On the June 16 broadcast of San Francisco radio station KSFO's The Lee Rodgers Show, guest host Brian Sussman hosted theologian Charlie Self, whom Sussman called “Dr. History,” to discuss the California Supreme Court's May 15 ruling overturning the state's ban on same-sex marriages. In the course of the discussion, Sussman referenced a post on Self's blog and said to Self: “On your website -- it's interesting you're addressing this very topic, Dr. Self, and you talk about how gay and lesbian radicals actively recruit through our schools and the media in order to swell their ranks. Talk to us about that for a moment.” After asserting, “It is amazing how little the traditional family is pictured in either drama or comedy on TV anymore,” Self added:

SELF: It is amazing how little the traditional family is pictured in either drama or comedy on TV anymore. In fact, I just gave an address for Father's Day yesterday and I just wanted to remind all the dads that fathers are not all the sitcom boobs that they're made out to be on TV, so you have the negative. Positively, of course, you have just a rash in the last 10 years of programs of all types normalizing this particular chosen lifestyle. Along with that, you find all kinds of organizations, especially ones like GLAAD and others -- G-L-A-A-D -- and other organizations advertising opportunities for young people and for especially junior high, high school, and college students to want to discover, to search, to understand this gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender -- these options and lifestyles that are available. The only way that you are going to grow the ranks of this kind of movement is this kind of onslaught because it is simply not part of the nature of things as designed or as evolved or as historically recorded for thousands of years.

Earlier, Sussman said about graduation at Stanford University: “One of the speakers during the course of the weekend gave what I'm told was a very moving and compelling speech regarding Darwinism. And I'm thinking, Darwinism, OK, everyone's buying into Darwinism. Darwinism's the new thing, and it's becoming very, very popular. Darwinism just doesn't jibe with gay marriage, Dr. History.”

Moments later, Self said:

SELF: I find it interesting that you were talking about Darwinism. It's one thing to talk about evolution on a variety of levels and to talk about the evidence of how nature has conducted herself. It's quite another to create an ideology, and that's really what you're watching. And what you're in danger of, Brian, with homosexual marriage, with gay marriage, is the creation of human life in a test tube. What's interesting is you're going to see more and more pushing for adoption, more and more pushing for a variety of in-vitro fertilizations and other forms of reproduction, because gay marriages by definition can't produce their own child. So, we're not only redefining marriage. We're redefining parenting, we're redefining how human life comes to be. Instead of a face-to-face covenantal relationship of love producing new life, we're now going to look to a laboratory, we're going to look to impersonal means, and there's something dehumanizing, there's something destabilizing, about the entire affair.

Sussman then asked: “What happens when you devalue marriage, when a society devalues that covenant relationship as you described it, between a husband and a wife? What does history tell us?” Self responded:

SELF: Well, we don't have to -- well, first of all, history tells us very clearly that when marriage begins to break down, and family and clan ties break down, you become -- it becomes a state of anarchy, and anarchy can only last so long until totalitarianism comes in, and some form of state, either under a dictator or under a cabal, some form of totalitarian state will move in and then begin to re-establish some kind of social order, based on whatever their ideology may be. Now, by the way, if you'd just like an example of what the breakdown of marriage does, go to our urban war zones here in this country in the last 40 to 50 years. And with the rise of the welfare state, with the rise of no consequences for divorce, with the rise of people having sex without responsibility or consequences or at least the perception thereof, you can begin to discover what the consequences are, Brian.

Sussman interjected: “OK, so you have, you have gay -- let's go with a lesbian couple who have adopted a young boy. That boy may have two parents, but that boy's still missing a vital ingredient, and that's a father,” to which Self replied:

SELF: The secular research of the last 60 years -- again, we're not -- you've noticed we haven't quoted a single scripture from any tradition. We have not tried to make an appeal to religious authority. The secular research of the last 60 years tells us that Johnny and Jane need a mom and a dad. They need mentors, they need adult role models of both genders in order to become the person they want to be. You see, the real -- the real agenda here, Brian, is to make gender something that people choose, as opposed to something that they are born with and develop. And it's amazing, they want to claim a civil right for what they call natural, but at the same time, they're spending enormous amounts of energy recruiting, causing adolescents and young adults to question whether or not they may be of a particular gender. And the most disingenuous thing that I have been observing is that, again, if you have married and had a family but decide that you're gay and come out of the closet, you're celebrated and put on the cover of a magazine. If, however, that you -- that you have lived a gay lifestyle and decided that you want to change that lifestyle, your therapist gets their license pulled for even considering the thought. And so what we have is a real agenda to increase the nanny state's influence on our lives and to have people who really do know better help guide us through this process of discovering who we are.

