Marriage: Judeo-Christian Tradition or Monogamous Procreation? General Revision

Introduction

Semantics

Overcoming loss and bitterness

Candid

Church must civically yield to state

            A people

            The ethics of physics

            The preamble a civic sentence

            No constitutional amendment needed

Applications regarding equality and dignity

            The preamble and a people vs Declaration of Independence

            The newborn

Monogamous procreation

Defense of children

            Monogamous procreation

            Rearing

Personal autonomy: a lesson I missed in Sunday school (if it was taught)

            Gender role models

            A child is a person

Cooperative Autonomy

            Yielding autonomy may be beneficial yet is limited

            Making love versus having sex

Yielding autonomy unto the chaos of promiscuity

Surrogacy—two or three kinds (if you grapple with same-sex lawyers’ terms)

Same-sex mendacities and errors

There is an inherited trait called “sexual orientation”

Single people should fund tax advantage for same-sex partners

Same-sex partners are civically equal to heterosexual couples with their progeny

Same-sex partners are sufficient for children

The same-sex cause is like the racial civil-rights cause

Homophobia exists, but heterophobia is made up

Well, some heterosexual monogamists never procreate!

Civil unions or partner contracts are unfair

Heterosexuals are promiscuous, too

Homosexual persons' suicides are society's fault

Genetic surrogacy is not a same-sex topic; or what’s attachment?

White, male property owners intend to govern

Religion has offended same-sex people

The fruits of governance under theism

Fairness, a subject, not equal to justice, an object

Governance under their gods

The objective truth evident in reality

Civic compromise: civil monogamy licensing

Civicality

I promote interest in civic governance based on the literal preamble to the United States Constitution. The preamble fortuitously, unintentionally, defines governance of by and for a people. Governance under a people has never been established. This essay illustrates applications respecting two subjects: personal autonomy and monogamous procreation. It illustrates the harm of governance under theism, in this case, defense of children, mistaken as defense of marriage.

Introduction

            I am a chemical engineer, not a writer, so please be patient. However, I have been in a monogamy for four and a half decades. We reared three children. I am perhaps rarely serious about religion and think about its issues to uncommon depth. Perhaps as a consequence, I coached my children to be cautious about discussing the objective truth, because people are reluctant to face it. That is my own struggle. My dear friend, Bob Agee, deceased[1], spent a significant part of his working career, maybe 0.5%, trying to teach me to write literally. I am trying. Adopting my word meanings herein will expedite understanding the ideas, and my purpose is to share unusual ideas and then learn from you. We must be candid with each other.

Instead of governance “under God” (quoting the pledge of allegiance to the flag), I refer to “theism” respecting US traditional tyranny, or “religion” for global impositions, or “their god” respecting persons. I avoid the capital “G”[2] to express that I do not know what, if anything, controls the unfolding of reality. Recognizing that “secular” is the opposite of “religious,” I employ “civic” to refer to relations between citizens. The civic order a people gradually negotiates and compromises to establish is civil law. “Faith” as I use it means “unproven object of trust and commitment,” not “religion,” which implies belief. Belief implies commitment without proof. “Monogamy” means practicing intimacy with only one civic spouse for life, and application for a license by the couple makes the monogamy civil. “Special interest” refers to any civil, personal practice deemed necessary for the fulfillment of a person’s happiness that does not prevent other citizens' pursuits of happiness. Uncivil pursuits are excluded and risk subjugation to the law. I do not follow many modern writers’ tendency to equate “republic” and “democracy.” “Civicallity” refers to the practice of cooperative autonomy and mutual accommodation by each person who is a citizen. “A people” is the entity that is defined by the preamble for governance of the people, and I sometimes use “a people” as the people who comprise the entity, a people. A people uses the preamble as the mediator for governance of by and for the people, “the people” including dissenters who oppose a people’s use of the preamble. I will address these word meaning throughout the essay.

Over the last twenty years, I have written perhaps eighty letters-to-the-editor which were published. Most of them were on civic issues and religious opinion. Draft letters that were not published are few, because I revised any draft that did not pass muster. On rejection, I searched for expressions of either personal pain or unconscious bitterness and revised the problems until the editor published the essay. I am grateful to the editor, who saw/read many drafts, because the solitary dialogue helped me discover bad influences from my experiences. In publishing the letters, I experienced two privations: 1) I could not immediately respond to civic issues, and 2) there was no feedback from neighbors.

The Advocate kindly solved those two problems with their online commentary system. In Spring, 2013, I started following the Louisiana legislature’s debates regarding gestational surrogacy.[3] I thought the proposed legal system did almost nothing to protect the interests of the child to be born and also neglected perhaps five other interested parties, including a people. I wrote against gestational surrogacy and soon discovered that my arch opposition came from the same-sex community (both practitioners and supporters). They falsely urged for “genetic surrogacy,” effecting my indoctrination so I would tolerate their arguments. In reality the Louisiana statute they were objecting to addresses surrogacy motherhood. (Therein was an illustration of the importance of word meanings people use and to encourage you again to adopt my meanings just for this essay.)

After about two years of that debate, I have learned that to efficiently negotiate civic needs, citizens must be candid, instead of practicing the word substitutions which may be used to falsely persuade some people, merely prolonging the fulfillment of the ethics of physics. A prime illustration of what I am talking about is slavery. The ethics of physics has always held that one man cannot own the fruits of another man’s labor without compensation acceptable to the laborer. However, all manner of falsehoods, including Bible passages have been used by people to persuade themselves that slavery is good, even for the slave. Having flexed their own gullibility, some people proposed such an embarrassingly wrong idea to others, even to the error of waging war over falsehood. If a people are to civically accommodate each other, a claimant must be candid in expressing his/her needs. If not, the enduring march of a people to fulfill the ethics of physics will prevail, perhaps at great cost to both sides.

Church is a private practice which must civically yield to state

While I am not a Christian, I am a citizen and therefore support fellow citizens whose personal hopes are guided by their Bible interpretation or other religious beliefs and whose civic governance is guided by the literal preamble to the United States Constitution. Thus, I oppose people who would impose religion in civic governance. Passages in the literal Bible conflict with civil order. I appreciate civil Christians and adamantly oppose restricting the private practice of Christianity or any special-interest association that also comports to the preamble. I propose a transcendent association of a people that accommodates the civil special interests some groups hold essential to the happiness they perceive. I oppose civic imposition of special-interest perceptions on others. Thus, I oppose the imposition of theism onto both civic debate and civil order (law and its enforcing institutions). In short, I support living and letting live without the imposition of theism.

Being a man of faith in the objective truth much of which is unknown and some of which is known, I adamantly oppose any civic decision that is based on false faith. False faith presumes to know what is not known and therefore is mere opinion. Opinion is a personal matter which must undergo civic debate and discover a way to accommodate the opinions of others if it will affect civil order. Civic decisions must be based on the objective truth, not opinion, for example, that a god is in control of reality. Therefore, a people must rely on the ethics of physics to determine civic order.  For example, since the ethics of physics demand the teaching of evolution, creationism should not be suggested, much less encouraged in civic settings until some evidence for creationism is discovered. You’d think I’d be acclimated and resolved by a partial lifetime of governance under theism, but I am not: I am dissatisfied to have opinion imposed on a people’s civic governance. I do not want anyone to switch to my faith, because I do not know the objective truth: I accept that I do not know what I do not know. For all I know, Jehovah or Jesus or Allah or Brahman or Buddha or a Shaman or chaos other entity is the answer, and those who think so have it right: I do not want to change them. However, I do not want their faith forced on my civic governance. I want mutual civic accommodation. You may ask, “Who are you to express such demands.” I am a person.

