Here's the extensive response that I gave to RINO former mayor Mario Guerra's pathetic response to myh initial letter regarding RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel's Pride Tweet in June:
Dear Mr. Guerra:
Thank you for your response to my letter. I know that I am making a difference when leadership is compelled to respond.
However, I must say that I found your response to be juvenile, emotionally immature, unrepresentative of both the RNC and CAGOP platforms, and marinated in logical fallacies.
Since you are a former mayor and a current deacon in the Catholic Church, I expected a rigorous, serious argument. Please do better next time.
Let me take apart your very unprepared remarks.
I am also the former Mayor of Downey, current Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, a proud Republican, and a member of the Catholic Clergy (ordained in 2002). I am telling you this, so you know that my response to you is totally from me personally.
Mario, I know who you are, and you know who I am. These formalities were not necessary.
I loved all my brothers. While two were gay
they were part of who I am as a family. As a Christian I can vouch for what I
know to be God's love for them as much as me.
I was embarrassed in my early years about their homosexuality and would not want my friends to know. I overcame this as I matured, understood who they were and as my faith grew. They did not choose to be gay by the way, just like you or I choose to be straight.
This is a fallacious straw-man argument, Mario. Never once did I saw that homosexuals choose “to be gay.” However, I maintain the argument based on science and statistical research that homosexuality and transgenderism (gender dysphoria) are not genetic components of an individual, nor are they natural or healthful manifestations within a person. For the record, we can love and cherish friends and family who struggle with LGBT behaviors. That does not mean we have to celebrate or accept their behaviors.
I am happy to see that our party nationally is accepting of everyone. As they say in politics, our tent is big, and everyone is welcome.
With due respect, no, a political party should not accept “everyone”:
·
We should not accept
convicted felons who have not changed their lives or made restitution to
society.
·
We should not accept
child abusers or pedophiles.
·
We should not accept
domestic or international terrorists.
·
We should not accept
registered Democrats, Libertarians, etc. They are required to change their
political affiliation before joining the party, are they not?
·
We
should not anti-Semites or other racialists or racists, since such views
violate natural law and natural right. Consider that the CAGOP leadership
rightly removed failed US Senate candidate Patrick Little from the 2018 CAGOP
Convention for his horrific, false, anti-Semitic smears. Even the previous
CAGOP leadership did not accommodate your false notion of “accept everyone.” (Click here for more information)
· Once again, you are treating homosexuality as an identity. Once again, that is a biological and philosophical fallacy.
I must remind you that churches and other communities which abandon their fundamental precepts are losing members at an alarming rate. The same principle holds true for political parties. A party, like a tent, must stand for something, cover something, and be grounded in something. Otherwise, it’s just a cloth on the ground that everyone walks on.
A political movement must have clear and convincing principles, like defense of natural marriage and the family. The growing movement of Hispanic voters to the GOP column in Texas, Florida, and even in California indicate that the CAGOP must embrace and retain its bona fides on cultural issues, not abandon them. The same trend holds true for African-American and Asian-American communities. A political party is supposed to grow, and it cannot grow by driving away potential members with a consistent unwillingness to stand for something.
Throughout your response, you have cited that you are a Catholic Christian. Let me provide you seminal statements from Scriptural and religious authorities which your Catholic upbringing should revere regarding homosexuality:
“But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.” (Acts 15:20)
And
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” (Romans 1:26-27)
Let me also provide you pertinent statements from the Catholic Catechism on this matter:
# 2357: Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity (Cf. Genesis 19:1-29; Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:10; 1 Timothy 1:10), tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana, 8). They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
Sir, I am not a practicing Catholic myself, yet even I appear to have a greater understanding of Catholic doctrine on the matters of homosexuality than you do. I can also assure you that a growing segment of the Catholic community in the state of California are also well aware and informed of these standards. Again, I am surprised that I have to explain these elemental facts to you.
For the record, my opposition to homosexuality does not stem from religious conviction or traditional adherence, but rather to a sound appreciation of biology, epidemiology, psychology, and sociology. I have made my arguments based on science, not vain appeals to emotion and superficial religious fervor.
While I do not usually respond to such unbelievable hateful rhetoric, I couldn’t help myself in this case. I felt the need to respond to you. I have been praying for guidance all morning since I read your email.
I am happy to see that our party nationally is accepting of everyone. As they say in politics, our tent is big, and everyone is welcome. We should be spending time on electing Republicans and avoiding hate speech.
We all want the government out of our churches, out of our bank accounts and out of our bedrooms. We should ask no less for our party. We should push hate speech like yours out of our party also.
I will respond to the last paragraph first. This libertarian temptation “we want the government out” is rife with fallacies, and misunderstands the proper role of government. Indeed, governments do regulate behavior in the bedroom. Prostitution and incest, two examples of consensual sexual acts, are properly criminalized. The question is not “whether the government should regulate ...,” but rather which acts should be deemed deviant or criminal.