Toward the end of the discussion, Sussman told Self: “OK, now, let's talk about something else that has been recorded for thousands of years, and that is the whole idea of equality. We're born equal, but we're all different. I mean, there's no question about that. And in terms of marriage, societies have said that, yeah, it's between a man and a woman, and in our society we say, here are the rules: man and a woman, you can't marry anyone under this particular age, you can't marry a family member. So, the rules are the same for all of us, Dr. History. But, for some reason, the gays want to change those rules. I just don't understand it. Talk to me about that.”

From the June 16 edition of KSFO's The Lee Rodgers Show:

SUSSMAN: It is 14 minutes past 6 on KSFO. Sherry, do we have the theme music for Dr. History? Let's do a little Village People for Dr. History as we're about to enter into a discussion on gay marriage. Ladies and gentlemen, would you welcome a man who is far too brilliant to have to appear with this music behind him, Dr. Charlie Self, the man with more degrees than a thermometer, on KSFO. Hello, Dr. Self.

SELF: Hey, I am glad to be with you, Brian. Happy Monday. And brilliant, not brilliant, or whatever I may be, that's a lot of fun and put a smile on my face here.

SUSSMAN: All right. Dr. History, gay marriage -- it's going to begin in the state of California. It's official now, our state Supreme Court has chosen to override the will of the voters from the 2000 election, where 61.4 percent of us said, yeah, marriage should be between a man and a woman. Tell us how this stacks up from an historical perspective.

SELF: Well, a couple levels, Brian. First of all, just recent history alone should have cause for concern. In the 1970s, Governor [Jerry] Brown passed the Consenting Adults Act that allowed consenting adults to do whatever they wanted in private, kind of removed all the old anti-sodomy statutes, and most people didn't really worry about that; it was the 1970s, we're all at the disco floor. And they said, we don't care about marriage or anything else, we just want to be able to be left alone.

By the 1980s and early '90s, it was domestic partnerships and benefits from private corporations. And of course, corporations made their decisions that way. Once again, we were told, you know, don't worry, it won't matter, it's just -- it's a private issue, we're not trying to redefine things for other people. And by the late '90s and early part of this decade, it's completely changed, to now, whether there's any substance behind it at all, they want the symbolism of marriage, they want to completely normalize and equalize a same-sex relationship as a relationship that every culture and society for recorded history has made the most important one for the continuance of that society.

SUSSMAN: OK, let's -- let's talk about that. Because, again, you're Dr. History, you study this stuff, you enjoy looking back on history. What you're telling us is that never in recorded history has a society decided, OK, we're just going to redefine marriage, we think that that's going to be fine, there will be no consequences. Talk to us from a historical perspective -- I mean, obviously, this isn't a religious issue.

SELF: No, this is not a religious issue. There are people of deep faith who have concerns about it, but in terms of just basic anthropology and history, you will not find any culture that makes a homosexual relationship on the same level as a covenantal, socially bound heterosexual relationship. Now, all through history, from the time people began to record these things, people have had all kinds of -- variety of sexual experiences, both above ground and underground, but when it comes to marriage and family, the continuance of society, marriage, traditional marriage as we know it, has always been the preference of every culture in every location. And I've -- I've tried to find exceptions to that, and I have not. Now, some societies have been more or less tolerant of other behavior, kind of going wink-wink at various behaviors. But when it comes to defining family -- and you know, there's kind of a basic point, even if you're a complete naturalist, if everything is biology, you aren't going to continue the species if you try to encourage relationships that don't allow reproduction.

