By appealing to the “authority” of Americans, Mr Buchanan, you negate your own argument(s).

You must realize that accepting any validity of America is to accept it all, and to accept any of that validity is to accept the “marriage” between two men as legitimate.

The REALITY of the situation is that America is invalid, illegitimate.  America turned it’s back upon Tradition, the Father, the Son, and the holy Spirit at it’s very foundation, and is simply continuing down that path of Revolution today.

Question: if America were to have been founded upon the Truth, then why was not the US Constitution written in Latin, instead of English?

It was written in English because the document is R E V O L U T I O N A R Y.

This is but the end my friend.  A long, torturous trek to the end.  When you think about society and how every whore in Hollywood is a hero… You understand why our society will not long last. 

Perhaps we need to die as a nation.  It will serve as a historical lesson for societies and nations in the future what happens when evil is allowed to mask as “normal” and pervade society.  The death of America will not be in vane if future generations can take a lesson from it, and why freedom is sacred and comes with enormous responsibility.

We are a nation filled with shirkers who do not know the meaning of responsibility.
They only know: “If it feels good, do it.”

well, Jesus wasnt much for usury, materialism, exploitation or empire.

In reality Americans lost control of their republic back in oh what? 1913?

Patrick, shut up

Anyways, as far as the whole marriage thing goes, as anti-constitutional as their decision was, I am not gonna be one of those who screams “it’s the end of the world!”

Here is what is gonna happen:  The first few months are gonna be big hype with dozens of gay couples marrying, and then we will have money happy lawyers a few months later grinning as they are then called in for almost all those marriages to be divorced, and then after that we will have maybe one gay marriage a month.  I mean look at Mass. where gay marriage is legal: I think the newest findings show that the gay marriage rate there per year is incredibly low, since most gay couples think getting married is ridiculous anyways!

I too believe that homosexual “marriage” should not be made legal. I also would not support a constitutional amendment to define marriage. I could get behind some sort of “civil union” that protected the right of someone’s chosen one to inherit or receive special status if that relationship didn’t necessarily follow the typical man/woman/baby love. Transferring inheritance rights to a couple old spinsters or celibate siblings or a homosexual couple doesn’t bother me much. When the State rules that homosexuals can marry I don’t agree, but it doesn’t bother me that much either because the State has no moral authority at all. My belief is that marriage is a sacrament handed down by God through the Church. The fact that the State forces us to register this union is so much red tape. The State shouldn’t be in the business of marriage anyway. As Mr. Buchanan says, call it what you like, it’s still a pig. And while I agree with much of what Mr. Buchanan says, it disheartens me to see him quote that homosexuality necessitates vengeance. This sort of language is really not needed to make his point. Yes, it is from the scripture, but I am not a fundamentalist/literalist and “vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord”. His vengeance, not ours. The Taliban would not agree, nor would Dispensationalists and we have no truck with either of them, right?  Pax, PhilthyRex

“Jet”, in America, God Himself was NEVER in control, it has always been SATAN.

Jerry, you tell me to “shut up” because I speak the Truth?  I would like to read your arguments outside or your rhetoric.

PhilthyRex, are you Catholic? From your post it does not seem so.

Mr. Buchanan is simply identifying the sin of the Sodomites with sodomy, and reminds us that the former is one of the sins that cry out for vengeance from Heaven (not man), as they are listed by the Catholic Church.

See 1867.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm

Our Liberal friends want to rewrite the laws of nature. They aren’t even going to let the people have a voice in the decision. The vast majority of gays will not avail themselves of this right because most don’t want or care about it. Why can’t two brothers get married? How about father and son, Mother and
daughter, sister and sister, woman and dog,the possibilities are endless. This just another attempt to destroy religion It almost makes me want to cheer the muslims on and to hope they win.

Buchanan is on target, as usual.  What a delight to find his column here.

The claim that marriage is a right begs the question: how many rights require a license?

“The claim that marriage is a right begs the question: how many rights require a license?”

Exactly. why is the the state involved in any of this?  Marriage is a contract.  People get married for all sorts of reasons with which I’m sure Mr. Buchanan (whom I generally like) disagrees. Marriage is just an outward symbol of that contact, sort of like throwing a party after Company A and Company B merge.