A people’s governance suffers word substitutions long established by the majority opinion. Theism holds that the preamble is a secular sentence, “secular” meaning "non-religious." However, literally and really, the preamble is a civic sentence which offers mediation among citizens who may be diverse, including opposing religious beliefs or none. Wonderfully, in the USA, citizens are diverse. But so far, US governance has been predicated on theism, a false basis for civic accommodation, whether the population is diverse or believes in the same god.  Since 1790, while suffrage increased from 6 % of the population to 100 %, Protestantism among citizens decreased from nearly 100 % to 51 %. Whereas Bible interpretation was then common to everyone, many people today have no interest in persuading themselves to ameliorate Bible weaknesses. Yet believers ignore the weaknesses in order to use perceived advantages. Believers could counter the problem by candid civic discussion, but instead privately deal with the falsehoods, keeping their neighbors distant. A people needs an inclusive focus, whereby both any civic good in the Bible and the good in all classical thought can influence civic compromise. For example, Anton Chekhov’s “Rothschild’s Fiddle” meant more in saving my life than perhaps any other literature I have read. The Bible's civic message is not easily accepted: In every civic situation, take the right action; civicallity neither tolerates nor employs force, accept in defense. Believers may learn to express the good in the Bible and other scripture in civic terms. Regardless, in every situation, in America, religious institutions and people must conform to civil law.

Without changing the Constitution, a people may voluntarily establish the preamble as the nation’s mediator for civic compromise. Through direct civic compromise, a people in a republic can determine how they want their representatives to manage civil law. One of my paraphrases of the literal preamble is: Citizens who want to fulfill eight civic goals commit to three civic governances:  themselves, their state, and the nation. Queuing to submit tickets to enter the symphony hall is an example of civic governance: once the method of order is determined, a people happily observe it. Also, accommodation of a people’s sexual practices is a civic issue that involves personal autonomy, objectification, disease, and procreation, and I discuss that below. The preamble’s eight goals may need tweaking for 2014 living, and my one-word reminders are:  integrity, justice, civicallity, defense, productiveness, liberty, continuity, and order. My reminders are in continual flux, because I do not have the benefit of neighbors’ inputs—a people’s inputs. I envision an online forum and annual civic conventions to routinely debate civic issues for compromise, using the preamble to fulfill a people—that is, not for the preamble's sake, but to fulfill a people.

Applications regarding equality and dignity

I have studied the preamble for nearly ten years and a few years ago created a spreadsheet; in rows are civic issues and in columns are the preamble’s goals. I consider issues and ideas to find compromise to meet all the goals. Issues like Christians becoming Muslims, abortion, same-sex bonds, and civic governance have forced me to contemplate what is meant by “equality,” and "dignity" as a modern interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the objective truth as viewed from my tunnel. In my opinion, both the war of independence, with its deciding battle in 1781, and the 1787 United States Constitution together relegated the Declaration of Independence to the library of fulfilled documents. Liberty from England is established, but governance of by and for a people is neglected. However, a people would not agree, and therefore, I must respond to the Declaration.

For each person who was born or naturalized here, equality is fulfilled if each civil person has liberty to be of a people according to the preamble. After birth and primary rearing, it is up to each person to achieve the dignity he/she wants. I hope it’s not normally this extreme, but William Faulkner invented for our consideration a ten year old boy who, upon his experiences with justice, left his natural family to face the world alone.[4] Thus, in Faulkner’s mind, it is not unusual for a person to take charge of personal understanding at age ten. By analogy a people, at age 226, has not reached age ten: the people have brooked governance under theism and have not realized that the preamble defines a people who negotiate the preamble as a means of fulfilling a people. Governance of by and for a people is a circular practice.

Since a newborn is defenseless, she/he depends on a people to assure her/his equality and dignity, especially in cases wherein the parents either fail or had bad intentions respecting the child--a person that is civically interested to them[5]. More important and less emphasized is a people’s obligation to provide the best environment for the children waiting to be born.[6]^,[7]

I regard human singularity as originating with the ovum, a single cell after fertilization. That respect for the origin of human life, coming from my struggle with the abortion debate, applies to the same-sex debate, as I will show. The fact that women supply ova is the first point I perceive concerning the ethics of human physics.

Monogamous procreation

I have long been an advocate for same-sex civil unions, because the human condition is short-life with slim-chance for monogamy: civic monogamy should be celebrated and honored, not kept private. Same-sex monogamy should be made civil. Also, I enjoyed civic open-mindedness by attending public events such as the annual Valentine’s-week “Gay Men’s Chorus” presentation at the Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge. Unexpectedly, after each show, I felt the gay men were celebrating among themselves: the Unitarian congregation, the hosts, seemed like outsiders, mere hosts, from my perspective. Without serious consideration, I never thought gay men should marry. I now recognize that the vital civic issue is monogamous procreation. US governance is unjustly based on theism, which has failed monogamous procreation, just one example of the ethics of physics.

Defense of children

When Congress negotiated the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), I barely followed the news, assuming defense of marriage would not be a problem. "Everybody knew" only a man and a woman can independently procreate--can be a couple. However, I was dismayed to learn one of the principle arguments for the Act is that marriage is a Judeo-Christian tradition. Religion is a blatantly unconstitutional argument. The Judeo-Christian claim is attacked in United States v. Windsor, a decision which based on opinion undercuts the foundation of civic order: the ethics of physics. Nowhere in Windsor are there arguments about monogamous procreation or anything realistic beyond same-sex empathy: it’s all about recognition of love (monogamy not required) professed by two people (who cannot independently procreate). I discuss the Windsor case further, below.

Some people respect monogamous procreation—a couple serves a people: monogamy is what a people should encourage and endorse for the children to be born. Once a child is conceived, its clock from zygote to blastocyst to embryo to fetus to child to newborn still attaching with her/his mother moves rapidly. The child’s progress from cooing to first word or hearing her/his parent read, to reading comprehension, to adolescence, to being initially informed, to cooperative autonomy, to service, to retirement unfolds faster than the person’s psychological qualifications are achieved. One way or another, a child is on a path at age six or so, could take charge of its path during adolescence, and substantially is in fate’s hands by early adulthood. Yet it takes some eighty years for the chance to achieve mature adulthood, perhaps psychological maturity.[8] While it is true that a child that is separated from its parents, yet is loved and nourished, can achieve self-discovery, it is unlikely without well-prepared, monogamous, heterosexual parents—parents who are wise enough to coach children by example more than by exhortation. Psychological well-being is enhanced by a heritage of monogamies: grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. An illustration of the importance of family heritage is in my essay, “Abraham Decided Not To Murder His Son”.[9] It provides a civic view of an epic story, open for discussion but not to attack anyone’s beliefs. In my fiction about fiction, that family ends a culture’s practice of human sacrifice.

I am very grateful for my heritage, because somehow, before I met my bride, wooed her, fell in love with her, proposed, took pre-cana classes, and married with her, monogamy was what I wanted: Intimacy with any other human being was out of the question.[10] In monogamy, I anticipated temptations and guarded against them in order to fulfill my commitment to myself (and my family). Clearly, my bride and our children and our larger families empowered the achievement of my personal goal. Yet, intimacy with no one but my bride was my goal. Monogamous procreation is critical to the respect for the rights of an ovum, a potential person waiting to be born, a phrase I used above.

