Americans need
to understand that the endgame of the LGBT rights movement involves centralized
state power—and the end of First Amendment freedoms.
I am one of six
adult children of gay parents who recently filed amicus briefs with the US
Supreme Court, asking the Court to respect the authority of citizens to keep
the original definition of marriage: a union between one man and one woman to
the exclusion of all others, so that children may know and may be raised by
their biological parents. I also live in Canada, where same-sex marriage was federally
mandated in 2005.
I am the daughter of a gay father who
died of AIDS. I described my experiences in my book: Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting. Over fifty adult children who were
raised by LGBT parents have communicated with me and share my concerns about
same-sex marriage and parenting. Many of us struggle with our own sexuality and
sense of gender because of the influences in our household environments growing
up.
We have great compassion for people who
struggle with their sexuality and gender identity—not animosity. And we love
our parents. Yet, when we go public with our stories, we often face ostracism,
silencing, and threats.
I want to warn America to expect severe
erosion of First Amendment freedoms if the US Supreme Court mandates same-sex
marriage. The consequences have played out in Canada for ten years now, and
they are truly Orwellian in nature and scope.
Canada’s
Lessons
In Canada, freedoms of speech, press,
religion, and association have suffered greatly due to government pressure. The
debate over same-sex marriage that is taking place in the United States could
not legally exist in Canada today. Because of legal restrictions on speech, if
you say or write anything considered “homophobic” (including, by definition,
anything questioning same-sex marriage), you could face discipline, termination
of employment, or prosecution by the government.
Why do police prosecute speech under
the guise of eliminating “hate speech” when there are existing legal remedies
and criminal protections against slander, defamation, threats, and assault that
equally apply to all Americans? Hate-crime-like policies using the terms
“sexual orientation” and “gender identity” create unequal protections in law,
whereby protected groups receive more legal protection than other groups.
Having witnessed how mob hysteria in
Indiana caused the legislature to back-track on a Religious Freedom Restoration
Act, many Americans are beginning to understand that some activists on the Left
want to usher in state control over every institution and freedom. In this
scheme, personal autonomy and freedom of expression become nothing more than
pipe dreams, and children become commodified.
Children are not commodities that can
be justifiably severed from their natural parentage and traded between
unrelated adults. Children in same-sex households will often deny their grief
and pretend they don’t miss a biological parent, feeling pressured to speak
positively due to the politics surrounding LGBT households. However, when
children lose either of their biological parents because of death, divorce,
adoption, or artificial reproductive technology, they experience a painful
void. It is the same for us when our gay parent brings his or her same-sex
partner(s) into our lives. Their partner(s) can never replace our missing biological
parent.
The State as
Ultimate Arbiter of Parenthood
Over and over, we are told that
“permitting same-sex couples access to the designation of marriage will not
deprive anyone of any rights.” That is a lie.
When same-sex marriage was legalized in
Canada in 2005, parenting was immediately redefined. Canada’s gay marriage law, Bill C-38, included a provision to erase the
term “natural parent” and replace it across the board with gender-neutral
“legal parent” in federal law. Now all children only have “legal parents,” as
defined by the state. By legally erasing biological parenthood in this way, the
state ignores children’s foremost right: their immutable, intrinsic yearning to
know and be raised by their own biological parents.
Mothers and fathers bring unique and
complementary gifts to their children. Contrary to the logic of same-sex
marriage, the gender of parents matters for the healthy development of
children. We know, for example, that the majority of incarcerated men did not
have their fathers in the home. Fathers by their nature secure identity,
instill direction, provide discipline, boundaries, and risk-taking adventures,
and set lifelong examples for children. But fathers cannot nurture children in
the womb or give birth to and breast-feed babies. Mothers nurture children in
unique and beneficial ways that cannot be duplicated by fathers.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to
know that men and women are anatomically, biologically, physiologically,
psychologically, hormonally, and neurologically different from each other.
These unique differences provide lifelong benefits to children that cannot be
duplicated by same-gender “legal” parents acting out different gender roles or
attempting to substitute for the missing male or female role model in the home.
In effect, same-sex marriage not only
deprives children of their own rights to natural parentage, it gives the state
the power to override
the autonomy of biological
parents, which means parental rights are usurped by the government.
Hate Tribunals Are Coming
In
Canada, it is considered discriminatory to say that marriage is between a man
and a woman or that every child should know and be raised by his or her
biological married parents. It is not just politically incorrect in Canada to
say so; you can be saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees,
fined, and forced to take sensitivity training.
Anyone
who is offended by something you have said or written can make a complaint to
the Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals. In Canada, these organizations
police speech, penalizing citizens for any expression deemed in opposition to
particular sexual behaviors or protected groups identified under “sexual
orientation.” It takes only one complaint against a person to be brought before
the tribunal, costing the defendant tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
The commissions have the power to enter private residences and remove all items
pertinent to their investigations, checking for hate speech.
The
plaintiff making the complaint has his legal fees completely paid for by the
government. Not so for the defendant. Even if the defendant is found innocent,
he cannot recover his legal costs. If he is found guilty, he must pay fines to
the person(s) who brought forth the complaint.