Marley is right: Marriage is a contract between two people a man and women. The Church has never claimed to be anything, but a witness. Neither has the state for that matter. There is polygamous mariage as well, also a contract between men and women. Never in all history has this been perverted to include same sex couples. In most areas where this is allowed it not used by very many of the homosexualy inclined. The only reason it is being pushed is to destroy the family which has long been a goal of Marxists. They started in Russia in 1918 with postcard divorce and easy abortion. The old Marxists never in their wildest dreams came up with something like this. The new Marxists want to destroy all the pillars of society. Then they will be finally be able to rebuild society in their own insane dreams. Like the old Marxists they will fail. Their system is irrational and anti human. The religious fecund people will inherit the earth as is how God intended.

I do not care who lives together or who sleeps together.  The real issue is that same-sex “marriage”
gives the government the power to force everybody to accept homosexuality as normal from kindergarten on.

Thomas Jefferson also said that if his neighbor worshipped one God, several gods or no god at all, it neither picked his pocket nor broke his leg, so why should he concern himself with it?

So homosexuals can now marry in California; since it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg, why should I care? There are worse things in this world than gay marriage (like a country, formerly a superpower, in decline mode and possibly in fall mode, thanks to the idiocy of its leaders and people).

I have always respected Pat Buchanan, and believe him to be a brilliant writer, orator and journalist.  I have always believed the very idea of same-sex marriage to be ludicrous.  Nevertheless, I take the Ron Paul/libertarian position on this issue, namely that the State has no business being involved in sanctioning marriages, and that marriage is an issue to be resolved among individuals, families and their respective religious institutions.  In addition, I would argue against a Federal Marriage Amendment as violating the federalist principle of states’ rights, and instead, I believe that such contentious social issues are best resolved at the local and state levels and any decision(s) should reflect the values of local communities.  In other words, let Utah be Utah and let Massachusetts be Massachusetts. 

I also find it disappointing that, while Mr. Buchanan decries the social malaise that afflicts contemporary society—not only within the United States, but also, all across the Western world (i.e. abortion-on-demand; easy divorce; feminism; the emasculation of men; wide-spread celebration of pornography; loss of traditional religion and values)—he has nevertheless put race ahead of traditionalist conservative values by using various columns and t.v. discussions/interviews to promote Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.  Obama is bad—on so many levels—but is he really any worse than Hillary?  Hillary is the uber-feminist, closeted bull-dyke who has long promoted various radical feminist and anti-family causes, including the right of 12-year olds to sue their parents and opposition to any partial-birth abortion ban (Obama supports such a ban).  In addition, whatever else his flaws, Obama is a solid family man—a decent father and husband; whereas, Hillary continues to be a part of a bizarre political marriage in which the husband is a shameless adulterer and liar and the wife is a closeted lesbian (and shameless liar).  White ethnic, Catholic and Scots-Irish Democrats are idiots for allowing their annoyance at Obama/Jeremiah Wright to cloud their judgement and cause them to believe that Hillary (the long-time advocate of abortion, homosexual “rights,” gun control and open borders) is acutally now the defender of “Gods, Guns and Family.”

Re Patrick Buchanan and Patrick Hall:

I am happy to tell Mr. Hall that I share his appreciation of the Latin language.

One of the greatest of Latin authors was the poet Cicero, who was the master of both lofty philosophy and homely commonsense.

He is famous for the line:  integer vitae, scelerisque purus, which Webster’s dictionary translates as “upright in life, and free from wickedness”.

Cicero also wrote:  Quodcumque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi, in English: “Anything that you thus thrust upon me, I discredit and detest.”

Latin was unquestionably a great language, and Cicero a great man.

A Northern Voice.

As the wise old snakecharming scribe and crooner Kinky Friedman ....author of the tuneful lament “They aint makin any Jews Like Jesus No More” and failed candidate for Governor of Texas put it : “Sure I support Homosexual Marriage, why should they be relieved from the horrors the rest of us have to endure?”

Saying this, he winked and took a long draw on a gigantic Cheroot before moving onto another question from a reporter regarding this uniquely idiotic brand of human frailty known as American Politics...an institution that consumes money like a hog gulps slop but makes about as much sense as a fart in a hellstorm....oh, excuse me I meant “Hailstorm”.

One of the laws of nature is the fact that nature sometimes makes mistakes.  And arguably the most Christian act is is to permit the products of these natural mistakes to have the most normal and normative life possible.  Which includes allowing and ENCOURAGING homosexuals to try to develop committed relationships with each other, rather than depersonalized, anonymous sexual encounters.

