Goldberg

I didn't post those quotes to try to upset you ... if you took my having posted it as some kind of deliberate offense, then I apologize. I certainly didn't wish to achieve that result.

The author, Jonah Goldberg. is in fact Jewish, though by his own admission not a very devout one. Over the last year or so he's written columns that suggest (to me) that he's trying very hard to grapple with the question of life, meaning, and God. That may be due in part to the birth of his first child, a daughter, about a year ago.

Perhaps because I've read Goldberg's stuff for the past four or five years I'm a bit immune to the notion of him being "arrogant." He definitely has a style that employs sarcastic humor to make points. But I have come to view him as being fairly even-handed, though clearly conservative.

Note: the reference to "Newdow" in that column is to Michael Newdow, a rampaging atheist who lives in California, and someone who has taken it as his personal quest to scrub any mention of God from the landscape. He files lawsuits as the main tool of his quest. His latest endeavor is to remove "In God We Trust" from the U.S. currency, on the belief that having it there violates the First Ammendment of the Constitution. That ammendment only prohibits Congress from making laws establishing an official state religion. The alternative interpretation is that any reference to God in a government setting -- schools, most notably -- is a violation of this "establishment clause." It's clearly not, but that's what 40 years of liberal activism on the judiciary will do. Oddly, it appears that only the Christian God is targeted. References to Allah appear to be okay in the eyes of these atheistic crusaders.

The idea of "marriage" being between one man and one woman is something that is under considerable attack here in the United States. In the 2004 elections, it became a central animating theme. The gay activists overreached and got a handful of courts in liberal states like California and Massachussets to mandate marriage licenses for gay and lesbians. The backlash was quite intense -- state constitutional ammendment proposals banning "same-sex marriage" went onto the ballot in somethng like 22 states and all passed, most overwhelming ... even in mostly liberal states like Oregon. People seem to have drawn a line in the sand: "We won't persecute gays, we will permit various legal benefits, but we won't allow the very definition of a bedrock societal principle to be undermined."

The line in the sand is ephemeral -- it won't last. In 40 years the idea of "marriage" will have dissolved into nothing. Once the "one man and one woman" definition falls, then it there will be no principled reason to resist polygamy ... or other less savory arrangements.

Note: Don't laugh -- it's already in the pipeline. Lawsuits are already working their way through the courts to allow multiple people to "marry." It's a logical extension of the gay marriage argument.

Here's my bold statement on all this -- the ultimate objective in this fight to "redefine marriage" is not to just redefine marriage ... it's to abolish the principle of marriage. Traditionally understood "marriage" is an impediment to a more hedonistic lifestyle advocated by those who are pushing the cause.

I am not optimistic about the future with regard to these things. Bad things will follow when society unburdens itself of more and more things that have traditionally served to keep the darker aspects of human nature in check. I am convinced that all this is the work of Satan. But I don't argue that point much because those who will not believe that ... will not believe that.

May God have mercy on us all ... honestly.