Personal autonomy: a lesson I missed in Sunday school (if it was taught)

A prime consideration in monogamous procreation is gender role-models in their cooperative autonomies. A female, at puberty, has some 400,000 immature ova and losses about 1000/month, producing perhaps one mature ovum/month, or about 400 mature ova before menopause. Thus, the typical woman is in charge of 400 potential lives—an awesome responsibility that is taken for granted by most people, especially men. Being civilized, she may seek to 1) find a man who would increase her potential for the integral happiness she perceives, 2) preserve her autonomy in mutual interest with him, 3) mutually commit to monogamy or psychologically bond, 4) enjoy his performance in protecting her autonomy (or reject him), 5) agree to share the noble work to care for and coach a child in her/his path to personal autonomy, and therefore 6) carefully expose her remaining ova to possible conception. Extent of care is a matter of judgment, but procreation without a marriage license is civilly risky for all parties involved; yet it happens. In fact, one of a people’s great concerns is a high rate of single parenthood, perhaps arising from heterophobia, discussed below. As time marches on, the woman has the temporal dilemma of mate discovery before fertility depletion. The fate of every ovum is important.

While the adult has equality and dignity according to his/her behavior, the ovum has nothing but fate. The newborn has no self determination--could not even choose to eat. According to the ethics of physics, the couple’s duty to a newborn is to assist her/him in attaining basic understandings over a period of about seventeen to twenty-five years[11] of care and coaching. Together, heterogeneous, monogamist parents can coach a child to personal autonomy.

The way things are—women from Venus and men from Mars, the woman is innately capable of caring about and for others, perhaps because potential persons are in her. After conception, gestation, and birth, child and mother continue attachment that was begun in her womb. Most women have in common awesome power to care for others beyond their children (and awareness and cultivation of their bond, her spouse can drift into the beyond). The man is innately equipped to focus on responsibility, achievement, and reliability. Together, persons of the two genders may make a psychologically and actively powerful union. Innate gender differences in the children are enhanced by good coaching from their gender role-models, and appropriate modeling occurs in heterosexual families, especially those with ancestral monogamists. Gender role modeling and other coaching is enhanced when a child has monogamous grandparents and great-grand parents. The more time they spend together the better.

The way things are—persons are physically capable of procreating at puberty yet are in bodies that don’t complete the parts of the brain needed to build wisdom until young adulthood. Thus psychological maturity for parenting comes over a decade beyond the physical possibility. The ethics of physics suggests parenthood later than young adulthood; perhaps age 30 for men and 28 for women, based on earlier brain completion. (I became a father too early: age 27. I’ll never forget a great aunt coming to see her niece (my daughter) and rebuking my plea not to wake her up, happily responding, “That’s my niece and I drove thirty miles to meet her: get out of my way!”) An ameliorating factor in the evolutions of some cultures is the heritage of monogamous procreation. In this culture, a monogamous couple has two monogamous parents, who have four monogamous parents, who have eight monogamous parents. Starting with the new born, that’s a possibility of at least four generations, with increasing psychological maturity, respectively, available to fill in the psychological gaps of monogamous parents.

Regardless, if a family neglects or abuses the child, a people typically takes charge, because a child is a person with understood civic rights and complete civil rights. A people’s goal is for each child to grow cooperative autonomy. President Obama said, “Together we determined that a modern economy requires . . . schools and colleges to train our workers.”[12] Well-intended or not, that seems like tyranny over the minds of a people. A people is interested in cultivating a people who possess cooperative autonomy: not “workers” in any sense of personal care.

Cooperative Autonomy

Cooperative autonomy is critical in forming and maintaining human bonds, and the commitment to monogamy may be the ultimately beneficial surrender of some personal autonomy. However, cooperatively retained autonomy strengthens the heterosexual bond—helps prevent fatal mistakes. Once she has found that mate she thinks is worthy and has bonded, the woman has a natural desire to consummate her commitment. Properly coached, he is aware and takes charge of her personal autonomy by controlling his desire to make love, either by abstinence or by birth control. In so doing, he strengthens his own character and protects the autonomy of their progeny. But few men have been coached in either personal autonomy or making love as opposed to having sex. Society is obsessed with having sex, so it is not surprising that many men do not take responsibility for making love.

I told my very handsome son about hormones, attractions, personal autonomy, and the man's role in protecting the woman's personal autonomy, because no one told me when I was in puberty. He was initially embarrassed by the candid discussions but understood. It did not embarrass me, because I did not want him to learn about making love as having sex. I had no experience with female puberty and left it to my wife to inform our two daughters. I think my bride did well.

But I received the question, "Dad, is Santa Clause real?" I answered, "Yes, Santa is a metaphor for good will among all people, and we are reminded of that opportunity each December." I would not want to be a same-sex partner and face the question, "What is sexual intercourse?" And after the answer, another question, "How do you and your partner have intercourse?" And after the answer, another question, “Why did grandma and grandpa have intercourse?” The responses must protect personal autonomy for the child, not the partnership, and failure could create one of many contradictions against the ethic of physics, it seems to me.

Personal autonomy and cooperative autonomy concepts should be developed for teaching in public school, because no entity is conveying this important aspect of human bonding. Neither parents nor churches teach the importance of personal autonomy in human intimacy. In fact, the Christian teaching that marriage is for procreation detracts from needed emphasis on bonding before procreation and maintenance/cultivation of personal autonomy by all parties, including the progeny. Neglected in modern childhood education is the understanding that persons who bond surrender to each other a measure of personal autonomy—create obligations to each other. Contrary to Church teaching that marriage is for procreation, a heterosexual couple should establish their personal bond before they invite pregnancy:  The first purpose of marriage is bonding, not procreation. In fact, the psychological guilt of having sex instead of making love can prevent procreation.[13] And bonding is foremost about making love, not having sex. If pregnancy occurs, equal and separate obligations to the person to be born come into force.  As a consequence of not understanding personal autonomy, much of a nation, a people, is bemused by “having sex” instead of making love. Governance under theism helped establish this privation.

Yielding autonomy unto the chaos of promiscuity

Like other mammalians, humans have both strong, mutual, psychological attraction plus sex drives that are hormone driven. When opportunity for either same-sex or heterosexual gratification materializes, some couples lack either the understanding or the prudence or the character to protect each other’s personal autonomy. Mutual sexual gratification may lead to any of 1) monogamy, 2) an awakening, 3) irresponsibility, or 4) promiscuity, among other possibilities. I cannot attest to subjugation in same-sex gratification, but in heterosexual monogamy, contrary to theism's thoughts, there is no need for subjugation: heterosexual couples may make love. More often than not, attraction enhanced by sex fades and dies. Each new personal pursuit of a sex object erodes personal autonomy. Eventually, even health risks lose importance. The consequence can be death.

When monogamy occurs, it is so rare that it should be celebrated. Only the human species has the character to fall in love regardless of the bodies that contain the persons. Therein lies the argument from physics for civil same-sex monogamy licensing. But there is no civic value in promiscuity.

Surrogacy—two or three kinds (if you grapple with same-sex lawyers’ terms)

            In Spring, 2013, a state senator who has two children born by gestational surrogacy proposed empowering the surrogacy industry into Louisiana by setting up the legal apparatus to oversee gestational surrogacy contracts. A married couple provide her ova and his sperm to the industry, which in vitro fertilizes the ovum, grows the zygote, and places it in the uterus of a surrogate mother. Such contracts are executed now in some states. I read the proposed law and wrote against it in The Advocate Online comments. The law did not protect the child to be born and neglected everyone but the married couple and the surrogacy industry. A people would bear the cost of state services—not only institutional dollars but misguided practices. Happily to me, Governor Jindal vetoed the 2013 bill and a 2014 revision.[14]

            My online comments in defense of monogamous procreation were met with many rude, immature, yet informative responses. The comments, as well as related news made it clear that a strong special interest was coming from the same-sex crowd—defined by me as practitioners and their sympathizers. They seemed to demonstrate Overstreet’s 1949 claim that same-sex people will not develop mature character.[15] Controversial as Overstreet’s claim is, it should be considered, and in my opinion could diminish support for same-sex civic aggression. During legislative debate on gestational surrogacy, the same-sex crowd lobbied for reversal of Louisiana law[16] against what same-sex lawyers labeled "genetic surrogacy." A man in a gay partnership directly or indirectly impregnates a woman, who, after childbirth, turns the child over to the man who would offer surrogate motherhood, against public policy. On September 24, 2014, for the first time, I caught up with the 1987 Louisiana Legislature's RS9:2713--overcame the blinders same-sex lawyers had used on me, and read the subject of the statute: surrogate motherhood. Shame on me for being so blind to my gullibility.