This is my opinion.  The best solution for this problem politically, as with so many other divisive social issues, is federalism.  Let California try gay marriage, let Louisiana ban abortion, let some states have a debate.  If State judges make those decisions, leave it to the residents of that state to deal with that problem.  And support the provision in DOMA that allows states to ignore definitions of marriages in other states they do not approve of.  Eventually, like minded souls will tend to congregate with each other.  I understand that this is the position that Bob Barr is taking, I wish other politicians would do so as well.

“Since the fall of Rome to our own time, nations have believed and acted on the belief that marriage and traditional families are the cinderblocks on which a society must be built.” There may be a problem with historical facts here.  When I last checked, the consensus among historians of the family was that our current focus on monogamous, husband-wife nuclear family only came into being in the late medieval period.  Before that people were parts of clans and marriage was a far more flexible concept—not to talk about monogamy.

The oversight may be significant, because understanding the reasons why the monogamous nuclear family came into being might enable us to understand—and influence—the reasons why it is now fading away.

PhilthyRex,

I was (and continue to be) raised in a church that could be called fundamentalist, dispensationalist, and mostly literalist, and I have never heard it said that it is our job to take “vengeance” on homosexuals.  I have always been taught to love everyone while hating sin. I also don’t think being a dispensationalist precludes one from being a traditional conservative as you seem to imply. Just wanted to clear that up.

Patrick Hall, you might be interested in this article.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=596#comments

One can be against the Americanist Creed without being against America. Ironically, the “America was flawed from birth” crowd accept the liberal notion of America as a propostion nation.

Red Phillips,

Of course America is accepted as a proposition ‘nation.’ That is what it was from its conception.  Look at the Declaration of Independence.  The first half is all Lockean theory and the second half is referential to the English Bill of Rights from the Protestant ‘Glorious’ Revolution.  That is to say, it is founded on two things : (I) liberal individualism that denies the social essence of man known by reason and prescribed by the natural law, and (II) the Calvinist triumph of the bourgeois class in parliamentary supremacy, at the expense of royal sovereignty and a Catholic monarch.

The Constitution begins, ‘WE THE PEOPLE,’ which is an affirmation of popular sovereignty.  My goodness, right from the beginning we already have the Enlightenment, Protestantism, and immanentist egalitarianism as the foundation for a ‘nation.’ How could a Catholic accept something that was born of treason and founded against nature itself ?  I have no idea; nonetheless, the United States are reaping what they have sown.  Soon we will witness the crumbling of this mutant creature forged by the hands of men.  No man should find himself surprised.  Doom was certain from the beginning, for the United States is a house, built by fools, on shifting sands.  The tide is coming in; wisdom requires that one seek the strong foundation of the rock to endure it.

“Exactly. why is the the state involved in any of this?”

I’m glad a few people beat me to the punch on this.  It means I’m not crazy.

Because of all the legal standings and financial benefits conferred by the state in re marriage, people fight over who does or doesn’t get a piece of the pie.

If their were no state sanctioned privilege, and two, or more, people wanted to enter into a, for want of a better term, “nuptial contract” which would cover such things as visitation, inheritance, division of property and all those complexities of human relationships, totally divorced from any official sanction, but fraught with as many institutional constraints as the parties cared to incorporate, there would be no endless political struggle to define a legal term. If a church or some other private institution such as, in a perfect world, an insurance company or a hospital, an adoption agency or a school chooses to bless such an arrangement, or not, then great, but keep the troth-feeding, control freaks out of it.

I cannot exactly recall where, maybe it was in M. Guizot’s “France,” but somewhere I read that, during the French Revolutionary period, one of the wittier courtesans referred to the then recently established “civil,” or (secular) State-sponsored, marriage as the “sacrament of adultery.” That said, it does not surprise me that, two centuries later, that same civil marriage is now extended to include the “sacrament of sodomy.”

Charles,

All paleos should agree that there was too much Enlightenment language, references, sources, idiom, etc. in much of the writings of the Founders including the DoI and to some degree by absence in the Constitution. (The lack of a reference to God.) But the DoI among other things were theory, and they went against the “facts on the ground.” America was a completely unegalitarian and highly Christian society. (Although not Catholic as you would like.) You are giving aid and comfort to the liberal enemy when you accept their notion that America was founded “on” a proposition. The notion is just silly, and the people who were doing the founding didn’t, by and large (there are exceptions), believe that is what they were doing. America was founded “by” a particular people, in a particular place, at a particular time. America is a particular nation like all others. (The term Founding is even inaccurate and misleading, but I use it because of convention.)

