Short answer – Yes.

When it comes to marriage, the question boils down to this; what “right” does someone with a heterosexual sexual orientation have that someone with a homosexual sexual orientation does not? The immediate response from those in the pro-homosexual camp is that homosexuals can’t get married. This is clearly not the case. What needs to be kept in focus during this debate is that “rights” are accrued to individuals. This is an issue regarding the law as written and concerns “rights”. Does a homosexual person have less “rights” than a heterosexual person in virtue of their sexual desire? Of course not. A heterosexual person can marry an eligible member of the opposite sex of their choice. The same-sex attracted person has the exact same “right”. If they say they don’t want to marry someone of the opposite sex, then my response is that they don’t have to. This is not meant to be cold hearted. It is an answer with regard to legality and “rights”. What is being sought here is a right that nobody has had previously under that government. Clearly not an equality issue. Heterosexual people can’t marry someone of the same sex either. In both cases, each individual is treated exactly the same by the law.

When it comes to individuals, this argument is compelling with regard to rights proper. But what happens when the rights of homosexual couples are brought into the equation? And in this regard they may seem to have a legitimate complaint. The problem is that constitutional “rights” are accrued to individuals, not groups. Governments always treat couples differently than they do individuals. For example, if two people enter into a contract to buy a house, then there are certain laws and obligations that apply to those two people as a couple that don’t apply to other couples who aren’t buying a house. Why? Because their circumstances are unique. And because they are unique, they get unique treatment under the law. The question then becomes; Is the unique treatment under the law justifiable given the unique circumstances? And given our example, those involved in the sale of a house are treated differently to those couples who are not. So the government does not treat you the same, because the circumstances are different.

Homosexuals have the freedom to do all the things that married people do – pledge their love, live together…etc. But the State does not recognise that relationship. It will not licence it, privilege it or control it. Why? Because it has no reason to do so. Governments are free to make provision for homosexual couples, and they do in some cases (civil unions), but civil unions between same-sex couples are not the same as marriages between opposite-sex couples. This is because they function differently in the culture. Long term heterosexual unions, as a rule, as a group and by nature, produce the next generation. Same-sex unions do not. Heterosexual unions are very different to same-sex unions in a way that matters to the State. This is why it is appropriate for the State to treat those unions differently. They are not obligated to declare them exactly the same when they clearly are not the same to the State when it comes to policy purposes.

While this may seem quite reasonable to most people, the homosexual activist will most definitely not be convinced. This is because they don’t really care about the facts of the matter; the issues of law. What they care about is getting public approval of same-sex relationships. That’s what it’s all about. This is not about equality of rights but rather a restructure of culture so that there is complete public and official government approval of homosexuality.

The distinctions offered here are entirely legitimate. Will they make any difference to the homosexual lobby or those sympathetic to them? No. Not one bit. Because what they want is for everybody to say that their lifestyle is the same as everybody else’s and that what they do is just wonderful. I’m not willing to say that. There are many others not willing to say that. The State of California was not willing to say that (Prop 8). Legitimate distinctions have been made with regard to public policy, to which the other side has become so unhinged that they broke things and punished people (in response to the Prop 8 decision).

Anyone who thinks should be able to see the difference. And I don’t know why we should apologize for the obvious. But this is what the politically correct leftist culture is forcing upon us.

What is demanded of us is a rationale. And when a rationale is given, it becomes very clear that they do not want a rationale, they want things their way. They want approval. Which strikes me that homosexual people are the thinnest skinned people on the planet. This then leads us to ask the question, why?

[Paraphrased from Greg Koukl's radio show, Stand to Reason]

An associate of mine, who goes by the pseudonym Noc Nocterro, recently notified me and some others about an article he had published over at UrbanPhilosophy.net called “Love Knows No Gender.” The aim of the article was “a comprehensive analysis on the debate over the moral permissibility of homosexual behaviour,” in which he argues that homosexual activity is morally permissible when it is similar in circumstances to heterosexual activity that is morally permissible. I will leave it to Mathew Hamilton to address the sociological arguments when he returns from his sabbatical. My purpose in this response is to evaluate whether or not the arguments Nocterro presents withstand critical scrutiny. And his basic argument reasons in this way:

Premise 1: In cases where the good-making properties of a behaviour are much greater than the bad-making properties, then that behaviour is prima facie morally permissible.

Premise 2: There is a subset of homosexual sexual relationships where the good-making properties are much greater than the bad-making properties.

