Eric Johnson: August 2004 Archives

One of the more loathesome tendencies in American political life is the "gotcha" soundbite. The Democrats are jumping all over President Bush for supposedly saying "I don't think you can win" the war on terror. (See the transcript.)

The last time they reacted like this, it was when Bush said "We will double our Special Forces to conduct terrorist operations" in a major speech. Clearly, if you read the text and especially if you hear the interview, Bush was saying that we might not win the war on terror in four years, but he was interested in minimizing the conditions where terrorism can flourish.

I know, both sides play "gotcha." But it just turns people off of politics in general, and that's not good for anyone. Nobody seriously thinks that President Bush doesn't think we can win the war on terror -- he's said as much many times, but in his opinion, it will take many years. Nobody believes that he would send Special Forces troops on terror missions, either. It's insulting to our collective intelligence to play this kind of stupid game.

Oh, wait -- I'm sorry, my mistake: The guy who said we would conduct terrorist operations was Senator John F. Kerry in his own nomination speech.

The forces of diversity, tolerance, acceptance, peace, and love are on the prowl in Manhattan:

When marchers approached the Garden, a police detective was knocked off his scooter. He was then repeatedly kicked and punched in the head by at least one male demonstrator, the police said....

As delegate buses arrived at the Garden yesterday afternoon, protesters who had gathered for a demonstration screamed obscenities and gestured rudely at them. When the police spotted Pete Coors, a Republican candidate for Senate from Colorado, walking near the group, they swiftly steered him away....

Some delegates seemed perplexed, even hurt, not because they did not expect protesters to be here, but because they did not expect them to get personal. "They were using foul language, getting real ugly," said Kim Kirkwood, a delegate from Amarillo, Tex. Her husband, Jim, said he could not understand it. "I have friends who are Democrats in Texas, and we talk about things, agree to disagree."

The Left talks about respecting others' points of view just long enough to gain power, at which time they don their boots and stomp on the others' faces. When they get desperate after being out of power for years, they start screaming and attacking.

Does anyone else notice a (less violent) parallel between the secular Left and the Catholic Left? As their hold on seminaries, universities, chanceries, and other Catholic institutions wanes, they are getting ever more shrill and defensive. Here's a great example: look at the articles lamenting the orthodoxy of young priests. Even the New York Times has noticed that the typical ordinand these days ain't exactly Daniel Berrigan.

A small religious sect applauds the newest version of their imago dei, the idol at whose feet they worship. Some speculate that at the death of Stephanus Labores, the cult's founder, the sect's members may commit mass suicide.

The communion song at St. Mary's took me back to college, and not in a good way. The song (not a "hymn," to be sure) was "We Are Called," one of the favorite campfire songs at our folk masses on campus.

Normally, since these songs can detract from basking in the presence of God, I steel myself to ignore them, but one lyric has stayed with me: "We are called to love tenderly."

Are we? I wondered. I've spent over three decades on earth and maybe I haven't loved tenderly enough. So I investigated the matter, and found that the phrase "love tenderly" is mostly found on Catholic Web sites, citing Micah 6:8 as the source text.

So the Bible tells us to love tenderly, eh. I immediately resolved to do so, and frequently. Yet I still had a nagging doubt. I went to the excellent (Protestant) English Bible Gateway to look at various translations of Micah 6:8, and after looking through most of them, I did not see "love tenderly."

I suspected that loving tenderly must be a Catholic thing -- you know, like translating Gabriel's words to Mary as "full of grace" instead of "most highly favored one." Yes, that must be it. I opened the New American Bible and found...

You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Hmm. That was pretty much how the Protestant translators rendered the verse, too. Could it be that David Haas messed around with the words? That instead of the imperative "love mercy" or "love goodness," depending on the Bible version, he changed it to the less direct "We are called to love tenderly"?

This is a small example of lex orandi, lex credendi, that how one prays determines how one believes. Haas took a strong, masculine passage from Micah about man's obligations to the God of Israel and made it into a wimpy suburban anthem to the God of Nice. Today there are Catholic organizations -- including at least one archdiocese -- that quote the lyrics of "We Are Called" as if they are the words of the Prophet Micah himself.

