Personal Freedom Trumps Well-Being Now… Get Used To It.
June 19, 2007 · By Shane Edwards
My friend, Mark faithfully points out that what was only a scant two years ago clearly unthinkable, is now steadily nearing reality in Canadian law. (Hat tip to Canadian Blue Lemons.) Polygamy is on its way, the door flung open by the gay marriage debates, no matter how hard gay marriage supporters argue otherwise.
At some point, back in antiquity, these laws were passed for a reason. That reason was the belief that it is wrong and discriminatory to allow a man to have more than one wife, and a woman to have more than one husband. It was commonly known that it affected women and children negatively to be in that situation. This was once a point faithfully argued and fought for by the feminists of the day – feminists who are deafeningly silent on the issue today.
This is still known. What has changed is the belief that personal freedom trumps all other considerations. Now, even though we know something to be hurtful and to have victims, we are supposed to just let them do what they want. We do this despite the pain they cause themselves. We do this because they are already so hurt that they believe that their pain is right. It matters not if they are scarred emotionally, psychologically, physically, or if they were born with a disorder of mind or hormone that causes them to desire that which hurts.
We are told that it is “their choice” to hurt themselves, or put themselves in positions to be hurt or taken advantage of. “Who are we to judge?” is the clarion call of our nonintrusive, nonjudgemental society. It can’t help but remind me of what seems to me to be the origin of this whole mess – those crazy teenagers in love, back in the 50s, whose square parents “just didn’t understand” that the teens were truly in love, and that was all that mattered. It mattered not that the parents could see that both of them would struggle financially being unprepared to support each other. It did not matter that they hadn’t finished high school and were not prepared to get good jobs. It did not matter that while their bodies may have matured, their minds would take another few years to mature into responsible, thoughtful, wise contributors to society. It did not matter that their choice to marry (or in the 60s and 70s, simply have sex) may result in children who would pay an emotional price for the instability of their home or the transience of their “parents”. It did not matter that their parents had every reason to believe that they would fail and hurt each other, or their offspring, or both. No, it was the teens’ own feelings that trumped all concerns.
This disconnect from the lessons of the past it seems to me began then. It continued with endorsement of abortion (which we know has significant physical and psychological effects on women, to say nothing of the dead children). It continued with homosexual behaviour (which we know to have physical effects on men and women, as well as arguably psychological effects, to say nothing of the dangerous and unhealthy “trends” in the homosexual community), and now in most recent days it plays out in debates over group marriage, and even pedophilia (denying that what they do harms children), bestiality (denying what they do harms animals or themselves), euthanasia, and suicide.
We are now in a place where we are being told to not care for our fellow human beings. To care would be to judge. To care would be to view another’s choices in terms of their well-being. To care would be to intervene to preserve another’s innocence, another’s health, another’s emotional wholeness, another’s life.
But we are told that this care is in fact unloving. That to cheer them on in their own descent into personal sickness and death is the right thing to do – to support their “choice”. To celebrate their “diversity”. To accept and live peaceably with cultures that practice what would be in any other way abhorrent… but because they are “cultural” or “religious” in nature, they are then considered values-neutral and example of our utopia of tolerance and multiculturalism.
Oh… the world is a backwards place now. Love is hate. Concern is bigotry. Help is fascism.
Great piece, Shane
And thanks for the hat tip
Very interesting perspective, Shane. Since you filed it under “religion and ethics” I would offer that the increasing exaltation of personal choice above “all other considerations” is a direct result of moral relativism, which is a mainstay in our post-Christian, secular, oft-humanist culture. The moment one subscribes to the notion that there is no objective standard of right and wrong, who then might tell someone that their choice isn’t right?
In Ontario the courts have recently ruled that restricting the number of legal parents a child can have to only two is somehow discriminatory to homosexuals.
So now, kids can legally have more than two parents.
People are considered to be common-law spouses under common-law if the legal parents of a child live together…
This means that we are one step away from officially recognizing polygamous relationships as common-law spouses in Ontario.
Remember, giving gay couples common-law status led to legalized gay marriage less than 5 years later.
I just posted a follow up piece of sorts:
Humanism: The Musical
The last time I checked, the Bible was full of prophets with multiple wives. And if it is in the Bible, then it must be right. *snicker*
Because everyone in the Bible was right and good and perfect, and all of Judeo=Christianity is about emulating precisely the habits of every single Bible character… all at once… in every waking moment. Clearly your studies have served you well.