SUSSMAN: You know, that's kind of an interesting point. We were just talking about Stanford's graduation yesterday, and Oprah speaking, and again, I was at this post-graduation party in Stanford for a dear friend's daughter, and so many at this event were talking about one of the speakers -- I think that it may have been a baccalaureate address. One of the speakers during the course of the weekend gave what I'm told was a very moving and compelling speech regarding Darwinism. And I'm thinking, Darwinism, OK, everyone's buying into Darwinism. Darwinism's the new thing, and it's becoming very, very popular. Darwinism just doesn't jibe with gay marriage, Dr. History. I mean, that's what you were sort of saying a moment ago.

SELF: First of all, what we're dealing with statistically is a 1 to 2 percent exclusive identification of the population anyway. The 10 percent figure you've heard bandied about is a politically correct figure based on flawed science half a century ago, but the actual numbers are very small, and, you know, in nature, there are exceptions, but those exceptions don't become the rule for the propagation and the forward momentum of any species. Now, that sounds all very scientific. I find it interesting that you were talking about Darwinism. It's one thing to talk about evolution on a variety of levels and to talk about the evidence of how nature has conducted herself. It's quite another to create an ideology, and that's really what you're watching. And what you're in danger of, Brian, with homosexual marriage, with gay marriage, is the creation of human life in a test tube. What's interesting is you're going to see more and more pushing for adoption, more and more pushing for a variety of in-vitro fertilizations and other forms of reproduction, because gay marriages by definition can't produce their own child. So, we're not only redefining marriage. We're redefining parenting, we're redefining how human life comes to be. Instead of a face-to-face covenantal relationship of love producing new life, we're now going to look to a laboratory, we're going to look to impersonal means, and there's something dehumanizing, there's something destabilizing, about the entire affair.

SUSSMAN: What happens when you devalue marriage, when a society devalues that covenant relationship, as you described it, between a husband and a wife? What does history tell us?

SELF: Well, we don't have to -- well, first of all, history tells us very clearly that when marriage begins to break down, and family and clan ties break down, you become -- it becomes a state of anarchy, and anarchy can only last so long until totalitarianism comes in, and some form of state, either under a dictator or under a cabal, some form of totalitarian state will move in and then begin to re-establish some kind of social order, based on whatever their ideology may be. Now, by the way, if you'd just like an example of what the breakdown of marriage does, go to our urban war zones here in this country in the last 40 to 50 years. And with the rise of the welfare state, with the rise of no consequences for divorce, with the rise of people having sex without responsibility or consequences or at least the perception thereof, you can begin to discover what the consequences are, Brian.

SUSSMAN: OK, so you have, you have gay -- let's go with a lesbian couple who have adopted a young boy. That boy may have two parents, but that boy's still missing a vital ingredient, and that's a father.

SELF: The secular research of the last 60 years -- again, we're not -- you've noticed we haven't quoted a single scripture from any tradition. We have not tried to make an appeal to religious authority. The secular research of the last 60 years tells us that Johnny and Jane need a mom and a dad. They need mentors, they need adult role models of both genders in order to become the person they want to be. You see, the real -- the real agenda here, Brian, is to make gender something that people choose, as opposed to something that they are born with and develop. And it's amazing, they want to claim a civil right for what they call natural, but at the same time, they're spending enormous amounts of energy recruiting, causing adolescents and young adults to question whether or not they may be of a particular gender. And the most disingenuous thing that I have been observing is that, again, if you have married and had a family but decide that you're gay and come out of the closet, you're celebrated and put on the cover of a magazine. If, however, that you -- that you have lived a gay lifestyle and decided that you want to change that lifestyle, your therapist gets their license pulled for even considering the thought. And so what we have is a real agenda to increase the nanny state's influence on our lives and to have people who really do know better help guide us through this process of discovering who we are.

SUSSMAN: Dr. History on KSFO, here on Hot Talk 560, KSFO. We're talking, obviously, gay marriage. It becomes the law of our land, here in the state of California, at 5:01. That's when many counties are going to start marrying people. Dr. History, it's interesting. There's something that I don't think a lot of people have discussed. There are going to be folks racing to this state from all corners to get married. Then they're going to go back to their home state with their marriage license. This is obviously going to put pressure on those states to come forward and adopt the same practices, isn't it?

