Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the incursion of barbarian hordes; ours has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of our intellectual elites. Not bolshevism, which Stalin liquidated along with the old Bolsheviks; not Nazism, which perished with Hitler in his Berlin bunker; not fascism, which was left hanging upside down from a lamppost, along with Mussolini and his mistress—none of these, history will record, was responsible for bringing down the darkness on our civilization, but liberalism. A solvent rather than a precipitate, a sedative rather than a stimulant, a slough rather than a precipice; blurring the edges of truth, the definition of virtue, the shape of beauty; a cracked bell, a mist, a death wish.
-- Macolm Muggeridge, "The Great Liberal Death Wish", 1977
A random reaction while perusing coverage of the proposed gay marriage ban.
UPDATE: Commenter The Polite Liberal requests exposition. How can someone else's gay marriage diminish or endanger one's own strong, happy straight marriage? Well, let me sally forth with a housing metaphor. I live in a plain yet sturdy brick ranch that was built in the 1950s. It has a thick foundation, X-bracing between the floor joists, true two-by-four construction throughout. It's a little banged up around the edges, but it is a solid structure. So, why should I care if the building codes are altered to allow houses to be built of styrofoam and popsicle sticks? That's strange and counter-intuitive and nothing I'd care to be mixed up in--but what business is it of mine? As for the future, well...
I'm a great respecter of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Long range ripples sent out now can roil society in unforseeable ways far into the future. The legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts has already brought on one such consequence: The most venerable adoption agency in Boston, Catholic Charities, has discontinued its work because the law will no longer let them follow Catholic doctrine of not placing children with gay couples. Children languishing in orphanages--who would have expected this to happen just because Adam and Steve want to wed? And this is not some legal technicality with civil unions, which a bit of policy wonkery could sort out, that's causing this. It's a battle over the matrimonial state itself. It's not a matter of semantics. It matters!
The institution of marriage keeps the moral world in being, and secures it from an untimely dissolution. Without it, natural affection and amiableness would not exist, domestic education would become extinct, industry and economy be unknown, and man would be left to the precarious existence of the savage. But for this institution, learning and refinement would expire, government sink into the gulf of anarchy; and religion, hunted from earth, would hasten back to her native heavens.
-- Timothy Dwight
And why don't libs ever stop to consider, as they heedlessly kick the supports out from under the edifice of our civilization, that one day they may bring the whole works crashing down on everyone's heads?
