One of the most frustrating things about stupidity is that so often it appears to be wise. Some assertions, especially amongst those too ignorant or invested to investigate, get by without really being challenged – despite the fact that they are not only not able to withstand significant scrutiny, but will, in fact, collapse under the weight of their own incoherence.
One of these ridiculous notions is the notion that underlies and sustains many of the most grievous evils in our society: abortion, homosexual marriage, fornication, polygamy, and pedophilia. When we look at this list, there is, of course, a common denominator. All of these have to do with sex and the idea of sexual freedom.
In our culture there is this libertine notion that sex cannot and should not and must not be regulated. Abortion isn’t called the violent and horrific murder of babies, but it’s called “giving women control over their reproduction.” Of course, barring rape, all women DO have control over their own reproductive powers. And in the West, women have had that power for a long, long time. Nunneries were always open. Women have been missionaries and history is full of spinsters. The idea that Western culture was one in which women were all raped en masse is one of the more ridiculous notions that came out of 20th Century Feminism. As it turns out, in the real world, women have sex for a wide variety of reasons: pleasure, the desire to please, the desire to manipulate, to make babies, to make money, to name a few.
Again, women have for a long time had, apart from rape, control over their own reproduction. Women – like men, oddly enough – can choose to abstain from sex. They can choose to be celibate. They can also choose to use natural family planning – though this has some problems. Coitus Interruptus, is another option, again, not extremely reliable. Contraception is another example that doesn’t result in the murder of a baby.
But that’s not good enough.
The culture demands that women should abandon the actual and legitimate control over their reproduction and have the option to commit murder after they abrogated their reproductive control. The baseline presupposition is that sex cannot and should not be regulated.
Homosexual marriage uses the same line of argument. People scoff and say, “it’s none of my business.” The presupposition is that it is wrong to regulate whether a man has sex with a man or a woman a woman. There is the presupposition that regulation is wrong.
Same thing with fornication. The cultural understanding is that people can and should fornicate whenever they please. It’s wrong to regulate this.
And we will see over the next few decades a major rise in the attempts to normalize polygamy and pedophilia. I doubt polygamy will be illegal much longer. Why not? Because we presuppose that it is wrong to regulate sex.
But why?
Why is it wrong to regulate sex?
It’s illegal to own a bald-eagle feather. Seriously. You cannot, without special permission from our bureaucratic betters own, possess, sell, trade, or barter any part of a bald eagle – or a golden eagle. And this is all to protect birds. Granted, you can murder a baby, and according to some of our top-notch polies, it’s ok to let a baby die that has survived an abortion. I mean, not only are baby murderers evil and disgusting disgraces, but if they’re too incompetent to kill a baby before it’s born you should be able to kill it after it’s born?!
It’s illegal to drive in Ohio without having a tiny plastic sticker on my license plate. Because we demand that everyone who uses the roads take responsibility for maintaining the roads.
It’s illegal to drive without auto insurance.
Why?
Why is it illegal to drive without auto insurance? Well, because we recognize that cars and trucks and SUVs can do tremendous damage if used improperly and people who misuse or cannot control their vehicles need to be held financially responsible for the damage they do. We say that with cars people are responsible for personal and property damage. So, we’re willing to hold people responsible for doing damage to the degree that you cannot legally operate a motor vehicle in the state of Ohio unless you have taken precautions beforehand to ensure that you can make someone whole in case of an accident.
And more than that. It’s illegal to say bad things against people, publicly, in word or in print, if it’s untrue. Libel and slander are serious offenses. And you can be held liable in a court of law if you damage someone’s reputation.
And if you lie to a judge under oath, you can be tried for perjury. We hold people responsible to tell the truth in a court to ensure the fair and righteous execution of the law. We expect that people will be responsible enough to protect their neighbors individually and societally.
In fact, because the government is so concerned with my and other people’s safety, I can’t drive my car without taillights and headlights and working windshield wipers – and I have to wear my seatbelt. I have to keep my sidewalk shoveled and, tyranny of tyrannies, I can’t just leave bear-traps set up in the yard to capture potential home invaders. There are so many things I can’t do and that I must do because these are the things that our government has decided it gets to regulate for my own and society’s good.
So, tell me please. Why is it totally OK for adultery to be legal, when we know the tremendous damage it does to victims, when I have to keep my lawn mown?
Why does everyone just accept that you need to take a driver’s test, but there is no marriage test?
Why is it that you have to be 18 to vote, but it’s unthinkable to try to regulate whether we undermine the whole of society by permitting homosexual marriage and pornography and licentious music and television and movies?
The reality is that human sexuality is infinitely more important than the possession of eagle-feathers. Human sexuality is one of the most important aspects of humanity and, frankly, THE DRIVING FORCE of the continued existence of the human race! Family’s are the foundation of society and anything that undermine the foundation of society seems to me to be something worthy of prohibiting – or at least it’s on the table for regulation!
Why is it that we can regulate how much water a toilet can use and what kind of lightbulbs you can have, but we can’t say whether or not people can engage in perversity? Queen would have a field day with this naughty-nanny-state.
I won’t go on too much longer – I feel my point is made. Now, obviously, you can disagree that these things don’t warrant regulation because they do not undermine society or pose a danger to human well-being. But let’s not pretend that it isn’t exceedingly disingenuous to simply decree that in the age of ever-expanding executive orders and bureaucratic regulatory bloat that sex is irregulable. If anything ought to be regulated it’s sex, considering its importance to society and the human race.
So why isn’t it? Because the cultural conjurers who summon our Polterzeitgeist don’t want to regulate sex. Because they like sexual dissolution. Or because the like societal dissolution. It doesn’t really matter which because in the end it ends the same way: the soul’s desolation.