            The woman supplies the ovum, conceives under contract, gestates, and delivers a newborn child. She is the mother, who has, beyond the physical attachment, begun psychological attachment with the baby. Due to her contract, she must abruptly terminate psychological attachment with the infant. The newborn may never receive food from its mother's breast and must suddenly redirect its attachment endeavors to a man, or two men. Surrogacy motherhood is in the partnership of two men! How can anything but attachment disorder be expected in the child's adulthood? Here’s what Dr. Martha Stout says about attachment disorder:

Quite unlike sociopaths, children and adults afflicted with attachment disorders are seldom charming or interpersonally clever.  On the contrary, these unfortunate individuals are typically somewhat off-putting, nor do they make any great efforts to ‘fake’ being normal.[17]

A people should protect children to be born from ignoble, surrogacy entry into the world. A people should not condone surrogacy, because it neglects the dignity of children to be born and their person. Gay men use the term "genetic surrogacy" to dissuade a people from thinking "surrogate motherhood" in hopes that they may sire and possess children detached from their natural mother. The surrogacy industry should be kept out of the State of Louisiana.

Same-sex mendacities and errors

            As in many controversies among a people, promoters stretch the truth and equivocate to intellectually construct a case. An indolent people has allowed legislation to unconstitutionally gravitate from legislative bodies into the courts. (A people has set idly by while administrations have taken responsibilities not granted to them, and part of the executive ploy has been to control the courts.)  Same-sex lawyers present errors and lies, including: there is an inherited trait called “sexual orientation”; single people should fund tax advantage for same-sex partners; same-sex partners are civically equal to heterosexual couples with progeny; same-sex partners are sufficient for equal and dignified children; the same-sex cause is like the racial civil-rights cause; opposition to homosexuality is homophobia, but fear of heterosexuality is not heterophobia; tax advantages favoring heterosexual couples who do not procreate should not be revoked as it justifies favor for same-sex partners; there is no justification for distinguishing civil marriage from civil union and providing both licenses; heterosexual promiscuity justifies same-sex promiscuity; suicide by a homosexual is society’s error more than suicide by a heterosexual is society’s error; surrogate motherhood is “genetic surrogacy”; the preamble to the US Constitution was and is insincere; religion must suffer for its opposition to same-sex practices. I’ll discuss these one at a time.

There is an inherited trait called “sexual orientation”

Same-sex sex has been practiced by placental mammals for some 65 million years at about a 4 % rate. Sex drive is hormone driven and mammals will use any method for gratification they discover. Many species mate, procreate, and remain as a family until the young are developed. Dam-building beavers act like monogamous families. However, monogamous same-sex relationships for life are not confirmed among placental mammals accept between humans, the most aware of all species. Significant in human awareness is the fact that same-sex sex does not risk pregnancy: same-sex sex seems convenient for the partnership. A deeper concern resulting from human awareness is heterophobia: fear of persons of the opposite sex and relationships with them. Of all the mammals, humans are the most inventive respecting sexual gratification. Among paraphilia are object sexuality, sexual fetishism, pedophilia, and zoophilia. People practice polysexuality, recreational sex, and polyamory. Among consensual human relationships are monogamy; the polygamies: polygany, polyandry, and group marriage; pedastry; and prostitution.  All of these practices are reported in ancient and modern histories of all cultures: Same-sex sex is neither new nor alone in its variance from heterosexual monogamy.

            Plato reported or imagined philosophers arguing love and different sexual practices in Symposium, 380 B. C.

Pausanias argues that love is not about the body but about the intellect and applies his idea to pedastry: males are preferred because they are more intelligent. In pedastry, the boy surrenders to the man, and the bargaining is a point of civic concern—the state’s concern. Aristophanes compares the sense of “wholeness” partners perceive and claims that homosexuals have more tendencies toward monogamy. (I wonder if the heterosexual divorce rate was above 53%.) Socrates, married with children, implied that intellectual achievement is more immortally edifying than procreation. Alcibiades vainly attempted to seduce Socrates.

My principle motives for including this too brief review are three:  1) 2400 years ago homosexuality was common practice by philosophers in Greece, 2) sexual promiscuity was a concern, and 3) civic responsibility in the submission side of homosexual practices was discussed. In heterosexual love-making, there is no submissive partner: both parties make love. Same-sex is not a new civic concern.

            Many researchers have tried to prove that sexual orientation is hereditary, but none succeeded; yet the same-sex lawyers declare it is so. From the above discussion, it would seem "sexual orientation" is no more that statistical variation that is as old and natural as the most sentient species, humankind--perhaps some 0.2 million to 1.8 million years old. What humans add to the statistical variants is awareness.
            It seems that the hormonal sex drive is so strong that unless a person respects her/his personal autonomy[18], he/she will take opportunities for sexual gratification and personal intimacy. The movies and TV depict people who, despite all sorts of commitments and responsibilities, upon the slightest encouragement from another person, leap into sex with serious relish. Some politicians seem to watch too much TV. Many people would earnestly gratify each other’s base sexual appetites despite the costs to personal autonomy. They can become adulterers, cause pregnancy, or acquire STD without the slightest conscience. It’s like popular society is comprised of sociopaths. The gullible portion of society follows popular images, and as a consequence there are 110 million known STD cases in the US with 20 million cases each year.[19] Some STD rate increases are dominated by same-sex practices.

The CDC notes that while homosexual men make up only a very small percentage of the male population (4%), gay men account for over three-quarters of all new HIV infections, and nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of all new infections in 2010 (29,800).[20] That’s sixteen times the demographically proportionate rate. The evidence is that more than sexual orientation, the consequences are the result of imprudence and lack of regard for personal autonomy: promiscuity. With 34.5 % of the population reporting STDs and others not reporting, it seems perhaps half the nation is promiscuous. A people should reduce promiscuity.

One of the unintended consequences of promiscuity is that a significant portion of the women in society do not trust men at all and in fact do not want a husband. This is a consequence of no institution teaching the difference between having sex and making love and the importance of personal autonomy. Yet women want to be mothers, often for selfish reasons, such as to “have someone to love me.” Many are not committed to coaching their own child into cooperative autonomy, and essentially abandon the children to whatever fate will come. This is only my view of a problem being addressed now in Baton Rouge.[21] The problem is substantially created and continued by federal welfare programs and is not isolated to a race, as the Baton Rouge event would indicate.

            Without proof, I have spent a lot of words trying to make the case that sexual "orientation" is a matter of complex forces involving statistics, pregnancy avoidance, heterophobia, compromised personal autonomy, attraction to other people--often only the thrill of personal intimacy, and promiscuity. The chief evidence against "orientation" is that only the human species, with its awareness of the duty and responsibility of pregnancy, has members who claim a same-sex orientation. The statistical-fate paradigm, which covers practices beyond same-sex sex, and focuses on pregnancy avoidance, has yet to be disproved by confirmed hereditary evidence.

