As a Virginian and an attorney, I am alarmed by the violence you have done to the integrity of the legal profession and to the institution of marriage by pitting the authority of your office directly against Virginia’s Constitution.
As your office’s website explains, it is your duty to serve as “the Commonwealth’s law firm.” Every attorney has a duty to zealously advocate his client’s position in court, and while there are limited circumstances in which he may be permitted to withdraw from representation, it would be inconceivable for him to then actively participate in the case being made against his client. In submitting a brief that argues that Virginia’s Marriage Amendment is illegal, this is, effectively, what you have done. And for no good reason.
Contrary to the spurious claims of some, this constitutional provision is not some relic of bigotry, oppression, or injustice. By declaring that “only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth,” Virginia’s Marriage Amendment merely affirms the most basic criteria for a functional definition of marriage that corresponds with the purposes of the state’s regulation of it.
This provision does not “ban” intimate gay relationships any more than it “bans” friendships. Rather, it recognizes that traditional marriages are unique in terms of their particular role in society.
Consider that when the government offers tax advantages to environmentally conscious businesses or homes that meet specified criteria, it does not, by so doing, “ban” those who do not meet those standards, nor even express disapproval of them. But it reserves a special benefit to those who are behaving in a way that benefits society as a whole. It incentivizes those who provide an essential public good.
In the same way, Virginia’s Marriage Amendment preserves the legal benefits of civil marriage for those who form the particular kind of permanent, exclusive union that is best suited for producing and rearing the citizens of tomorrow. Others may raise children with love and do it well, but the best available evidence indicates that there is simply no alternative family arrangement that rivals traditional marriage in the ability to prepare children to flourish in a world populated by both men and women.
While your brief seeks to analogize the Marriage Amendment to old, unjust laws against interracial marriage, this logic does not withstand thoughtful analysis. A requirement of racial sameness for spouses is arbitrary; it has nothing to do with the purpose of state regulation of marriage--providing an incentive for those whose union is likely to produce offspring to stick together and raise them. The requirement of gender complementarity, on the other hand, is unquestionably central to the fulfillment of the purpose of civil marriage laws, because it is precisely the union of a man and woman that produces the children who will benefit most from the permanence and exclusivity of their parents’ union.
Eliminating these criteria from the definition of civil marriage is appropriate only if we, as a society, determine that the purpose of civil marriage is fundamentally different from what it has always been. If, however, we still regulate civil marriage on the basis of its unique potential to benefit society, then it is properly limited to the one kind of relationship that is so clearly shown to do that.
The great, lasting societal harm you are inflicting in waging this battle against your client, Mr. Herring, is this: the reduction of civil marriage to a mere stamp of government endorsement on individual “choice.” For the 57% of Virginians who voted in favor of the Marriage Amendment, marriage is something much different—much farther reaching—than that.
Mr. Herring, if you are utterly unable to discern the reason and rationality behind the expressed will of the people of Virginia with regard to defining marriage, and if you are unwilling to zealously advocate the best possible case for our Constitution when it is challenged due to your own personal, philosophical beliefs or desires, then I respectfully request that you resign your office.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Abortion Unveiled: An Ironic Injustice
The global tragedy of abortion is that, behind the thin veils of human flesh, it accomplishes an ethnic, racial, and gender purging of such efficiency and scale as to make Adolf Hitler appear inconsequential. In the United States, the most recent data indicate that 64% of abortions are obtained by black, Hispanic, and other women of color, despite the fact that they only account for 28% of the population. (Guttmacher Institute; U.S. Census Bureau).
As if that data were not disturbing enough, consider this statistic: since ultrasound technology has enabled parents to identify the gender of their unborn child, 160 MILLION girls have been lost to abortion in Asia alone, triggering a staggering gender imbalance that has demographers wringing their hands.
C.S. Lewis saw through the game of “choice” long ago, as he warned that “[T]he power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please. … [T]he man-molders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.”
If anyone were to posit a plan to systematically annihilate non-whites and females, imagine how he would be received in our enlightened society where equality and diversity are so highly prized. But as long as this same result is accomplished through the “choice” of members of the affected populations, our society doesn’t mourn the slaughter, but celebrates it.
