In the war on family life, why are most American men neutral observers?
What
will it take to rouse the protective instincts of American fathers?
The
role of a father is to protect his family. The role of a man—a real man, I
mean—is to protect the vulnerable. Yet the vast majority of American men today
are sitting idly by, couch-potato spectators, while their families are menaced
and their vulnerable neighbors victimized.
For
over 40 years now, we have tolerated the destruction of unborn children. We
have averted our gaze as more and more elderly hospital patients succumbed to
the effects of the steadily increasing morphine drip. We have allowed Planned
Parenthood to encourage high-school students toward promiscuity, and homosexual
activists to recruit adolescents to their cause. So is it any surprise that the
vanguard of the sexual revolution has advanced further into our lives?
Let
me cite just a few frightening cases:
- In
Massachusetts, the state’s highest court has ruled that the names of some criminals convicted of sexual
violence must be removed from the sex-offender registry, because there is not
sufficient evidence that they will strike again. So innocent children will
be put at risk, in order to vindicate the legal rights of molesters.
- In
New York City, all businesses are now required by law to treat
“transgender” customers and employees equally. So a man who dresses and
behaves like a woman must be treated as a woman. Rather than helping these
troubled people come to their right senses, New Yorkers are legally
obligated to indulge their self-destructive behavior, to treat the
abnormal as normal.
- In
Washington, the Obama administration has prepared new “Obamacare” guidelines barring
discrimination on the grounds of “gender identity.” In practice this is likely
to mean that taxpayers will pay for sex-reassignment surgery: an attempt
to cure a serious psychological problem by bodily mutilation.
- In a
Texas hospital, administrators decided to
withdraw life-sustaining support from an uninsured patient, who was fully conscious and
begging for his life. Dr. Philip Hawley, a hospice physician, reports that
when the man’s family resisted, the hospital sought to appoint a legal
guardian who would comply with the institution’s wishes. The case became
moot when the patient died.
These
are admittedly extreme cases, which do not affect most of us directly. But we
are paying a price—directly, in our tax support for various forms of
perversion; and indirectly, in the continued decay of American family life.
Moreover,
sooner or later, if the trend continues, we all will be
affected directly. By now we know how the gender warriors operate, picking out
their targets of opportunity. There are very few people who claim to be
“transgender,” but they will descend on some unfortunate Christian employer in
New York and hound him with lawsuits, just as homosexual activists have singled
out bakers and innkeepers, driving them out of business. The chosen “enemies of
the revolution” will be the first targets, and if we do not rally to their
defense, eventually the revolutionaries will come for us.
So
what will it take to break through the torpor that keeps John Q. Public on the
sidelines? Will American men finally decide to speak out, to become involved in
civic affairs, when boy demands entry to the girls’ locker room at their
daughters’ schools? When their spouses are denied medical care because the
doctors have decided that they are going to die anyway? When their employers
are forced to lay them off, in order to pay the fines imposed by a commission
dedicated to gender neutrality?
The
problem is not confined to the US, of course. Dozens of German women were
sexually assaulted in Cologne on New Year’s eve. Blame that outrage on
immigrants if you like. But where were those women’s fathers, their husbands,
their boyfriends, their brothers? Where were the police officers, sworn to
uphold the law and keep the peace? This incident didn’t “just happen;” there
was a sequence of events that created that temporary state of anarchy in
Cologne. Did no one see it coming? If they anticipated trouble, did German men
fret and complain—but do nothing?
The
stunning emergence of Donald Trump as a viable presidential candidate can be
attributed almost entirely to his willingness to say things that other
candidates will not say: his all-out assault on political correctness. But
bluster will alone not help confused adolescents; outrageous statements will
not heal psychological wounds. A presidential candidate, and for that matter a
president, is not a substitute for a negligent father.
