It's for the children
By Alisa Craddock
web posted August 7, 2006
When was the last time you heard a liberal politician say, "It's for the children"? I used to hear them say it all the time. Somewhere along the line the focus seems to have shifted. I haven't heard one of them say it in a while. Not that I think they aren't capable of such hypocrisy. Since the Democrats have made protection of your inalienable right to have sex with whomever you wish the cornerstone of their platform, can they still chant that it's "for the children" when their party has aligned itself with organizations that support policies that lead to destruction of family, child endangerment, moral corruption, and even sexual molestation of children?
Just last week, a couple of notable anti-family events transpired. The first was the blocking by Sen. Dick Durbin (D–Ill.) and a cadre of liberal cronies, of the Child Custody Protection Act from going to a joint House/Senate conference committee. The Child Custody Protection Act would make it a federal crime to knowingly transport an underage girl across state lines to circumvent parental consent/notification laws in the child's own state. Liberals had already gutted the bill by adding amendments that would reaffirm Roe v. Wade, make an exception for grandparents and clergy members, or to protect the "life of the mother."
Protection of the life of the mother is a loophole very like the "health of the mother" in other abortion law. Its meaning and use can be broadly interpreted. To cut through the static, read what former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had to say about the "life of the mother" argument:
"Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother's life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother's health, the doctor will either induce labor or perform a Caesarian section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby's life is never willfully destroyed because the mother's life is in danger."
Of course, the girl could also claim "Daddy said if I ever got pregnant he'd kill me." That might constitute a "life of the mother" loophole to those inclined to circumvent the legal obligation to notify parents.
The exception for clergy is also a handy loophole, since anybody, anybody, can become a minister in a matter of minutes, including the baby's father. It's that easy to get "ordained". With these amendments, it is doubtful any abortions would be prevented from being performed on underage girls. So why did Sen. Dick Durbin and his cronies in the Senate block a bill which is specifically designed to prevent adult men from taking the underage girls they have violated and impregnated to another state for an abortion? Perhaps it is because the amendments would have been stripped from the bill in the joint House/Senate conference committee, and the Democrats will not permit any restriction on abortion, even if it means protecting child predators. So they have used a procedural tactic to prevent the bill from going to the joint committee, and thereby snuffed it out. It's a corrupt, deplorable State that doesn't protect its children, and I don't even want to comment on politicians that have prostituted themselves to organizations and political groups that endanger the welfare of children.
The second significant anti-family event occurred when a coalition of mostly gay activists and other notable liberals released a statement, "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families & Relationships," that seeks to broaden the GLBT agenda beyond mere efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, to one of total societal recognition of "families and relationships" that "know no borders." Hmmm. Relationships that know no borders. We need to explore the implications of that statement.
It appears from where I stand that the GLBT community, seeing that efforts to destroy the institution of marriage and traditional sexual mores are losing ground, is now refocusing their efforts on gaining equal recognition and benefits for non-marital relationships of all sorts incrementally under the banner of "social justice" until parity is achieved. The document states in part that what our society needs is "a new vision for securing governmental and private institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households, kinship relationships and families.'
Among other things, it advocates for a flexible set of economic benefits and options, regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender/gender identity, class, or citizenship status. To be specific, it calls for:
- Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families - regardless of kinship or conjugal status.
- Access for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance and welfare assistance.
- Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.
- Freedom from state regulation of [their] sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression.
William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights notes a new level of aggression toward religion and its tenacious influence on public mores:
"By citing private institutions, the document makes clear its interest in forcing religious institutions to accept its agenda. That explains why the document demands ‘Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.' Never lacking in specificity, it says that marital benefits must extend to ‘Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households."