Both of us as illiberal Christians oppose many of the liberal ideas that were at least part of an admittedly flawed founding. But let’s be honest. I highly suspect it is a certain part of the American particularity, the Protestantism, that you have the most issue with. I doubt you would be happy with an illiberal Protestant America. So it is the Protestant/Catholic axis, not the liberal/illiberal axis that concerns you most. Correct me if I’m wrong.

However much I esteem (and I certainly do) Mr. Buchanan as one of the great cultural warriors of our times, this article, however truthful and helpful in its observation regarding the degeneration of our times, performs a far superior service by clearly articulating what must be THE most significant falsehood infecting our declining Western Civilization.  In fact, it may very well be the mother lode of bogus humbuggery at the root of our cultural ethnocide as well as our inability to coalesce as an authentic conservative Right capable of stemming the tide of destruction.  It is also a falsehood which has spawned a multitude of equally bogus syllogisms which like the Aids virus move by stealth throughout the organism rendering our natural immune system incapacitated to deal with an attack upon our very body and Being. 

Mr. Buchanan states it most clearly when he informs us “Christianity is the cornerstone of Western Civilization.” One is reminded of Nietzsche when he criticizes those men who cannot conceive of history beyond the knowledge of their own grandparents.  At least Tertullian had the sense to recognize a possible debt to our authentic roots when he formulated his famous question re: Athens vs. Jerusalem. 

Positing Christianity as the ultimate “good,” and/or as the well intending Christian conservative writers (particularly as found between the pages of Chronicles magazine – paleo or otherwise) never tire to profess, namely, that a return to a former Christian State would eliminate most, if not all of our current societal ills fails to account for those ills which might emanate from the Christian ethos.  In other words, what if the antidote turned out to be the poison? 

Christianity, one of the three great monotheisms emanating from the Old Testament God of Israel must come under scrutiny.  Perhaps it is time for us to look deeply inward and ask ourselves the most difficult of questions?  Should Christianity share in some, if not much of the blame with respect to our prevailing Western diseases?  Hyper-individualism; crass materialism; inflated egalitarianism; an effete masculinity; identity confusion; not to mention the narcissism re: the eco-system may have more to do with the flowering of our Christian roots rather than a departure from such roots? 

While our Christian heritage brings much that is noble and good in its wake, it seems high time we began to question whether it also has a dark side, and whether it may be the breeder of values contributing to our demise?

@PB. Yes I am R.C., just not as good of one as you, obviously. Your link to the catechism regarding sin oddly enough lacks vengeance in it’s quotations; man’s or God’s. These five “sins that cry to heaven” are listed as: The Blood of Abel/Sin of Sodomites/Cry of People oppressed in Egypt/The cry of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan/Injustice to the wage earner. These sins are mentioned in a hierarchy of sins mortal and venial but it seems to me to take them literally and without interpretation binds them to their historical situation. Not saying that the quote in the catechism isn’t omitting vengeance from a longer quote, but if it suits the catechism to omit it, it suits me as well. Thanks for pointing it out to me that my paltry paycheck is getting attention in heaven. Or is it? @Luke Landtroop. I am glad that you belong to a church that doesn’t stress vengeance over mercy. I was speaking of those who conspire with zionists/likudniks to bring on the Rapture. I heard it referred here when W.F. Buckley died, something like, “beware those who would make heaven here on earth”. It seems to me to signal a lack of faith when people are too anxious and hasty to administer God’s justice themselves. Pax, PhilthyRex

Dirk W. Sabin: why don’t you quote Franz Boas, too? Abbie Hoffman? Jerry Rubin? Susan Sontag?

Both Buchanan in his article and most of the commentators talk about “Western Christian tradition.” Please, please, please, do pay attention to the crucially important detail that over its history Christianity has several times changed drastically.  Furthermore, as Christians at the time noted quite emphatically, some of those changes were very significant indeed.  A summary of one of these changes, the total reinterpretation of Christianity’s message that took place in the late medieval period, can be found in the last two chapters of Peter Burke’s “Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe.”

