Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Sometimes I feel like I should send Joseph Farah, founder of the Worldnutdaily, a gift. The webmag he founded is such a fountain of sheer stupidity that he makes my job here so much easier. Virtually every day, I could find ample fodder for this blog just by clicking on his page. And now that he has added Alan Sears, the CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, as a weekly columnist that job should get even easier. The Alliance Defense Fund, you may remember, are the folks who brought us the ridiculous “Declaration of Independence Banned from Classroom” lawsuit that was recently “settled” when they basically admitted that they had no case.

Sears has just joined the Worldnutdaily as a columnist and he’s hit the ground running, pumping out this howler of a column in only his second week on the job. He begins with what surely is one of the most absurd analogies in the history of human thought:

Imagine that tonight, in stadiums all over the United States, Major League Baseball games are disrupted by an invasion of football players, running by dozens and hundreds out onto the diamonds.

“We want to play, too!” the game-crashers cry.

“But this is baseball,” a pitcher points out. “It’s a totally different game.”

“Not fair!” the invaders insist. “We demand that you let us play! And here – use our ball. Re-line the field. And play by our NFL rules!”

“It won’t work,” says a shortstop. “You can’t pitch pigskin.”

“Foul!” scream the footballers to ESPN cameras. “Unsportsmanlike! Boycott baseball!”

The crowd grows restless and bellows their deafening disapproval. The umps’ thumbs are flying: “You’re outta the game!” But the helmeted Huns dig in their cleats.

“These fans are narrow-minded!” they yell. “These umps are bought and paid for! Where’s the justice? What are these ballplayers so afraid of?”

“Football-phobics?” read the morning sports pages, featuring photos of outraged outfielders, shaking their fists at runningbacks spiking balls at home plate.

Absurd? Maybe … but a not-dissimilar scenario is unfolding all over America as increasingly aggressive advocates of homosexual behavior demand legal, moral and cultural endorsement of same-sex “marriage” and other aspects of a demanding legal agenda.

Wow. This guy – a former Federal prosecutor and presumably intelligent fellow – actually thinks this is an accurate analogy to gay marriage. That’s so mind-numbingly idiotic that it isn’t even worth spelling out the ways in which it’s not analogous. If you can’t figure it out on your own, I’m afraid nothing I can say is gonna help you out. This is surreal stupidity. But he’s not done yet, not by a longshot.

Watching their determined efforts to destroy an institution that is the cornerstone of American family life and society, one can’t help but wonder what exactly it is that the ACLU really cares about.

Ah, the good ol’ “gay marriage will destroy marriage” argument. Pray tell how exactly this will happen, Mr. Sears. Will your marriage be destroyed by it? Will anyone’s? Will straight couples suddenly decide not to get married now that gays can do it too? Are straight people that easily dissuaded from forming bonds? If they are, the institution of marriage is already doomed. This is nothing more than empty rhetoric, without a shred of logical reasoning to it whatsoever. And the unreasoned cliches just keep on coming:

Clearly, the ACLU and its allies aren’t staying up nights worrying over the ravaging social and psychological impact of same-sex unions on families and children. Nor do they care about the coarsening of the culture they long to see freed from what they consider its bigoted moral and religious underpinnings.

Ah yes, the “coarsening” of the culture…whatever the hell that means. Surely a reference to the “moral fiber” (polyester, I presume) of the nation can’t be far behind. As for that mythical “ravaging social and psychological impact”, this is simply nonsense. Study after study after study has shown that the children of gay parents are no different than the children of straight parents.

So, having divorced themselves from the best interests of their clients, their society and the law, what exactly do the ACLU’s attorneys love, honor and cherish? Social anarchy? Unbridled hedonism? The dismantling of the American family?

Mr. Sears, I’m going to let you in on a little secret here. I know this is going to come as a huge shock to you, but trust me when I tell you this….ACLU attorneys not only came from families themselves, just like you and I did, most of them have their own families now. Husbands, wives and children they love, just like you do. So we either have to believe that they spend their entire working life with the sole intent of destroying an institution that they themselves belong to and cherish…or we have to believe that you’ve just let you rhyperbolic rhetoric go way off the tracks into looneyville. I think the latter is clearly the more plausible answer.

And for that, Mr. Sears, you have been awarded the Robert O’Brien Trophy as the Idiot of the Month. I’m sending this along with a complimentary bookcase because they’re really piling up in the Worldnutdaily office and I want you to be able to display them proudly. Congratulations!

Comments

#1 flatlander100
September 9, 2005

The “gay marriage will destroy heterosexual marriage” argument makes sense, so far as I can see, if and only if those who make the argument are convinced that they or their spouses will seek divorces and marry same sex partners instead once gay marriage becomes legal.

In discussions on this, I occasionally ask someone insisting gay weddings will destroy “traditional” marriages why he is so affraid that his wife will divorce him for another woman?

The question is, as a rule, not well received.
#2 John
September 9, 2005

I’ll bet that a few ACLU lawyers even go to church.
#3 llDayo
September 9, 2005

Congrats Mr. Sears! I knew all those years of hard work with Roebuck would eventually land you this prestigious award! Here’s hoping for a repeat performance next season
#4 Sastra
September 9, 2005

Ha! As I read the analogy without knowing his point in advance, I wondered if Alan Sears was actually going to talk about about the Creationism-Evolution controversy.

Intelligent Design supporters demand that their content-free “theories” be allowed on the same playing field (science class) as evolution, which is only allowed in the Public Education Stadium by virtue of having played well according to rules set out in advance. ID refuses to follow the proper procedures of science. It fails to provide mechanisms and predictions, and by-passes peer-review and experiment. Instead, they appeal emotionally to the people in the stands: they whine about “fairness,” and accuse critics of being “narrow-minded” and “anti-christian.” Letting them on would just mess things up — and confuse everyone as to what game is being played.