If
your beliefs, values, and political opinions are different from the state’s,
you risk losing your professional license, job, or business, and even your
children. Look no further than the Lev Tahor Sect, an Orthodox Jewish sect.
Many members, who had been involved in a bitter custody battle with child
protection services, began leaving Chatham, Ontario, for Guatemala in March
2014, to
escape prosecution for their religious faith,
which conflicted with the Province’s guidelines for religious education. Of the
two hundred sect members, only half a dozen families remain in Chatham.
Parents
can expect state interference when it comes to moral values, parenting, and
education—and not just in school. The state has access into your home to
supervise you as the parent, to judge your suitability. And if the state
doesn’t like what you are teaching your children, the state will attempt to
remove them from your home.
Teachers
cannot make comments in their social networks, write letters to editors,
publicly debate, or vote according to their own conscience on their own time.
They can be disciplined or lose any chance of tenure. They can be required at a
bureaucrat’s whim to take re-education classes or sensitivity training, or be
fired for thinking politically incorrect thoughts.
When
same-sex marriage was created in Canada, gender-neutral language became legally
mandated. Newspeak proclaims that it is discriminatory to assume a human being
is male or female, or heterosexual. So, to be inclusive, special
non-gender-specific language is being used in media, government, workplaces,
and especially schools to avoid appearing ignorant, homophobic, or
discriminatory. A special curriculum is being used in many schools to teach
students how to use proper gender-neutral language. Unbeknownst to many
parents, use of gender terms to describe husband and wife, father and mother,
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and “he” and “she” is being steadily eradicated
in Canadian schools.
Which Is More Important: Sexual Autonomy or the
First Amendment?
Recently,
an American professor who was anonymously
interviewed for the American Conservative questioned whether sexual autonomy is going to cost you
your freedoms: “We are now at the point, he said, at which it is legitimate to
ask if sexual autonomy is more important than the First Amendment?”
Under
the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, Canadian citizens were supposed to
have been guaranteed: (1) freedom of conscience and religion; (2) freedom of
thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press and
other media of communication; (3) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (4) freedom
of association. In reality, all of these freedoms have been curtailed with the
legalization of same-sex marriage.
Wedding
planners, rental halls, bed and breakfast owners, florists, photographers, and
bakers have already seen their freedoms eroded, conscience rights ignored, and
religious freedoms trampled in Canada. But this is not just about the wedding
industry. Anybody who owns a business may not legally permit his or her
conscience to inform business practices or decisions if those decisions are not
in line with the tribunals’ decisions and the government’s sexual orientation
and gender identity non-discrimination laws. In the end, this means that the
state basically dictates whether and how citizens may express themselves.
Freedom
to assemble and speak freely about man-woman marriage, family, and sexuality is
now restricted. Most faith communities have become “politically correct” to
avoid fines and loss of charitable status. Canadian media are restricted by the
Canadian Radio, Television, and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which is
similar to the FCC. If the media air anything considered discriminatory,
broadcasting licenses can be revoked, and “human rights bodies” can charge
fines and restrict future airings.
An
example of legally curtailed speech regarding homosexuality in Canada involves
the case of Bill
Whatcott, who was arrested for hate speech
in April 2014 after distributing pamphlets that were critical of homosexuality.
Whether or not you agree with what he says, you should be aghast at this
state-sanctioned gagging. Books, DVDs, and other materials can also be confiscated at the Canadian border if the materials are deemed
“hateful.”
Americans
need to prepare for the same sort of surveillance-society in America if the
Supreme Court rules to ban marriage as a male-female institution. It means that
no matter what you believe, the government will be free to regulate your
speech, your writing, your associations, and whether or not you may express your
conscience. Americans also need to understand that the endgame for some in the
LGBT rights movement involves centralized state power—and the end of First
Amendment freedoms.
Dawn Stefanowicz is an internationally recognized
speaker and author. She is a member of the Testimonial Committee of the
International Children’s Rights Institute. Her book, “Out From Under: The
Impact of Homosexual Parenting,” is available at http://www.dawnstefanowicz.org. Dawn, a full-time licensed accountant, is married
and has two teenaged children.
Source:
http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/dawn-stefanowicz/warning-canada-same-sex-marriage-erodes-fundamental-rightsEditor's
Note: This piece was originally
published by The
Witherspoon Institute
Comments
There are lots of laws that need to be prevented and
repealed. They are unconstitutional laws
and are being proposed and promoted by our “enemies within”. They include laws
permitting the scam described in this article.
Defining marriage is not included in the enumerated powers
given to the federal by the states in the US Constitution. The US Supreme Court
is wasting its time and should refer this to the states. The States should refuse to pass laws
government marriage and should refer this to the churches. The churches will do
what they want to do.
Laws addressing “hate crimes” should be repealed. A crime is
a crime. Bills proposing penalties for
“hate speech” should be shredded. Laws
that permit government or hospitals to take children away from parents should
be repealed. All of these laws and bills come from our “enemies within”.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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