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Well.. this post is in response to an email train started by Lou regarding the possibility of Harvey Milk Day in California, as proposed in AB 2567.

I’m responding in absolute sincerity and love. I want to know the truth and promulgate it as much as possible and I cherish such interactions as this one. Marcia, I disagree with the substance of your last email and I want to say why. This post got a little long, I wish it could be shorter. I decided to post it on this blog so that those who really wanted to read it would and those who didn’t care to read it would have a less cluttered inbox. Thanks for your patience.

For those who haven’t been in this from the beginning: Lou suggested that we call in and tell the gov-e-nah to vote no on California’s AB 2567. Marcia then suggested the following:

******
Hi Lou,
I lived in San Francisco when Harvey Milk was a city council person.  He was a colorful and wonderful guy that straight and gay people embraced.  He was courageous in a time when to be gay meant you had to hide your true self.  When he and George Moscone were murdered by nutcase Dan White (who claimed the “twinkie defense”,) we were very sad and shocked.

I don’t know what Arnold is going to do, but it’ll be interesting.  Judging from the language one hears on any elementary, middle, or high school campus, California kids are aware of gay people.  Perhaps learning about tolerance and civil rights from another perspective will be healthy. I remember when ultra-conservative groups tried to prevent Martin Luther King Day from happening.
With warmest regards,
Marcia
**

My response to Marcia follows:
To clarify the substance of this discussion, AB 2567 would make a day to honor Harvey Milk, a promoter of homosexual issues. On this day children would be taught about Harvey and/or homosexuality.

God bless California for being such a strong advocate of home school, charter school and other alternatives to the travesty that is public education.

There a couple reasons why it is at least reasonable to consider the possibility of Harvey Milk day.

First: homosexuals have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (LLP). They are not committing felonious acts. Like adultery, sodomy has been legalized. So if they aren’t felons and they aren’t aliens, then they are citizens and that gives them every right that every other citizen has.

Second: Harvey Milk was instrumental in helping ensure a better way for homosexuals to pursue LLP after coming out. For example, he helped defeat the Briggs Initiative which would have banned LGBTs (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite) from teaching. It was reasonable for him to do so since homosexuals are granted the same rights as all citizens.

No Day of Recognition for Harvey Milk

However, Harvey Milk doesn’t deserve a day of recognition, and this bill, AB 2567, should be vetoed. (Even if you believe that homosexuality is good, the following arguments still hold a great deal of water.) There are several reasons for this: assassination or murder is not a sufficient reason to honor someone, I question the virtuosity of Mr. Milk, and there are long term ramifications to glorifying homosexuality such as the confusion of children and the undermined family that would lead to further problems.

I want to make it clear that I don’t hate people who are gay-I have had great times with gay friends.

Assassination

Assassination or murder alone does not qualify anyone for a special day. No one honors the Archduke Ferdinand yet his was a most notorious assassination. John F. Kennedy doesn’t get a special day either. There must be more to honorific days than assassination. How virtuous was Mr. Milk?

Milk’s Work and the Virtue of Homosexuality

What Harvey Milk had done and what has been done since in the name of gay rights is not exceedingly virtuous, and in some cases it is downright unjust. The comparison has often been made between the civil rights movement for black people and the efforts made for LGBTs. The comparison is not valid in at least two respects.

First, blacks were liberated from a situation where life was made a daily hardship, and death was more commonly a part of life, by virtue of skin color alone. But skin color was only the signpost. Whites didn’t discriminate against skin color, they discriminated against black people - their mind, culture, habits and other ways. If significant discrimination occurs today it is most often against homosexual acts and other sexually aberrant acts, and not against the homosexual (recall the sing-song saying: hate the sin, love the sinner). Sexual behavior, in contrast to skin color, is controllable. Regardless of what is thought about being “true to your self”, LGBTs never were forced into behaving as such. They could make it and live the dream without harassment. I won’t comment on the genetic versus behavioral causes of homosexuality-I only say that it is reasonably possible to not behave as a homosexual even if one has desires. Furthermore, I’m not being gruffly indifferent here: Jesus calls people to deny themselves constantly and I’m sure everyone reading this post knows exactly how painful that is. Second, what homosexuals are fighting for isn’t equal rights. It is other rights. They want to be in a class by themselves. Witness, among several issues, hate crime law. If someone kills me they are prosecuted as a common murderer. If someone kills my gay friend they can be prosecuted as a hate crime murderer. Now, all murder is hate as anyone who has been to Sunday School knows. Why make the effort to point out a special kind of hate, and why start punishing based on motive, but only for certain kinds of victims?

Second, honoring a homosexual man for his sexuo-political agenda will confuse children and encourage moral acceptance of homosexuality. Kids are sometimes told on the one hand that homosexuality is wrong and on the other hand that it is good to promote homosexuality. Children are very smart but I do not expect them to understand and discern betwixt the finer points of human sexuality and political motivations as such. Kids are already and will become more confused about the nature of the family and marriage. Already I have heard of kids asking whether you’ve got one mom or two, etc. The quickest way to tear a person (and country) apart is to remove family from her life at as early an age as possible. I won’t argue the virtues of one man and one woman as being the kernel of family but I assume for the sake of this post that such a family is the only sustainable one. I have a close friend whose mom came out, divorced his dad and moved in with her lesbian lover. He was devastated, and is strong today only by being saved into the kingdom and normal everyday function pretty much by Jesus’s grace.

Tolerance, or, ACCEPTANCE?

Finally, a word on the notion of tolerance. Tolerance is a beautiful virtue that has helped build the western world into what it is today. However there is and has been for the last forty years something masquerading as tolerance that is not. I would call it religio-secular bigotry and the gay version goes like this: “You must accept homosexuality as a good thing. If you do not you are a small-minded bigot and action will be taken against you sooner or later.” Recently the Boston Archdiocese’s Catholic Charities stopped providing adoption services because the state insisted that they provide adoptions for homosexual people.

Under religio-secular tolerance behavior must not only be tolerated, it must be accepted. Herein lies the biggest rub. For something to be acceptable it must be seen as being good or right. Any judgement resulting in the object being deemed wrong and people say “you are judging me.”

Why is this bigotry secular? Because it takes it’s values from secular humanism. One credo of secular humanism is that it is okay to do anything you want as long as you don’t hurt anybody else. Another is “do what feels good.” Anyone that pronounces negative judgement on your personal pleasures is evil.

The Humanist Manifesto I should clarify this:
“Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist’s social passion.”

This claim has been modified over the years but it is essentially propagated by broad swaths of culture today.

The Humanist Manisto II is even more to the point:
“In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered “evil.” Without countenancing mindless permissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire…… no group has a monopoly of wisdom or virtue.” [Except of course, the humanists who wrote this.]

Why is this bigotry religious? Because it’s doctrine appeals to religious values of respecting and loving your neighbor and even enemy. Try as they might, secular humanists haven’t made many direct conversions yet and most people in this country are still religious, so this is the humanist’s in. This is largely how humanist ideals are justified for the religious crowd.

Make the Call?

If you made it this far, thanks for hanging in. Homosexuality doesn’t deserve a boost and hope you will tell Arnold. I don’t really know how much weight this holds, but it can’t hurt:

The number to call is : 1 916-445-2841, call it after hours as it almost always is busy during the day.
Press 1 for English
Press 2 “To voice your opinion” on AB2567.
Press 1 for AB2567
Press 2 for NO on AB2567

Also, you can donate to the cause here.

Sincerely,
Brandon