This post is related to my last one on the normalization of homosexual practices, on consequences other than those that are obvious to opponents, and on motivations other than those declared by the movement’s proponents.

Yesterday, New York legalized same-sex marriage, calling it “marriage equality.” The bill had been debated publicly and privately for some time; the sticking point was apparently a conservative worry that religious freedom would not be protected from anti-discrimination lawsuits. According to the news this morning, religious leaders were assured of such protection and the bill was passed.

(Well, first of all—yeah, right. Religious freedom will be protected like the freedom of the Catholic social services agency when they were recently forced to shut down for refusing to place adoptive children with homosexual couples, like the freedom of Catholic schools for teaching Catholic values, and a zillion other little unnoticed things, like Catholic hospitals…)

But, apart from all that, it takes little imagination to see a future in which a priest will be forced to marry homosexual couples in order to avoid a lawsuit, possibly even an arrest, for breaking anti-discrimination laws.

Because that’s the way it is.

Back to the motives of the proponents. It isn’t “rights” they’re after. As I mentioned in the first post, it’s normalization, the demand to have homosexual practice accepted as “normal” by those who don’t practice it. They didn’t need any kind of “marriage law” to afford or to protect “rights.” The rights afforded to married couples have always been theirs by way of civil contract. They have never been denied by law merely on the basis of gender. (I can leave my estate to my cat, if I want to. I can assign medical power of attorney to anyone I choose. I can name my parakeet as the beneficiary of my life insurance. Etc.) Legal rights never had anything to do with it. The motive has always been to force social acceptance of their sexual practice.

Modern nomenclature is fascinating for its inversion. Pro-“choice”, for example, is actually anti-child. Marriage “equality” is marriage destruction, and this law’s purpose is to deny freedom, not to gain it. What presents to the world a face of “love” conceals hate. And the more complex something appears, the more likely it is to be frighteningly simple….

I wish that traditionalists (those commonly labeled “conservative”) would examine the meaning of “conservative.” According to anti-conservatives, it signifies resistance to change in order to maintain a status of privilege and to deny the rights of others. I doubt that’s what it means to conservatives. To them, it means conserving those things that are worthwhile (like the lives of children), those things that are sacred (like the sacrament of marriage) those things they believe are important to civilization…

What it really means, however, is defense. Proposition 8 in California will be overturned. The passage of this New York law succeeded only after several earlier attempts, but its eventual success was completely predictable. And yes, religious freedom will be denied. Because the forces behind the movement are offense. And the only weapon necessary for the victory of any offensive is perseverance. Defense is, by definition, under siege. As long as it remains defensive, its eventual capitulation is assured.

The only hope any defense ever had is to transform itself into offense. Conservatives should recognize this and stop defending. How? Well, one suggestion in the instance of marriage “equality” might have been to insist that marriage—any marriage—is a strictly religious rite, and therefore out of bounds for any kind of government endorsement. Contractual rights are the business of law and government, not wedding ceremonies. True, that would mean that a clergyman can no longer be the instrument of the assignment of spousal rights via performing a wedding ceremony, but so what? The couple signs a contract with a lawyer; they have a wedding ceremony (that has no binding legal authority) performed by a clergyman—if they choose. As legality is the province of law; religious rites are the province of religions. Constitutional separation of church and state is violated by government assignment of any legal authority to a clergyman.

But that sort of action would be to take an offensive position, and conservatives will only continue to defend until defeated. Tolkien got this better than anybody when he defined “history” as “the long defeat.” Offense is not found among Christian virtues, only among anti-Christians, and perhaps that’s not only the way it is, but the way it should be.