Premise 3: There is a subset of homosexual sexual relationships that are prima facie morally permissible.

Premise 4: If there is a prima facie support for the permissibility of some-thing, and there are no good reasons to support its impermissibility, then it should be deemed permissible.

Premise 5: There are no good reasons to suppose this subset of homosexual sexual relationships are impermissible.

Conclusion: This subset of homosexual sexual relationships is permissible.

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So Tavarish published his “last reply” defending failed pro-choice rhetoric (at his blog ironically called The Usual Rhetoric), tackling my recent response to his five so-called counter-arguments against the pro-life stance. Since his arguments have not changed in any way, and my response already confronted them head-on, there is very little for me to add to this dialogue. This will be, then, a very brief summation.

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In what is thus far the most commented article on this site, penned by our newest staff member Adam (see “How to respond to empty pro-choice rhetoric”), one of our regular visitors and a gentleman I enjoy talking with, Tavarish, recently posted five counter-arguments against the pro-life stance advocated by our staff writers. Not wishing for these issues to get archived deeper into the site as the article ages, I am addressing his five counter-arguments in a fresh article. And I am addressing each of them head-on, as he seems to suggest that no one has directly confronted them. For a full and proper context, please see the comments field to Adam’s article.

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Last weekend, our very own Adam brought to our attention an article that was published in Australian’s Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday 5 May. The author, Ms Nina Funnell, lamented that she believes women still do not have total authority over their own bodies. There is the Pill (which, I might add, recently became 50 years old) but yet there is still no widespread abortion-on-demand in Australia. On the latter, she is of course right: in Australia, only the State of Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory have decriminalized abortion. In all other states and territories, abortion remains illegal in just about all circumstances. As Ms Funnell points out in her article, a 19 year old woman and her boyfriend face a possible jail term of up to seven years for procuring an abortion in the state of Queensland. She doesn’t, however, provide any reason as to why this couple sought an abortion but we are expected to feel sorry for them, regardless.

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I just love the metaphor presented in this picture and wanted to tell you about some of my recent reflections that flowed from it.

This is the perfect picture of the hope I would have for my children. Notice the metaphors that surround her; money, sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, pornography (to name a few) - and she is totally centred on God’s Word. A fantastic image! And as Christians, isn’t this one of our most persistent concern for our children which we lay daily at God’s feet through prayer? Is it not also our own desire to do as the Lord instructs in raising Godly children like this?

Now for the reality check…

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If Mathew will forgive me for stepping into what is normally his arena, I would like to share an editorial published today in The Daily Courier, a local Kelowna newspaper.

Over the last few years, pro-life advocacy and activism has really begun to blossom in Kelowna, especially among the Millennial Generation (those under 30), and of course this is really getting under the nose of abortion supporters. In response to an editorial published last week by Kevin Ade, in which he vilified the pro-life movement (probably in response to the recent 40 Days for Life campaign across North America which had participants in front of Kelowna General Hospital), today Marlon Bartram, Executive Director of Kelowna Right to Life, wrote a poignant response to Ade that cuts succinctly to the heart of the matter, which I simply must share with you.

The following is Bartram’s editorial (almost) in full:

 
Normally I do not bother responding to ignorant, pro-abortion rants such as the one put forth by Kevin Ade in last Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Courier, but considering that his harsh attack was directed at my fine colleagues at Trail-Rossland Right to Life, I feel it my place to chime in.

There is not enough space here to comment thoroughly on Ade’s tacit support of China’s barbaric one-child policy (wherein forced sterilizations and abortions are routinely carried out on unwilling women and dead babies are found washed up on riverbanks), nor his approval of the mass culling of the most defenseless and innocent members of the human family in the name of “population control” … or his hateful demonization of pro-lifers as “deceitful,” “liars,” and “terrorists.” I will take time to respond on what I perceive to be the thesis of his column: the denial of any causal link between abortion and breast cancer.

Ade might be surprised to discover (if he dares to engage in a little open-minded research) that 80 percent of the 70 studies done on the issue since 1957 show a positive correlation between breast cancer and abortion. In addition, Ade seems to have missed the rather abundant media reports revealing that (former) fellow denier Louise Brinton of the National Cancer Institute (U.S.) admitted in a 2009 study that abortion does indeed raise the risk of breast cancer by 40 percent.

Although some of the aforementioned studies show as much as a 200 percent risk increase, let’s go with the lower 40 percent figure and put that into some context.

