I’ve been awfully busy the last week or two, so I’ve asked Peter Barber Gallagher-Sprigg to pen a guest column. I haven’t got time to review it, so I’m just posting it as written. Enjoy!
A Modest Proposal
by Peter Barber Gallagher Sprigg
Children have a right to a mother and a father.
That’s uncontroversial, right? Any opposite-sex couple, no matter how callous, abusive, or drunken, will make better parents than any same-sex couple. Protectors of traditional marriage have made this point so often that it must feel truthy by now.
The problem is this: they don’t go far enough. If every child has this right, and if parenting is about the needs of the child, not the wishes of the adult, then let’s take the next logical step. And so, full of courage, I modestly propose the following law:
The federal government will strip widows of their children.
That’s right. Take them away and give them to women who had enough sense to keep their husbands. Does this need explanation? Is it not obvious? Truthfully, how many of you are smacking your head right now, saying, “D’Oh! Of course!” But for those of you who have no respect for the traditional family, let me anticipate your objections.
Why only widows? Why not divorcees? That’s easy. A child of divorced parents still has a mother and father. Even in unbroken homes, the mother and father are often in different rooms — it’s the same for divorced parents, except the rooms are really far apart. That’s why we focus on making “gay” marriage illegal even as we ourselves are remarrying and remarrying and remarrying.
Why only widows? Why not widowers? This is a really stupid question, one that only a liberal could ask. We spit on you, stupid liberals! But we’ll answer your question. As our anti-homo colleagues have pointed out, mothers and fathers are different: two fathers could never raise a child because children need a mother’s nurturing instinct, the kind you see in a mama grizzly or a good retriever bitch. Obviously, then, a single dad — good lord! — will quickly abandon his kids, dumping them by the side of the road along with the family cat and any dog not used for hunting. Once the children are safely deposited on a random street corner, we can be sure someone will see to their well-being. A single mother, though, will cling to her children (that’s how boys become homosexuals). So we must take them away.
What if the widow promises to remarry? That’s a great question. It nails the real purpose of the law: Getting those widows to find their kids a dad. What could better accomplish that than threatening to take their rugrats away? So we’ll give mom some time to hitch herself back up. Not too long, though. The longer a child stays with an unmarried mother, the more likely he is to accept the unnatural as natural. And become homosexual.
How much time is the right amount of time? A year is too long, obviously. A week seems hasty. Let’s say eight weeks. If that’s long enough for a newborn puppy to be ready for adoption, it’s plenty for kids, too.
What if the government can’t find an opposite-sex couple to take care of the kids? We put them in orphanages. Anything is better than letting them think their single-parent family is normal. We ought to make the orphanages as unpleasant as possible, all the better to make the kids long for a mother and father. We don’t want them to be homosexuals, so we’ll segregate them by gender. The boys can reinforce each other’s masculinity by competing in sports, and wrestling, and playing snap-towel in the showers. The girls can sew.
Right now you’re thinking the plan is perfect, but actually it’s not. This may surprise you, but I’m a feminist (the real kind, not one of those fakes who want unequal genders treated equally). I know it’s hard for a woman to raise her children and have a job and find a husband. Who would want such a creature?
We need to make men desperate enough to take her.
This is where the plan turns genius. It’s part 2 of the law:
The federal government will dissolve childless marriages.
Marriage is about procreation. That’s it. There’s no reason to let a marriage stand if it’s not churning out babies. That goes for the elderly, too. By dissolving those worthless marriages, we’ll free up men, depriving them of sex, ready to be caught in our widows’ webs. Hopefully by week 5, so there’s time to plan a proper wedding. We want this to be a traditional family, after all.
Not only is this plan morally sound, it’s fiscally conservative, too. By shmushing families together, we’ll eliminate the need for programs like Welfare and Aid to Families with Slacker Children — oops, sorry, let’s be politically correct: dependent children. This will cut federal spending and open the door to lower taxes and a smaller, less intrusive government. God, I’m good. I’m Peter Barber Gallagher-Sprigg, and I’m here to make the world better.
ditto
But a stepfather is not a father. Why, if just anyone could claim parenthood based only on the flimsy excuse of cohabitation, contributing to the financial support of the household, and raising the child with love, well then you might as well let lesbians use sperm banks and let gay men adopt orphans!
