ACLU President goes on record putting ACLU behind polygamy.
In a little-reported speech offered at Yale University earlier this year, ACLU president Nadine Strossen stated that her organization has "defended the right of individuals to engage in polygamy." Yale Daily News says Strossen was responding to a "student's question about gay marriage, bigamy, and polygamy." She continued, saying that her legal organization "defend[s] the freedom of choice for mature, consenting individuals," making the ACLU "the guardian of liberty ... defend[ing] the fundamental rights of all people."
As a side note, the artile also points out that Strossen is author of a book entitled Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex & the Fight for Women's Rights. Yes, she actually links pornography with women's rights in a positive way. Talk about denying reality.
Actually, this isn't as surprising as it could be. Msgr. Stuart said that one time when he was at JPII in DC they were having a seminar on 'Difficult Sexual Teachings of the Church', and some European or American students were giving a presentation on the Church teachings about birth control and divorce. He said after about an hour, a group of African priests stood up and said something to the effect of: You guys are so disgusting. Even the pagans in the bush understand that you don't stop up the wellsprings of life, or leave the wife of your youth. We are supposed to be discussing difficult teachings, like Why can't a man have five wives?
Of course, he told it better than I, and one interesting point is that scripturally, the Church teaching against pologamy is much more difficult to defend than homosexuality, birth control, or abortion. So, really the question is why didn't the erosion of our family values start with pologamy?
I think the answer to that question (and I don't know what the answer is) might hold some of the answers in putting in place a the culture of life. But I don't know how. It just seems to have the shadows of a logical contradiction on the part of the culture of death, and the weakest points in any argument are the logical contradictions. For example, the pornography argument isn't a good one to start with, because the pro-Culture-of-Death side has taken the position that people have the civil right to watch -- and preform in -- pornography. Anyone who says anything differently is cast as a religious-right, anti-freedom, bigot. Unfortunately, if you accept the premise that pornography isn't a grave evil, there's no logical contradiction in that part of the argument. (Ignoring the pragmatic problems in the actual execution of the production of pornographic material, because those problems are written off as abuses of the freedom, not inherent to the structure of a system that is bent on the exploitation of humanity). But if you go back a step, to the nature of sex, then you can expose the logical flaws in the premise, and change people's minds.
Changing people's hearts is the next step, and actually the end goal, but we're such a rational culture that changing minds is perhaps a necessary first step.
brandon.
You're getting me to cause trouble, I know. ;)