Endangering Our Children

From the September-October 2012 issue of Forerunner.

As the American mainstream continues to become more politically liberal, as recent election results indicate, long-held conservative beliefs seem to be facing increased marginalization. For instance, as minorities in the United States inch toward majority status, the conservative position on immigration—no amnesty, tightened border security, tougher punishment for illegal entry, limited welfare to illegals, etc.—is labeled "extreme right-wing," "unbalanced," and "unworkable." In the same way, fiscally conservative economic ideas are considered to be "harsh" and "partisan."

A particular area in which liberals feel especially empowered lately is homosexual rights, particularly on the subject of "gay marriage," a misnomer if there ever was one. Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage, while Rhode Island recognizes such "marriages" performed in other states and California recognizes them on a conditional basis. While this is hardly a majority (39 states prohibit it either constitutionally or by statute), gays are crowing and even telling conservatives to shut up and go away on the issue. As one activist put it, echoing the President's words after his 2008 election victory, "We've won."

However, objective research and empirical evidence still tilt heavily in the traditional, conservative direction. Yet, even in the face of the facts, gay and lesbian activists and their cohorts in the media feel the winds of public opinion to be so strongly on their side that they will attempt to intimidate and destroy any scientist or researcher who dares to show that the "gay" lifestyle is detrimental in any way. Lately, they have done this despite research showing that children raised in "gay households" suffer from that environment.

For instance, in July 2010, Dr. Walter Schumm, a Family Studies professor at Kansas State University, released his comprehensive study in the Journal of Biosocial Science on the effects of "gay parenting." He found that children raised by gay parents are up to twelve times more like to identify themselves as gay—58% of children of lesbians and 33% of children raised by gay men call themselves gay. Yet, only three percent of the general population is gay.

Dr. Schumm quickly felt the wrath of the homosexual lobby. He was labeled a fake and a fraud—and perhaps most biting of all politically, a "conservative plant." Though his work cannot be assailed, the personal derision sent a message to researchers that telling the truth about the many downsides of homosexuality is likely to get them publicly lampooned and pilloried.

Fortunately, fear of public ridicule has not stopped some. This past June, Social Science Research published the study of a team led by Dr. Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas-Austin. The website on their work summarizes the findings: ". . . the data suggest rather clearly that children who were raised by a parent who had a same-sex relationship were on average at a significant disadvantage when compared to children who were raised by their married, biological mother and father."

On this research, Karla Dial at CitizenLink.com writes:

According to his findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana. ("University Vindicates Mark Regnerus")

Homosexual activists and academics cried foul, calling Regnerus "homophobic" and demanding the university fire him. They lied in the media, saying that his findings were false, but could provide no proof against them. After a rigorous investigation, the university found that Regnerus' research had been conducted properly and without any kind of scientific misconduct.

Centuries—millennia actually—of experience and wisdom show that the best environment to raise children is in the home of their biological parents, each having a father and a mother. It is the family unit that God endorses. Anyone who cares about humanity, and particularly, humanity's children, should want the best for them, but not the militant homosexual lobby and their supporters. In their lust for control over what society accepts as good and moral, they are willing to condemn children to substandard lives or worse. This tells the observant that they will let nothing get in their way.

In this little slice of modern society, we see Paul's prediction of the perilous times of the last days coming to pass (II Timothy 3:1-5). If they are willing to jettison the next generation of children to enhance their political power, what else are they willing to do?

"Potential Persons" and "After-birth Abortions"

The latest abomination to come down the medical-ethics pike is the February 23, 2012, publication of “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” in the Journal of Medical Ethics. This article is written by two ethicists, Alberto Guibilini and Francesca Minerva, both of whom are now working in Melbourne, Australia—he, at Monash University, and she, at the University of Melbourne. Both have ties to Oxford University in Great Britain.

The abstract of their article runs as follows:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Yes, they actually wrote that in a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. These two ethicists—who do not deserve the title—advocate infanticide on the same level that abortion is “largely accepted.” They generally conclude that the same arguments that can be marshaled in support of killing a fetus in the womb can be applied just as well to killing a child who has recently left the womb. Without apology, they argue that since, in their way of thinking, fetuses and newborns are only “potential people” and not actual ones, “the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being” override any rights the fetuses and newborns allegedly have.

They go on to say that adoption is not a valid alternative to infanticide because “the interests of the actual people involved matter.” Thus, for example, since the birthmother may suffer “serious psychological problems due to the inability to elaborate [her] loss and to cope with [her] grief” in giving her baby up, her interest trumps the newborn’s right to life. Does that make any sense at all? To them, it does because they do not believe that the newborn is a person capable of having interests. In their minds, the newborn is sub-human, to borrow a term from eugenics, for in calling them “potential persons,” they are assigning them not-quite-human status.

We might think that their logic is horribly convoluted, but it is actually quite “sound” in the sense that they are not guilty of employing any readily apparent logical tricks. They are simply following accepted definitions and practices to their “logical” conclusions. What is wrong—indeed, terribly evil—are the foundation and suppositions of their philosophy. Since the original beliefs and assumptions are false, all of their subsequent conclusions take them further from the truth, though they may be ably reasoned using the accepted rules of argument.

As Jesus Christ admonishes us in Matthew 7:24-27—His parable of building on the rock—our beliefs must be solidly built on a true and immovable foundation. The thinking of Guibilini and Minerva is akin to the “foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Matthew 7:26-27). In this case, the house is liberal Western society, and under beliefs like “after-birth abortion,” it will come crashing down in utter ruin.

