PERSPECTIVEnA Prayer for My DaughtersnIn recent months both San Francisco and New York havenbeen the scene of triumphs for the homosexual rightsnmovement’s efforts to legitimate single-sex liaisons. . .’.nNewsweek’s Eleanor Clift, appearing on The McLaughlinnGroup, summed up the cases as evidence that in the 1980’snthe American people were redefining the family. ThenAmerican people? I wonder.nThere is no doubt that the family is being redefined bynNewsweek, Time, and the network of social service agencies,njudges, and media managers who tell us who’s who andnwhat’s what, but I am not at all sure that either as a nation ornas individuals, the American people have spoken. In smallntown and suburban America, alternate lifestyle means anpassion for lacrosse instead of hockey, and when two mennget together without women it is usually to catch fish or getndrunk — preferably both — in peace and quiet.nBut while I think it is too eariy to take alarm over thenaltered definition of family — people, after all, are going tondo what they’re going to do, with or without spousalnprivileges — it’s a bad sign that we can feel free even to talknabout these matters in public. Worse, if we talk about themnfreely in an old-fashioned spirit of contempt for perversity,nwe may find ourselves at the wrong end of a local minorityn8/CHRONICLESnby Thomas Flemingnnnrights ordinance. Even Rockford, Illinois (where Chroniclesnis published), is considering a walk on the wild side withnnearby Madison — a city where only minority rights arenprotected.nMy old senator, Sam Ervin of North Carolina, lost hisngood reputation for bad deeds by warning against this sort ofnthing. In campaigning against the ERA Sam used to say thatnequal rights for men and women would mean treating themnthe same, which would mean that if a woman could marry anman, so could a man. On the other side of the opposition,nPhyllis Schlafly was saying that ERA wasn’t necessary,nbecause the states already gave equal rights to men andnwomen. Both sides turned out to be right. We didn’t pass thenERA, and the rights of erotic minorities — transvestites,ncoprophagites, bestialites, and homosexuals — are to annincreasing extent protected by law. How long before wenrecognize the rights of child molesters along with those ofnsexually active children? Laugh, if you want to, but 15 yearsnago they were laughing at Sam Ervin.nNothing is so futile as lamentations against the decadencenof the times. Those who cultivate the root should notncomplain if the flower stinks. It has been some time sincenany responsible person publicly rejected such sacred notionsn