So now polyamory arrangements are to be recognized, and considered valid family environments for rearing of children, and even dividing them between two different households? To be plain, since homosexuals have been largely unsuccessful in forcing gay marriage, they want equal legal status and recognition for any and all non-marital arrangements, and they plan to drag children into the arena to force us all to accept and accommodate it "for the children". The result, of course, would be the same as would happen if homosexuals were allowed to marry--destruction of traditional marriage and the natural family as the building blocks of civilization and a radical rewriting of public moral code that will eventually shred completely the fabric of human society. Such "family" situations could provide nothing solid upon which to stand, nothing immutable to believe in, and nothing secure to rely on. Can children really hope to thrive in such an environment?
The consequences of these kinds of arrangements on the emotional wellbeing of children are apparently not of concern to those promoting this agenda. They never are. Homosexuals' lives revolve around their sexual orientation, and so children of gay or lesbian parents become pawns in the desires and activist efforts of their "parents" rather than the welfare of the children being considered first. In addition, gay people seem to think that if they love a child, that is enough to warrant letting them raise a child under whatever family arrangement they choose to create, that love is the only important ingredient. The fact that some gay and lesbian people are able to convince themselves that they are normal deceives them into believing that therefore a child raised by them will experience family life that is as wholesome and secure as if they had natural parents (mother and father, married to one another). The evidence does not bear this out. In addition to much higher levels of sexual abuse of children by gay "parents" , these children tend to engage in earlier sexual activity, girls are at greater risk of pregnancy, abortion, and abusive relationships, and both sexes have increased risk of contracting an STD. There are other problems associated with "family life" as well, and devastating consequences when the "arrangement" falls apart. For a preview of the kinds of problems you can expect to see coming out of the "wide range of relationships, households and families" that the GLBT community wishes to force society into accepting, there is a timely case unfolding right now. Five would-be parents are fighting over one child: The homosexual father (currently in prison for identity theft and bank fraud), the surrogate mother to whom he paid $23,000 to impregnate herself with his sperm, the homosexual's sister, the biological mother, and the boy's current foster parents. The boy is currently in the care of the foster parents, which it is sad to say, seems to be the most stable situation he could find himself in.
Another aspect of this document that seems to have largely escaped notice is that those who have signed onto this document are now including illegal aliens in those they have taken under wing. Don't think this is a small matter. The GLBT activist organizations have garnered a great deal of power and much minority support by draping their agenda in the mantle of a civil rights struggle. Now, presenting this document as a "social justice" agenda without regard to "citizenship" status, it is possible they may add many more, including as many as 12 million illegals living in this country, to their ranks, and that spells power. Not only is marriage and family not to enjoy its traditional privileged position in society, but citizenship itself is to be made moot. Religion, of course, has long been targeted for "nullification" through anti-discrimination legislation. So now you have a three-fold attack on the very pillars that support society: God first, then family, and now country.
Could this be what they mean when they say "families and relationships that know no borders"? But there could be other agendas hidden in their "social justice" language? It has long been an agenda of the feminist and GLBT organizations to lower and ultimately abolish age-of-consent laws, though it is frequently denied or understated. A radical reorienting of our idea of family and freedom could and probably would ultimately lead to the abandonment of laws to protect children from sexual exploitation. Don't think so? Who would have thought a U.S. Senator would ever block a law to protect children from sexual predators or coerced abortion?
If you have children, you know better than anyone how easily influenced they are. There are plenty of studies out there showing how different the adolescent brain is from that of an adult, and for this reason alone if for no other, they need and are entitled to the protection of their parents, with the support of the state. And yet, there are those who advocate the lowering of the age-of-consent to 14, or even 12, as suggested in a document (see pp 69-71, and 76) written in 1974 by now Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg purporting to advance equal rights for women. In some European countries and Japan, the age-of-consent [for sex] has already been lowered. In Holland, there is now an officially recognized political party called the "Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) Party" (aka the "Pedophilia Party") which has introduced itself to Dutch politics as a champion of children's rights, but among whose goals is lowering the age of consent for sexual activity from 16 to 12 and eventually eliminating it completely, decriminalizing child pornography, and lowering the age in which a child may appear in pornography. But see how it is about "rights"? Hey, It's "for the children." Hey, let's use our brains here. Age-of-consent laws are not lowered for the benefit of children. They are lowered for the benefit of adults who want access to the children.