Plato regarded bad music as the biggest threat to an ideal society, because it appeals directly to the passions and can override the intellect. In contemporary American Catholicism, traditionalists often treat folk music as a symptom of many parishes' mediocre spiritual life. I wonder if it isn't a primary cause.

Sal's post on Jews for Jesus reminded me that one of their members gave me a pamphlet today, and I want to send them a thank-you note. Although I'd rather they were Catholic, it's infinitely better to be baptized Protestant than not to be baptized at all, and I admire them canvassing for recruits in Lafayette Park, right across from the White House.

It also reminded me of the original Jews for Jesus:

I thought of this when I read Richard's link to the parody drug commercial: ever seen the ads for that birth control patch? They say it causes "blood clots, hemorrhaging, weight gain, stroke, etc." and they make no attempt to minimize it with a statement like "these effects were similar to other patients who received placebos," probably because nobody would want placebo birth control. ("I was in the placebo group? I'm not even married! I was just doing this for the two hundred bucks!")

Also, normal birth control pills contribute to osteoporosis and an increased risk of cancer. Ah, contraception: you gave us casual sex, rampant bastardy, and you strike at the very heart of marriage and family life. Is there anything you can't do?

Anti-Americanism has grown steadily since the end of the Cold War. A large part of this is resentment towards American economic success; some of it is resentment toward Hollywood's slime machine (no argument there).

An overlooked cause of anti-Americanism is our success in sports, particularly our surprisingly good showing in the 2002 Winter Games and our stellar medal count in this year's games. Remember a few years ago when the American team did really well in the World Cup? If we had won, we would have been hated with a furious passion by most countries when they realized that most Americans don't even care about soccer.

So to assuage this sentiment against our fine country, I suggest that instead of sending our athletic supermen to Beijing in 2008, we should send our Special Olympics team. Then the rest of the world can high-five each other when they beat the Americans. The Special Olympians will just be happy to compete. Everybody wins, and it advances the national interest. What do you guys think? Do we give them a chance?

I wrote something about this last Thursday, but the Prince of Darkness attacked my cable modem just as I submitted the post, and it was lost into the ether.

Continuing today's Latin theme (that's lingua Latina, not Enrique Iglesias), our parish had a majority-Latin Mass two Sundays ago. Father Poumade — parochial vicar, godfather to my younger son, and all-around sacerdotal superstar — was the celebrant. My wife was one of the four women making up the scola who sang most of the music, and they all sounded lovely.

I asked Father about the reaction from parishioners. "The response has been nothing but overwhelmingly positive so far," he said. "I received many compliments and not a single complaint after the Mass itself — except for those who complained that they wanted even more Latin and that we hadn't used enough of it.

"I was really surprised at the wide amount of enthusiasm — I expected some would be supportive, but [seeing] that there are so many people, both young and old, who are actually enthusiastic about it was a welcome surprise."

Someone asked me if I saw people walk out, and from my angle it was hard to tell, but I didn't see anyone leave. A large teenage girl standing behind me suddenly collapsed onto my back and then fell behind my pew, but I do not think it was a toxic reaction to the non-vernacular Eucharistic prayer. (She was fine by the end of Mass.)

Hopefully, St. Mary's will follow up with more Latin in the liturgy, because it does assist in giving a sacred atmosphere to the Mass. My older son Charlie described it as "holy language," which is a pretty good insight; I hope our fellow churchgoers share it.

In this cynical age, some lies are unremarkable. Take, for instance, Iran's nuclear program, whose sole purpose is to create weapons of mass destruction.

They don't actually come out and say that. Tehran's Islamist regime continues the fiction that their nuclear program is for "peaceful purposes," so they can generate electricity. With a straight face, journalists repeat the claim at face value.

Yet news reports almost never explain that Iran has more oil and natural gas than it knows what to do with, and burning them is a lot easier, less expensive, and less complicated than building nuclear reactors. Omitting those facts amounts to perpetuating Iran's lies.

Within the next two years, "the world" will have to either accept Iran's new dominance over the Mideast, or find some way to neutralize its nuclear capabilities. I put "the world" in quotation marks, because really it will be the United States, Israel, Great Britain and its former colonies, and several of the less enervated European states. The effeminate Germans will not be with us, and neither will the French, who have been the allies of militant Muslims at least since the battle of Lepanto.

