Objections to proposed legislation: LB167, LB168, and LB627

Dear Editor,

Ironic it is that those who protest with the most vociferous of objections to man’s misappropriation of nature have no reservation in misappropriating the nature of man …

It is an ontological truth that man is more than spirit and will. Man has a definite and complementary human nature – male and female – which exists outside of man’s will; a nature whose design is the exclusive dominion of God, by whom man was created. However, we now have the absurd proposition that truth and reality no longer find their center on man’s created nature, but rather on his will to choose his own nature. To wit: the pre-ordained duality of male and female is now an abstract concept, where man may choose his own reality.

The biological evidence proves the falsity of this proposition – for the masculine and feminine natures are each defined at the moment of conception. Those convinced of their own infallibility may obstinately choose to proclaim otherwise, but the genetic map confirms the reality of two, and only two, sexes: male and female – and this truth is the very core of human essence, not some artifice constructed by society.

To quote Pope Benedict XVI: “But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. … Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. … The child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God … When God is denied, human dignity also disappears.”

Let me concisely reaffirm Pope Benedict’s point: the dignity of man is “stripped” when aberrations such as homosexuality and transgenderism become accepted components of society. If we deny ontological realities, then there can be no immutable moral truth upon which to establish the foundation of our laws. If no foundation exists for our laws, then ordered human society cannot survive.

The mindset driving these proposed bills – that advocating what is normal, and working to rehabilitate those suffering same-sex-attraction or gender dysphoria, is a form of bigoted segregation deserving of criminalization and the granting of special rights – sets in deep relief that phrase first coined by the former Democrat Senator of NY, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Defining deviancy down.” A term describing the process by which only the most morally bizarre behavior is labeled deviant, and what was in the past considered deviant is now accepted as normal. In January of 1994, the late Charles Krauthammer, in his column for the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, added a disturbing component to Moynihan’s concept: “… As part of the vast social project of moral leveling, it is not enough for the deviant to be normalized. The normal must be found deviant. … Large areas of ordinary behavior hitherto considered benign have had their threshold radically redefined up, so that once innocent behavior now stands condemned as deviant. Normal middle-class life then stands exposed as the true home of violence and abuse and a whole catalog of aberrant acting and thinking.”

Within this paradigm, pro-homosexual activists labor to intimidate and silence any who courageously uphold that which is ontologically truthful, in defiance to the normalization of same-sex attraction and the transgender gospel – a narcissistic narrative which our popular culture, in its race to the bottom of moral ambiguity, has invented out of thin air. This revolution against reality disorients our society from its founding Christian principles, and leads to the persecution of those who oppose the ascendancy of sexually deviant behavior.

In his 1995 book – ‘Setting the Record Straight, What Research Really says About the Social Consequences of Homosexuality,’ Lawrence F. Burtoft, PhD., stated the following:

“The fact that there is any success in changing from homosexual to heterosexual orientation at least proves that some forms of homosexuality are not immutable, which in turn throws great doubt upon all claims to the contrary. Low rates of success may have more to do with inadequate diagnosis and treatment than with some inherent immutability …

The fact that change is possible is a fundamentally important issue. … There is both hope for individuals who desire change, and irrefutable proof that homosexuality is not an immutable, unchangeable fact rooted in the physical constitution. Public policy enactments must face this fact, and recognize the difference between politically correct rhetoric and empirically verifiable reality. The welfare of both individuals and society as a whole depends upon our facing this reality honestly, compassionately and courageously.”

In that context, I shall close with this admonishment: Public policy cannot be allowed to elevate the subjective rights of the person over the objective moral law. As representatives of the people, our state legislators must not create a system that places human will over human nature – a system that places “what I want” as higher than what God decrees. To do so will engender a body of law having no stable foundation upon which to make objectively reasoned judgments. What you will then end with is a society engulfed by moral and civil chaos – and thus ungovernable.

Bruce C. Desautels

Stratton, Neb.