SELF: Oh, it's going to put pressure there, plus our Constitution creates the opportunity for states to honor the contracts and the legal arrangements in other states. Now, states' rights still exist, in very small measure, but they still do exist in America, but this will be another wave of momentum against the states being able to determine whether or not they'll validate the marriage licenses of California. Right now, somebody can go get married in Georgia or Nevada or wherever, and it would be honored in other states. It's being called into question now, but the pressure will be enormous to acknowledge another state's legal sanction of a relationship, and this also tears at the fabric of our Constitution, tears at the fabric of what -- of what federalism really meant as our founders tried to put it together. And, Brian, it's going to be a very serious thing, because what you're going to have is, you're not only going to have the pressure to recognize marriages, but you're going to immediately have divorces, you're going to have a huge amount of legal, social, and psychological disruption because we've opened the door to alternatives.

SUSSMAN: Dr. Charlie Self is our guest on KSFO. We call him Dr. History. Now, here's the doctor of traffic checking in. This would be Dr. Officer Vic.

[...]

SUSSMAN: Gay marriage officially comes to California at the close of business today, 5:01, so a lot of counties will stay open past close of business in order to accommodate those who want to get married the gay way. Now, Dr. History, that's Dr. Charlie Self -- by the way, his website is drcharlieself.com, that's d-r “Charlie” with an i-e and Self s-e-l-f dot com. On your website -- it's interesting you're addressing this very topic, Dr. Self, and you talk about how gay and lesbian radicals actively recruit through our schools and the media in order to swell their ranks. Talk to us about that for a moment.

SELF: Well, Brian, we can come at it from about three different angles. It is amazing how little the traditional family is pictured in either drama or comedy on TV anymore. In fact, I just gave an address for Father's Day yesterday and I just wanted to remind all the dads that fathers are not all the sitcom boobs that they're made out to be on TV, so you have the negative. Positively, of course, you have just a rash in the last 10 years of programs of all types normalizing this particular chosen lifestyle. Along with that, you find all kinds of organizations, especially ones like GLAAD and others -- G-L-A-A-D -- and other organizations advertising opportunities for young people and for especially junior high, high school, and college students to want to discover, to search, to understand this gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender -- these options and lifestyles that are available. The only way that you are going to grow the ranks of this kind of movement is this kind of onslaught because it is simply not part of the nature of things as designed or as evolved or as historically recorded for thousands of years.

SUSSMAN: OK, now, let's talk about something else that has been recorded for thousands of years, and that is the whole idea of equality. We're born equal, but we're all different. I mean, there's no question about that. And in terms of marriage, societies have said that, yeah, it's between a man and a woman, and in our society we say, here are the rules: man and a woman, you can't marry anyone under this particular age, you can't marry a family member. So, the rules are the same for all of us, Dr. History. But, for some reason, the gays want to change those rules. I just don't understand it. Talk to me about that.

SELF: Well, let's just do a little genetic history, Brian. The royal houses of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries suffered immeasurably, physically and perhaps even affected some the decisions of the state that led to some of the 20th century disasters, because of marrying far too close. It's interesting that throughout history, in a variety of traditions, people did not want you to marry any closer than a second or third cousin. And there have been reasons for that, some of them religious, some of them practical, but the more we study this, the more we realize that variety, rather than over similarity, is far better in the continuance of a healthy human generation. And so what you're watching, as history will tell you, that some of the basic rules -- again, whether they are religious or secular -- stand up pretty well in producing healthy people.

SUSSMAN: Dr. Charlie Self has been our guest on KSFO. His website, www.drcharlieself.com. We call him Dr. History, and it's always a pleasure, my friend, to have you on the program. Enlightening stuff.

SELF: Well, it's a delight, Brian. And we have a light here coming in November with an opportunity to overturn the Supremes.

SUSSMAN: Yes, with our opportunity to vote on this issue. Dr. Charlie Self, thanks for being with us on KSFO.

Nathan Tabak is an intern at Media Matters for America.