THE DESTRUCTION OF MARRIAGE PRECEDES THE DEATH OF A CULTURE - NCCG.ORG Ning Network Archive 2008-10

Sociologists and anthropologists who have studied the death of civilizations have found
that rampant sexual immorality, feminism, and homosexuality have been factors
in destroying nations.

by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition
In his 1979 book, Our Dance Has Turned To Death, Christian
sociologist Carl W. Wilson outlined the dangers facing traditional
marriage and the family in America's increasingly sexualized
culture. Wilson could clearly see what was going to happen
to the American family if our society continued to be sex
saturated.
Wilson noted that history reveals that nations decline and eventually
die when sexual immorality becomes rampant and the
traditional family is discarded in favor of group sex, homosexuality,
infidelity, and unrestrained sexual hedonism.
He pointed to the writings of British anthropologist J. D. Unwin,
whose 1934 book, Sex and Culture, chronicled the historical
decline of numerous cultures. Unwin studied 86 different
cultures throughout history and discovered a surprising fact: No
nation that rejected monogamy in marriage and pre-marital sexual
chastity lasted longer than a generation after it embraced
sexual hedonism. Unwin stated it this way, "In human records
there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete
new generation has inherited a tradition which does not
insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence."
Unwin found that nations that valued traditional marriage and
sexual abstinence were creative and flourished. He described
this as "cultural energy" that can only be maintained when sexual
activities remain restricted within marriage.
Sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, in The American Sex Revolution,
found essentially the same thing when he examined sexual immorality
as it relates to cultural decline. Sorokin noted in the
late 60's that America was committing "voluntary suicide"
through unrestrained sexual indulgence. He observed that as
individuals began engaging in pre-marital sex unrelated to marriage,
the birth rate would decline and our nation would be
slowly depopulated. He predicted an increase in divorce, desertion desertion,
and an epidemic of sexual promiscuity resulting in a rise
in illegitimate children. His predictions, unfortunately, have
come true.

