Andrew Klavan - Homosexuality, Sex and Procreation — Transcript

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1. 0:00I had gotten a an extraordinary number
2. 0:03of letters and comments and emails
3. 0:07and various forms of communications
4. 0:09the interview we did on Tuesday with
5. 0:12Father Michael Schmitz and the almost
6. 0:16all of the letters went the same way at
7. 0:18the end of the interview I was
8. 0:19discussing with Father Michael who has
9. 0:22written a book about gay uh the the
10. 0:24church's attitude toward gay people and
11. 0:28basically that they shouldn't and don't
12. 0:30and uh no but they but it's a loving
13. 0:32it's a loving you know attitude and an
14. 0:34acceptance of what he calls same-sex
15. 0:37attraction uh but saying that this is
16. 0:39not your identity and uh this is not a
17. 0:42sexual relationship that uh this church
18. 0:46can approve of and he explained why and
19. 0:48when I asked him on on his own you know
20. 0:50they're basically making Aristotelian
21. 0:52thomased arguments Thomas meaning from
22. 0:55Thomas Aquinas the arguments being the
23. 0:57things are are for something they should
24. 0:59be used for that thing that is where
25. 1:01their virtue lies and that sex was made
26. 1:03for procreation and therefore and for uh
27. 1:06binding people together in love but it
28. 1:08should never be used outside it should
29. 1:11never be used in a way that is
30. 1:13antagonistic to procreation I think that
31. 1:15would be a fair way to say it and my
32. 1:17question for him was well why can't its
33. 1:21Central role as
34. 1:23for as being for procreation why can't
35. 1:26that be subsumed into a secondary role
36. 1:29of being to cement loving relationships
37. 1:31between gay people once you eliminate
38. 1:33all the other things that are
39. 1:34destructive like about promiscuity and
40. 1:37betrayal and uh you know mistreating
41. 1:39people and use the use of force and you
42. 1:41know attacking people who can't make up
43. 1:44their mind who can't make a fair
44. 1:46decision like young people why can't it
45. 1:48be used just to cement a a loving
46. 1:51um committed gay relationship all the
47. 1:54letters that I've gotten basically feel
48. 1:55that Father Michael did not come up with
49. 1:57a good answer
50. 1:58I didn't feel that his answer was
51. 2:00convincing because I feel that I'm not
52. 2:01sure there is an answer but all the
53. 2:03people who wrote to me said no here's
54. 2:04the argument here is the good argument
55. 2:06none of them as far as I was concerned
56. 2:09and I don't mean this offensively none
57. 2:11of them
58. 2:12uh made arguments that convinced me they
59. 2:16many of them many people wrote in in
60. 2:18great Good Will without hostility
61. 2:19without meanness without hatred many
62. 2:21people wrote in but their arguments were
63. 2:24excellent Arguments for why the
64. 2:26heterosexual procreative relationship
65. 2:28should be at the center of human life
66. 2:29and of course it is because without it
67. 2:31there is no human life right I mean
68. 2:32every every gay person could go away and
69. 2:34there'll still be human life but if
70. 2:36without that Central relationship of a
71. 2:38man and woman bringing a child into the
72. 2:39world that is at the center of human
73. 2:40life my question has always been why
74. 2:42can't things that aren't at the center
75. 2:44why do we immediately have to say that
76. 2:46they're evil or sinful or bad and some
77. 2:48people just quoted the Bible and some
78. 2:49people had other arguments they made I
79. 2:51didn't find any of them convincing some
80. 2:53of the people who wrote in uh were not
81. 2:55writing in with Goodwill these were the
82. 2:57minority of people but their arguments
83. 2:59were
84. 3:00um were basically you know you call
85. 3:02yourself a Christian you know how can
86. 3:04you call yourself a Christian and allow
87. 3:06you know and and my feeling about that
88. 3:07is I call myself a Christian because I
89. 3:09follow the Risen Christ this has changed
90. 3:12my life entirely it has given me you
91. 3:15know I've been I was baptized I think
92. 3:16it's like 14 13 14 years ago uh this
93. 3:21this many years later I find that within
94. 3:23me there is a Stillness and peace that I
95. 3:26would never ever ever have expected to
96. 3:28be there I'm gonna type A guy I work
97. 3:31hard I sleep very little I care a lot
98. 3:34about what I'm doing and yet and yet I
99. 3:36now have at my Center because of my
100. 3:38following of the Risen Christ I now have
101. 3:40this core of Stillness and calm that is
102. 3:43really a beautiful beautiful thing and
103. 3:45it makes all of life more beautiful I
104. 3:47recommend it highly you know it's a it's
105. 3:49a good payoff for following I am not I
106. 3:51do not call myself a Christian because I
107. 3:54follow you that I mean that's basically
108. 3:56what it comes down to but it sort of led
109. 3:58me but all these letters led me to think
110. 4:00about a broader political question which
111. 4:02is what do you want what do you want
112. 4:03when you write to me and you say these
113. 4:05things
114. 4:06obviously and and father Michael
115. 4:08certainly wouldn't want this you do not
116. 4:10want to go back to a time when gay
117. 4:11people were persecuted which they were
118. 4:13in my lifetime in my lifetime a police
119. 4:16officer could walk into a bar wait until
120. 4:18a gay a gay bar wait until a gay person
121. 4:20solicited him and then arrest him for
122. 4:22what for being gay that's what he could
123. 4:24do he could do that and that was legal I
124. 4:26don't think anybody really wants to go
125. 4:28back to that time or do they I don't
126. 4:30know I'm not you know this is the
127. 4:31question but the question of what we