We may pray that something will avert this crisis without bloodshed; indeed, it is our duty to pray for that outcome. But in my opinion, there are four possible outcomes:

1. Israel or the United States carries out a massive surprise attack on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities before they are able to assemble a functioning bomb.

2. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. A coalition of states enacts sanctions and gives Tehran an ultimatim to disarm or face the consequences. The regime, incapable of giving up its mass-murder devices without suffering a mortal blow to its credibility, prefers to fight. The coalition invades, and after a few weeks and possibly hundreds of thousands of dead, prevails.

3. Students, intellectuals, and mid-level clerics carry out a semi-bloodless coup, staging massive demonstrations and daring the secret police and security forces to respond. After firing some perfunctory bursts of machine-gun fire into the crowds, the government agrees to hold elections and carry out liberalizing political reforms.

4. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. The United Nations passes a weak resolution, representing a compromise between a bitterly divided General Assembly and Security Council, enacting trade sanctions against Iran and any state that assists its nuclear program. Iran makes some conciliatory statements, but makes no move to disarm. Over the years, the sanctions are slowly ignored, and Iran consolidates its newfound position as regional superpower, gradually spreading its Islamist influence into neighboring states.

The first scenario won't happen even if President Bush is re-elected. Thanks to the hysterical Democratic opposition, political reality militates against a pre-emptive strike against Iran, no matter how much they threaten their neighbors. Scenario #2 is even more fanciful -- what country will voluntarily place its soldiers within range of a nuclear bomb? Scenario #3 is plausible, but the list of regimes that have voluntarily given up power without violence is short (including, ironically, the Shah in 1979).

As you might guess by the length, I'd bet on scenario #4. It plays off of human inertia, folly, and wishful thinking; it requires no real action on behalf of U.N. members; and it privileges the sovereignty of a dangerous nation-state over true peace. It has the added bonus of being anti-Semitic, as Iran's first announced target is Israel.

In a broader sense, I would love to see the Church's leadership take a strong stand against Iran's murderous ambitions, but I am not holding my breath. Even though nuclear-armed Islamic fundamentalists are a clear danger to millions of lives, the bishops will not speak out against them in any meaningful way. They do not wish to make things harder for Christians living in Muslim lands, who already live precarious existences. And they, as a group, have an ingrained predilection for dialogue rather than the use of force, which is an admirable and humane trait -- and a dangerous temptation.

For we live in an age when violent men with absolutist, non-rational ideas use Western ideas to further their own ends. Things like state sovereignty and nuclear technology are good in themselves, but they can be abused. Yet the central conceit of the United Nations is that all member states are pretty much like Belgium. (Modern liberal Belgium, not the Belgium of the 19th century that ran a quasi-genocidal slave colony in the Congo.) Everything can be decided diplomatically, just like members of a gentleman's club, as long as we all keep talking and respecting each other's borders.

The Church, more or less, plays along with this, out of the altruistic belief that an international system can restrain the worst impulses of man. But secular man's idolatrous belief in state sovereignty allows a Sudan to murder poor Christians and vulnerable black Muslims -- because although the whole world knows it, they cower at the thought of stopping these crimes that cry out for vengence, because to violate Sudan's borders would be an unseemly display of contempt for man-made lines on a map.

Borders have their uses, as do states, and I don't mean to diminish their importance. But surely borders and states are not absolute? If a state uses its status to develop weapons that have no conceivable defensive purpose, with the intent to eradicate another country, shouldn't they forfeit their rights as a state? Certainly they should not be allowed to commit genocide?

Questions like these must be confronted in the very near future. That's what frustrates me about the low level of our national debates. The Michael Moore Democrats want to convince you that if we can just dump Bushitler, all these problems will go away, because the rest of the world hates the president so much.

But no matter what happens in November, Iran will get nukes, al Qaeda will keep plotting the mass murder of innocents, Islamists will continue preaching their message of hatred and resentment. Europeans will continue their death-march toward demographic oblivion, thanks to their socialist regimes.

The Church hierarchy ought to speak out on these topics, not in a prescriptive way (that is not their competence), but in a way that illuminates these new threats in the light of the Gospel. What are the obligations of states toward the citizens of other states, particularly when they are in mortal danger from their own governments? Does a state have an obligation to remove weapons of mass destruction from a hostile state?