Single people should fund tax advantage for same-sex partners

            An embarrassing lie by same-sex lawyers is that declaration of partnering justifies tax advantage over persons who do not declare partnering! Fresh out of college, my salary was insufficient for my wishes, so I roomed with an affluent man who had a three-bedroom house. Not long thereafter, on my suggestion, a man from work rented the other bedroom, and we also carpooled when possible. We had no desire to codify our cost savings through a civil partnership. None of the three of us ever suggested partying other than most Friday nights with women we invited to enjoy the home bar with jukebox our landlord had built. The landlord was a confirmed bachelor who loved everybody (who was loveable) he knew. For all I knew, I was a confirmed bachelor and would remain “single” for tax purposes for the rest of my life. If I had had a sex partner, I would not have changed my civic regard for my tax status, because I always thought marriage tax-breaks supported procreation: a people maintains itself through procreation, so it is a civic interest and therefore a civil responsibility (even though some people try to avoid the law). If any partnership had lasted into old age, and my partner and I needed a contract to authorize each other to care for each other and to be beneficiaries, a lawyer’s product, a simple contract, would have sufficed. But there is no way I would have wanted to tap into provisions to favor monogamous procreation and best care for children. Let me conclude by suggesting a vote on this tax-favor question by the 53% singles together with the 4 % same-sex partners within the population.

Same-sex partners are civically equal to heterosexual couples with their progeny

            A people needs procreation to maintain itself and consequently is obligated to support best provisions for empowering children into cooperative autonomy. A people must not condone the birth of children for abuse or neglect. In other words, a people wants children but would not tolerate their woe. Infants have feral beginning and need to grow understanding and personal autonomy to choose a path toward psychological maturity over some eighty years of living. An infant's life is in its hands, even though he/she does not know it. As the child matures, he/she has duty to self to realize, despite abundant false-inculcation, to seek a path toward psychological maturity.

Same-sex partners are sufficient for children

            Same-sex partners egocentrically appeal to a people’s empathy, crying, “We want to get married and have children, too!” 

            A people asks: “What can you do for children?” 

           
            The same-sex partners respond, “We can procreate. Gays take the child from its mother, and force her/him to attach with a man and suffer surrogacy motherhood. Lesbian partnership provides a surrogate father. The partners decide whether to allow a child the privilege of knowing her/his other natural parent and grandparents and receive the guidance their experiences offer. We either deny the child of other sex a gender role model, or hire a surrogate. Gays can learn to dress a girl for every occasion. Lesbians can teach a boy how to make love. We can explain to them intercourse and why we do not practice it: the child can handle the contradiction and their distinction from children of a couple. We make conscientious parents.”

            A people responds, “You would deny children equality and dignity. You would subjugate them for your purposes. We oppose your intentions. If you proceed, you do so against public policy.” 

            From the perspective of the child to be born, same-sex partners are not equal to heterosexual couples. Same-sex partners don’t respect equal personal rights and dignity for children. They can read stories about the struggle for women and men to form a couple, but cannot provide the example of the heterosexual bond. They assert that same-sex families are equal, despite these privations.

The same-sex cause is like the racial civil-rights cause         

Same-sex lawyers claim the same-sex cause is like racial causes, especially the African-American civil rights movement. However, same-sex partners have no civic disadvantages. They can vote and be of a people according to the preamble. They can own property together, rent together, enjoy privacy, move about freely. They can create a contract to legalize their partnership. However, they cannot, on the desire to “get married and have children,” justify civic rights equal with heterosexual couples. Any move to grant them civil rights is unjust, and that has not happened. The only thing that has happened is that the Supreme Court has ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional, and that happened because Congress’s basis is theism. Correction of their error is in Congress's hands. Marriage between a man and a woman is based on the ethics of physics, which religion can’t influence.

            The argument that the same-sex cause is analogous to racial civil-rights causes is civically immoral for two reasons. First, through DNA, we understand that all races are descendents from a man and a woman in Africa, some 200,000 years ago. Thus, the race issue is about not discriminating on false bases, such as skin color. The subject tribe—everybody—includes same-sex people and all other statistically deviant sex practitioners. A biracial couple is a couple, capable of procreation, whereas same-sex partners cannot be a couple; to procreate, they must couple with someone outside the partnership, separating the child to be born from one of its parents and that heritage of parenthood.  Second, pick any of the statistically variant sexual practices listed above and try to present the case for rights above singles or equal to heterosexual monogamists with progeny.

For example, consider zoophilia. There is no doubt by me there can be emotional love between people and their pets. I love Spunkie Beaver! Just check our veterinarian bill for evidence or watch us in wintertime protecting this outdoor cat: Spunkie has heated quarters in the attic over the garage. If people make love with their pets, as depicted and written about throughout history, I have no objections to their private practice: pets, like humans, love to be loved and to love. If people demanded a civil zoophilia license, civic debate by a people should follow. I’d want to study claims of the request and consider a license which keeps responsibility for health issues and animal care in the hands of the applicant, allows the applicant to honor the animal in any way he/she can fund, consider ideas other people might bring to the discussion, and grant the licensing, if and only if the discussions showed civic justification for licensing. The question that should be answered is: why should there be a civil license for zoophilia. The answer cannot be, “To make the pet owner feel equal and dignified.” If there is no justification for licensing--no reason to convert a private practice into a civic provision, then keep zoophilia a non-civic and non-civil practice—in other words, private. However, an appeal for zoophilia to be included in civil marriage licensing or for zoophilist to enjoy tax favor versus single fillers would be out of the question, because independent monogamous procreation is out of the question. The same-sex lawyers might label me barbarian for this argument, but they’d be wrong again. I have no problem with harmless practices by people in the privacy of their homes and would not pretend to judge other people’s psychological wellness. Human imagination is powerful and wonderful! And pets are wonderful beings that I cannot judge. However, the defense of child dignity and equality is a major civic duty, and only a people can defend the personal autonomy of children to be born. The zoophilia argument also is common to all races and making it a racial issue would be false.

Homophobia versus heterophobia

            Same-sex lawyers say that a people’s aversion to same-sex practices is fear based, much like past fears of misogyny. They label it homophobia. However, one incentive for homosexuality is heterophobia, the fear of the lasting responsibilities (and joys) of heterosexual monogamy. Making love with a woman is awesome, threatening, and inconvenient, because of susceptibility to pregnancy with her and the attendant obligations for the lives of any progeny. Yet it is the most noble, rewarding commitment a man can make, in my opinion. Women have the fear that no man is dependable; that when beauty fades, so will the man’s commitment. My bride and I have experienced a lot of hardship, but I have never sensed doubt by her and I have never doubted our monogamy. Almost all the monogamists I know never doubted their monogamy, and each new decade brings joys of new kinds. I am shocked that 110 million Americans have STDs and there are 20 million new cases each year, and want to convince the people who are sold on the Kinsey reports to reconsider monogamy for life.

Well, some heterosexual monogamists never procreate!

            Same-sex lawyers complain that some heterosexual couples marry but never procreate. Therefore, such couples should not enjoy marriage tax-advantages. That’s true. The tax code should be reformed in that respect. Any savings should reduce the burdens on single filers. I propose a change, below.

Civil unions or partner contracts are unfair

            Incorporated in the civil marriage license is the obligation to care for any progeny, for life, which includes grandchildren and so on. Only heterosexual couples can independently have progeny, so marriage should apply to them only. Same-sex partners may create contracts and lobby for civil union licenses, but they are not civically entitled to civil marriage licenses.