128. 4:33want as conservatives always concerns me
129. 4:35because I know I know what we don't like
130. 4:39of course I always hear a lot about what
131. 4:41conservatives hate you know and some of
132. 4:43it doesn't make any sense though like we
133. 4:45don't like government but we don't want
134. 4:46our entitlements to be taken away we
135. 4:49want other people's entitlements to be
136. 4:50taken away but not ours you know we want
137. 4:52there to be Medicare we want there to be
138. 4:53Social Security we have bought into what
139. 4:55was once a radical left idea that the
140. 4:59government should take money away from
141. 5:01one person and give it to another now I
142. 5:04I am I am a very very proud practical
143. 5:06person I you know this is what drives
144. 5:08people mad there is no good principle no
145. 5:11good principle by which you can steal
146. 5:13money from one person and give it to
147. 5:14another and just because you happen to
148. 5:16be the government doesn't give you any
149. 5:17more right to do that than if you had a
150. 5:20gun and you did you know you were Robin
151. 5:21Hood it does not give you the right to
152. 5:23do it and always remember as Stephen
153. 5:25Crowder taught me that Robin Hood was
154. 5:28stealing from the people who were
155. 5:29collecting the taxes that's why the
156. 5:30people were poor because they were
157. 5:31collecting taxes but anyway uh there's
158. 5:33no good reason to do it however I'm a
159. 5:36practical person and I see that social
160. 5:37spending really does make life better in
161. 5:40the country for everybody and it
162. 5:43preserves my principles without some
163. 5:44social spending I do not believe that
164. 5:46people would tolerate freedom for very
165. 5:48long I believe that social spending is
166. 5:50how you keep people tolerating the
167. 5:53inequalities of Freedom so they don't
168. 5:55fall completely into the realm of
169. 5:58poverty so I violate my principles for
170. 5:59practical reasons to keep my principles
171. 6:01as alive as I can keep them alive that's
172. 6:03that is what I call being a practical
173. 6:05person but I hear you know conservatives
174. 6:07don't like political correctness but
175. 6:10then we are always making the argument
176. 6:11that we're the more politically correct
177. 6:13we always say well our women are more
178. 6:15empowered than feminist women uh we
179. 6:17treat people without regard to color
180. 6:19you're just extending racism through
181. 6:22identity politics so we're actually
182. 6:24arguing on the terms of the left and so
183. 6:26I ask myself what do we want do we want
184. 6:28a world uh where black people are
185. 6:30treated exactly equal to white people uh
186. 6:33even if it means that the old
187. 6:35inequalities remain what do we want and
188. 6:37I'm not saying that's wrong I'm just
189. 6:38saying what do we want I know we hate
190. 6:39the illegals coming over the borders but
191. 6:42why you know we're accused of not liking
192. 6:44brown people I I don't like this because
193. 6:47I believe in the rule of law my feeling
194. 6:48is hey if we need people coming over the
195. 6:50Border I don't care what color Americans
196. 6:53are you know I do not care but I want
197. 6:55them to be obeying the law and if we
198. 6:57have a law and who passed a law to have
199. 6:59somebody like our governor in California
200. 7:00saying oh yeah we're just not going to
201. 7:01enforce that to me that is vastly
202. 7:04shameful that is deeply shameful because
203. 7:06what you're saying is you are King you
204. 7:08don't have to obey the law uh you know
205. 7:10everybody else's so we've got you know
206. 7:12Paul Ryan is retiring here's a good
207. 7:13example
208. 7:14Paul Ryan is retiring and all I hear I'm
209. 7:17getting this note again and again a
210. 7:20rhino you know he's a rhino he's a
211. 7:21republican in name only
212. 7:23and I'm thinking well wait a minute wait
213. 7:25a minute
214. 7:25it's it's Paul Ryan Who has fought to
215. 7:28cut entitlements it's Paul Ryan uh who
216. 7:31has tried to make the government smaller
217. 7:32Trump has done this in some ways with a
218. 7:35with by appointing judges who obey the
219. 7:37Constitution Trump has done it in some
220. 7:39ways by cutting back regulations but
221. 7:41Trump has sworn to preserve these
222. 7:43entitlements because his voters
223. 7:44theoretically conservative voters they
224. 7:47do not want those entitlements to go
225. 7:48away so he said I will not touch them as
226. 7:50I said yesterday I think you could touch
227. 7:52them uh you know just fix them a little
228. 7:55bit dial them a little bit as Trump as
229. 7:57Ryan wanted to do
230. 7:58um and and Ryan takes these shots Ben
231. 8:01Shapiro today he made a great point he
232. 8:03said Paul Ryan gets blamed for a lot of
233. 8:05stuff that be should be heaped at the
234. 8:07feet of Mitch McConnell and I believe
235. 8:09that is absolutely true Ryan got a lot
236. 8:12of conservative bills passed in the
237. 8:13house that went to the Senate where they
238. 8:15died the death and that was Mitch
239. 8:16McConnell and Ryan got blamed for it I
240. 8:19think Ryan has been a moderate Guy the
241. 8:21one thing is he has been very
242. 8:23loosey-goosey on immigration and I don't
243. 8:25think think people like Paul Ryan
244. 8:27understood how offensive that is to
245. 8:30people it's you know it's uh emotionally
246. 8:32offensive that
247. 8:34um it's emotionally offensive to have
248. 8:35the government said yeah we're not
249. 8:37obeying the law we're not we're the
250. 8:38government we passed laws we're not
251. 8:40obeying them you know that's that is
252. 8:41just emotionally offensive if they could
253. 8:42have done some kind of Reform it's also
254. 8:45just incredibly shameful that both sides
255. 8:47can't do anything