Luke Landtroop’s description of the duty to hate the sin and not the sinner points to one source of changes, because the description rises several questions:  1) what are the sins that have to be hated?  2) how do you detect those sins in yourself and in others?  3) by what methods do you overcome the sins and develop a hatred of them?  4) how can you detect that you really hate the sins?  5) how can you make sure your hatred of sin does not grow excessive and in itself become sinful (keep in mind that hatred is a mortal sin)?

The importance of the above questions can be seen in modern America:  what Christians traditionally regarded as the sin of pride is in today’s American religion—particularly in Protestantism—thought to be the virtue of self-esteem.  What used to be the virtue of humility has totally disappeared from modern religious morality.  (How humble are the dispensationalists?) The change is quite impressive indeed, since in the Bible pride is the sin of the devil, and Christ emphasized humility in both his teaching and in the role-model he set by his actions.  In the 20th century, American “christianity” abandoned Christianity’s central moral ideals.

re mike
While Sontags, skunk stripe hairdo indicates some level of humor, I don’t quote any of the agitators you cite because they have no sense of humor, much like many of the star-struck diviners, prophets, seers and revelators of this somewhat cockeyed yet mostly interesting site.

i agree strongly with art woodland. the old testament is the root of the problem… to quote art >>Christianity, one of the three great monotheisms emanating from the Old Testament God of Israel must come under scrutiny.  Perhaps it is time for us to look deeply inward and ask ourselves the most difficult of questions?  Should Christianity share in some, if not much of the blame with respect to our prevailing Western diseases?  Hyper-individualism; crass materialism; inflated egalitarianism; an effete masculinity; identity confusion; not to mention the narcissism re: the eco-system may have more to do with the flowering of our Christian roots rather than a departure from such roots?

While our Christian heritage brings much that is noble and good in its wake, it seems high time we began to question whether it also has a dark side, and whether it may be the breeder of values contributing to our demise? <<

yes it does have a dark side and very few christians seem to have the ability to even consider it.. kudos to you for raising a question that demands consideration..

[Hillary’s] opposition to any partial-birth abortion ban (Obama supports such a ban).

Don’t know where you get your info, but my understanding of Obama’s position is that not only does he support partial birth abortion, he supports letting any unfortunate child that survives botched abortion attempts to die of neglect.  Both of them are bad, but he is worse, at least on abortion.

Kari, as long as we’re talking about humility, let’s talk about a Biblical tradition that asserts itself as the voice of God--and here on this page asserts that all we reject in the current state of affairs has to do with biting the Protestant apple.

I’m a live-and-let-live mostly-dispensationalist Protestant. I’m happy enough to call Catholics “brothers in the faith” (perhaps even because I was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic). But it’s not very humble to prop yourself up as the judge of humility. It’s also not very humble to use your position as an adherent to the one-true-tradition, as a springboard to make all sorts of arguments, which thus must be accepted on their agreement with that authority--and I would add, IMO, counter to much of what Jesus wrote about the people of his time extrapolating from the authority of the scriptures and needlessly binding people.

In fact Jesus points out a problem with authoritative behavior more than many other points of view. He would rather have us live with each other, walk in each other’s shoes. He never suggested (and I propose it’s man’s projection) that there aren’t problems in less authority--because as Paul cites: Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

I’ve met numerous Protestants that puff themselves up by “knowledge” of Luthor’s arguments. So I can recognize some of what you are getting at.

And while we are talking about “self-esteem” it is the Episcopalian C. S. Lewis that I recognize as a forceful writer against the secular concept of “self-esteem”.

Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you” and yet he entreated people to “sell everything you have and give to the poor”. While there may be a kingdom that perfects this, while we still have poor, we still have problems. Problems aren’t only met outside of God’s will, but in keeping God’s will they are at least more effectively handled.

I hope you will not find this comment too uppity. It is the disunity and the perils of pride in man and not some conveniently-located “other” that have lead me to my dispensational stance that the Kingdom is not Man’s doing, but God’s miraculous preemption--as was the downfall of his previous project: Israel. I recognize some of the worst of the people I worship with in your caricature of dispensationalists, but not the part that I’m supposed to see in others--that part that comes forth when judging not.

Thank God that very few Catholics have the idiotic views of Charles (if only we could go back to the ancien regime when all was well and people danced happily in the fields!) Yo Chuck, if you don’t like the USA, then move!  If the republic is so bad, why do so many Catholics live here???