Our collective ignorance of history has made fools of us. For in fact, what we identify today as merely unfortunate statistics are really the indicia of success of the careful plans and propaganda created by those who sought to mold the human population to their liking.
The organization that is today Planned Parenthood and now trumpets women’s “right to choose,” gave birth to its deadly “Negro Project” in the 1930’s, hoping to stunt the growth of black families. It is surely no accident that today, a whopping 80% of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are located in minority neighborhoods.
Other American population activists collaborated to combat the “problem” of unbounded population growth, which they believed would strain world resources and exacerbate poverty in developing nations. John D. Rockefeller III organized a "Conference on Population Problems" in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1952, then went on to work with the Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the United Nations Population Fund, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation to sell Asian nations on the concept of population control. Their message was simple: lower birth rates lead to richer people.
Of course, some "population activists" had more sinister motivations. In her book, Unnatural Selection, journalist Mara Hvistendahl posits that, privately, "Western donors worried less about poverty than they did about the global balance of power and specifically about what they believed to be one of poverty's effects: communism." Many American elites worried that rising birth rates in developing nations would make these regions more susceptible to communism and less likely to become American allies.
As these wealthy, Western organizations succeeded in selling developing nations on their "less is better" pitch, baby girls were the casualties.
So here is the great irony: on a personal level, women may believe that exercising their “right” to have an abortion is an act of liberation and power, but on a larger scale abortion is a hallmark of manipulation and subjugation.
Every abortion is equally tragic, whether its victims are white, black, red or yellow, male or female. But as a society, we are blind if we fail to see that there is no racial, ethnic or gender “equality” in the practice of abortion. Behind millions upon millions of thin veils of pregnant tummy flesh, the beautiful, natural diversity of mankind is being destroyed, one “choice” at a time. And this was always part of a plan.
We should mourn and expose this great injustice.
As if that data were not disturbing enough, consider this statistic: since ultrasound technology has enabled parents to identify the gender of their unborn child, 160 MILLION girls have been lost to abortion in Asia alone, triggering a staggering gender imbalance that has demographers wringing their hands.
C.S. Lewis saw through the game of “choice” long ago, as he warned that “[T]he power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please. … [T]he man-molders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.”
If anyone were to posit a plan to systematically annihilate non-whites and females, imagine how he would be received in our enlightened society where equality and diversity are so highly prized. But as long as this same result is accomplished through the “choice” of members of the affected populations, our society doesn’t mourn the slaughter, but celebrates it.
Our collective ignorance of history has made fools of us. For in fact, what we identify today as merely unfortunate statistics are really the indicia of success of the careful plans and propaganda created by those who sought to mold the human population to their liking.
The organization that is today Planned Parenthood and now trumpets women’s “right to choose,” gave birth to its deadly “Negro Project” in the 1930’s, hoping to stunt the growth of black families. It is surely no accident that today, a whopping 80% of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are located in minority neighborhoods.
Other American population activists collaborated to combat the “problem” of unbounded population growth, which they believed would strain world resources and exacerbate poverty in developing nations. John D. Rockefeller III organized a "Conference on Population Problems" in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1952, then went on to work with the Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the United Nations Population Fund, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation to sell Asian nations on the concept of population control. Their message was simple: lower birth rates lead to richer people.
Of course, some "population activists" had more sinister motivations. In her book, Unnatural Selection, journalist Mara Hvistendahl posits that, privately, "Western donors worried less about poverty than they did about the global balance of power and specifically about what they believed to be one of poverty's effects: communism." Many American elites worried that rising birth rates in developing nations would make these regions more susceptible to communism and less likely to become American allies.
As these wealthy, Western organizations succeeded in selling developing nations on their "less is better" pitch, baby girls were the casualties.
So here is the great irony: on a personal level, women may believe that exercising their “right” to have an abortion is an act of liberation and power, but on a larger scale abortion is a hallmark of manipulation and subjugation.
Every abortion is equally tragic, whether its victims are white, black, red or yellow, male or female. But as a society, we are blind if we fail to see that there is no racial, ethnic or gender “equality” in the practice of abortion. Behind millions upon millions of thin veils of pregnant tummy flesh, the beautiful, natural diversity of mankind is being destroyed, one “choice” at a time. And this was always part of a plan.
We should mourn and expose this great injustice.
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