by Charles S. LiMandri
A friend recently asked: “How long do we have left as a society?” In answer to that question I informed her about an interesting and comprehensive study that a renowned British anthropologist, Joseph Unwin, PhD., presented to the British Psychological Society in 1935. Unwin sought to prove that the traditional monogamous model for marriage was not essential to the maintenance of a healthy society. After studying 86 different cultures, across time and continents –and much to his surprise — he came to the inescapable conclusion that the traditional male-female monogamous model for marriage was indeed the best foundation for a healthy and productive society.
Unwin found that societies that adopted this model typically took about three generations to reach their peak of productivity and progress. After that, frequently, a gradual development of complacency and licentiousness would take place and what he described as an ”outburst of homosexuality” would sometimes occur. When that happened, and the society started to move away from the traditional model of male-female monogamous marriage as its foundation, it would begin to unravel. It would then take another three generations of deterioration from that point for the society to collapse.
It is my opinion that between the end of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction of the South, proceeding through the Industrial Revolution, and continuing up until about the end of World War II in 1945, the U.S. reached its zenith. Then came the U.S. Supreme Court’s Everson decision in 1947 which imposed an unconstitutional “Wall of Separation” between Church and State. This directly contradicted the vision of the founding fathers. Upon his farewell address to the nation, George Washington tried to impress upon his fellow countrymen that it was “Religion and Morality” that served as the foundation for our young nation.
Our thinking about human sexuality was transformed in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s by Alfred Kinsey, using false and fraudulent statistics — including the 10% myth concerning the number of homosexuals in the population. His work was based largely on the deviant sexual practices reported by those in prison. His flawed conclusions were not surprising since 86% of convicted child molesters against males describe themselves as being either homosexual or bisexual. A young college student at the time, Hugh Hefner, was influenced by Kinsey’s work and started what was to become the Playboy empire which in turn helped launch the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Griswold in 1965 (which found a new constituitional “right to privacy” for contraception) was the next big judicial construct. This in turn helped fuel the feminist revolution of the 1970’s since women were no longer “chained to their homes” by babies to raise. But, since contraception does not always work, the U.S. Supreme Court had to find a new application for the constitutional right to privacy, which it did in Roe v. Wade in 1973. This travesty of a judicial decision allowed for abortion on-demand. With the new influx of contracepting and “liberated” women in the workplace, having more extramarital affairs than ever, it was of course necessary to adopt liberal No-Fault Divorce laws. In this way, the cheating spouses could easily get out of their lifelong marital commitments with little or no legal penalty or social stigma.
This in turn created the situation where there were far more little boys growing up with no strong male role models at home and far more little girls being raised with no father or by step-fathers more likely to sexually abuse them (e.g. Ellen DeGeneres). In either event, we increased the number of male and female homosexuals by enhancing the risk factors for developmental gender confusion and the psycho-social deficits which eventually lead to the same-sex attraction. Hence, the need for yet another constitutional right to privacy to be announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in the horrific Lawrence decision in 2003 — this time for homosexual sodomy. Thus, what started with the uncoupling of sexuality and procreation in the Griswold (contraception) case has now reached its unnatural conclusion with the legalization and normalization of homosexual sodomy in the Lawrence case. After all, if sex is only about adult emotional attachments, and not procreation, then why not homosexuality?
Of course, the downward slide of our society has been greatly accelerated by the explosion of pornography on the Internet which has weakened the natural romantic attraction between young people and replaced it with unbridled selfish sexual gratification. This has further lessened the natural resistance and even revulsion to various sexual perversions. Indeed, just this past week we have witnessed the sitting Chief Appellate Justice of the largest federal judicial district in the nation, posting disgusting sexual images on his website (involving people and animals) while presiding over a pornography trial involving beastiality and extreme fetishes. Where does all of this lead us — to same-sex “marriage,” of course. And how much time do we have left by Unwin’s standards — I would say that we are at least at the end of the second generation of deterioration, if not already well into the final third generation before the collapse.
Can we stop this societal suicide — possibly, but not if we can’t stop same-sex “marriage” in California in November 2008, and not without supernatural help. Without the foundation of Religion and Morality that George Washingoton and the other founding fathers provided for us, there is simply no real hope for the future of this country.
Finally, since it is only in our maleness and femaleness that we are made in the image and likeness of God, the destruction of the concept of gender is perhaps Satan’s greatest accomplishment. Moreover, since the sacramental marriage of a husband and wife is used to image the relationship of Christ and His Church, even the idea of same-sex ”marriage” is a sacrilege. Therefore, separate and apart from the seemingly accurate prognastications of Professor Unwin, I just don’t see how a God of Justice can tolerate such a diabolical mockery of His divinely ordained instituion of marriage for very long. Indeed, the same man to whom our Lord entrusted the Keys to the Kingdom warned us that: “…in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts… ” (2 Peter 3:3). In conclusion, I informed my friend that although we have had the privilege of living in the greatest nation in the history of the world, based on the foregoing, we may very well be seeing it in its waning years. May the God of our fathers have mercy on us and our beloved country.
Charles LiMandri is the General Counsel for the National Organization for Marriage (www.NOMCalifornia.org). In that capacity he has been very active in the effort to pass a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in California which will be on the ballot in November 2008. He is a member of the Religious Liberty Committee of the California Catholic Conference of Bishops and he serves on an advisory committee to the White House on issues of importance to Catholics.