The abortion industry routinely protects child predators under the pretense of protecting a girl's "right to privacy". They ignore the statutory rape aspects of the girl's dilemma, or even the coercion by the adult father to have an abortion that is often a factor in these cases. With homosexuality, there is little effort to disguise the movement's goal to abolish age-of-consent laws. The North American Man-Boy Love Association's motto is "Eight is too late", and though the leading spokesmen for gay activism publicly try to distance themselves from such notions, it is widely acknowledged that pederasty and pedophilia are linked to homosexuality, and always have been. It's hard to deny when so much of gay literature is filled with pro-pederasty and pro-pedophilia materials. In her article "Pedophilia Chic Reconsidered", Mary Eberstadt describes the mainstreaming of pedophilia through a magazine called XY Magazine:
"What gives XY its unprecedented niche is that here, for the first time, is a mass-market magazine "officially targeted toward 12-29 year old young gay men," every issue of which, as one admiring journalist puts it, "features scantily clad young men in several photo spreads and on the cover." Then there is the non-photo content. The first issue was stamped "Underage." Another issue included a sympathetic pro-and-con interview with a prominent member of NAMBLA. An article in another issue was titled "F--the Age of Consent." There is also a smattering of self-help that can only make minors easier to find--for example, advice about what kids should do if their parents install a filtering system that prevents them from reaching gay cyberspace (answer: get around it)."
There was some dissent among other publishers of gay magazines that feature and cater to adult gays, and the ironic and amusing thing is these publishers were accused of "pedophobia"! Go figure. Is this going to be the next invented psychiatric disorder, like homophobia? (I'll tell you a little secret: homophobia is a phony disorder designed to make normal people seem sick so that sick people can pretend to be normal.) I find it hilarious (in a deeply disturbing sort of way) that pedophiles should now be pulling the same garbage with their "normal" gay counterparts as gays do with heterosexuals.
Dissent or no, there is now a full blown (though somewhat understated) effort within the APAs to treat "adult-child sex", especially between men and boys, as a kind of mentorship, or to treat it in value-neutral terms (such as ‘intergenerational intimacy'-- "intergen" in pedophile chic language). The so-called "research" of Alfred Kinsey is routinely cited, along with more recent "research" such as Rind, et al. Yet with both camps pointing at the other and accusing them of letting their agenda taint their research, and with the APAs backing the "gay is normal" perspective, the voice of sanity somehow doesn't make its impact felt at critical times when legal decisions are made. The welfare of children is getting lost in the rhetoric of "rights". Kinsey was a crank, a liar at best, and/or a child molester, soundly debunked by Dr. Judith Reisman, but his alleged research into children's sexuality is still somehow allowed to influence our culture. This effort is evident in sex education courses which are implemented by SIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US , the education arm of the Kinsey Institute, and these programs encourage experimentation with sexual activity, including homosexual activity, at any age as a "right". A graphic booklet given to eighth graders in Massachusetts last year by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) had a list of gay bars at the end of it where boys could go to socialize with gay men who liked "younger guys".
The targeting of children has a two-fold purpose: by saturating them with sexual information and imagery at the earliest possible age, when they are not mature enough to handle it, the breaking down of traditional morality can be accomplished while indoctrinating them with alternate ideologies. This achieved, and as they become sexually active at an earlier age, an argument can be put forth that the age-of-consent should be lowered. Advancement of this agenda can be concealed in "diversity" programs, privacy laws, abortion rights activism, social justice and civil rights claims and the like. But pull the mask off and look beneath. You'll recognize the Father of Lies. 
Alisa Craddock is a political columnist and activist in the culture war, a convert to Catholicism, and describes herself as a Christian Libertarian. In addition to Enter Stage Right, her columns have been published on Alain's Newsletter and Out2 News. She may be contacted at acrock43_j@yahoo.com.