A reading of the article brings out that the authors ignore the foundational question of the sanctity of life. They make no argument regarding the salient question, “When does life begin?” It is apparent that they have already resolved and accepted the position that embryos, fetuses, and newborns do not have a right to continued life unless “actual persons” grant it to them. “God is in none of [their] thoughts” (Psalm 10:4). Having rejected God’s very existence, and thus His revealed instructions for abundant living, they have set themselves—human beings—up as the highest authority, arbiters of life and death. With such power, they can decide by their own values and reasoning processes how and when any biological entity becomes a person deserving of a future existence.

What a brave new world men and women have created for themselves in their desire to live without God!

The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13), covers this transgression quite adequately once we accept that the newborn child is certainly a living human being—and has been for many months. While the Bible contains no direct statement that life begins at conception, many passages show that God is involved in people’s lives before they are born (see Psalm 139:13-16; 51:5; Isaiah 49:5; Jeremiah 1:4-5) and that the fetus is aware and responsive to God (Luke 1:41, 44). God even commands life for life if a fetus is miscarried after a fight (Exodus 21:22-24). The weight of biblical evidence falls on the side of life and full humanity for fetuses and newborns.

Actually, this brave new world of abortion and infanticide on demand is simply the modern equivalent of ancient pagan practices like the abhorrent idolatry of the Canaanites in Old Testament times. Pagans would sacrifice their children to their gods to “ensure” that the living would have better lives. They would make a child “pass through the fire to Molech” (an act obviously forbidden by God; Leviticus 18:21) to supplicate the god to give them fertile fields, victory in battle, or some other blessing. Ironically, these ancient people held the life of a child as more dear than today’s uber-selfish individuals do, as the latter most often abort babies merely for their own convenience.

Concerning this horrible sin, God says of the people of Judah in Jeremiah 32:35, “And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” As punishment, Jerusalem was “delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence” (Jeremiah 32:36). When such practices become commonplace, the society is ripe for destruction, as God intimates in Genesis 15:16 and Leviticus 18:24-29; 20:22-23.

There is nothing ethical about “potential persons” and “after-birth abortion.” They are the products of the twisted thinking of human beings tuned in to the broadcasts of a hateful Satan the Devil (Ephesians 2:2-3). He wants to destroy human life. Hundreds of millions of abortions are not enough to sate his appetite, so he has deceived people into taking the next step toward annihilation, infanticide. Could there be any better reason to increase our prayers to God to send His Son soon?

Storm of the Century

Over the past two days, more than fifteen inches of snow fell on south Charlotte where I live, encasing everything in a thick, crystalline blanket. My house, topped with more than a foot of white stuff, looks like some mad, Southern imitation of a Courier and Ives picture, even to the wisps of smoke escaping from the chimney. Sadly, the old, grey car parked in my driveway in no way resembles the ubiquitous sleigh in those wintry illustrations.

Statistically, this weather system produced the storm of the century for the region. The Charlotte area—which averages about one snowstorm a year, and that of only a few inches—had not received this much snow at once since 1902. In this metropolitan area of more than a million people, a frozen deluge like this one brings everything to a slippery halt, since the city owns only two-dozen trucks that can be used for salting and plowing the roads. According to the city fathers (and mothers), its money is better spent on building an arena for billionaire Robert "Bobcat" Johnson and implementing an unnecessary light-rail system. No amount of money is too much to spend to make Charlotte a "World-Class City"! Meanwhile, they warn that our dire financial circumstances warrant future tax increases.

Children love days like this. For starters, they are out of school, even my home-schooled kids. There is no sense making them slog away at the books when all their neighborhood friends are out sledding (down my driveway, of course), throwing snowballs at each other (from behind their newly constructed "forts"), eating snow (either inadvertently from a snowball in the face or deliberately), carving snow angels (and—mothers love this—getting soaking wet in the process), and building snow men (and women). On days like these, our clothes dryer gets a good workout, as each kid comes in at least twice to disrobe, go to the bathroom, grab a snack, and don a new set of warm clothes for the next go-round. In the meantime, Mom loads the dryer to be prepared for their inevitable return to repeat the process.

Dogs enjoy days like this too—at least my dog, Sydney, does. She is a black Labrador Retriever-Border Collie mix, but her genes seem heavy on the Lab part. In the snow, stark black against the glistening white, she is in her element (Labrador Retrievers were developed in Newfoundland). Even though the snow had piled higher than her back, she was game, bounding over the drifts as a dolphin hurdles the waves. She ate the snow just as much as the boys did, and then she was back to racing among them and trying her best to involve herself in their games.

Around here, though, the fun of a snowstorm is over all too quickly. The temperatures rarely remain cold enough for the snow to linger very long. Two days, maybe three, and the snow has melted, making the ground sodden and in some places muddy. The pristine glitter and excitement of freshly fallen snow give way to a big, wet mess.

Certainly, the city cannot remain under the spell of a rare snowfall for more than a day or so. Parents have to get back to the old grind, businesses need to make their profits, and government must return to spending its citizens' money profligately. The supermarkets need to restock their bread and milk, and the hardware stores must reorder batteries, snow shovels, and space heaters. And the snowplow drivers, electrical linemen, and emergency workers need a little time off—not to mention the intrepid meteorologists.

I have learned one lesson from this massive, once-in-a-century storm: As technologically advanced as we are, as much as we claim to have conquered nature, it is an empty boast. The forces involved in something this huge are far beyond mankind's ability to influence, much less control. This storm should give even the environmentalists pause in their wrong-headed push to convince us that man has caused global warming.

It reminds me of what God said to Job to cut him down to size: "Have you entered the treasury of snow, or have you seen the treasury of hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?" (Job 38:22-23). Or, what David said to God, "What is man that You are mindful of him? And the son of man that You visit him?" (Psalm 8:4). We are so puny, and if it takes the storm of the century to make this point, then it is a good thing. Fun too.