No, children have a right to both a biological father and a biological mother. Any less than that abrogates their precious rights (think of the children!) and weakens the traditional family.
The only truly Christian thing to do is to immediately strip the widow of her children. Though I’m not sure whether it should be done in the hospital room or graveside.
With respect, Mr Gallagher-Sprigg, your ideas are riddled with concessions to liberalism, despite the direction of your expectoration. Plato had the right idea. Take all children away at birth and have them raised by the state.
That might sound counter-intuitive to contemporary Republican sentiments. That’s because decades of leniency in the fashions of child rearing have reduced the self-designated right thinking commentariat of today to a bunch of namby-pamby, wishy-washy, casper-milquetoast, panty-waist wheat puffs who’s feet don’t quite touch the ground due to the atrophy of their dispositions. Conservatism is now a flaccid generation with the fortitude of warm lettuce, good for naught but compost.
Plato was the original Republican. He knew what was best. We can’t trust the rearing of future generations to figures as yielding and fleshly as Pappy and Mammy. What a liberal idea is liberty! This whole business of parenting has a superficially reassuring appeal until you consider that Dad and Mom could as easily turn out to be Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof as Jesus and Mary Christ.
No. We cannot entrust our precious future to terrorist psychopaths and hippie fabulists. Our future can only be forged with certainty when children will be schooled to sing as one:
Oh Fatherland, Fatherland,
Show us the sign
Your children have waited to see.
The morning will come
When the world is mine.
Tomorrow belongs to me!
Rob, once again, great insight. Lots of truth in your sarcasm (or is that satire – I’m not sure which).
It truly is the epitome of hypocrisy. With all the problems plaguing heterosexual marriage (adultery, over 50% divorce rate, multiple marriages, etc) to simply focus on two consenting, in love, wanting to build a home/life together, same-sex couple from marrying, allows them to completing ignore the issues that will remain for them, whether same-sex marriage happens or not is mind boggling.
Our Government allows violent sex offenders, child abusers, prison inmates, murderers, and others too numerous to mention the ability to marry because denying them the right would be encroaching on their freedoms and liberties. Yet, some how, they seem to feel it’s a-okay by stepping on ours.
It’s enough to make my head explode from such blatant hypocrisy in 3, 2, 1…
On the topic of the children, shouldn’t the Government follow suit with the way Mormons, be it in a very Christlike way, kick their gay kids to the curb. If Social services and orphanages kick their gay children to the curb, the tax dollars that were spent on them could go to raising normal children. Preparing them for right and natural relationships. Heck with the surplus dollars, we could support other countries like Uganda, who are really living in Christs foot steps. As the Ugandan minister says, gay children would just grow to “Eat da Poo Poo!”
I never had time for a wife or children, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what should be done with them. Praise be, I’m off to my Exodus meeting.
One of my favorite channels on YouTube is called “depfox.” They are a male couple who were legally married in CA before prop. 8. They adopted 2 children..Daniel and Selena. The children were put into the foster care system because their mother was drug addicted. Their son Daniel has some physical handicaps due to the mother’s drug abuse when Daniel was inutero. Jay is a police officer and his husband Bryan is a stay at home Dad. Their videos just show their day to day life..birthday parties..holidays..normal family stuff. The kids are excelling in school and are so well adjusted. Their bond with their parents is tight. You can feel the love in their family. For anyone to make the statement that gay couples are unable to raise children..they really need to take a close look at this family.
Thank you for clearly defining the true meaning of “Feminist.” And totally channeling Christine O’Donnell in the process.
I thought he was “Bishop” Peter Barber Gallagher Sprigg…
@Tom.
That’s just an honourary title bestowed upon him by Christine O’Donnell as a defensive measure. As Ms O’Donnell says, “Don’t bash the Bishop!”
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