Not a bad analogy. Sears was impressing me. Too bad he had to ruin it by letting gay marriage intrude.
#5 Aureola Nominee, FCD
September 9, 2005

Sastra:

I wondered along the exact same lines.
#6 Ace Pryhill
September 9, 2005

I wonder how Sears would explain Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Julius Peppers and other two-sport athletes in the context of his analogy?
#7 CPT_Doom
September 9, 2005

No only are ACLU attorneys members of families, but so are us fags and dykes. Does Sears really think that we are some kind of alien race? We are part of America’s families, with parents and siblings and nieces and nephews, etc. We sit at the Thanksgiving table and exchange Christmas and birthday presents. When those fundamentalist bastards tried to take out New York and Washington, it was my older sister who was terrified for my safety here in DC. When I go to New England to visit, I am the one babysitting my nephews so my sister and brother-in-law can have some time together. Is that not the definition of a family? Being concerned about and trying to help each other?
#8 Ed Brayton
September 9, 2005

CPT wrote:

No only are ACLU attorneys members of families, but so are us fags and dykes. Does Sears really think that we are some kind of alien race? We are part of America’s families, with parents and siblings and nieces and nephews, etc. We sit at the Thanksgiving table and exchange Christmas and birthday presents. When those fundamentalist bastards tried to take out New York and Washington, it was my older sister who was terrified for my safety here in DC. When I go to New England to visit, I am the one babysitting my nephews so my sister and brother-in-law can have some time together. Is that not the definition of a family? Being concerned about and trying to help each other?

Boy, this just says it all. That’s why every time I hear someone invoke the “family” as an excuse for not giving equal rights to gays, I get annoyed. As if gay people didn’t have families? I’d like to have these people come and meet the family of one of my closest friends. Their home was like a second home for me in high school and college.

They didn’t suddenly stop being a family when he came out of the closet. In fact, the opposite is true. They demonstrated what a genuine family is by coming together to support him and continuing to love him and treat him no differently. That’s the good part. The bad part is the many other families I’ve known who reject a son or daughter when they find out that they’re gay. On the light end of things, they refuse to acknowledge their partner or allow their name to be spoken in their presence, just go into complete denial; at the dark end, they disown a child, throw them out of their house and their family.

Let’s contrast two fathers. My friend’s father cried when he found out his son was gay. He didn’t cry because his son was gay, he cried because his son waited so long to tell him out of fear of rejection. He was devestated by the fact that this son he loved so much had been struggling with this for so long and he, as a father, didn’t know and therefore couldn’t help him through it. Contrast that with Alan Keyes, who threw his daughter out of his house and refused to pay for her college because she was openly gay. Contrast that to the many parents who won’t even attend the funeral of a child because they were gay, or with my cousins who refused to have anything to do with their father, my uncle, when he came down with AIDS. You tell me who understands “family values” and who doesn’t.

When I hear self-righteous windbags like Alan Sears and Alan Keyes rant and rave about gays destroying family values, I wanna puke. They don’t value families; they value families that look like them and agree with them.
#9 Anonymous
September 9, 2005

Nathan Tabor, at ReNew America, ought to be a Robert O’Brien runner-up –> Charles Darwin disagrees with homosexuality
#10 Jon Rowe
September 9, 2005

I’ll handle the Tabor piece.
#11 SharonB
September 9, 2005

The biggest shame in all of this is that Sears and his slime-bag organization are the ~ones~ destroying families.

They have constantly intruded into dissolution proceedings between same-sex couples, one who conveniently found $$religion$$ in order to prevent the other parent of the children from having contact and visitation. The harm to the children is immense.

They also jump into heterosexual divorces where one spouse comes out as GLBT. I know this from personal experience. Because of the ADF’s intrusion and support of my ex’s defiance of the court’s contact and visitation orders, my children have grown up to become perfect young bigots and will no longer speak to me.

If you want to see what a thoroughly evil organization looks like, look no further than fundamentalist extremist hate groups like the ADF.
#12 Ed Brayton
September 9, 2005

Tabor repeats the lie about gay men only living to 42. Jon has all the details on that lie and I’m sure he’ll blast it to hell. The rest of it is idiocy on roller skates as well.
#13 mark
September 10, 2005

I’m another that thought this was an ID analogy, and not so bad at that. I suppose if I were a Creationist, I might quote the initial part of the article and declare it to be such, and a say it was a confession from the wackos that their game is unfair.
#14 mess
September 10, 2005

I want to know who did nore damage to “the institution of marriage”, Brittnay SPears by by running off to vegas, getting married and then having it annuled a few hours later, or my firends Jason and Dave, who got CUed in VT after being togther for years in an exclusive relationship. Jason and Dave are still togther years after the CU.

BTW, before anyone comments, sorry about the bad spelling
#15 raj
September 10, 2005

Contrast that to the many parents who won’t even attend the funeral of a child because they were gay…

Ed, I’m going to relate a truly horrible story that has been posted several times on the NYTimes Gay Rights board. A man died of HIV/AIDS in the mid 1980s. He had a partner, although at the time they were (obviously) not married. He had left instructions as to what he wanted done in the event of his death.

The partner prepared to execute the decedent’s last wishes. Was he able to execute them?

No, he wasn’t. The father claimed the body from the hospital. Had it cremated. And flushed the ashes down the toilet. That they won’t attend a funeral of a child because they were gay is one thing. Flushing the ashes down the toilet is several orders of magnitude beyond that.

This was in Canada. I can imagine what might occur in the US.