Three and a half years ago in an article titled “Frightening The Horses,” writer and editor Rod Dreher opens giving a fellow writer kudos. “Ben Domenech calls it,” Dreher notes, and then excerpts him:

I think they have really been arguing against the rise of something which has a much larger impact than just a small number of homosexuals getting married — they have instead been arguing against the modern concept of sexual identity. And this is a much tougher task, considering how ingrained this concept has become in our lives.

During the sexual revolution, we crossed a line from sex being something you do to defining who you are. When it enters into that territory, we move beyond the possibility of having a society in which sex acts were tolerated, in the Mrs. Patrick Campbell sense — “I don’t care what they do, so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses” — and one where it is insufficient to be anything but a cheerleader for sexual persuasion of all manner and type, because to be any less so is to hate the person themselves. Sex stopped being an aspect of a person, and became their lodestar — in much the same way religion is for others.

After commenting on that, Dreher goes back to Domenech again:

So the real issue here is not about gay marriage at all, but the sexual revolution’s consequences, witnessed in the shift toward prioritization of sexual identity, and the concurrent rise of the nones and the decline of the traditional family. The real reason Obama’s freedom to worship limitation can take hold is that we are now a country where the average person prioritizes sex far more than religion.

. . .

In a nation where fewer people truly practice religion, fewer people external to those communities will see any practical reason to protect the liberty of those who do.

I highly recommend Rod Dreher’s entire article, where he weaves together several more excerpts from others, including the late Justice Antinon Scalia. Ben Domenech’s article The Future of Religious Liberty is also worth your time. Their point — that opening the door to mandated acceptance of everyone’s choice of identity has serious negative consequences.

Let’s turn to our next identity. A few years ago the Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins wrote an article titled, “Whole: A New Documentary on a Troubling Disorder.” Here is the opening:

The new documentary Whole, which recently premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival, explores the troubling topic of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). This disorder, which I have mentioned in several articles, used to be called apotemnophilia.

Those who suffer from BIID identify with amputees and seek to have their bodies align with their psychological identity. That is to say, they seek to have healthy limbs amputated. Many of those who suffer from BIID (known colloquially as “amputee wannabes”) recount feeling these desires from a very young age. Some have accomplished their goal through self-mutilation, and at least two have been facilitated in their quest by a doctor in Scotland.

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page (emphasis added):

Body integrity identity disorder (BIID, also referred to as amputee identity disorder) is a psychological disorder wherein sufferers feel they would be happier living as an amputee…

BIID is typically accompanied by the desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs to achieve that end. BIID can be associated with apotemnophilia, sexual arousal based on the image of one’s self as an amputee.

So, next on our list of basic and important questions: How will society respond to “After the Ball” type efforts to normalize BIID, remove it from the DSM’s (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) list of mental disorders, and demonize those who disapprove of it?

It is their identity, after all, and you shouldn’t be a bigot.

Up next: Transgenderism.

Weekly editorials complain about the violence of our streets, the failures of public schools, and the apparent hopelessness of American’s youth, but solutions are notably absent.  In fact, the lame suggestions offered, which I suppose are considered answers by those who offer them, address symptoms at best and rarely the underlying issues. 

The reasons for the dearth of real answers lies in the fact that such answers are politically incorrect, and much of America trembles at the feet of the “political correct” police. Now, I have never seen one of these “police,” and I expect you have not either, but they wield incredible power over the thinking of Americans.  How tragic that in the “Land of the free and the home of the brave” multitudes remain paralyzed for fear of the “PC police.”

While many things contribute to the cultural problems we face, one eclipses all the rest in its importance, and that is the collapse of the traditional family.  This is not debatable.  The evidence is overwhelming.  And we must not be side-tracked by the critics who persistently parade out the “exceptions.”  Yes, some people fail at marriage and some people use marriage to hide vile behavior.  But, there is no substitute for a loving, intact family in the shaping of a well-rounded,  healthy child.  It is probable that we did too little in helping young people prepare for marriage during the 50’s assuming they understood more than they really did about building essential relationships. 

But, it must be understood that it is people failing at marriage and not the institution itself, that is the cause of these woes, just as it was people who failed in their duties as leaders which brought on the current financial malaise, not America’s form of government or economic system.

But, all these crises find a primary solution in the restoration of the nuclear family. There is no better place to learn how to live than in a good home.  But, before we will see a resurgence of the family, we must address the question as to why it has fallen into disrepute in the first place.  The family is not perceived to be a viable answer to our cultural ills for several reasons. 

• First, there is no utopia, with or without intact families.  But, some, who hate what the family represents, have highly exaggerated the weaknesses and failures of  the family.  It is difficult to be enthusiastic about an institution the failures of which are the target of incessant caricature and parody.  You will search in vain through TV programming to find a healthy family portrayed anywhere. 
  
  
• Second, we have become a lazy and narcissistic society, and creating a healthy family requires both hard work and sacrifice. 
  
  
• Third, public education and organizations which used to encourage and foster family now undermine them. 

I read a Girl Scout recruiting poster the other day and found it called girls to a myriad of great adventures, but nowhere advocated for preparing for motherhood!  I suggested to a high school principle a few years ago that to the list of opportunities the school high-lighted on “Career Day” he should add a session on motherhood.  He recoiled as if I suggested adding neo-Nazism and sputtered, “We could never do that!”  I used to think that fatherhood was the most disrespected vocation in America, but now realize the Left, especially as represented by radical feminism, detests motherhood with a passion that eclipses even their hatred for dads! 

It is clear why the nuclear family is on life support in America and why we have so many intractable social problems.  The hot house in which vulnerable little ones are introduced to life is being broken down and destroyed.  The wringing of hands on the Left over hurting children is a sham.  If they really cared, they would quit their assault on the family and invest their energies on rebuilding and encouraging solid, healthy, traditional, two-parent families.

It may help to have a friendly village to raise a child, but the village does nothing compared to the family in bringing up healthy and happy young people!  And, in America’s case, our current village is openly hostile to children.

It would be best to avoid the village in raising children for the foreseeable future.