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R e v i e w s
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This Rock
Volume 16, Number 4
 April 2005 
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Why No Gay Marriage?
Among the growing list of books examining marriage under siege, Marriage on Trial by Focus on the Family affiliates Glenn Stanton and Bill Maier is uniquely charitable in tone. Yet it concedes nothing to the arguments offered by lobbyists with a radical gay-rights agenda. The book is meant to equip Christians to answer the ubiquitous social question "How could you object to same-sex marriage?"
The authors contend that the root issue facing society is not homosexuality but "whether there are compelling societal reasons to define marriage as one thing and not as another." The authors acknowledge the gravity of the threat to marriage, thus the goal of the work is to explain cogently why a redefinition of marriage will "deconstruct humanity."
Early chapters quickly dispatch the charge of bigotry often leveled at Christians who defend natural marriage. Of particular interest is the authors’ discussion of the sabotage of the language of the debate. Citing social critic Mark Steyn, they guide the reader through the linguistic changes that serve the pro-gay agenda: In the past the moral prohibition was against an act (sodomy), but contemporary jargon shifted the focus to a condition (homosexuality) then created an identity based on that act (homosexual). That makes any objection to the act look like an attack on a person’s identity.
This is "where many good people get stuck," according to Stanton and Maier. The balance of the book serves to extricate the thoughtful Christian from the sticky mire of the pro-homosexual rhetoric.
The authors clearly have the amateur apologist in mind, as they give the reader the tools needed to defend marriage in everyday situations where the topic of same-sex marriage comes up. They offer non-threatening arguments in favor of natural marriage that will minimize the risk of offending a valued friend or associate. They make a clear distinction between tolerance for private acts and a redefinition of homosexual acts as morally equivalent to marriage.
Sobering arguments drawn from social data may shock those who believe that the Church should not interfere in the effort to legalize same-sex marriage. Sociologist Maggie Gallagher is quoted to show that "there is scarcely a dollar that state and federal government spends on social programs that is not driven in large part by family fragmentation: crime, poverty, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school failure, mental and physical health problems."
This easy-to-read volume is divided into three sections: "How to Answer Same-Sex Proponents," "Understanding How Marriage Matters to Adults, Children, and Society," and "Debunking Myths about Homosexuality." Each section concludes with a handy "cheat sheet" with bullet points summarizing major arguments. The authors do not use biblical language and arguments for every question. Instead, they maintain a sociological approach that refers to Christian principles when it is especially relevant. This approach is valuable, although an appendix listing scriptural references pertaining to marriage and homosexuality would have been helpful.
Parents whose children may be subjected to "tolerance" training in schools will want to read about the negative effects of having homosexual "parents" for normal adolescent development. The authors offer meaty arguments that are of vital importance for teens who are forming views of what family means and the importance of dads and moms.
The chapter entitled "How Heterosexuals Paved the Way for the Same-Sex Family" holds a mirror up to readers’ marriages and those of their friends and neighbors. The reflection is disturbing, if enlightening.
For those who have loved ones who are homosexual, the section "Myths about Homosexuality" provides clear medical and social information that is free of emotional terminology. Some will find it interesting that the homosexual community is not united behind the issue of same-sex marriage; many homosexual persons oppose it. The appendix, "Is There Hope for the Homosexual?" is also a valuable resource.
Stanton and Maier offer a cogent analysis of this crucial public debate that Catholics will find valuable.
—Mary Jo Anderson
Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting
By Glenn T. Stanton and Bill Maier
4 stars
InterVarsity Press
199 pages
$15.00
ISBN: 0830832742
The Man Who Mainstreamed Perversion
Susan Brinkmann has written a small gem of a book, encapsulating the life and influence of one of the most negative characters in American history: Alfred Kinsey. Based largely on the work of Judith Reisman, The Kinsey Corruption initially was serialized in the Philadelphia archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Standard and Times. As a solid journalistic series, it is written clearly and to the point, with only occasional repetition.