If an individual state does not have the right to interfere with genocide, or to deter international mass murder on an epic scale, what about states operating collectively? Is the United Nations the only conceivable entity that can decide such questions? Should the United Nations be reformed to better safeguard peace and justice in the world?

These are all things that we need to consider, as Christians and as Americans (yes, in that order). I know, it's more fun to think about Iraq and what Senator Kerry did a third of a century ago in southeast Asia. But these questions won't wait -- Iran will go nuclear in the blink of an eye, and Sudan is sponsoring genocide at this very moment. Immediate action is necessary, but we also need to think of a long-term way of ordering our world, since the Second Coming isn't upon us yet, at least as I write this.

My friend has asked me to do a reading at his (Protestant) wedding service, and I get to pick the reading. The other reader is Jewish and probably will pick something from the Old Testament, so I'd like to select something from the New. Anyone got a suggestion? Not the one from Ephesians. (You know the one.)

The "Today" show, my morning infotainment program, reported on the "controversy" about the dancers who appear during breaks at the Olympic women's beach volleyball competitions. The spectators seem to like them — the dancers wear bikinis, which don't conceal either their flesh or their abject lack of dancing skills — but some female athletes are miffed. According to Reuters,

Australian player Nicole Sanderson was not impressed. "It's disrespectful to have other girls in bikinis out there dancing," she said while her partner, Sydney gold medallist Natalie Cook, said that if there were men out on the court dancing it could equal things out.

Strictly for informational purposes, I searched Yahoo News for pictures of Sanderson's athletic attire. Sure enough, like the rest of the women, her bikini bottom has about the same amount of fabric as a small eye patch. (No, I will not link to the photos.)

"But it's beach volleyball!" you exclaim. "They're dressed for the beach!" That might make sense, but the male volleyball players wear tank tops and normal-looking shorts. Why do the women have to dress like they're competing in a Daytona Beach best-buns competition?

You know the answer to that one. So these women play a sport where sex appeal is the primary draw, then they complain when the organizers of their events bring in dancers to keep the audience's appetites whetted. Ladies, show up with your entire backside covered, and then we'll listen to you complain.

I, for one, am shocked.

United States Marines are on the verge of exterminating the lawless thugs of Muqtada "Mookie" al Sadr today in Najaf. This is an advance for peace: there is nothing Arabs hate more than a loser, and once we demonstrate that Iranian-backed Islamists are losers, any support they enjoy will melt away.

To my brother Marines: I pray that God might give you safety and success. May your bullets strike home, and may the enemy lay down their arms, or else their lives. Let the name "Marine" continue to strike fear in the hearts of evil men.

UPDATE: This quotation is priceless. I wish I were in Najaf.

"We've pretty much just been patrolling and flying helicopters all over the place, and when we see something bad, we blow it up," said [Major] Holahan, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment.

(full article)

"Our virtues are often vices disguised."

That's from the fortune cookie that came with my lunch today. It's true -- think about it.

Does this seem like a good way to sell a dating service? True.com thinks so. These ads caught my eye, since they run on my work's Web site, and their radio ads are running in the D.C. area. They make dating seem pretty grim, as if the first thing you need to consider is whether the person is an axe-murderer.

Somebody decided a few months ago that 2004 would be the Year of the Internet Dating Service, because they're everywhere now, including sites like National Review Online. At least True.com isn't as misleading as the other dating services advertised on the Web, who take a stock photo of a pretty model and slap a lame slogan under it, hoping that people will sign up. This is pretty dishonest: young, attractive women don't generally have a problem getting dates, do they?

I guess it's a testimony to the anomie of modern life that we have so many technologies to connect ourselves to each other, yet apparently lots of people can't find a suitable mate without resorting to a computerized bureaucracy. I don't blame them, really -- maybe I'd use a dating service if I were single -- but it's a small indication of how the tendency toward idolizing personal freedom, so common in America, does not produce happier people.

Before I get to the main subject, I wanted to call out the biased and silly lead in this article:

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Friday defended the decision to issue terrorism warnings and tighten security in New York and Washington, saying "the threats we're dealing with are real" even though some of the intelligence on which the government acted was as much as four years old.

