State Department’s nod to gay marriage

By WND Staff

Two of my children’s passports expired last year, and I’ve been negligent about going to the post office to renew them. However, a little publicized article on a news website this month had me running to the post office before February. February is the month that the space in passport application forms will be replaced from father and mother to parent one and parent two.

No, the post office is not paying literary homage to Dr. Seuss’ legendary thing one and thing two. It is paying homage to a gross act of pandering by the State Department to gay-rights activists advocating homosexual parenting. According to a State Department statement, this change to gender-neutral terms comes in recognition of different types of families. And gay rights proponents are cheering.

Coming on the heels of the military’s repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, this newest forfeiture of family values should incense everyone with a vestige not only of morality but of common sense. It is another affront by political correctness to replace biological correctness. Contrary to what many in the school system these days purport, Heather does not have two mommies. She has a father and a mother, and those two figures deserve recognition as the two parents declared on a passport application.

The majority of Americans has voted time and again on legislation opposing gay marriage, but their will has been hijacked by a vocal minority in this country. What are conservatives to do when they’re up against the likes of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who lectures listeners against homophobia on the radio, using government sponsored ads to tell listeners to love love and hate hate?

Militant gay activists have shifted the debate from the traditional argument between liberal and conservative viewpoints so much to the left that the debate itself has shifted. The idea of gays being tolerated as an acceptable lifestyle in America is no longer contested. No one questions anymore whether homosexuality belongs in the chapter on abnormal psychology, as it did a mere 30 years ago. The question remains only how much tolerance and respect this alternative lifestyle should be accorded. Following women’s rights and civil rights, gay rights have become the new human rights in our changed society. And no one is allowed to question the new rights order.

Homosexuals have existed from time immemorial, and the Bible itself acknowledges the act while condemning it. Yet contrary to their own philosophy, it is not enough anymore for liberals to be satisfied with the American creed of live and let live. Rather than be content with being allowed to live their lives behind closed doors, too many gay activists are not willing to live their private lives in private anymore. They flaunt their behavior and demand that we embrace the nuances of a lifestyle we reject.

An acquaintance of mine who manages apartments on the Upper West Side recently asked a potential renter who the apartment she was interested in renting was for. It’s for my wife and my son, she replied proudly, almost daring him to challenge her. And in her voice and attitude was conveyed the knowledge that the full force of discrimination laws stood behind her.

Wherever we go we are constantly being assaulted by all types of media, intentionally or unintentionally puppets of a gay-activist campaign. Glancing at a newspaper, checking one’s e-mail or even standing in line at the grocery checkout in front of the magazine stand compels one to read about how Elton John and his husband are celebrating the birth of their baby boy. Yet no one is allowed to question the moral value of such a state of affairs without being shot down as a homophobe.

According to the Talmud there are three partners in the creation of a human being: the father, the mother and G-d, so often the missing equation in much of our lives in 21st century America. So I propose that the State Department, if it is bent on distorting the origins of our conception, at least add in a space for G-d in passport applications under parent three. Bringing G-d back into our everyday lives may be the only proven method of halting the rampant progression of what many see as our current state of Sodom. However, until that is rectified I notified my husband that the next time we have to renew our children’s passports I want to be parent one.


Sara Lehmann writes for the Jewish Press and has worked at Bantam Books. She has interviewed many politicians and media personalities both in America and Israel.