Two people dedicating their lives to each other is noble, and a people should celebrate the bond, whether it is platonic or not and same-sex or not. However, civic same-sex partners accept same-sex civil limitations. Either being in love or simply partnering with someone with whom you cannot procreate does not justify subjugating either single people or children for the purpose of fulfilling personal desires. The equality and dignity of the child waiting to be born cannot be ignored. This is no more serious a challenge than the one I faced with my bride if one of us had been unable to procreate. There is no way we would have imposed the life-risks of surrogacy on a child. Other couples may want that, but a people does not need to endorse it.

Heterosexuals are promiscuous, too

            Same-sex lawyers argue that since heterosexuals have a divorce rate of 53%, and since some are promiscuous and contract STDs, some same-sex partners are entitled to the same accommodations. The premise that one bad practice justifies another is patently false. It’s like saying, “They have STDs and divorces, so I want mine.” However, there is no doubt that marriage is not an exemplary institution, and I suggest improvement, below. A people should improve civil law every time they perceive opportunity and are convinced the apparent injustice is not a delusion.

Governance under theism has failed a people in this regard, and religious education regarding bonding and making love instead of having sex and monogamy should reform. Also, the religious institutions should bow out of the bid for governance under theism and contribute to the establishment of governance of by and for a people. Believers can make this happen, and if they do not, a people can fill in the gap: religious institutions must conform to civil law, which must conform to the ethics of physics.

Homosexual persons' suicides are society's fault

            Same-sex lawyers portray victims of same-sex suicide as society's fault. However, heterosexuals also commit suicide and society feels equal sorrow regardless of sexual practices. Discovering, accepting, and loving the person who is supported by her/his brain and body is a prime benefit of living, if not the meaning of life. It is tragic when the quest is voluntarily terminated.

Genetic surrogacy is not a same-sex topic; or what’s attachment?

            I feel this lie is adequately countered in my introduction to the same-sex agenda, above. I explained that "genetic surrogacy" seems more like "attachment surrogacy" and is surrogate motherhood, as Louisiana law states and nullifies.[22]

White, male property owners intend to govern

Shockingly, the same-sex agenda attacks the preamble to the United States Constitution as the basis of United States governance. And they can, because a people has neglected the preamble for 226 years, apparently preferring the false comforts of governance under theism. 

This nation was created on June 21, 1788, when nine states ratified the US Constitution, the first civic document (1787) in US history that does not cite their god. The preamble is the product of the first continental convention whose delegates did not conduct prayer. But Congress hired ministers on May 1, 1789 to resume governance under theism like the Continental Congress (1774) had practiced, instead of governance of by and for a people as specified by the Constitution (1787) and almost expressed by Abraham Lincoln (1863). Lincoln understandably used the article "the" instead of "a," but his opinion does not limit a people.

The same-sex lawyer's offense against the Constitution came in a radio-show review with two of them. The pair had proudly strategized the USSC's negation of the people’s vote against gay marriage in California Proposition 8. On the Diane Rehm show, June 24, 2014,[23] citizen John stated opposition:

I love the buzz words that fly around here. We've got diversity, equality and Constitution. [Regarding] something not directly prohibited by the Constitution, the state has a right to make decisions. So you have the will of the people completely denied, overridden by social engineering people that use words like diversity and equality to push their agenda. But it has nothing that's any resemblance in reality.

John and I might enjoy discussing the ethics of physics to finally replace religious doctrine as a focus for civic morality. Same-sex lawyer David Boies responded,

When the Constitution says, ‘We, the people of the United States,’ it really means, we, white male property owners. And every time we've tried to expand the "we," from the original limited set, it's upset people. It's upset people when we expanded it racially.

Bois lied, perhaps strategically choosing the word “means” instead of “meant,” and even that modification would maintain the lie. This is another racial-discrimination piggy-back by the same-sex lawyers, and it is particularly woeful, because some people do not perceive that they are among the triumphant 94 % who the signers hoped would one day enjoy suffrage. Most of us have overcome. And same-sex persons can vote!

            The 1787 signers intended republican governance by a people: informed people would elect patriotic representatives who would uphold the Constitution. The signers both fulfilled and disengaged from the Declaration of Independence, which had 1) cited a deistic god, 2) realized its 1776 purpose of defeating England's Protestant god, and 3) declared, recalling the Magna Carta, that the king of England was only an equal man, not that slaves were equal. (Slavery was wrong and slaves were equally human. In the draft, Thomas Jefferson complained that the King had imposed slavery on the states. But the Declaration did not claim that slaves were equal.)

In the state conventions the delegates to the nine ratifying states intended governance by the people, unjust as governance was in 1788. For example, many of them were abolitionists who predicted the end of slavery (happened) and some thought that in a few decades Christianity would evolve to Unitarianism (did not happen). In the meantime, a Bill of Rights was suggested by some states. Back to the same-sex lie: in 1790, 6 % of the population could vote: in 2014, 100 % of non-criminals may vote. It is true that at each step in the expansion of voting rights, some people resisted, but ultimately, the ethics of physics prevailed: all people are people and all may vote. Maybe Boies is either not an American or alienates himself, like loyalists did when the preamble was written. However, I do not want his lie to dissuade anyone from volunteering to be of a people who use the preamble to fulfill a people. Same-sex people can vote and can civically compromise. Every American can civically volunteer to fulfill a people, and that is what the signers provided for, perhaps fortuitously, but the preamble is there for a people to use.

Religion must be punished for opposing same-sex sex

            The same-sex agenda has taken advantage of the Christian majority’s durable, stubborn intention to force Bible interpretation into civic governance, and I want Christianity to reform, because it is costing a people and always has. Damage to marriage as a consequence of Bible interpretation is extensive, and I hope my work will help restore national respect for monogamous procreation. However, Christianity, indeed all theisms must reform their approach toward civic issues. People must, without sacrificing personal, private hopes, such as the phantasm of everlasting afterlife in heaven, learn to express in civic terms their arguments regarding civic issues, regardless of whether or not their personal, civic opinion is inspired by Bible interpretation. A people demands freedom of thought--each person's duty, above freedom of religion--a private institution.

The same-sex agenda is civically very skilled at turning religious beliefs into folly, when the religious proponent could have stated their claim in civic terms. Most people understand that the Biblical claim that homosexuality is an “abomination” is abstract hyperbole for “non-productive beyond sexual gratification perhaps for one of the parties at a time (the other in a service role),” or some other concrete idea. However, the same-sex agenda will only argue the hyperbole: “abomination.” So the same-sex mendacity is initiated by the Bible reference; the Bible believer should know better than to invite the mendacity. The U.S. Congress does know better, but enjoys Machiavellian[24] power over a gullible people.

            Furthermore, insistence on governance under theism alienates 23% of the population: the non-theists. Just as overtures toward civic understanding, posed by non-theists, are off-putting to theists, reference to scripture is off-putting to non-theists. Yet, both believers and non-believers want the same thing: the opportunity to pursue happiness as they perceive it in the land where they were born or naturalized, without continual harassment over religion. Alienation by citizens over what no one knows makes no sense whatsoever and never has.

            That completes my response to the same-sex lies and errors I have thought of. I would appreciate anyone’s comments about it. “Drop dead, Mr. Beaver” is a communication no worse than “I’m dusting[25] you off,” but it is an expression of interest.