Brinkmann suggests that without the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and the credibility of his position at Indiana University, Kinsey’s "scientific work" likely would never have been published.
I agree. It is unthinkable that 1950s America would have looked kindly on data collected by a bisexual pedophile recounting the sexual experience of convicted sex offenders, prostitutes, serial rapists, and other prison inmates. It certainly would not have accepted such data as representative of the normal population, let alone as the basis for rewriting American sexual laws.
But so it happened. Brinkmann works the story chronologically, following Kinsey from his "repressive" Christian upbringing through his coming of age as a homosexual and his apparently respectable marriage to a female sexual adventurer with whom he had four children.
Brinkmann, following Reisman’s lead, places great stress on the sordid elements of Kinsey’s story. For example, two of his "co-investigators" were serial rapists: Rex King, convicted of 800 counts of child rape involving both sexes, and Fritz von Balluseck, an ex-Nazi convicted of the rape-murder of a ten-year-old girl in Berlin. For years, both men submitted written accounts of their various boy and girl rapes to Kinsey for inclusion in his database.
Brinkmann mentions, without comment, the fact that a 1998 BBC documentary linking Kinsey to von Balluseck has yet to air in the United States; one wonders why not.
Brinkmann cites Susan Brownmiller’s quote of Kinsey on rape: "The only difference between rape and a good time depends on whether the girl’s parents were awake when she finally came home."
Such views were hardly mainstream in the 1950s, nor were they part of Kinsey’s public image, which was that of the impeccably neutral scientist.
Sordidness defined Kinsey’s personal and professional life. His sexual history questionnaires were extremely intrusive, and they provided Kinsey with fodder for blackmail. So did his filming of Kinsey Institute orgies, which apparently included wife swapping, group sex, sadomasochism, and other sexual permutations; participation was mandatory for Kinsey Institute staff and spouses.
Brinkmann suggests that judicious use of blackmail helped Kinsey defend himself against those who might have impeded his agenda, which was nothing less than destroying Judeo-Christian sexual ethics. Kinsey was a fanatical religious bigot, inflamed with hatred for Christians, Jews, and traditional morality. He was also a fervent racist, which put him on the same page as his friend and close associate Margaret Sanger. Together, they imposed their morality on American society.
Ever wonder why rape is seldom prosecuted or why pornography, sodomy, fornication and adultery are no longer illegal? Perhaps you are curious why cutting-edge legal philosophers contemplate the legalization of pedophilia and incest? Or why the right of "privacy" and the "right" to abortion have become the law of the land? Or why pornographic sex ed is now the norm, even in Catholic schools?
Brinkmann very concisely links it all to Kinsey, making a convincing case that Kinsey was the father of both the sexual revolution and abortion on demand.
Kinsey "proved" through his "scientific studies" that most men have raped women or children, committed adultery, or frequented prostitutes, and that women were almost equally depraved and highly prone to illegal abortion. Those being the alleged norms, Kinsey and his colleagues composed a Model Penal Code for dealing with sexual issues, which decriminalized practically every known behavior. After all, if everyone is doing it, why make it a crime?
Why indeed.
The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University eventually lost its Rockefeller Foundation funding due to severe criticism from English medical authorities who questioned the idea that norms could be based on the behavior of sexual criminals. But Playboy, Penthouse, and Planned Parenthood came to Kinsey’s aid.
Together, they established the school sex-education industry through their subsidiaries, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) and the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS), which together write most of the curricula used for elementary and secondary school sex education and certify most sex-ed teachers.
Whoever said one man can’t make a difference?
Brinkmann’s book is small, but it’s well worth reading. It very efficiently gives the reader all he needs to know to understand the roots of modern America’s moral crisis.
Who knows? Perhaps in debunking Kinsey, Brinkmann and Reisman may have begun pushing the pendulum back toward decency and a truly human vision of sex. So we pray.