Is intelligence like milk? Does it come with an expiration date? Sure, updates are essential, but the terror warning was also based on much more recent information. If you're looking to establish that someone is a potential threat, or you want to know if someone is plotting a terror attack, you have to look at his actions over a long period of time, right? I've noticed that the author, Terence Hunt, likes to insert editorial comments into his copy. I usually expect better out of AP.

Here's the real subject of my comment, this paragraph near the bottom of the article:

[Bush said] he would consider supporting a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every American the right to vote in federal elections. "I can understand why African Americans in particular are worried about being able to vote since the vote had been denied for so long in the South in particular." He said Congress had approved $3 billion for states and local governments to make sure the voting process is fair.

This is astonishing. Forty years ago, Congress passed a major civil rights act to guarantee that, among other things, blacks could vote on an equal footing with whites. There are offices and departments honeycombing the Federal bureaucracy, all of them concerned with voting-rights compliance. High-priced lawyers and prosecutors are scanning the land, looking for these rights to be violated. Blacks can now vote without any legal impediments. Yet now we need a constitutional amendment to guarantee these things?

Up until about 10 minutes ago, I didn't even know this was an issue. I am assuming that the same people, like Senators Feinstein and McCain, who opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, will rush to oppose this proposal. Why? Because of the reasons they gave for opposing FMA, specifically:

1. Gay marriage is already prohibited at the federal level by the Defense of Marriage Act;

2. The Constitution is a sacred document and we shouldn't tamper with it for political purposes (what could be more political than proposing an amendment to solve a non-existent problem, the likely result of which would be to stir up racial mistrust and energize black voters?); and

3. It tramples states' rights, because states are the entities that authorize marriages (just as states are the entities that determine who is and is not an eligible voter.)

Let's watch the latter-day George Wallaces, the born-again Federalists who opposed the FMA if they are confronted with a voting-rights amendment. I'm betting they won't sound like Justice Scalia again.

When I meet a man who obviously spends way too much time making his hair look pretty, I instinctively mistrust him. I'm not saying I'm a hair expert -- I don't even own a comb -- but it does say something about a man when he feels the need to apply several unguents to his head every day.

I associate this with falsehood because in my professional life, the people who pay excessive attention to their appearance are the same people who think looking good is equivalent to being good (or doing good). They would prefer to do something flashy or impressive, rather than quiet and intelligent, just because it might raise their status within the organization.

Hair gel might not cause venality or superficiality, but it does seem to be a sure indicator of those qualities. Has anyone else noticed this? Were there any saints with great hair?

For all you Baby Boomers out there: are you at all surprised that the Democratic Party has nominated an admitted war criminal who committed atrocities against the Vietnamese people? Considering that many, if not most of the delegates were against the Vietnam War at the time? And isn't it strange that they not only put up with his relentless flag-waving, they cheered him?

The secular Left hates President Bush so much that it is willing to put aside its principles to see him defeated, thus creating a power vacuum that they can fill. That's the only plausible explanation. They are selling their message of hate to the wide segment of the American public that wants to hear a complaisant message. As Victor Davis Hanson says:

In a word, we have devolved into an infantile society in which our technological successes have wrongly suggested that we can alter the nature of man to our whims and pleasures — just like a child who expects instant gratification from his parents. In a culture where affluence and leisure are seen as birthrights, war, sacrifice, or even the mental fatigue about worrying over such things wear on us. So we construct, in a deductive and anti-empirical way, a play universe that better suits us.

UPDATE: A reader points out that Jane Fonda is not, in point of fact, actually dead. I'll stand by my headline, however, and I hope that a future version of Movable Type supports automatic humor-highlighting tags.

I met Deacon Fournier several years ago, and he is the embodiment of graciousness and enthusiasm. He has done great work for the Church in the public sphere, and his career shows his love of Christ and the Gospel.

Because there are so many good aspects of the article Sal mentions, I hesitate to disagree with any of it. However, there are some statements in the article with which I would quibble.