The fruits of governance under theism

Few citizens have read the Supreme Court (USSC) decision, United States v Windsor, but each citizen should read it.[26] The federal administration, President Obama, fabricated the case after agreeing to pay Windsor yet delaying the payment, so as to bring the case to the USSC. Everyone had agreed to pay Windsor, so the USSC had no adversaries for whom to conduct a hearing and should not have heard it, but did. Why? I can't guess, but Holder knows.
            What was argued was not Windsor’s case, but Congress’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Previously, Congress unjustly and unconstitutionally defended marriage between a man and a woman as Judeo-Christian tradition, instead of defending it on the basis of human reproduction and related references to the objective truth, or my preference: monogamous procreation, or even better, the ethics of physics. Since then, Congress sat idly while the USSC awards favor to self-proclaimed same-sex partners--perhaps no more significant than roommates--exceeding the civic equality due each individual or single person, including the children to be born, as well as heterosexual monogamists who procreate, and the administration aggressively forces the harm on the nation one state at a time. Don't forget: the harm originates from governance under the god imposed by the Congress in DOMA, and the alternative is governance of by and for a people according to the preamble, which has lain fallow for 226 years.

For decades now, the USSC has taken the position that religion has lost its importance and is ceremonial[27]: therein lies the predictable outcome of governance under a god. Governance under a god has hindered governance under the ultimate justice of a people, even though, or perhaps because, the government considers their god ceremonial. That phantasm, god, distracts a people, not only the believers, from the objective truth. There can be no civic compromise when the basis is god, a phantasm that no one knows. One of the reasons that it is such a powerful distraction is that politicians always employ the capital "G" to cite the phantasm. It's a two-way empowerment: the politicians garner the authority of the phantasm and maintain the phantasm's power over the people. In one case, the Civil War,[28] governance under the phantasm cost a people, this people, the equivalent of eight million persons based on today's population. Consider how much more powerful Abraham Lincoln's cautions against war would have been if he had avoided using the capital "G", or referred to governance under divisive theism, a specific, divisive branch of religion.

Religion is important to believers, primarily for hope and comfort in the face of the unknown, especially the afterdeath, that vast time after a person's body has died. But it must not be the basis of either civic decisions or civic divisions and it must not determine civil law. No child should be forced to express in civic settings an allegiance to a god when neither he/she nor his/her parents have a contestant in the god wars.[29] And the number of people in this country who face the oppression of "under God" now number about 73 million. No other oppressed minority is that large.  Association of a people, this people, must transcend the differing religions and no religion; the religious institutions must observe and defend civil law. A people must reform Congress and end all legislative prayer. There should be no support for, even tolerance of, religion in civic governance; a legislators religious opinions must be expressed in civic terms to have standing among a people. Laws must be based on the objective truth regarding the ethics of physics, leaving religious practices and decisions a private, inalienable right of each individual, much like choices in entertainment, avocations, and sex between consenting adults. Recalling a statement by Jim Robertson, Baton Rouge, "Anarchy, in a free system, is a Federal Judge believing and ruling that an unalienable right is a legal right.” Religion or no-religion is an unalienable right. To think is an often neglected unalienable duty.

Fairness, a subject, not equal to justice, an object

In the entire document that reports US v Windsor, there is no indication that, on the basis of procreation and care of children, same-sex partners are secondary or tertiary to heterosexual couples, yet that seems to be the ethics of physics. Also, there is no reference to equality of single adults, children, and members of same-sex partnerships. Children are almost regarded as properties in the verbiage of the record. The record takes for granted a gay-partner's right to objectify children and subject them to gestation, birth, then attachment surrogacy, surrogate motherhood, and life without gender role-models, by not addressing those issues. Role-models are a privation by lesbian partners as well and surrogate fatherhood should also be against public policy. Thus, the lawyers of this country are deliberately skirting the objective truth in order to promote the agenda of false diversity, false equality, and false pride touted as “dignity.”

Governance under their gods

For all I know, Congress’s religious basis for DOMA, with no mention of the objective truth about same-sex partnering--surrogacy, gender role-models, monogamous family evolution, and inequality for singles---was a typical Machiavellian ruse. The unstated purpose is to preserve the appearance that Congress has the authority of a god. Niccolo Machiavelli expressed in 1513 that governance under a god is a ploy that works well to control the people. Politicians are versed in Machiavellian ideas such as: Involve a god and the people will feel safe regardless of their losses. Or, even in a republic: Keep the people stirred up over their god and they won’t care what representatives are doing to them. Meanwhile, the people are so bemused by their god they ignore the injustices they suffer.
             When I was a believer, I indolently felt that my god would prevail civically, and besides, in the end, my soul was saved. I now recognize that gullible thinking as antinomianism. Gullibility is a deadly error. I think I know why Christianity left gullibility off the list of seven deadly sins: gullibility of the believer empowers the dogma. The church, in Machiavellian concert with the government, needs to maintain a god. The end of that ancient game is way beyond any person’s lifetime. But the justice of a people can terminate governance under a god, at any time now, by committing to governance under a people who use the preamble to the United States Constitution and fulfill its eight goals for the sake of their own lives. Believers do not need to forgo their pursuit of their religious scripture, but they do need to understand that civic accommodations enable such private pursuits: Believers need to attend to both private and civic duties.

If there is anything salvageable from a people’s woe brought on by the same-sex agenda, it is the confrontation over the fact that the era when Christian arguments were effective in the civic arena is past. It’s not only that some Christian leaders and some Christians are hypocrites--mindless of their own posterity; it is the fact that a people could not in the past and cannot now determine best civic practices based on other-worldly opinion, codify the opinion as civic "scripture,” and then inculcate good character based on the disguised opinion. Reality is discovered too fast for scripture to keep up! Understanding has proven that Bible interpretation is ineffective for civic governance, as the DOMA case illustrates once again (as the Civil War experience did). This does not mean that Christians should be either disparaged or discouraged, but that they should join the civic debate by a people. Regardless, they should face the reason for the failure of DOMA and do something about it: Christians are responsible for that failure.

The objective truth evident in reality

A people (a nation) must base best civic practices on reality, let’s call it physics from which all overarching laws flow. For example, people refrain from lying, not to fulfill a divine command, but so that they can communicate.[30] But a people cannot expect every person to adopt best practices. Too many variables determine personal fate and time marches without mercy as each newborn struggles for a path to understanding! In the worst situations, people whose appetites wildly dominate prudence die young despite all the precaution and encouragement and togetherness a people can muster. Some institutions, who present objections to a behavior in misguided yet influential Bible terms like “abomination,” instead of the more civic “fruitless” and “risky,” are part of the inevitability of the deceased person’s fate. A people can’t appeal to either feral or civic minds with other-worldly ideas and phantasms.  Also, because every person is unique, best practice must fit that person while accommodating other people; people do not have shared perceptions of happiness; there must be civic compromise, and misbehavers must be subject to civil force. Some of us are neither theists nor atheists, and our opinion about ourselves is civically more important than other people’s opinions about us. To resolve opinion, we must, borrowing words from Abraham Lincoln,[31] rely on the ultimate justice of a people.

Civic compromise: civil monogamy licensing

            In my first post directed to the same-sex crowd on The Advocate Online, I wrote, “The same-sex crowd would do themselves a favor by offering something for the heterosexuals.” The same-sex folks tried to laugh me off the forum. Now, I have a very concrete proposal and have submitted it as a concept to the state of Louisiana for consideration: I want civic compromise so as to accommodate every one of a people during every decade of his/her life.

            I suggest that Louisiana replace its civil marriage license with a civil monogamy license that keeps all marriage provisions in force but with some exceptions. First, it asks if the applicants can independently procreate. With “yes,” it contains the statement that each applicant is obligated to and responsible for any progeny (including grandchildren and beyond) until death do them part and that all spousal provisions apply as of the ceremony but procreation tax advantages do not begin until pregnancy and delivery of a newborn. If “no,” the progeny provisions do not apply; each applicant is obligated only to the other; and their tax status remains identical to singles tax-status for life. Marriage ceremonies, certificates, and requirements by churches would remain believers’ considerations and responsibilities.

