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Responsibility #27
(written prior to July 1992)
To the People of the United States of America:
The Constitution, as the name denotes, is concerned principally with the physical character of the body (the nation) as to strength, health, etc. The foundation on which this structure rests, consists of the individuals and families who form We the People. Unless the nation looks to the strength and health (mental, physical, and moral) of its foundation, it risks its "walls come tumbling down."
The individual is a product of the family from which he or she is spawned, nourished, reared, sent out into the world, and even sustained (to a more or less degree) in their adult years. So in any actions they take, the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the States, must first take into consideration the effects on the family. Alas, this has so often not been the case, particularly in the last thirty years!
The vows that most brides and grooms take are followed by words to the effect "what God has joined together, let no man put asunder." Yet in the establishment, execution, interpretation, and adjudication of our laws, our government has impeded and rended our families as sacrifices to money and power.
Ah, yes! At election time, the families of the candidates are paraded on the podia before the cameras. At that time there are not enough words to glorify the family. When the elections are over, it is time again for these obstructions, to campaign contributions and coalitions, to sit in the back rows, unrecognized.
Nature, or nature's God, endowed man and woman with a blessing of the copulative act. It would serve two purposes: as a loving joy and compensation that would serve to cement together the roles of husband and wife, father and mother, as they perform their awesome responsibilities. The other purpose is, with God, to procreate our posterity.
Like every privilege or right, it has a responsibility: it is to be taken advantage of only in the married state. Since the earliest times it has been one of the greatest challenges to the individual, to the family, and to society. Each and every human being is vulnerable to being led to exercise the privilege, but to deny the responsibility (in premarital, extramarital, or homo sexual behavior). Loose sexual behavior is one of the symptoms (and causes) of the decline and fall of nations.
The start of American society's slide down the slimy slope is said to have begun with the decision by the Supreme Court, to recognize right of privacy of a married couple to use birth control devices. But that is only one part of the picture. Standing alone, it would be relatively harmless. It could be accepted as consistent with the constitutional requirement for the separation of fealty to God, and fealty to Caesar.
Those married citizens, who had no religious qualms, could enjoy the marital privilege at will, with considerably less risk of pregnancy. Those, whose beliefs were that the use of birth control devices would break a compact with God, would have to abstain from the marital privilege, about five days each month, if they wished to plan their families, rather than leave the decision to become pregnant to God alone.
The state of the art of natural family planning in the 1960s was not highly developed, and the risk of unplanned pregnancy was not low. Now NFP is a highly developed art; it is competitive with birth control devices as to risk of unplanned pregnancies.
Standing alone, the Court decision did not overtly compromise the fabric of the family. It condoned the use of birth control means, only by married couples, and only in private. It was a minute hole in the dike, but the little Dutch boy was not there to stem the leak.
A later Court decision found it unfair to condone birth control devices for married couples, without legislating them for unmarried persons as well. The hole was now a crack. That slip caused a slide down the slimy slope beyond the handholds, which might have permitted the arrest of the nation's descent, into the deep abyss of immorality. The family fabric was indeed now rent. The Court had now taken on the role of God. It had crossed the line of separation of church and state. It had rendered unto Caesar what was God's only to give.
God didn't know what had hit him! The polluted water began to pour through the dam, through an ever increasing number of holes and cracks. The little Dutch boy arrived on the scene, but he had only ten small fingers and thumbs. The slide down the slope became breakneck speed, as the slime became thicker. The Court next displaced the control of the RIGHT TO LIFE away from God. By 1991 this action proved to be the death sentence for over 26 million developing human beings. The rent was complete; the family was naked.
Some families were able to reach for garments to cover the shame. They had retained their faiths and principals, despite other Supreme Court decisions that had erroneously found it necessary to deny the free exercise of religion, in order to uphold the non-establishment of a single sect.
Other families could not cover their nakedness. They were poor; or poor in spirit; or poorly educated; or hadn't overcome the slavery and post-slavery conditions of their parentage; or were part of an otherwise impaired family (alcohol, drugs, divorce, abandonment, etc.); or, like God's chosen people in biblical history on the journey from Egypt, were just too stiff necked.
The families that had extra garments were not safe from defilement. The Supreme Court had loosed the reins, from the communications and entertainment industries, by decisions that had misapplied the freedoms of speech and press. These media were free to tear at the family fabric, with all manner of pornography (with the lame excuse of how do you define it). These media do not hesitate (in the name of ratings or subscriptions) to bombard the members of the family, toddler to adult, with the message that nothing (especially the marital privilege) is sacred. DO IT, YOU'LL LIKE IT! It's for free. You have no responsibilities.
What happened to the privacy aspect of the Supreme Court findings? They were lost in the shuffle! PRIVACY and center stage now have the same meaning.
Obviously, this discussion is not finished. As some TV program commentators say at commercial breaks: stay with us!
Publius IV
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