Gay Marriage and the Next Gulag

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 05, 2011

In a Mexican case, Fr. Hugo Valdemar was found guilty on July 1st of illegal political activity because he stated that Catholics should not vote for candidates who support same-sex marriage. Fr. Valdemar’s defense is that he wasn’t speaking against a particular party but was merely stating the teaching of the Catholic Church. But the particulars of charge and counter-charge do not make a great deal of difference, apart from the strategies they suggest for legal maneuvering. There have been many similar stories over the past few years from around the world, especially in Canada and Europe. The writing is on the wall. Gay marriage is the lie that will create the next Gulag.

Indeed, gay marriage is the perfect totalitarian wedge, not least in a country like the United States, which has been capable of believing itself uniquely dedicated to liberty even in the midst of slavery and abortion. We Americans, it seems, will be quite willing to sing the praises of our liberty no matter how many of us lose it. It is our national myth, something we worship. But the cause of gay marriage fits the myth better than most issues because it really does seem that those who oppose it are denying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to others. This denial can be accepted for the unborn, in the name of the liberty of their mothers, as it once was accepted for African Americans, who shared judicial non-personhood with the unborn. But gays are well-educated, wealthy and—above all—a logically favored projection of our moral culture. To inhibit their happiness, for any reason, seems just plain wrong.

Why should this be? First, it is necessary to note that the word “gay” refers not to those with homosexual inclinations but to those who champion behavior based on these inclinations as good. In fact, homosexuals who are not gay are a sign of contradiction to the gay world. They are scorned accordingly, in ways that even straights are not. The key to understanding the whole matter is that to be gay or to support the gay lifestyle is to approve and promote sterile sex.

The Western world in general has been hard at work promoting sterile sex for nearly a century now. We began by sanctioning the break-up of families through ever-easier divorce. Divorce is a kind of pretense that the marital covenant is ultimately sterile, in the sense that children do not matter. Next we embraced contraception so that our sexual pleasures could not be diminished through responsibility. Promiscuity inevitably followed, and with it abortion, which is simply fruitfulness in denial. We’ve covered our eyes and stopped our ears. “Nyah, nyah, nyah, I can’t SEE you! I can’t HEAR you!”

A culture like this, a culture which embraces these values, has no argument against homosexual sex, no case against homosexual marriage. A huge percentage of our marriages are deliberately and totally sterile; most of the rest are deliberately sterile much of the time. Huge numbers of marriages, by deliberate design, result neither in children to preserve the race nor in future citizens to enhance and develop the social order. There is no conceivable public interest in such unions, and no significant personal interest in them either, apart from the fuel they temporarily provide for the couple’s doomed egoism à deux.

Far from having a natural revulsion against homosexual intimacy, modern Western culture can hardly help seeing it as the jewel which crowns and protects its own warped vision of sex. We recognize and defend a right of men and women to engage in sexual intimacy without fruit. It follows that rank prejudice must be the only reason anyone could possibly oppose the same freedom between men and men or women and women.

No group is more hateful to modern society than the perceived moralistic prigs who, out of what most perceive as religiously-motivated prejudice, seek to diminish the personal sexual liberty of others. Nothing could be more obvious in our current culture than that such people must be silenced and, if necessary, restrained. Moreover, it seems only right and just that their denunciation of the gay lifestyle and their opposition to gay marriage should be criminalized. In fact, it should be criminalized in the name of liberty. That is why gay marriage is the lie that will create the next Gulag.

The insistence on ignoring vice is the hallmark of a debased culture, but the insistence that a lie be publicly affirmed as true is the hallmark of ideological totalitarianism. Such lies are always accompanied by the monopolization of education and other forms of thought control, and this is always made easier by the sad fact that huge numbers of people are convinced that those who are targeted are getting exactly what they deserve. The slightest intellectual resistance is perceived as a grave threat to peace and order. The truth becomes subversive. To speak the truth makes one either a social pariah or a traitor. The most obvious of realities must be denied. The most obvious of facts must be hidden. The most obvious of statements must be unsaid.

It is difficult to see anything that can be done about this without massive personal reform. Within the dominant culture, there is really no way to gain any traction to push back. The only thing that can possibly help is for those who oppose gay marriage to start living according to the understanding of sexuality communicated by the natural law. And almost the only way to do that in a culture incapable of recognizing the natural law is to seek the clarity and strength provided by Christian Revelation and grace. In other words, the only way to reverse the trend is to live the whole truth, sustained by Faith, rather than merely to argue about this or that part of it.

This means creating families and even whole communities marked by permanent marriage and fruitfully responsible sex, a lifestyle which—once one recovers from the initial shock—leads first to a deep sense of security and ultimately to a rich happiness. It is fair to say, I think, that commitment to and communication with reality invariably produces these remarkable results. But the time for lip service is long past. The ultimate answer to every Gulag is the affirmation of truth through life—a vibrant demonstration that Christians have more heart to lose than pagans have to win.

It is important, too, that this witness be corporate, that is, visible not just in a few individuals but in a community which professes a Creed. This is another reason for continuing to improve discipline in the Church, and quickly. The Church need not (and should not) encompass only perfect Christians, but within broad limits, her members need to be at least willing to try the life she offers them.

After all, if we accept the Truth, we also believe, though perhaps sometimes only in a dim sort of way, that we will suffer under the impact of thwarted reality in this life and under divine punishment in the next, if we simply ignore what we believe. On precisely this point, St. Peter offers the wisest of counsels:

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is right? But even if you do suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence; and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's will, than for doing wrong. (1 Pet 3:13-17)

Too often those who revile the behavior of Christians have no cause to be put to shame. This must change. Nothing else will work.