Articles by Stephen Kokx
There is no such thing as marriage equality
Jun 7, 2013 / 00:00 amThere's been a lot of talk about marriage equality over the past several months. But like those who invoke the phrase "social justice," activists who speak of "marriage equality" don't seem to have a clear understanding as to what marriage equality actually means.One writer for Salon.com thinks marriage equality means granting polygamous couples the right to marry. Libertarians contend it means getting the state out of the marriage business all together. Others still, like well-known pro-gay rights journalist Masha Gessen, admit that “fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying” because, in reality, “the institution of marriage should not exist.”What are we to make of all this? Once we get past all the smoke screens and sloganeering, it’s easy to see that there is no such thing as marriage equality.Marriage is an institution endowed by nature. It is not a creation of the state. The state merely recognizes marriage as the union of one man and one woman because it has an interest in the well-being of children.In this sense, marriage is not a religious institution. Marriage is a pre-political union that acts as a societal building block. As the philosopher Aristotle noted some 2300 years ago, when a man and a woman come together they form the first government: the family.When the state recognizes this complimentary union, it strengthens society. When the state tampers with this union, like it did when it introduced no-fault divorce laws in the 1960s and 70s, the state weakens society. Ultimately, children end up getting hurt.State recognition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman encourages responsible fatherhood. When a child is born, chances are its mother is going to be close by. Whether or not that child’s father is going to be around is unknown. By supporting “marriage equality,” people are indirectly supporting a policy that says it doesn’t matter where that child’s father is.Of course, not all male-female unions can produce children. This is an important point. It leads some to argue that marriage really isn’t about procreation at all. While it may be true that some opposite-sex couples cannot procreate, the reason for their infertility is not the same as same-sex couples. Anatomically speaking, same-sex couples are inherently incapable of bearing children.Their union necessitates the distancing of any children they may rear from one of that child’s biological parents. Opposite-sex couples, on the other hand, cannot procreate due to old age or biological realities. This is not a one-to-one comparison.Again, marriage is primarily about children. If marriage was not about children, there would be no reason for the government to regulate it.Even if you believe same-sex couples should be able to participate in the institution of marriage, what rational basis is there, as liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has argued, to discriminate against polygamous or incestuous couples by limiting marriage to two unrelated people? Sure, the state may create an institution that imitates marriage, and whatever that institution ends up being called might allow some people to be happy for a while, but marriage itself is not something that can be equalized. Let’s stop kidding ourselves
President Obama put politics ahead of people with Gosnell case
May 14, 2013 / 00:00 amFort Hood. Tucson. Aurora. Newtown. Boston.These are just a few of the tragedies that have taken place over the past several years.To his credit, President Obama responded to each of these horrific incidents with great aplomb. For the most part, he put politics aside and assured us everything would be okay and that the resolve of the American people would never be broken.On April 25th, President Obama visited West, Texas to comfort those who lost loved ones in an explosion at a local fertilizer plant.During his speech to the family members of those who died, the president cited Scripture and praised those who rushed to the scene of the blast for their willingness to put themselves in harm’s way.Per usual, the president ended his address by saying, “God bless West.”As reassuring as his speech was, the facade didn’t last long. Just one day later, on April 26th – mere days after Americans were made aware of the actions of Dr. Kermit Gosnell – Barack Obama opted to become the first sitting president to speak at Planned Parenthood’s National Conference in Washington.Unlike his speech 24 hours earlier, the president’s address did not reference Scripture. Instead, the president accused those who oppose abortion as living in the past and being indifferent towards women’s health. “When politicians try to turn Planned Parenthood into a punching bag,” he began, “they’re not just talking about you; they’re talking about the millions of women who you serve.” What they’re really doing, he continued, “is telling many of those women, you’re on your own. They’re talking about shutting those women out at a time when they may need it most – shutting off communities that need more health care options for women, not less.”He concluded the evening by saying, “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”This two-facedness is truly astounding. What the president should have done was not attend Planned Parenthood’s event at all. The presidential thing to do, as Dr. Robert George and Ramesh Ponnuru have