Christian Civic League’s efforts combat the real enemies of family

The iron chains and sturdy hawsers our Yankee forebears used to steady their sailing vessels were massive, strong enough to launch a six-masted schooner at Bath or to hold the Battleship Maine at anchor in Havana harbor.

Yet even these chains seem small compared to the Great Chain once laid across the Hudson River to blockade an invading British navy. A marvel of Yankee industry and ingenuity, the Great Chain spanned six hundred yards, weighed 45 tons, and was made from hundreds of links, each more than two feet in length.

There is a mightier chain yet, one spun from something as light and as hard to see as a spider’s thread. This subtlest of threads is made from suggestion, deceit, and insinuation. One thread is spun out, laid onto another, and woven until it becomes strong enough to pull down nations.

The first link in this chain was forged by Wilhelm Reich, a psychoanalyst and radical activist. In 1929, Reich published “The Sexual Revolution, or Sex in the Culture War.” The goal of Reich’s proposed sexual revolution, oddly enough, had nothing to do with sexual morality. Its goal was to undermine the institution of the family.

Since Reich’s time, the public has been subject to ceaseless barrages of propaganda aimed at liberalizing sexual morality. One theme runs throughout: that yesterday’s views about sex are outmoded. New forms of sexual deviance are constantly being introduced, and the public is urged to accept them.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan captured this idea in his oft-repeated phrase about “defining deviancy downward.” At the time, Moynihan was lamenting the rise in crime caused by the breakup of the family.

A slight respite occurred in the 1950s, when a grudging nod was given toward the sacredness of family life, but this quickly gave way to the call for “free love” in the 1960s.

The ’60s saw the birth of the radical wing of the sexual revolution, the gay rights movement, which started with the Stonewall Riots in 1967. It took three decades of activism and unrelenting propaganda for society to accept homosexuality as normal. With this achieved, even worse forms of deviant behavior are being promoted. The liberal establishment would have you believe this gradual acceptance of deviant behavior is progress.

The Christian Civic League is often criticized for fighting the gay rights movement to the exclusion of all other issues. This is not true. The league is active in a number of other areas, including anti-gambling efforts, and most recent, flood relief for the people of northern Maine.

The league is neither anti-gay nor bigoted. Gay rights activists have employed the strategy of name-calling from the beginning. It is important for the public to realize anyone who opposes homosexuality as abnormal is pilloried as “narrow” or “bigoted.” As I write these words, the English parliament is debating a bill which would impose a seven-year sentence on anyone who says homosexuality is abnormal.

The league is not obsessed with gay rights. Our response is proportioned to the threat posed by those who would undermine the institution of the family. Since the gay rights movement advances incrementally, the best strategy to oppose their efforts is a broadly-worded referendum.

We are firm in our conviction that no law can exist which is not based on a moral right. We are convinced the gay rights movement is based on the flawed premise that homosexual acts and social relationships based on homosexuality are ethical and normal. We therefore oppose any special rights in employment, housing, same-sex marriage, gay adoption, and the like.

Two years ago, the League fought the introduction of the obscenity-laden book “Girl Interrupted” into the curriculum of Orono High School. Even the most hard-bitten among us was deeply shaken by the book’s language. One character in the novel, a teenage girl, was praised for her ingenious attempt at suicide by setting herself on fire.

Not soon after, the League opposed a curriculum in Westbrook which introduced the subject of birth control for middle-school students, and sought to normalize homosexuality in the mind of kindergartners. The worst aspects of the curriculum came to light only after the League joined with a concerned Westbrook parent to request information about the curriculum under a Freedom of Access Act request.

Since then, matters have deteriorated.

Recently, the League opposed the school-sponsored use of birth control at King Middle School in Portland. The fair-minded among us have to conclude, yes, enemies of the family do exist. We cannot predict what new challenges await us, but we can vow to keep fighting those who would pull down the institution of the family.

Michael S. Heath is the executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine. E-mail: [email protected].