Are Marriage & Children Consumer Goods?

By Dominque Venner
Translated by Greg Johnson
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/12/are-marriage-and-children-consumer-goods/

At first, everyone thought that the draft law on homosexual marriage was one of those
booby-traps (in crude terms, asshole traps) by which politicians entertain the gallery, unable to
act on real issues. And then, very quickly, we realized that behind the booby-trap a very real
project had slipped in, with which deconstructive fanatics wish to destroy a few more
foundations that continue to structure European societies, as sick as they are.
The question has nothing to do with tolerance or respect for peculiar sentiments or sexual
minorities. Homosexuality is not a historical novelty. It would be easy to count illustrious
personages — kings, queens, and nobles of ancient times — who preferred the intimate
association of the same sex, and whom the ancient chronicles sometimes mocked.
Private life is the affair of each individual, and as long as peculiar preferences do not degenerate
into provocative events and flagrant proselytizing, there is no objection. Respect for the secrecy
of ―privacy,‖ as the English say, is needed. In France, by the creation of the ―pacte civil de
solidarité et de concubinage‖ [civil pact of solidarity and concubinage] (PACS), the law
established a legal framework allowing two people of the same sex (or opposite sex) to live
together with a series of social and tax benefits. It is a social consecration of the desire for love
and affection.
Marriage is another matter. It is not about love, even when it is the consequence of love.
Marriage is the union between a man and a woman for procreation. If we remove the difference
of sex and procreation, nothing remains except love, which can evaporate.
Unlike PACS, marriage is an institution and not a simple contract. The institution of marriage is
defined by a set of reciprocal rights and duties not only between spouses, but to the unborn child.
The city (i.e., the law and its representatives) intervenes to solemnize marriage (before the
mayor), because it is in the general interest. Until now, no society has ever thought that
homosexual couples procreate.
We must emphasize that marriage is not a celebration of love. Marriage is an institution based on
lineage and kinship, even if circumstances sometimes do not allow the arrival of children. The
presumption of paternity is the fundamental crux. Today we think of ourselves as sons and
daughters of those who bore us, just as the heroes of the Iliad (Achilles son of Peleus, Ulysses
son of Laertes, etc.) did 3,000 years ago. It does not matter if there are good or bad relations
between the generations. Rupture of descent is always a tragedy. For children born out of
wedlock, paternity research is less related to potential inheritances than to an imperative need to
know where we come from, whose children we are.
We should also mention that adoption is always risky and painful. Some homosexual couples
demand the power to adopt children, a bit like buying a dog, a cat, or a sex toy. For the moment,
the law denies the analogy between adoption by a homosexual couple and by a couple consisting
of a man and a woman united in marriage. It seems best for the child, for his ultimate balance
requires a father and a mother. It is thus the interests of the child that should be taken into
account and not certain adults’ whims or desires for fulfillment.
Clearly, it would be destructive to change the definition of parenthood and family to meet the
needs of a very selfish minority of homosexual couples. They are entitled to respect for their
differences, provided they do not destroy an institution that was designed to benefit children. If
we accept ―marriage for all,‖ why not extend it to one’s monkey or favorite dog, one’s brother or
sister, one’s father or mother? Why not imagine the wedding of a woman to two or three men?
All these extravagances might be pursued more or less discreetly out of wedlock. The only issue,
ultimately, is to remember that marriage is not a consumer good open to all fantasies.
A powerful factor here is the vogue of gender. Gender studies came from the United States and
are now part of higher education. This fashion maintains that sexual identity is socially
constructed. Simone de Beauvoir already wrote in The Second Sex, ―one is not born a woman,
one becomes one.‖ She was inspired by Sartre’s theory that identity is reduced to the regard of
others toward us. It was idiotic but novel, thus interesting and ―sellable.‖ Gender studies theorists
are feminist and homosexual extremists who seek to justify their peculiarities by denying that
there are men and women – and, no doubt, that there are bucks and does, rams and ewes . . .[1]
As this fraction of the population has high purchasing power, its influence on the public is
considerable. Especially as their whims relayed by the media promote novelties and fads that
feed the market system.[2] It is obvious to these gilt-edged cranks that the family model based on
the heterogeneity of gender and children is also a matter of ―social conditioning‖ which should
be eliminated. It will be more difficult than they imagined.

Notes
1. In La Nouvelle Revue d’Histoire no. 30 (on women and power), p. 40, I published a selection
of the wild imaginings of Françoise Héritier, honorary professor at the Collège de France, for
whom the physical differences between men and women come from the dominance of males
over females during the millennia of the Paleolithic, the gentlemen reserving a meat diet for
themselves while forcing the ladies to be vegetarians . . . like Hitler. Illuminating, isn’t it?
2. Thoughts on the commercial system developed in my book Le Choc de l’Histoire [The Shock
of History] (Via Romana, 2011).
Source:
http://www.dominiquevenner.fr/2012/11/le-mariage-et-les-enfants-des-biens-de-consommation/