The Problems that Human Beings Get Ourselves Into:

I hesitated to blog about this, because I don't want my blogs to be tabloid like places and I'd never purposefully reveal information like this were it secret. But it's not; the cat is already out of the bag. It's about Christopher Buckley's illegitimate child. Buckley, notably is the son of the late William F. Buckley.

This topic illustrates why I don't get bloggers like Clayton Cramer who seem so obsessed with problems in gay culture (yes there are problems) that he acts like that fact alone can be used to condemn homosexuality (but we know the condemners invariably have preexisting religious convictions against homosexuality that they are trying to justify). The Clayton Cramers of the world might have a point if heterosexuals like Christopher Buckley weren't also always getting themselves into trouble. It's that intractable thing called human nature, especially sexual nature (see also of recent note John Edwards and Bristol Palin).

And indeed, in the grand scheme of things these heterosexual problems seem so much graver than the homosexual problems, that you have to wonder why so much attention is paid by religious conservatives to homosexuality. David Boaz wrote a classic article in 1994 that still seems relevant on the disproportionate attention religious conservatives pay to homosexual as opposed to more pressing heterosexual problems.

The consequences of irresponsible homosexual sex have been grave; AIDS, not the only STD to worry about, has shortened the lives of too many great people. However it was the individuals who practiced promiscuous sex who chiefly paid the price. Irresponsible heterosexual sex, mainly because it is procreative, has a far greater "externality" effect. You'll have either a fetus that gets aborted (I suppose not a moral problem for some folks, but a BIG problem if one believes abortion takes an innocent life, as religious conservatives do), a family that can get destroyed or gravely harmed by a divorce resulting from adultery, or a child born into a non-intact family without two parents. Among urban, young, unwed mothers, this is a great cause of poverty and is associated with many other social ills.

And so it is that Christopher Buckley (probably) destroyed his family with an affair that led to an out of wedlock birth. He's still married to his wife, the mother of two of his children, but rumor has it that they are separated and he is dating another woman. If they did divorce more than seven years after the incident, it would time well with the recent deaths of traditional Roman Catholic parents. From the first article to which I linked:

As William F. Buckley Jr.'s only child, satirist and former White House aide Christopher Buckley is poised to inherit a fortune worth tens of millions of dollars.

But as Buckley waits for the estate of his late father to go through probate court in Stamford, a former Random House publicist is fighting in a Miami courtroom to increase the $3,000 a month in child support he pays for the special-needs son he fathered with her.

Irina Woelfle's lawsuit blames 7-year-old Jonathan's learning problems, in part, on Christopher Buckley's refusal to have anything to do with the boy.

"The father is notably absent from the minor child's life," her lawsuit states.

[...]

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the Buckley family's efforts to keep Jonathan at arm's length don't end with Christopher Buckley. In his will, William F. Buckley Jr. leaves the contents of his estate to Christopher and the two children he fathered with his wife — and leaves no doubt that Jonathan will get none of the money.

"I intentionally make no provision herein for said Jonathan, who for all purposes ... shall be deemed to have predeceased me," wrote William Buckley, who died in February.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt Jonathan Buckley's developmental well being. This is the face of irresponsible heterosexual sex, something to which irresponsible homosexual sex usually cannot hold a candle. The only time it gets close is when homosexually oriented folks enter heterosexual marriages, bear children and later "come out." And that's almost always because they do what traditional society tells them they ought to do.