mon cause with them except in the sense that we can join togetherrnwith anyone, even people who hate and despise us, to accomplishrnsome good thing—to teach mathematics or sweeprnthe streets. What we cannot expect of government is to teachrnChristian theology or repress sodomy, any more than we canrnask the IRS to collect tithes for the support of our churches.rnIn conceding the validity of this argument, most Christiansrnbelievers—and some nonbelieving conservatives, as well—willrnexperience a wrench. The comfortable old way of thinkingrnabout America, the carefully constructed images of mom andrndad in the 50’s with the kids in Scouts saying the Lord’s Prayerrnand the Pledge of Allegiance, the hope that we could some dayrnrestore the everyday decency of a country where “god” was notrnthe everyday prefix for damn, and “mother” was not part of thernroutine obscenity that makes up half of the urban street dialectrn—from all this and more we must liberate ourselves. Werncannot assume either that the police are our friends or that lawsrnexist to protect the innocent, when the forces of both law andrnorder are used primarily to strengthen the Jacobin regimernwhose existence depends upon the destruction of Christendom.rnIt also means that all the rituals and sacraments of Christianrnlife from the baptism of babies to the unction and comfort givenrnthe dying are outside a system that is busily constructing arnseries of anti-sacraments every bit as ludicrous and perniciousrnas the Festival of Reason. To counter baptism, in which Cod’srnlove for his human creatures is revealed, the state promotes thernslaughter of the innocent; to undermine the efforts of Christianrneducators and confirmation teachers, the public schools inculcaterna toleration of vice and perversity and a hatred of all thernachievements of Christendom; the most solemn of sacramentsrn—the communion of saints—is mocked every day in arnthousand forms of artificial communities that hook our spiritsrninto a Worldwide Web of disembodied intelligence; confessionrnand penance are degraded into mere counseling, and the sickrnand dying are eased conveniently into the next world by greedyrnrelatives and physicians who no longer have to swear to the HippocraticrnOath; and they have reduced marriage, “the most sacredrnengagement which human beings can form, and the permanencernof which leads most strongly to the consolidation ofrnsociety, to the state of a mere civil contract of a transitory character.”rnWhat is now called “family values” conservatism relies almostrnexclusively upon the use of state power to redefine marriage,rnto restrict divorce, and to clean out the nests of obscenityrnand pornography that have been established in the public media.rnOn the surface, the bill going through Congress looksrnharmless enough: it would do nothing more than enable statesrnto refuse to recognize same-sex liaisons, even if they were legalizedrnin Hawaii. To some Republicans, this sounds like an affirmationrnof states’ rights, but they are the same Republicans whornthink that “federalism” means redistributing some fraction ofrnfederal tax dollars back to the states, while reserving all realrnpower to the national government.rnIf the state is given the power to define marriage, a temporaryrnconservative majority in Congress may well refuse to includernsame-sex liaisons, but in doing so they will have establishedrnthe power to regulate the most basic facts of life. A fewrnyears later, a leftist majority will guarantee the rights of homosexuals,rnand even if they do not, the Supreme Court—dominatedrnby Republican appointees—will decree that any discriminationrnon the basis of sexual orientation is a violation of thernI4th Amendment.rnBack in the 1970’s, when Senator Sam Ervin was campaigningrnagainst the Equal Rights Amendment, he used to insist thatrnthe chief beneficiaries would be homosexuals: if a man has thern”right” to marry a woman, it would be discriminatory to denyrnthat same right to a woman. It is today a truism to point outrnthat while the ERA was defeated, its provisions have been enactedrninto state and federal laws and imposed by court decisions.rnShort of a social and cultural revolution that would wrestrnthe institutions of our common life away from the Jacobins,rnthere is no practical way to resist the course of progress. Thernmore we fight, the more energy we invest into the struggle—rnenergy that only adds to the growing power of the state.rnIn the fight to preserve the decency of marriage, there isrnsomething more fundamental than the American Constitutionrnor political liberty basic at stake; marriage is an institutionrnthat antedates not only the United States but all states. For asrnlong as men have been human, they have been marrying. Typically,rnthe arrangement was contracted between families whichrnhad an interest in the welfare of their grandchildren. The purposernof marriage is not companionship or “good times together”rnor “caring and sharing.” The primary purpose for marriage,rnthe purpose for which it exists, is the procreation and rearing ofrnchildren. Everything else is secondary. Of course there arernchildless couples, just as there are one-legged men, but who inrnhis right mind would even consider anything like a permanentrnunion with a stranger, unless it were for some purpose beyondrnhis own immediate pleasure?rnThe Creeks, as we know all too well, were ambivalent on thernsubject of buggery. In some circumstances, at some ages, inrnsome cities, it was more or less openly tolerated—although thisrntoleration was by no means as universal as the “gay” lobbyrnwould have us believe. But even if it were, and even if we acceptrnat face value the few stories of mock-weddings between malernlovers, no Creek city—not even Sodom and Gomorrah—failedrnto distinguish between marriage, whose purpose was procreation,rnand any of the fantastic surrogates that degenerate humanrnbeings, straight and nonstraight, have devised.rnMarriages at Rome were arrangements between families.rnFor a marriage to be valid, the parties had to be eligible (onerncould not, for example, marry a slave or even an alien who didrnnot possess the right of connuhium), and they had to live togetherrnwith the intention of being husband and wife. Theirrnchildren would be legitimate heirs, presumptively entitled to arncertain portion of the estate. The Republic became involved,rnwhere there was some problem, as in cases of divorce or a disputedrninheritance. Men and women being what they are, divorcerncould be a messy business, but the basic rules were dictatedrnby custom: the wife’s dowry had to be restored, andrncustody of the children was automatically with the father. Underrnmost circumstances of everyday life, however, the state hadrnno representation in any matter between husband and wife.rnAlthough the Christians took a more serious view of marriagernthan many of their pagan contemporaries (although nothingrncould be more serious than early Roman and Greek marriages),rnthey did not, in the beginning, depart from thernmarriage customs of their pagan ancestors. Little by little, however,rnit became customary to invite a priest to bless the union.rnWhat regulation was to be done, in prohibiting incest or keepingrnrecords, was done by the church. In England, at least, fromrnwhich we draw our legal traditions, the church, even after thernlO/CHRONICLESrnrnrn