The connection between gay marriage and mass murders

Morality in Media has sent out their most ridiculous news release yet, which doesn't seem to be on their website so I am reproducing it in full.

Connecting the Dots: The Link Between Gay Marriage and Mass Murders

NEW YORK (April 9, 2009) – On April 4 the NY Times ran adjacent front-page articles on the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing ‘gay marriage’ and the gunman who murdered 13 people in New York. That day the Times also ran an op ed article by Charles M. Blow who expressed concern about the negative impact that conservative media’s “talk of revolution” could have on “weak minds.”

Commenting on this is Morality in Media President Bob Peters:

“Having lived in New York City for more than 30 years, I am all too aware of the harm that firearms in the hands of criminals can cause. Having grown up in a small town in Illinois, where citizens owned guns without misusing them, I am also aware that guns aren’t the underlying problem. I am not an opponent of gun regulation; I am an opponent of making guns the scapegoat for mass murder.

“The underlying problem is that increasingly we live in a ‘post-Christian’ society, where Judeo-Christian faith and values have less and less influence. Among other things, Judaism and Christianity taught that murder was wrong and that included murder motivated by anger, hatred and revenge. Both religions also taught that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and to forgive others.

“For many citizens, what has replaced Judeo-Christian faith and values is the secular value system that is reflected in films, rap/music lyrics, and videogames and on TV and now the Internet, where the taking of human life for just about any reason is commonplace and is often portrayed in an appealing manner and in realistic detail. Murder motivated by hatred and revenge is also justified.

“This secular value system is also reflected in the ‘sexual revolution,’ which is the driving force behind the push for ‘gay marriage;’ and the Iowa Supreme Court decision is another indication that despite all the damage this revolution has caused to children, adults, family life and society (think abortion, divorce, pornography, rape, sexual abuse of children, sexually transmitted diseases, trafficking in women and children, unwed teen mothers and more), it continues to advance relentlessly.

“It most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement! It is my intention to point out that the success of the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality (and the faith that so often under girds it) that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders.

“I would add that if conservative media’s irresponsible talk of revolution can ‘poison weak minds,’ the liberal entertainment media’s irresponsible portrayal of mayhem can also poison weak minds.”

This is so ridiculous it is hard to respond to. He thinks that access to guns has nothing to do with murder (contrary to evidence) and gay marriage does? (I'd include a link about gay marriage and murder rates but I doubt anyone has researched such a ridiculous possibility.)

Supposedly the link is that the "secular morality" which permits gay marriage considers murder to be justified. Where he gets this idea from I have no idea. Note that he gives no evidence for this, because there is none! The few people I have ever heard of arguing in favour of gratuitous murder are either mentally ill (and most mentally ill people are no more violent than anyone else) or religious fanatics!

Only the twisted mind of a homophobe could see loving couples wanting to make a formal lifelong commitment to each other and connect that love to acts of violence and hate.

On the bright side, fewer and fewer people are buying into the homophobes arguments, which is perhaps what is making them so desperate. In the US, support for same-sex marriage is increasing, especially among younger people. Eventually it will be clear to everyone that legalizing same sex marriage, as we did here in Canada a few years ago, benefits people who want to marry someone of the same sex and has no effect on anyone else.

Pepsi supports Human Rights Campaign—the horror!

The American Family Association is campaigning against Pepsi for supporting the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG. According to AFA, HRC and PFLAG "promote the homosexual lifestyle in the workplace". They make it sound like these groups are organizing gay orgies in the office, but looking at their websites, they aren't promoting "the homosexual lifestyle" (whatever that is), just seeking basic fair treatment that heterosexuals take for granted.

AFA has also released a video, It's Not Gay, featuring an "ex-gay" man, Michael Johnston, who it turned out was having sex with men while working as an "ex-gay" advocate (he is now ex-gay again, or is that ex-ex-ex-gay?)

I don't get why these "family" groups get so worked up about homosexuality. It seems to me that homophobia breaks up more families that acceptance does--how many people are rejected by their homophobic parents for coming out? How does that strengthen families?

Save the morula!

Someone left a copy of the Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) newsletter on the subway today (probably hoping that a curious person like myself would pick it up--I do the same thing with animal rights magazines.)

The lead story? "Ontario easing access to abortifacents", referring to the emergency contraception pill (ECP), a.k.a. the "morning after pill".

Now, obviously, this newsletter is intended to preach to the converted, for they don't really explain what is wrong with the ECP. Their objection is that because the ECP, which is taken within a few days of possible conception, prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, which they consider a form of abortion.

I am not without sympathy to some "pro-life" claims--certainly, in my experience, my son showed signs that he was a sentient being with his own lively temperament by the second trimester. But the ECP does not abort a baby--it keeps a ball of undifferentiated cells (the morula) from implanting!

Of course, the CLC does not mention that the morula is not even remotely a baby, has no nervous system, no "beating heart" to be stopped by abortion. Probably they are counting on the ignorance of their readers, or maybe they are ignorant themselves (consider the riduculous image at the left, purported to be an 8 week old embryo, at the Nuremberg Files anti-abortion site, and compare to an actual image of an 8 week old embryo. At this stage, the embryo is only 15-20 mm long!)

So why is the CLC wasting its energy worrying about this--a treatment which would prevent abortions of more developed embryos who do have the beginnings of nervous systems and beating hearts?

I don't know for sure, but I have my suspicions.

On page 2 of the newsletter, they have an article titled "Provinces extend same sex 'rights'". What does this have to do with abortion? You would think that anti-abortion people, if they had a stand on homosexual relationships at all, would encourage them--how many exclusively homosexual people get abortions?

But no. (Surprise.) CLC says,

The unique position that marriage has traditionally held in society has been slowly eroded and this is the most aggressive attack on our most vital institution; when the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman is broken, any sexual coupling (or, as some have argued, why stop at marrying just two people) becomes worthy of recognition and rights in the eyes of the law.

So this is what it really comes down to. The CLC is concerned not so much about the "rights" of the morula which will not implant if the woman takes the ECP, but rather wants to enforce its view that sex is only legitimate if the participants are married and willing to have a(nother) child.

The CLC has a couple of "Action Items" which I would like to counteract with Action Items of my own:

1. Ontario residents should contact Health Minister Tony Clement (clement@titan.tcn.net 80 Grosvenor Street, Hepburn Block, 10th Floor, M7A 2C4. Fax: 416-326-1571) in support of the Ontario Women's Health Council study on the use of the ECP when provided at pharmacies without a prescription. The study currently involves 40 pharmacies in Toronto, and is funded by the Ontario Health Ministry.
2. Manitoba and Saskatchewan residents should right to their MLAs to support the recently introduced same sex rights bills (which the CLC refers to as "expansion of special privileges for homosexuals").