equivalent to Godwin’s Law for trying to equate the Demon Homosexual with the Yellow Menace? If not, there should be.

Or should our government support policies conducive to child bearing by Americans? Certainly that is the original basis for the legal privileges granted to “married” couples. It was intended to create a legally protected environment most conducive to the physical and emotional security of children where they would be most likely to receive the constant and sensitive nurture that is so essential to infants and children.

Never mind the reams of evidence that queerspawn grow up just as nice and normal as (and often more caring and compassionate than) the children of heterosexuals — the Radical Wrongys never listen to that in the first place.

Instead, Mister Wizard, tell me where your “best for the children” spiel leaves couples like my wife and me, who aren’t going to have children (and, yes, we could if we wanted to).

Every time the gay-bashers scramble for justification, it always comes down to “what’s best for the children.” And they always conveniently ignore childless-by-choice couples like Buffy and me — and like every heterosexual couple who choose not to have children.

Ya think marriage, or the lack of it, is going to change our minds? Or the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Childless-By-Choice next door?

“Golly, honey! I know we said we didn’t want kids, and nothing changed in the 15 years we lived together without benefit of marriage, but now that we are married, I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to whelp out more little brooders than the Duggars! Gosh, I never realized how conducive to childbearing man-woman marriage really is!”

Proposition 8, in effect, is a refutation of the California court’s approval for, and condoning of, a particular life style.

Don’t you love the way they get it exactly backwards? Proposition 8 is not a “refutation of the California court’s approval for, and condoning of, a particular lifestyle”; it is the “approval for, and condoning of, a particular—” chosen “—lifestyle” above all others: the Christian lifestyle.

Homosexuality is not a lifestyle, nor is it a choice. Religion, however, is very much a lifestyle, and very much a choice.

Of course, these same homophobes also insist that since gay people aren’t born gay, we have to “recruit” new members all the time to keep our membership up — when in reality that’s what religions, not gay people, do.

‘Phobes do have a bit of a problem with projection, don’t they?

Anyway…

Proposition 8 does not take away the right of anyone to live with anyone they please nor does it limit their ability to have whatever type of sexual relationships they choose. It does not restrict anyone’s right to a job…

John A. Evans, if you’re not deliberately ignorant, you are deliberately lying.

“While states as diverse as Iowa and California already protect LGBT Americans from employment discrimination, 31 states still do not,” which means that “in most of the nation, it is still perfectly legal for an employer or landlord to say ‘lesbians need not apply,’ or for the manager of a movie theater to say, ‘We don’t sell tickets to gays like you.’”

…or to receive any particular level of benefits from that job, such as health care.

I can’t imagine the arrogance it must take to state such garbage as if it were fact. Try selling this bunk to people like Robert Ryan and Ralph Martinelli or Nickie Brazier and Heather Aurand, to name just two couples who have discovered the hard way that inferior, second-class civil unions and domestic partnerships do not afford the same benefits — especially healthcare — as marriage:

“The New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission … concluded that civil unions create a little-understood, separate category of citizens that is often more vulnerable to federal discrimination. …

“First, many employers are not recognizing civil union partners for spousal health benefits because they are governed by a federal law, not the state one that requires them to.

“The federal Employment Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, uses words like ’spouses,’ ‘husbands and wives,’ and ‘married couples’ in its benefits guidelines for self-insured employers.

“While such companies may also cover civil union partners, the law — coupled with the federal DOMA — gives them a loophole to avoid it without obviously discriminating.

“Companies in New Jersey and Vermont are doing this, while in Massachusetts, with marriage equality, employers don’t question their obligation to the couples. …”

To boot, since the federal government refuses to recognize same-sex marriages, or domestic partnerships, or civil unions, couples legally joined in their own states are learning that when one spouse can add the other to his/her employer’s health insurance plan, the value of the dependent spouse’s coverage is taxed as income by the IRS:

“As a growing number of employers offer domestic partner benefits, gays and lesbians are discovering a hitch — domestic partner benefits, unlike health benefits provided to married heterosexual couples, are taxed as income. As a result, gay and lesbian employees take home relatively less income than their married heterosexual co-workers who perform exactly the same job.

“For example, a gay or lesbian employee earning $40,000 a year and receiving domestic partner health insurance benefits toward which the employer contributes $250 a month would owe income and payroll taxes on a total of $43,000 in income at the end of the year.

“A married heterosexual employee earning the same salary and receiving the same health benefits for his or her spouse would owe income and payroll taxes on only $40,000.”

“As a result, married workers who get family health insurance benefits get a double benefit — they get health insurance coverage for their spouses and children and are not taxed on the value of that coverage.

“In sharp contrast, workers who have an unmarried domestic partner are doubly burdened: Their employers typically do not provide coverage for domestic partners; and even when partners are covered, the partner’s coverage is taxed as income to the employee.

