Popular Children's Magazine Highlights to Feature Same-Sex Parents
Scholars Decry Totalitarianism of Sexual Revolution
Several leading family scholars and authors are decrying the totalitarian nature of the sexual revolution after the popular children's magazine Highlights announced it will start featuring same-sex parents in upcoming issues.
Author Rod Dreher, an Eastern Orthodox Christian who blogs regularly at the American Conservative, confirmed Tuesday that Highlights magazine will indeed be featuring families headed by same-sex parents in future editions.
Dreher is among the many socially conservative voices who've been issuing warnings to Christians about the fervor with which sexual revolutionaries force their cause on a largely unwilling public.
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Simply opting out and politely declining to participate, he says, is not sufficient in LGBT activists' minds. Whatever your conscience, you will be forced to affirm it; dissent is not tolerated.
One of Dreher's readers who had been unsuccessfully attempting to communicate with Highlights about her concerns received no response until she canceled her subscription.
"For instance, from time to time we show families headed up by a grandparent or single parents. We show adoptive families, blended families, multi-generational families, and multi-racial families. In the future, we will depict same-sex families in our magazines in a manner consistent to the way all diverse families are depicted," Highlights magazine said in their response.
Nancy Pearcey, author of Finding Truth who is writing a book on the subject of sexuality, told The Christian Post on Wednesday that the reason even children's magazines are now laced with sexual themes is because sex has been displaced from its biological function and become central to human identity.
Enlightenment philosopher Michel Foucault furthered this Darwinian view, Pearcey said. Foucault believed sex to be the "master key" for knowing "who we are." He contended that sex explains everything and is "more important than our soul," Pearcey said.
"The problem is that when sexual desire is seen as the defining feature of our identity, it becomes rigid and inviolable," Pearcey said. "To question someone's identity is taken as an attack on their selfhood and worth. By contrast, a Christian view of human nature does not place sex at the center," Pearcey said.
Moreover, the ethics of the sexual revolution require one to insist upon feelings and reject concrete biological realities.
"Consider: When a person feels a disjunction between his or her biological sex and sexual attractions, it is now accepted that the only proper course of action is to bring the body in line with the person's psychological state. But why? Why not try to bring the mind closer to the person's body? Why do people assume that feelings are more important than the body?" Pearcey asked.
Glenn Stanton, director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colorado, concurs.
"Few would disagree that the sexual revolution gets more radical with every year. It's architects have been working overtime to obliterate any understanding of or respect for God's gift of sexuality as a loving and life-giving union between husband and wife."
"Obviously, this is Satan's effort to deface what is precious to God. And Satan can't help but overplay his hand," he said, adding that the culture has moved from the liberal ideal of "live-and-let-live" to the no-holds-barred "you must respect and support our revolutionary choices or else."
And that "or else" means eradicating anything that resists it.
"I think the effort to eliminate all sexual taboos requires eliminating the principal source of those taboos — namely, religion, and specifically in the West, Christianity," said Peter Sprigg, director of family policy studies at the Family Research Council, in an email to CP.
"While there is a chicken and egg question here — does the sexual revolution trigger hatred of Christianity, or does hatred of Christianity motivate the sexual revolution? — I think there is no question that the two are related," Sprigg added.