First, I do not share the contemporary distaste for retributive justice. Deacon Fournier says "Vengeance is never ours," and that is true: private individuals do not have the right to mete out justice privately. However, the state does have that right: Saint Paul made it very clear that the power of the sword, wielded by the state, is delegated by God, and therefore takes on a supernatural meaning. Earthly justice is neither perfect nor final, but it is not on the same level as a blood feud. The state can and must punish criminals, not simply to deter other evil men, but because it is right to deprive criminals of some personal good because they have acted to harm the public good.

Second, and more grievously, it's "Alex P. Keaton," not "Alex B Keaton." I was a big fan of Michael J. Fox's unapologetically conservative character on "Family Ties," and I cannot let the misspelling pass.

Third, there are entirely! too many! exclamation points!

Back to the serious stuff: there is no way that you could characterize the American economy as Darwinian. Governments at all levels comprise a third of the economy, and the vast majority of that spending goes to "human needs," not defense or law enforcement. Social spending comprises an ever-growing portion of the government, and has for the last century. That will not change, no matter who wins in November.

The article's last sentence is a cop-out: "However, God is not a Republican, nor is he a Democrat...and neither am I." If Deacon Fournier declines to align himself with a political party, then that is his right. He must follow his conscience just like the rest of us.

But his words seem to imply -- and I am not at all sure he means to say this -- that to choose a political party is therefore ungodly. I have the same problem with this as the whole "What Would Jesus Do?" fad. That's the wrong question. It should be, "What does Jesus want me to do?"

I do not think that Christians are called to stand aloof from history, or that it is contrary to the Gospel to take sides in great and significant national debates. Just as Jesus Christ entered history through the Incarnation, and continues to work in history through the Holy Spirit, we are called to work for God's justice on earth.

No political party holds a monopoly on Truth. Not even Holy Mother Church can claim that. We must discern the best way to live the truth, and then form allies and fight for the good. We, the laity, have that weighty responsibility. When Christ comes again, he will want to see some progress toward a more just world. Let's get cracking.

In a comment on a previous post, I opined that Catholic bishops have been talking about homosexual marriage recently because homosexuals brought it up in the first place. Blaming them for taking an interest in the subject is sort of like blaming Poland for starting World War II.

I wanted to expand on my point that "militant homosexuals [are] trying to destroy marriage." On the surface, that would appear to be hyperbole -- they are merely trying to expand the definition of marriage, much as the definition of "citizen" has expanded to embrace blacks. It does not diminish American citizenship to let blacks have their full compliment of civil rights, goes the argument, so why is marriage injured by homosexual civil marriages?

Up until the campaign for gay marriage moved into its active phase in the 1990s, the homosexual movement agreed with the feminists: marriage is an essentially patriarchical, oppressive institution that codified the dominant heterosexual, masculine paridigm of American society. (Sorry for the jargon -- I'm trying to use the same terms they used when I was in college in the '90s.)

Now, however, the campaign for gay marriage has shifted its position, saying that homosexuals will be "civilized" (their word, not mine) by it, and therefore society will benefit because the instability of homosexual relationships will be greatly mitigated.

But you cannot radically redefine a concept without changing its essence. If marriage consists of one man and one woman, to change that formula is to make it something different. Even if you make the change for a greater good -- reducing the astonishing promiscuity of gay men, for example -- you will have mutated marriage into something else. Call it what you will, an agreement or a contract or even "marriage," but it will have ceased to be itself.

Supernaturally, marriage helps us because spouses assist each other in their journey toward heaven. Also, the relationship between husband and wife is a model of Christ and his bride, the Church. On the natural level, marriage is for begetting and rearing good children and thus the perpetuation of a good society.

The further we drift away from those fundamental ideas, the more the Church will insist upon the proper understanding of marriage. It's not rude of the bishops to indicate that homosexuals are trying to further degrade marriage in the popular mind, as well as civil law. It's their job, and may they do it well.

I have nothing but sympathy for those who have a homosexual orientation through no fault of their own. As a fellow sinner who lives with the residual yet powerful effects of original sin, I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to go through life with that burden, especially for people attempting to live a Christian life. Indeed, I am awed by their courage.

I hope that society can find some way to accomodate homosexuals without veering off to the extremes of violent rejection of their existence, or unqualified acceptance of homosexual conduct. However, defining marriage out of existence will not solve that problem.