*snicker*
Like that has anything to do with what I wrote.
Smarter –
See here for a decent answer, if you’re really THAT interested.
Jesus, you guys take yourselves way to seriously.
Huh? You chastise Aaron for his obviously NOT serious post on the Conservative party ads on a NASCAR, and now you’re complaining that some posters/commentators take themselves too seriously?
Which is it Ezra?
[...] wrote a piece about how people today demand rights to self-abuse so much that in our time it is becoming wrong to care for people – to care for them is equated with [...]
“Which is it Ezra?”
Both, just like everyone else here in the blog sphere.
You don’t seriously expect consistency do you Greg?
Jesus doesn’t even expect consistency – that is why there are so many contradictions in the Bible.
Ha!
Ok – I won’t be so hard on you…
Caring for your fellow human beings, and forcing your personal beliefs or morality upon them is something completely different.
We all make decisions in life, and it is our right to do so.
So Stage, it’s okay for the humanists to force their beliefs on us??
What is being forced upon you? You are under no compulsion to believe what anyone wants, or tells, you to believe are you?
Read the link to a piece I posted this morning and let’s chat. I’d like that.
I’ve read your post, you’ve misrepresent Humanism, and again I ask under what compulsion are you being forced to believe anything?
… more in the comments section of your blog.
Stage – then represent it in a way that you feel is correct.
I took my definition off a humanist website.
What’s your source?
Stage – I’ve read your posts for a while – you’re smart and literate. Defend humanism or attack my comments.
Appreciate – I have facts on my side, though.
Anyone notice that last year in Canada of some hundred of SSM in Canada, only five or something were by Canadians??
Too lazy to track down the source.
Meanwhile, the SCOC is most likely to allow children to marry pets.
It is all over the MSM. The number of Canadian Gay marriages registered in the last year is one.
That’s right, one.
The rest have been foreigners coming to Canada to get hitched then use their marriage license to launch a court challenge in their own country to force acceptance of gay marriage in their homeland.
“Too lazy to track down the source.”
Actually Lemon, Statistics Canada has only released figures on same sex marriage for 2003, (http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/En.....70117a.htm) so whatever “source” you are too lazy to look up isn’t by any means official, nor would I think very accurate.
In fact, the statistic they use for BC is just under just under 45% are Canadian couples, due to the influx of international same sex couples who wanted to be married in Canada. If this stat can be used as a proxy for same sex marriages being performed in other provinces post 2003, then you can start doing some quick math to see that the claims in this post are most likely false.
Here are some unofficial statistics from wikipedia:
Incidence of same-sex marriage
From June 2003 (date of the first legal same-sex marriages in Ontario) to October 2006, there were 12,438 same-sex marriages contracted in Canada, according to a study by Canadians for Equal Marriage.
Province Date of legalization Number of same-sex marriages
Ontario June 10, 2003 6,524
British Columbia July 8, 2003 3,927
Quebec March 19, 2004 947
Alberta July 20, 2005 409
Nova Scotia September 24, 2004 273
Manitoba September 16, 2004 193
Saskatchewan November 5, 2004 83
New Brunswick June 23, 2005 15
Newfoundland and Labrador December 21, 2004 14
Yukon July 14, 2004 13
Prince Edward Island July 20, 2005 8
Northwest Territories July 20, 2005 2
Nunavut July 20, 2005 1
So, being generous, if only 40% of same sex marriages in Ontario are Canadian, then since 2003, then that is approximately 2600.
Uh huh, just what I thought, that shut you up.
Bro, read my posts on this topic. I don’t have a problem with it. I came up with a number that I read somewhere – was either low or high. Don’t spend much time agonizing about SSM. Am interested in the politics.
All the gay guys I know (quite a few – I’m almost 50) don’t give an eff about it. They don’t need official sanctification for their mutual love.
Hey! S.t.E. the newlywed is back, I will assume that your nuptial’s went off without a hitch and a lovely time was had by one and all, was cake served?
Who the hell cares if one ssm in the whole country happened? How is that different than if 100000 did?
[...] matured, their minds would take another few years to mature into responsible, thoughtful source: Personal Freedom Trumps Well Being Now Get U…, ThePolitic.com» Conservative group weblog that [...]
[...] wrote a piece about how people today demand rights to self-abuse so much that in our time it is becoming wrong to care for people – to care for them is equated with [...]