Friday, September 2, 2011

Brody's Scribbles... Criminalizing Homosexuality

By Bart Vogelzang | VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA --Wow! For a second I thought I read it incorrectly, but even a second reading didn’t make it look any better. “American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer called on all fifty states to criminalize homosexuality.”
This is about the same as criminalizing the maternal instinct and menopause. Masturbation is a natural occurrence within a goodly percentage of the human race, and it is completely victimless. So too is homosexuality, and the only people affected adversely by homosexuality are those who make it a point to be upset at others being homosexuals. Of course, it is politically possible to criminalize anything, but doing this would be ludicrous at best, and a crime against humanity at worst. Why not just let LGBTQ people live their lives in peace? Why hound them with threats of legal sanctions for doing exactly what their bodies and minds know is right for them, especially since it hurts nobody else?
For that matter, one has to wonder how Bryan Fischer has missed noticing that criminalizing something is not a resolution to the perceived problem. The war on drugs has been a monumental failure, as was the decades earlier Prohibition (ban on alcohol). Shooting people is illegal; beating them is too, as are rape, robbery, and a myriad of other things. None of those laws actually stop those things, although admittedly there will be a few people who abide by them out of fear. For the most part, people must want to obey a law for it to be effective. Anyone hell-bent on committing a crime is not going to seriously worry about the law as they are too consumed by their own agenda. In the case of homosexuality, it is not even an agenda, but a natural drive that cannot be denied without extremely serious personal consequences. It is not a choice, despite what many religious people seem to feel about it, so there is no way that anyone can obey a law against it; just like passing a law against menopause, masturbation or the maternal instinct is not going to eliminate those.
Just imagine what would happen if you did make maternal instinct and love illegal. It would not stop mothers from loving their kids, but they would be required to repress all indications of it; and at least in public, treating their children as if they didn’t have any feelings and are unimportant. Mothers would be terrified of making a simple mistake in public like being seen comforting their distressed baby, or even that someone peeping in their windows might see them hugging or being affectionate with their child, which might get them arrested and incarcerated. Everyone would suffer, and children, who are often already seriously upset due to many parents’ drive towards financial goals over family affection, would be driven to even greater depths of depression, dangerous behavior and possibly suicide. Society would be undermined and poorer because of such shortsighted and ridiculous laws. It is really not any different with homosexuality.
Admittedly, it is not fully about the love of parents for their kids, but it’s not far removed. The need to find someone to love develops irrepressibly at puberty, and it is really impossible to deny it. They may be kids at that age, but their bodies are ready to do what comes naturally, and for many that means with the same gender, just as much as with the opposite gender for others. The only results of making the drive for love illegal is pain and misery, deception and fear, secrecy and hatred for the oppressors.
What is it that we really want from the world? Is it not peace and harmony, love and caring? It seems to me that’s what God’s will is supposed to be about, but consistently it is the religious, mostly stating they are obeying God’s will, who create pain and discord while encouraging hate and condemnation.
If anything should be criminalized it should be acts that harm others, deprive others, and destroy them. By that standard, the American Family Association and Bryan Fischer should be criminalized, arrested, charged and convicted, as should many other similar people and groups. Truly, they do nothing to benefit humankind, and do lots to hurt it.
Time to reflect on who the real criminals are, don’t you think?

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