On Russia's New Law

I was working on a post on Russia's new law defending their culture from homosexualist propaganda, but Pat Buchanan beat me to it. Back in July 30, 2012 Matthew Franck wrote a piece at Public Interest called Truth and Lies, Nature and Convention: The Debate Over Same-Sex Marriage. Mr. Franck quoted same-sex “marriage” supporter Jon Corvino:

“Whichever side prevails in this debate, the other’s views will be marginalized. There’s no getting around that.” 

So it is a question of which side should be marginalized. One side has built civilizations, the other side has built nothing, and exists parasitically within the civilization built by its enemies. In concrete terms: who will be marginalized, Dan Savage or Baronelle Stutzman? Savage, an ill-mannered lout (caution: link has vile content), is invited to the White House, while Ms. Stutzman is being sued by the state of Washington for refusing to provide flowers for a counterfeit “wedding”--and she's not alone. We have been covering the events in France. On June 12, 2013 LifeSiteNews ran a story about the Mayor of a French town willing to go to prison rather than participate in the charade (his word) of counterfeit marriage:

“The mayor of a small town in France’s Basque region has announced his refusal to carry out a ‘marriage’ between two men who reside in his jurisdiction, becoming the first mayor to defy the country’s new law that applies the name and rights of “matrimony” to couples of the same sex. 

Jean-Michel Colo, a conservative who heads the town of Arcangues in the southern Basque region of Pyrenees-Atlantiques, faces the possibility of a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of 75,000 euros (100,000 USD), according to French media sources. However, he appears to be unafraid of the consequences of his stand, telling the media that he will ‘go all the way to the gallows’ to oppose the law.

‘I don’t give lessons, I’m not inciting other mayors to follow my example, but I won’t enforce an illegitimate law,’ says Colo. ‘My seven councilmen and I are completely in agreement in saying that we will not participate in this charade.’”

 

So Mayor Colo, too, has been “marginalized.”  That won’t be happening in Russia. Instead, homosexual activists are being marginalized. Mr. Buchanan's article was called "Post v. Putin--Whose Side Are You On?"

"The culture war has gone global.

And the divisions are not only between, but within nations.

“Suddenly, homosexuality is against the law,” wailed Jay Leno. “I mean, this seems like Germany. Let’s round up the Jews. Let’s round up the gays. ... I mean, it starts like that.”

Leno was speaking of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Obama eagerly agreed:

“I have no patience for countries that treat gays or lesbians ... in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them. ... Nobody is more offended than me by some of the antigay and lesbian legislation that you’ve been seeing in Russia.”

(Note: As a commentator to Buchanan's article observed, Obama has endless patience when it comes to Christians being slaughtered in Muslim countries, something which is immeasurably greater than any persecution suffered by homosexuals.) Buchanan continues:

Leno and Obama were referring to a new Russian law prohibiting “homosexual propaganda.” Moscow is also warning foreigners, including visitors to the winter Olympics in Sochi, that propagandizing for gay rights can get them two weeks in detention. No kiss-ins allowed.

“Medieval,” howled The Washington Post. “Mr. Putin’s war” on gays and lesbians is “part and parcel of his lapse into xenophobia, religious chauvinism and general intolerance....

What this reveals is the distance America has traveled, morally and culturally, in a few short years, and our amnesia about who we Americans once were, and what it is we once believed.

Only yesterday, homosexual sodomy, which Thomas Jefferson said should be treated like rape, was outlawed in many states and same-sex marriage was regarded as an absurdity.

Was that America we grew up in really like Nazi Germany?

In the Catholic schools this writer attended, pornography—let alone homosexual propaganda—would get one expelled.

Was this really just like Kristallnacht?..."

 

Pat's last points are important. What has happened to America? How did the moral vacuum come into being? President Putin is a Russian nationalist. That's why he cares about what happens to Russia. Makes sense. But what is President Obama? What about us? We've gone from Jefferson's "We hold these truths..." (an assertion which, as Willmoore Kendall taught, presupposes a belief in Truth with a capital "T") to Anthony Kennedy's "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life..."

In his 1978 autobiography "In Search of History," the legendary liberal journalist Theodore H. White wrote of the changes he had seen:

"The old English political culture had lost control over … the polyglot peoples of America [who] had no common heritage but only ideas to bind them together… What would be really at issue was whether America would be transformed, in the name of Opportunity, simply into a Place, a gathering of discretely defined and entitled groups, interests and heritages; or whether it could continue to be a nation, where all heritages joined under the same roof—ideas of communities within government."

Well, the answer seems pretty clear. America has come to be "a gathering of discretely defined and entitled groups, interests and heritages" and the most politically powerful interest group wins. For now, that group has proved to be homosexual activists.