Sorokin's study of decadent cultures convinced him that a
healthy society can only survive if strong families exist and sexual activities are restricted to within marriage. Sexual promiscuity
leads inevitably to cultural decline and eventual collapse.
Carl Wilson notes that decadent cultures display seven typical
characteristics: Men reject spiritual and moral development as
the leaders of families; men begin to neglect their families in
search of material gain; men begin to engage in adulterous
relationships or homosexual sex; women begin to devalue the
role of motherhood and homemaker; husbands and wives begin
to compete with each other and families disintegrate; selfish
individualism fragments society into warring factions; and men
and women lose faith in God and reject all authority over their
lives. Soon, moral anarchy reigns. When the family collapses,
the society soon follows.
Marriage Is Dying In Scandinavia
Dr. Stanley Kurtz, a fellow with the Hoover Institution has
written extensively in recent years over the impact that homosexual
marriages will eventually have on our culture. In two
important papers published in The Weekly Standard in late 2003
and early 2004, Kurtz describes how the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States will lead inevitably to the
destruction of marriage altogether. Homosexual marriage will
open the floodgates to other bizarre sexual arrangements including
polygamy and polyamory (groupings of males and females
into a “married” unit).
Writing in The End Of Marriage In Scandinavia, (The Weekly
Standard, 2/2/04), Dr. Kurtz notes, for example, that Sweden
has increasingly separated the idea of marriage from parenthood
and that the prevalence of homosexual partnerships has
only helped accelerate the decline in marriage.
Marriage, due in part to homosexual partnerships, has changed
culture attitudes to view marriage as having little to do with
rearing children.
Kurtz also observes that Sweden is probably the most secular
nation on the earth and that “Swedes themselves link the decline
of marriage to secularism. And many studies confirm that,
throughout the West, religiosity is associated with strong marriage,
while heightened secularism is correlated with a weakening
of marriage.”
In Norway, the de facto legalization of homosexual marriage
has not only weakened the traditional family structure, it has
also caused severe divisions within the Norway’s Lutheran state
church. Says Kurtz: “Gay marriage lessened the church’s authority
by splitting it into warring factions and providing the
secular media with occasions to mock and expose divisions.
Gay marriage also elevated the church’s openly rebellious minority
liberal faction to national visibility, allowing Norwegians
to feel that their proclivity for unmarried parenthood, if not
fully approved by the church, was at least not strongly condemned.”
In Norway, the normalization of gay marriage has
helped normalize unmarried cohabitation and caused church
divisions.
Kurtz observes: “Once in place, gay marriage symbolically ratified
the separation of marriage and parenthood. And, once established,
gay marriage became one of several factors contributing
to further increases in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock
birthrates, as well as to early divorce.”
Homosexual Marriage Will Lead To Social Chaos
Dr. Kurtz’ essay, “Beyond Gay Marriage,” (The Weekly Standard,
8/4/2003) describes the likelihood that same-sex marriage
will lead us into social chaos by also legalizing polygamy and
polyamory (group sex as a “family”).
According to Kurtz, “Marriage will be transformed into a variety
of relationship contracts, linking two, three, or more individuals
(however weakly and temporarily) in every conceivable
combination of male and female.”
In a related article published in National Review, (6/31/2003)
Dr. Kurtz quotes homosexual activist Paula Ettelbrick who says
that homosexual marriages must, of necessity, include a third
person (a sperm father or female egg donor) as part of a marriage
triad.
She writes: “… the family structures of lesbians and gay men
who have children simply do not fit into the marital structure
erected to envelope heterosexual, married couples with their
children … every lesbian couple with a biological child has anautomatic third person—the donor/father—who factors into the
family. … Significant changes to the legal rules of parenting
would have to be made to accommodate these families.”
Not only would polygamous homosexual relationships be legalized,
but transgender marriages. Transgender is an umbrella
term used by homosexual activists to describe heterosexual
cross-dressers, homosexual drag queens, and transsexuals
(individuals undergoing sex change operations). Some only go
through half of a sex-change operation and live as “she-males.”
In early 2004, two male-to-female transgendered individuals
tried to get married in Kansas but were denied a marriage license.
They have threatened to sue the state to be allowed to
marry each other.
The legalization of homosexual marriage will lead to a litigation
nightmare in our nation over custody of children;
legalized polyamory and transgender marriages.
The legalization of homosexual marriage will also threaten the
religious freedom of Christian businessmen and subject children
in our public
schools to even
more aggressive
recruitment efforts.
In addition, homosexuals
will push
for passage of hate
crime laws to
criminalize any
verbal or written
opposition to their
goals.
Religious freedom
could die once homosexual
marriage
is legalized and Christians could be jailed for simply criticizing
homosexual behavior.
If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat the
mistakes of the past. And, once the moral decline begins, it will
be very difficult to turn things around.
William Bennett, in The Broken Hearth says it well: "My concern
is that we are now embarked upon an experiment that violates
a universal social law: In attempting to raise children without
two parents, we are seeing, on a massive scale, the voluntary
breakup of the minimal family unit. This is historically
unprecedented, an authentic cultural revolution-and, I believe,
socially calamitous. We may be under the illusion that we can
cheerfully deconstruct marriage and then one day decide to pull
back from the brink. But as a friend of mine puts it, once you
shoot out the lights, can you shoot them back on again? As the
long record of human experimentation attests, civilizations,
even great civilizations, are more fragile and perishable than we
think."
Our culture must strengthen traditional marriage, promote abstinence
before marriage, and reject any attempts to undermine
the natural law by redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.
The future of our civilization is at stake! This is a battle
we cannot afford to lose.

“… the family structures of lesbians
and gay men who have children
simply do not fit into the marital
structure erected to envelope heterosexual,
married couples with
their children … every lesbian couple
with a biological child has an
automatic third person—the donor/
father—who factors into the
family. … Significant changes to
the legal rules of parenting would
have to be made to accommodate
these families.” — Paula Ettelbrick

“In human records there is no instance
of a society retaining its energy
after a complete new generation
has inherited a tradition which does
not insist on prenuptial and postnuptial
continence.” — Dr. J.D. Unwin

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/pdf_files/deathofmarriage.pdf

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