—Robin Bernhoft
The Kinsey Corruption: An Expose on the Most Influential "Scientist" of Our Time
By Susan Brinkmann
4 stars
Ascension
80 pages
$5.95
ISBN: 1932645712
Reaching the Laodiceans
Singled out as one of the most formidable threats to the faith, modern unbelief has poisoned Western culture and is now being exported to the rest of the world along with Levi’s, rap music, and microchips. The task of battling this practical atheism falls to the Pontifical Council for Culture, under the guidance of Paul Cardinal Poupard.
Where Is Your God? is the official document of the March 2004 plenary session of the Council for Culture. It is an outline for bishops, pastors, and theologians who must grapple daily with the assaults of secularism from without and within the Church.
This slim volume addressed to the universal Church says that the evangelization of secular culture is the "spiritual drama of our times." The dominant Western culture, "in prey to secularization," is ripe for the same admonition leveled at the Laodiceans: "Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing" (Rev. 3:16–17).
In the first section, the reader will find fascinating insights into the history of a contemporary malaise: a "culture of unbelief" that followed the defeat of totalitarian atheistic regimes. The contemporary "cultural habitat" is hostile to "a desire for the transcendent"—and Catholicism in particular.
This post-Christian egoistic culture covers much of the globe with an "anthropological nihilism" and its hallmark, a loss of respect for the person and for life itself. Modern man mistakes material well-being and sexual gratification for happiness. When these fail him, the confused and disaffected are not often met by effective evangelization. They find nihilism to be a logical response.
With surgical precision, Cardinal Poupard divides the flesh from bone, tendons from nerves. The Church must distinguish between a "vague search for spirituality" arrayed in various New-Age costumes and emotive but flaccid forms of Christianity light. The latter is marked by the sentiment "God, yes; the Church, no." This growing "de-confessionalization" is described as "believing without belonging." Both have an active antipathy to doctrinal absolutes. And yet man is created to worship God. His "spiritual thirst" is the portal through which a re-presentation of the good news must be launched.
The remaining pages are divided into two sections. The first is an analysis of the causes of unbelief and indifference (mass media, scientism, hedonism, indifference to an objective truth). The second details the council’s proposals for dialogue with non-believers, "misbelievers," and the indifferent.
Along the way, the report lays out the battle lines in the culture war: the "crisis of authority" in an age of autonomous man, the rejection of all forms of hierarchy, the statistical evidence that unbelief grows among women who work outside the home. The council does not spare its own religious leaders whose "immoral lifestyle" causes the faithful to "suffer a deep crisis in their spiritual journey." This ancient problem of the "scandal of evil" is now amplified through the media to the point that evil seems triumphant. The Church hierarchy also bears a portion of the burden for the "rupture in handing on the faith." Poor catechesis, declining family life, and "common-law marriages" result in Catholics who seek baptism for their children yet fail to frequent the sacraments—or even Sunday Mass.
Discussion of global issues such as immigration and cultural destabilization will give American readers a new understanding for the unique challenges for the Church in Asia, Africa, and South America. Where "culture" comes with economic aid, developing nations are expected to adopt the "civil religion" of materialism. Other challenges include Pentecostalism and the syncretism of Catholicism and native spiritualities.
The concrete proposals offered by the council should be shared widely within dioceses. For American dioceses (and American apologists in particular), these proposals should inspire a renewed fervor for evangelization. The specter of bioethical terrors alone might motivate more Catholics to promote existential dialogues: What is the meaning of man? What is his destiny? The Church and its members must make their way into the public forums where these urgent questions can be asked.
Proposals also address the family, collaboration with non-Christians, education, catechesis, the importance of beauty and study—in short, a full plan for a restoration of the Christian culture.
Where Is Your God? has a sense of urgency despite its exhortations to press forward. The Laodiceans are listening for a new voice.
—Mary Jo Anderson
Where Is Your God? Responding to the Challenge of Unbelief and Religious Indifference Today
By Paul Cardinal Poupard (and the Pontifical Council for Culture)
4 stars
Liturgy Training Publications
51 pages (English) 55 pages (Spanish)
$13.95
ISBN: 1568545622
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