            Alternatively, I have suggested licensing procreation to draw more attention to the widespread abuse of children and to prevent child abuse and neglect by challenging people’s preparedness for parenting. The procreation license would have the advantage of confronting both intentional and careless unmarried parenthood.  Today, there are grandparents who are thirty years old, and as mentioned above the brain is not fully equipped for wisdom until age 25 for men. Compare ages required to run for federal offices: Representative 25, Senator 30; and President 35. I do not think many people would be in favor of such a sensible intrusion into tradition but want to debate procreation licensing.

Civicality

            I think this review shows that the same-sex agenda is an unjust cause, to put it mildly. It certainly does not seek civic justice. Same-sex lawyers would take advantage of children and singles, heterosexual monogamists, racial minorities, the racial majority, religious beliefs, public empathy, legislative failures, civic emotions, and mendacity to build a case on same-sex religion when the issue is monogamous procreation. It seems to provide evidence that supports Overstreet’s claim that homosexuality does not facilitate mature character.

            I think Baton Rouge should lead the nation by not condoning the same-sex lifestyle and demonstrating the importance of both heterosexual monogamy and religious privacy. I hope Louisiana will strongly consider the two monogamy licenses to both lend gravity to civil marriage as monogamy and to honor same-sex monogamy. The children to be born would benefit directly. I hope religious believers will see the incentives for phrasing their proposals for governance in civic terms.

    

Copyright©2014 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised 8/12/14, 8/20/14, 9/25/14, 9/28/14.

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[32][17] Online: see www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-307 .

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[1] Online obituary: www.legacy.com/obituaries/theadvocate/obituary.aspx?pid=152521262 .

[2] In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln said, about the Civil War, “Both [sides] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.” The capital “G” implies that Lincoln thinks “God” exists, which is OK, if that is what he thought. However, I do not want anyone to think I think God exists: I want readers to know that I do not know and think it is necessary for me to admit to myself that I do not know.

[3] Online news report:  www.wbrz.com/news/law-seeks-clarity-for-surrogate-contracts-rights/ .

[4] William Faulkner, Barn Burning. See character analysis online at www.shmoop.com/barn-burning/colonel-sarty-sartoris-snopes.html .

[5] Kahlil Gibran, poem “On Children,” The Prophet, 1923. Online at: www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html .

[6] William Ralph Inge said, ‘The proper time to influence the character of a child is about 100 years before he is born."

[7] I don’t often use metaphysical expressions. This one came from Leonard Cohen, “Dance Me to the End of Love.” Hear and see the beauty at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I .

[8] Professor Orlando Patterson defines psychological maturity as ultimate personal liberty. It cannot be achieved if life is cut short, because civilization inevitably imposes limitations the person must overcome.

[9] Online at understandtheknowledge.blogspot.com .

[10] The dictionary has “monogamy,” 1) marriage with only one person at a time, or 2) the practice of marrying only once during life. I am glad that for these forty-five years I have held monogamy to mean something more.

[11] At age 25 for men, age 23 for women, the body has completed parts of the brain needed to build wisdom.

[12] President Barack Obama, second inaugural address, January 21, 2013.

[13] I am reading a social working handbook to find reference for this statement I feel is based on experience.

[14] Before now, I had not noticed the caption, “Government endorsed surrogacy contracts.” See online at http://cnsnews.com/news/article/abigail-wilkinson/gov-bobby-jindal-vetoes-bill-government-endorsed-surrogacy-contracts . Government endorsement and the surrogacy industry in Louisiana are what I oppose.

[15] H. A. Overstreet. The Mature Mind. 1949.  Norton, NY. Pages 58-63. “The human being is born a creature of diffuse sexuality. He must mature toward a specific and creative sexual relationship. Immaturity shows when someone does not make it through one of the stages:  infatuation with the parent of the opposite sex, homosexuality, and adolescent heterosexuality. No one can be called sexually mature, it would seem, until he accepts his own sex nature without guilt; incorporates that nature in a rational life-plan; and is able to make sexual experience the basis of a sustained, mutually fulfilling, and creative relationship with the opposite sex. Where the sex linkage is immature there is no high maturity of character.”

[16] §2713.  Contract for surrogate motherhood; nullity A.  A contract for surrogate motherhood as defined herein shall be absolutely null and shall be void and unenforceable as contrary to public policy.  B.  "Contract for surrogate motherhood" means any agreement whereby a person not married to the contributor of the sperm agrees for valuable consideration to be inseminated, to carry any resulting fetus to birth, and then to relinquish to the contributor of the sperm the custody and all rights and obligations to the child. Acts 1987, No. 583, §1, eff. Sept.  1, 1987.

[17] Stout, Martha, Ph.D. . The Sociopath Next Door. Broadway Books. 2005. Page 133.

[18] One might think my idea of personal autonomy, practiced for seven decades now, is a figment of my imagination. Regardless, I like it. It empowered me to say “No” when a new girl at my high school patted her fanny and said, “This is mine, all mine. But you can have a piece if you want it.” It empowered me to say “No” when two boys in the same bed sexually satisfied each other and invited me to join. It empowered me to say “No” when a boss tried to kiss me. Like most other humans, I am attracted to other people, readily take interest in their opinions and can talk long, but when I sense that my autonomy could be compromised, I become reserved. I try to share the importance of cooperative autonomy with my family, loved ones, and neighbors. Fortunately, my bride is personally autonomous, but if something happens that raises my concerns, I speak to her about it, and am happy that I do, because she reciprocates: questions me when there is evidence of error. I cannot imagine life with promiscuity. It must be psychological chaos and personal erosion.

[19] CDC data, online at www.cdc.gov/std/stats/sti-estimates-fact-sheet-feb-2013.pdf .

[20] www.lifesitenews.com/news/epidemic-1-2-of-gay-men-will-have-hiv-by-age-50-if-current-rates-continue-w

[21] See comments of Judge Bonnie Jackson in http://theadvocate.com/news/10385468-123/br-forum-explores-tragedy-of , “BR forum explores youth tragedies,” The Advocate, September 28, 2014, P 1B.

[22] RS9:2713.  Contract for surrogate motherhood; nullity. Online at: http://legis.la.gov/lss/lss.asp?doc=107154 .

[23] Online at:  thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=19478, at about 42 minutes.

[24] Nicolo Machiavelli, in Chapter XI of “The Prince” states that a people under a theism don’t care about the tyranny their governors impose on them. America has suffered that tyranny since 1789. See the latest in Greece v. Galloway, which grants a town the right to legislative prayer, just like state legislatures and Congress; a people do not matter to the US government under theism.

[25] Matthew 10:14. “If anyone will not . . . listen to your words, leave that home . . . and shake the dust off your feet.”

[26] Online: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-307

[27] Online: www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-696 . “Our tradition assumes that adult citizens, firm in their own beliefs, can tolerate and perhaps appreciate a ceremonial prayer delivered by a person of a different faith.”

[28] “[P]ublic opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.” Declaration of Causes of Seceding States. Online at sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html .

[29] A Christian teacher in Shreveport immorally harassed a Buddhist boy. The case was settled with $4000, but who is assuaging the harm to the boy? See online at http://www.nola.com/crime/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2014/03/settlement_over_harassment_of.html .

[30] See my essay, “Why Our Example Is Not To Ever Lie,” at understandtheknowledge.blogspot.com.

[31] From Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?”