You may have already heard, but apparently Neil Patrick Harris (who, ironically, plays a womanizer on TV) is "expecting twins" with his partner, David Burtka. Now, if that didn't jar you, you weren't paying attention. How does can a homosexual couple be "expecting"? Well, in this case, they used a surrogate. They're not saying whose sperm was used; they are sharing in "daddyhood". One report talked about how they "continually emphasized the word, 'normal.'"
I am not entering into the debate here about whether or not a homosexual couple should be allowed to have children. There are copious amounts of other places to go to debate that topic. I'm not going to discuss the wisdom or the morality of intentionally bringing children into this world lacking either a mother or a father. That debate is also available elsewhere. I'm not even going to discuss whether or not homosexual relations are sin. Been there; done that. What I'm fascinated by is this claim for "normal".
I've looked up the word in multiple dictionaries. It's not a complicated definition. It means "conforming to the standard or the common type" or "approximately average". It can even mean "the standard". So in what possible sense is this news item "normal"? Indeed, in what possible sense is homosexuality "normal"? Now, don't get your knickers in a twist. I have not said "It's wrong." I'm asking in what sense it is normal. How is it "common" or "average" or "the standard"? Feel free to take a moment and form an answer. Pick either topic -- homosexuality, or homosexuals "expecting". Because, you see, it doesn't seem to me at all to be "normal". Oh, I hear you. "Oh, yeah? Well what about heterosexual couples who hire surrogates to have their babies?" And I'd tell you they're not normal either.
Look, "normal", as in "that which is standard or average", isn't hard to see. The vast majority of couples are heterosexual couples and the vast majority of babies are the product of heterosexual couples ... without surrogates. I'm not making any startling claim here. Anyone can do the math. It's not rocket science. So the idea that a homosexual couple is expecting twins may be a lot of things, but it cannot be considered "normal".
So what's my point? My point is that this is exactly the cry today. Hollywood, the media, the homosexual communities, the loudest voices want us to stop thinking of it as "aberrant" -- "deviating from the ordinary, usual, or normal" -- and start thinking of it as "normal". (Did you see all those "bad" words in there? "Aberrant", "deviant" ... yeah, we can't use those.) In fact, there are voices who would like us to think of it as "normal" as in "the standard". In 1999 there were 3,959,417 live births, of which 16,500 were by surrogate mothers. That's 0.4%. That's not normal, standard, average. Nor is homosexual behavior. But the reality that, since only 4% (generously) of the population is engaged in this activity, it cannot be considered "average" is irrelevant. The notion that it is not "normal" is an assault. You can't call it "abnormal", "aberrant", "deviant". You see, none dares call it "queer". Oh, wait ...
3 comments:
That is the thrust of the agenda, to insist that their attractions and behavior are as normal as anyone else's. Unfortunately for them, it is true in only one sad sense: most people have some quirk or desire or bad behavior pattern that they would prefer would be seen as normal rather than something they should overcome. No one wants to be wrong.
You're approaching this from the wrong angle, Stan. It is not the participant's gender that is being proclaimed as normal here, it's the behavior, i.e. sin; at least in a sense. Think about it. This relationship is kicking at the goad of normal, and that is, I think, normal. Adultery and its acceptance, (Bill Clinton at 60% percent approval after having an affair with a young intern, for example, especially given his apologist's main defense, which was "everybody does it", would qualify as normal--especially x2 as we keep in mind that many who disapproved did so for reasons other than this affair) divorce, children out of wedlock, killing children in the womb, pornography, foul language, blasphemy, and basically all the ways this culture is rejecting objective truth; are all normal behaviors. Sure, not many are homosexuals, and even less are pretending to be a "family", but when we take into account the extent to which everyone is participating in their own way in the rejection of normal, I think it is safe to say that very few think that any of these things violate an objective standard of morality, for to do so would make them abnormal.
So ... they're "normal" because they're aberrant ... and everyone has aberrant behavior. They're "normal" because they thrive on their own desires and determine "normal" by their own standards. They're "normal", essentially, because they don't believe there is such a thing as "normal" ... and then claim that they're in it.
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