A Jerk Java Jolt for 'Gay Marriage'

The Latest Cultural Entropy Entries

By Mark Alexander · April 4, 2013

"Marriage is ... in its origin a contract of natural law. ... It is the parent, and not the child of society; the source of civility and a sort of seminary of the republic." --Justice Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws)

There's never a dull moment when it comes to Leftist miscreants endeavoring to dismantle Liberty and the very culture that has sustained it since our Founding. This week was no different, especially in regard to the disoriented gender crowd.

First, there was news that the somewhat Reverend Luis Leon used his "Easter sermon" pulpit as a political soapbox for the Obama clan attending St. John's Episcopal Church. "It drives me crazy," Leon lamented, "when the captains of the religious right are always calling people back, never forward, forgetting that we are called to be a pilgrim's people. The captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back, back. For blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants to be on their side of the border." (Somebody call the IRS and have them revoke St. John's non-profit status!)

For that remark, Leon received our Non Compos Mentis Award Monday. Of course, Leon is no Jeremiah "G-d Damn America" Wright, who spewed the sort of awful, divisive, America-hating sermons that now largely inform Obama's worldview.

Next came the news that another lynch mob was gathering to hang Dr. Ben Carson, who was already under fire for having delivered a bold and unapologetic defense of Christian morality at the National Prayer Breakfast -- with Obama scowling a few feet away at the head table. (So much for the Left's support of those who speak truth to power.)

Typical of the assault on Carson, who is black, was this observation from one of MSNBC's talkingheads, who claimed Dr. Carson is an Uncle Tom for conservatives, their "new black friend" who is "helpful in assuaging their guilt."

The Leftmedia is quick to brand any black citizen who departs the ObamaNation Plantations similarly. (See Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, Allen West, Tim Scott, Ward Connerly et al.) Of liberals, Carson says, "They're the most racist people there are because they put you in a little category, a box. 'How could you dare come off the plantation?'"

Apparently Dr. Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, offended a minuscule but very vocal minority this week when he defended the traditional Judeo-Christian context for marriage -- a historic definition consistent with every religion on the planet. Carson said, "Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It's a well-established, fundamental pillar of society, and no group -- be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn't matter what they are -- they don't get to change the definition."

How dare he mention homosexuals in the same sentence with pedophiles and other sexual miscreants -- even though NAMBLA is, by its very definition, a homosexual group which predates on young boys.

Students at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine are protesting a scheduled speech by Dr. Carson at this year's commencement, claiming his views are "deeply offensive to a large proportion of our student body."

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(Sidebar: In other news from Hopkins, the Student Government Association has declined to allow the formation of a pro-life group, Voice for Life, but has approved a Students for Justice in Palestine group. An SGA memo, leaked to the media, compared Voice for Life with a white-supremacist group.)

I have met Dr. Carson, the subject of the TV movie, Gifted Hands, about his rise from abject material poverty to the pinnacle of the neurosurgical profession. His character and devotion to fellow Americans is unimpeachable.

Responding to the protests, Carson said, "They want to shut us up completely, and that's why the attacks against me have been so vicious. I represent an existential threat to them. They need to shut me up, they need to get rid of me. They can't find anything else to delegitimize me, so they take my words, misinterpret them, and try to make it seem that I'm a bigot."

Next came news that a Salt Lake City School Board is booting Cub Scouts out of elementary schools because of the Boy Scouts of America policy prohibiting "avowed homosexuals" from holding Scout leadership positions.

Responding to the assault on the BSA, Texas Governor Rick Perry, an Eagle Scout, said at a rally, "There is this very vocal, very litigious minority of Americans willing to legally attack anybody who dares utter a phrase or even a name that they don't agree with. In a twisting of logic, they insist on silencing the religious in the cause of tolerance. Now I ask you, where is the tolerance in that?"

Next came news that Howard Schultz, who heralds over the Starbucks java empire, was confronted at the company's annual meeting by a shareholder who objected to Schultz's imposition of his Leftist politics on the entire company and its shareholders by way of a formal memorandum supporting "gay marriage."

Schultz told the stockholder, "You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company ... thank you very much."

OK, that last item wasn't "news," because virtually nobody reported it.

Of course, that wasn't the case last July when the MSM went into hysterics because Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy humbly professed his support for the traditional family: "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. ... We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that. ... We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."

Cathy's remarks led to a failed national boycott against Chick-fil-A, and inspired Leftist mayors like Boston's Tom Menino and Chicago's Rahm Emanuel, chief among Obama's legions of faith-intolerant politicos, to declare they would keep Chick-fil-A out of their cities by refusing to issue the company new building permits. (An adoring media seemed more than happy to ignore the unconstitutional nature of that threat.)

I should note here, one major difference between Starbucks and Chick-fil-A: The former is a publicly held company, which is to say that when it registers support for a political platform, it does so on behalf of all its stockholders, many of whom undoubtedly object. Chick-fil-A, on the other hand, is a very successful privately held company. The chairman speaks for himself and his family, not for millions of shareholders.

Starbucks stock is currently trading near record highs, not because the coffee is so good -- in my humble opinion it is not. I dumped Starbucks years ago, as a matter of taste, not social policy. I enjoyed the premium beans before the company became a huge coffee cash cow. I now find their product no better than the low quality, over-roasted beans next to them on grocery shelves.

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Starbucks stock is soaring because Schultz closed some 900 U.S. stores in recent years, laying off tens of thousands of employees. Now, his job is, rightly, to make a profit for his stockholders by keeping their company profitable. The realignment certainly did that, and apparently that worked out well for Schultz, whose total annual compensation in 2012 was $28,909,800.

So, what is one to make of the "gay marriage" agenda now?

If you want some perspective, consider reading "Gender Identity, The Homosexual Agenda and The Christian Response," a brief but comprehensive commentary I wrote on the subject a few years ago. Nothing has changed since then, other than homosexuals now have a CINC -- a Cheerleader in Chief to drive public opinion in their direction.

Marriage is the foundation for the family, which in turn is the foundation for society. But marriage, as an institution, is currently under vicious assault from many quarters, one of the most menacing being the homosexual challenge to its historic definition. The consequences for Liberty are dire.

Regarding the biblical context for marriage, my colleague Dennis Prager wrote this week, "I offer the single most politically incorrect statement a modern American -- indeed a modern Westerner, period -- can make: I first look to the Bible for moral guidance and for wisdom. I say this even though I am not a Christian (I am a Jew, and a non-Orthodox one at that). And I say this even though I attended an Ivy League graduate school (Columbia), where I learned nothing about the Bible there except that it was irrelevant, outdated and frequently immoral. I say this because there is nothing -- not any religious or secular body of work -- that comes close to the Bible in forming the moral bases of Western civilization and therefore of nearly all moral progress in the world."

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Regarding the natural state of marriage, and the implications of its redefinition to Liberty, another colleague, Terence Jeffrey, wrote, "The Founding Fathers of this nation not only believed in the natural law created by God, but insisted it was the justification for the United States becoming a nation. The 'Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,' they said, 'to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station' of an independent state. ... A state that no longer recognizes that it is subservient to the Laws of Nature and Nature's God will also no longer recognize the God-given rights of individuals. In such a state, there will only be those privileges the powerful decide to grant us -- until they decide to take them away."

In his farewell address to the nation, George Washington wrote, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indespensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. ... [L]et us with caution indulge the opposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

Footnote: For additional context, watch this video clip of Capital Tea Party member Doug Mainwaring, who is openly homosexual, but recently spoke out against "same-sex marriage" at the National Organization for Marriage's rally on the National Mall.

Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis

Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post

Thursday, April 4, 2013