“Employers who cover domestic partners are also penalized under current law, since employer payroll tax responsibilities increase along with employees’ income and Social Security taxes.

“As a result, the taxation of domestic partner health care benefits sets up a two-tiered tax policy that costs many American families and their employers millions of dollars each year. This report estimates the financial impact of this extra tax on employees and employers.”

Now, Johnny, you tell me: How are we treated “equally” again? And what entitles you and yours to such special rights?

Proposition 8 does not deny anyone life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Gosh, why does that sound so famil—? Oh, yeah! I remember now — that’s from the Handbook of Justifying Racism, Or: We Don’t Hate Colored People, But We Don’t Want Them Using Our Water Fountains or Touching Our Lily-White Daughters:

“[Negroes’] rights, social, civil, political and religious, will be jealously guarded; but they must not marry or be given in marriage with the sons and daughters of our people.”

“All this is not to say that any race, creed, or caste should be denied any inalienable rights. But it is to say that Deity in his infinite wisdom, to carry out his inscrutable purposes, has a caste system of his own, a system of segregation of races and peoples.”

“Now we are generous with the Negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world. But let them enjoy these things among themselves.”

But tolerance for individuals who choose same sex relationships does not require tolerance (or worse, encouragement)…

Gosh, that sounds awfully familiar too!

“We must not … feel so sorry for Negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them…”

It is legitimate—intolerant or not—to fund school programs warning of the evils of smoking and encouraging students not to begin smoking. It is also legitimate to encourage child bearing and rearing and to create a privileged legal environment—called “marriage”—for those who undertake that most essential responsibility. Granting the same legal protections to sterile relationships is bad policy.

“Sterile relationships.” The only thing “sterile” is this guy’s synapses.

Well, at least he agrees that he has access to a “privileged legal environment” denied us. Disgustingly, his whole point is that it’s perfectly acceptable to discriminate against people he doesn’t think are as good as he is.

To ask the obvious, who is going to pay the taxes necessary to fund the social security benefits of same sex couples?

To ask the obvious, who is paying the taxes necessary to send your children to public school — and to private religious schools, thanks to “faith-based funding”? Last time I checked, I didn’t get a tax break just because I don’t have kids — I’m paying for your rugrats’ education, Johnny B. Dumb, and don’t you forget it.

And I’m paying for your mother’s Social Security check every month — when, frankly, I’d rather use the money to buy a time machine so I could duct-tape her knees together in time to stop her from giving birth to such a delusional homophobe of son.

Everyone knows the answer—the children of heterosexuals, because only heterosexuals have children.

That’s going to come as quite a surprise to Mary Cheney, and Melissa Etheridge, and Clay Aiken, and…

John-Boy, you are without a doubt the most delusional case I’ve encountered this week. And that’s saying a lot.

If citizens choose not to have enough children, or are discouraged by culture, economic pressures, etc. from having then, then the economic vacuum of unfilled jobs will be filled by immigrants.

OMG, look at this! He’s rolling all his phobias into one! Now gays are to blame for the so-called “illegal immigrant” problem!

Nature hates a vacuum of population as much as it hates any other type of vacuum.

The only vacuum is the one between your ears, Johnny.

Same sex marriage is sterile.

Then why am I still getting my period at 47 years old?

Sterility has worse than cancer.

John A. Evans has worse stupid than Forrest Gump.

It is legitimate not to condone behavior that has such dire consequences for individuals, families, society and the entire human race.

Like denying civil rights to a class of people for no other reason than that you hate them and fear them?

It is acceptable and legitimate for individuals and government to refuse to grant the same rights and status to sterility in our culture that is granted to heterosexual relationships that can and do produce children.

You know what’s scary, folks? For every John A. Evans who spews such garbage, there are countless more who swallow it like it was ice cream.

What’s worse is that you can never tell whether asses like John A. Evans really believe their own lies, or are just clever con artists who know how to manipulate the truly stupid among us.

* Actually, I’m not kidding about the homeschooling thing. “Paula,” the blogger responsible to blame for propagating Evans’ lunacy, is indeed a homeschooler. What’s more, she follows the Charlotte Mason method, which eschews “dry, factual textbooks” in favor of “living books,” which are “usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style.”

In other words, who needs pesky facts when you can get yore larnin’ from a single “authority” who, gosh darnit, prolly talks all real folksy an’ everything, like that Sarah Palin gal?

Gee, I’ve got a “passion” for both psychology and genetics, and I always write in a conversational style — I guess that makes me qualified to write a “living book” on curing religious insanity through fetal brain surgery.

Filed under: "Ex-Gays", California, Family Research Council, Hate Speech, Heterosexuality, Homophobia, Marriage, Parenting, Proposition 8, Race/Ethnic Issues, Radical Religious Right, Random Bigotry, Random Stupidity

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