It is estimated that living with a smoker increases a non-smoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent. So I think it is safe to conclude that the risk of contracting lung cancer from public second-hand smoke is far less, given the comparatively reduced exposure. Yet that minimal public risk has resulted in massive anti-smoking campaigns and scores of legislation aimed at deterring, reducing, or outright banning smoking in public places.

Surprise, surprise, no such campaigns aimed at deterring, reducing, or banning abortion are undertaken when its harmful effects are uncovered. Instead, abortion groups, the media, and misguided politicians all minimize, ignore, and even libellously attack anyone who points to any health risk associated with abortion.

It is not just the breast cancer they rail against, but infertility, sepsis, hemorrhaging, death, depression, trauma, substance abuse, and scores of other physical, emotional, and psychological harms known to be associated with abortion. They do so not because it is in the best interest of women to be denied information on these risks; rather, they do so in order to preserve and promote their abortionist ideology.

Ade recklessly purports that “proselytizing is an abuse of privilege” and “the enforcement of bias upon others is terrorism.” Call it a hunch, but I suspect the self-avowed social activist and environmentalist fails to see any ‘terrorism’ involved when he proselytizes and enforces his left-wing, environmental, population control, abortionist bias on others. Let me guess: it’s only ‘terrorism’ when people with views different than your own speak out. Otherwise it’s just another benign editorial in a newspaper. Is that it?

So who, really, is acting in the best interest of women, children, and society here? Those who work to make the harmful effects of abortion known, or those who deny them in order to preserve their abortionist ideology at all costs, even at the cost of down-playing or ignoring very serious health risks to women?

Ade closes out by suggesting the pro-life movement “do the right thing and apologize.” In reality, when the day comes that abortion is seen for the horror it truly is and the terrible harm it has done to women, it will be the Kevin Ades of the world doing the apologizing.
 

Bartram, Marlon. “Only Those Who Disagree Are Apparently ‘Terrorists’.” The Daily Courier (Kelowna) 6 Apr. 2010, Letters sec.: A7. Print. (For more information on the link between abortion and breast cancer, see www.abortionbreastcancer.ca.)

But then who could put it more powerfully than John Piper did?

The truth of the phrase “a picture tells a thousand words” holds much persuasive power. The media has long used a variety of images to convey the truth and reality of situations far removed from the every day viewer; we use images to provoke, to emotionally stir and to captivate people’s attention. We are, by and large, a visually stimulated people. The success of the movie industry and of TV programming is testament to that. Yet can we intentionally use graphically disturbing pictures to promote a cause or to bring awareness of an issue to the uninitiated? Can we use images to sway our opponents on the abortion issue? If they’re used appropriately, then the answer is an emphatic, “yes”.

The use of pictures does have its place; the use of factual pictures entomb the truths of an event for future generations. One man who understood this in totality was General Eisenhower who, on visiting the Nazi concentration camp at Ohrdruf on April 12th, 1945, ordered that every citizen of the nearby town of Gotha visit the camp; that media personnel make full documentation; and that military cameras be sure to capture the horrific scene, immortalizing in photographs the barbarity and cruelty.

Said Eisenhower, “I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”^[1] Eisenhower envisaged that the documentation was necessary because, at point in the future, he believed there would be people who would deny that such astrocities ever took place, perhaps thinking them some elaborate conspiracy to stir the hearts and cloud the minds of a gullible people. Yet there are groups who deny the holocaust; I’m sure Eisenhower would not be surprised.

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“Baby killer’s day out from prison to go shopping”

“Baby killer let out to visit mall”

Just two of the many headlines from several pages of The Daily Telegraph’s (DT) diatribe on Friday 26th June 2009 rallying against the supervised shopping trip of one Phillip King, who was imprisoned after he “killed his own baby son in a fit of rage when he punched and kicked Kylie Flick’s stomach after she refused to have an abortion”, the DT reports.

“He didn’t steal a car, he stole a life”, was one expression used by Kylie Flick to express her anguish over the memory of the birth of her stillborn son, whom she Christened Jonathan.

The DT also point out that Ms Flick’s son “never drew breath” – a seemingly redundant piece of information – and that King’s “horrific 2002 crime led to a new law with a maximum 25-year jail term for people for people who kill a foetus…”

This attack by the media you might say is fair game. He did take the life of a defenseless human being after all, and injured several others both physically and emotionally in the process. So why shouldn’t the media have their pound of flesh? Well it’s the inconsistent way that they go about it that irks me. Here are some more of the headlines and comments from the same articles.

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