Considering that even first-world nations like the Republic of Singapore still criminalize sodomy, and considering also that thriving, developed nations like Hungary and Poland have rejected LGBT hegemony, perhaps it’s rather hateful on your part to deem opposition to homosexuality as hateful or backwards.
Again, regarding the role of government, the government is indeed involved in our banking industries. For example, banks cannot over-leverage their holdings via excessive fractional reserve banking. Such dangerous, unethical practices cause bank runs. Banks are also not permitted to release individual or corporate accounts to other claimants without court order. That is a government intervention, to ensure private property is protected. Banks are also required to provide reports of dubious or suspect accounts and transactions, as well, to deter terrorism, drug trafficking, and money laundering. As a reminder, the very First Amendment exists to ensure that the government does not impose its own religious dictates on the citizenry, and also ensures that entities and actors, whether public or private, cannot occlude or frustrate our freedoms.
Earlier, you made numerous references to “hate speech.” Frankly, such denouncements come from the pen or mouths of individuals who are intellectually unsure or emotionally immature. Those who are incapable of making a strong defense, intellectually insecure or unsure, will often label points of view with which they disagree as “hate speech.” Social justice warrior activists on college campuses, for example, resort to this empty epithet because they have never considered that there are differences of opinion to begin with.
Intellectual insecurity or lack of assurance can stem from emotional immaturity, from a greater need to be accepted by one’s peers rather than courageously to stand for truth. Mr. Guerra, you have demonstrated in the past an insistence on seeking the approval of others rather than doing what is right or principled. For example, you withdrew your name as a delegate to the 2016 RNC Convention, when activists in your community criticized you for being on the delegate short list. Your decision to bow out of the delegate list showed the emotional immaturity that comes with refusing to stand for what is right for fear of disappointing others.
Regarding further your juvenile invective “hate speech,” Mario, I must further ask:
·
Do you consider “The
Declaration of Independence” hate speech?
·
Is an article from
Nature.com “hate speech”?
·
Is the growing body of
research which affirms that homosexual conduct is not only learned or acquired
innate, and that a growing number of people have abandoned homosexuality and transgenderism,
are those records and testimonies “hate speech”?
·
Do you consider the
tenets outlined in the New Testament, the Torah, the Quran, even the Confucian
Analects regarding natural relations between man and woman “hate speech”?
·
Are the RNC and CAGOP platforms
hate speech?
· And I must further ask: is telling the truth about homosexuality and transgenderism hate speech, too?
Then there are your appeals to authority and emotion towards the end of your statement:
Ivanka Trump, President Trump's daughter and presidential advisor, recently stated, "I am proud to support my LGBTQ friends and the LGBTQ Americans who have made immense contributions to our society and economy."
I will pray for you and those
who feel the way you do.
Help us to see that every human being is an image-bearer who must be afforded compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity. Keep us from engaging in hateful and harassing behavior toward any individual or group.
An appeal to authority such as Ivanka Trump is more troubling than compelling, Mario. She was never in elected office, and she is not a standard-bearer in the state or national Republican Party apparatus. A growing number of grassroots activists and office holders throughout the United States, including California, find her views and values either irrelevant or contrary to the Republican Party.
Your pathetic (pathos) appeal to compassion, love, and kindness is initially commendable. However, is it truly loving, compassionate, or kind to celebrate behaviors which on average cut the lifespan short of its practitioners by 20%? It is loving or compassionate to lie to the public, especially our precious children in the classrooms, that homosexuality and transgenderism are normal behaviors when in fact they are inherently harmful and demeaning?
And regarding the larger LGBT hegemony, is it love to force bakers to bake a cake for a gay wedding, when it goes against the conscience of the bakers? Is it compassionate to force churches, charities, and small businesses to disregard their proprietary rights and force them to accommodate an agenda based on fraudulent science and fraught with errors? Is it kindness to deprive children of a mother and a father, to deprive our communities of an essential fabric for its durability (the natural family), and to undermine public health and moral well-being?
Mr. Guerra, I will pray that you can take a better opportunity to respond to my statements with mature, thorough, and forthright statements rather than the intellectually deficient, morally failing, and emotionally overwrought arguments you proffered. I will repeat, since you are a former mayor and a current deacon in the Catholic Church, I expect a rigorous, serious defense of your views. Please do better next time.
Last of all, my demands on the CAGOP leadership remain outstanding. The RNC Chairwoman should be rebuked for celebrating “PRIDE Month,” and she should face calls for her resignation for abandoning the platform and plants of the Republican Party.
Thank you.
Sincerely
Arthur Schaper
Delegate, California
Republican Party
Organization Director,
MassResistance