argued, would have been to put forth legislation that supports the civil rights of infants so they have protections against people like Dr. Gosnell, who was just found guilty of first-degree murder of three babies and involuntary manslaughter in the death of one of his patients.I hope the Obama White House issues a statement about the Gosnell case, and that they pursue legislation that will stop these atrocities from happening, but I’m not holding my breath. As an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama voted against legislation that would have protect children born alive after botched abortions on a number of occasions.When asked about the Gosnell case several weeks ago, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the president “does not and cannot take a position on an ongoing trial.” That’s a pretty weak dodge. Wasn’t the Trayvon Martin case an ongoing trial? Wasn’t the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates an ongoing trial? Why did the president feel compelled to weigh in on those cases and not the Gosnell case? Will he weigh in on it now that the case has been decided?The president had the chance to put rise above the fray by refusing to speak to Planned Parenthood, but he didn’t. He had the chance to back up his talk in West, Texas about loving our neighbors, but he didn’t. He had the chance to act presidential – like he has in the past following national tragedies – but he didn’t. Instead, he ignored the atrocities of the Gosnell case and berated those who disagree with him on abortion. In other words, he put politics first and people second. It’s a trend we might as well get used to. The 2014 mid-term elections are a long ways away.
Was Jesus a hipster?
May 9, 2013 / 00:00 amIn 2008 everyone was talking about Barack Obama’s history as a community organizer. Those on the political right wrongly assumed all community organizers were Marxist agitators who simply wanted the government to give people “stuff.” Those on the political left, on the other hand, defended Senator Obama’s former profession by linking it to Jesus Christ, proudly proclaiming that “Jesus was a community organizer” and that Barack Obama was simply following in his footsteps. Fast forward a couple years to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Predictably, anti-capitalism activists suggested Jesus’ cleansing of the temple 2,000 years ago was synonymous with their desecration of New York’s Zuccotti Park, and that Jesus would’ve agreed with them in their desire to abolish private property and to establish high marginal tax rates.There are countless others, but these are two of the most obvious instances of when those who work the hardest at keeping religion out of the public square appropriate the message of Jesus Christ to advance their secular political agenda.Why, you might be wondering, do those who tell us they support a morally neutral government when it comes to social issues cloak their efforts in Christian vernacular? There’s a number of reasons, but the clever, aging academics and political consultants who lead these astroturf uprisings realize that most people are still very religious in their private life, and that to be effective when it comes to marketing their anti-Catholic positions, they need to appeal to people’s deepest held beliefs. Typically, this is done by twisting Jesus’ words in order to suggest he would support their causes were he around today.This appropriation of Jesus Christ’s true message tricks the poorly catechized and those who say they are “spiritual but not religious” into viewing Christ as a sort of heroic, modern day liberal who occasionally had some insightful things to say about loving your fellow man and treating others with kindness.Eventually, this causes them to see our Lord and Savior not as the grand figure at the center of Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment” who will decide whether or not they will spend eternity in heaven or hell, but as a regular guy whose teachings should only be invoked when they overlap with a progressive political agenda whose ultimate goal is to eradicate religious expression from the public square all together. That being said, when I heard that the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn put out a new ad campaign suggesting that Jesus was “the original hipster,” I was immediately reminded of the efforts of those young, Bohemian activists who told us Jesus would’ve supported their protestations of Wall Street. I also thought of those who think the “spirit of Vatican II” compels the Catholic Church to change its teachings on women’s ordination. I was also reminded about how President Obama cited Scripture to substantiate his belief that same-sex marriage should be legal and that the Gospel compels us to increase taxes. It might not be fair to suggest that an ad campaign whose ostensible purpose is to gently reach out to disaffected young adults who don’t attend mass is inherently misguided or that it is on the same level as Catholics who preach heresy, but it is fair to say that those who typically portray Christ in as a countercultural rebel are not friendly to the official teachings of the Catholic faith. In that vein, Catholics should tread lightly when it comes to labeling Jesus Christ as anything other than our Lord and Savior. His message of love and salvation is all too often appropriated by those preaching a Gospel inimical to His own.