Scriptorium Daily
The problem with ideologues in politics is their attempt to make a science of something that is an art. Unlike Aristotle and Burke, ideologues forget that politics is inexact and that wisdom has been hard won over centuries of experience and thought. There is, really, no science of politics. Of course, the same difficulties apply to ethics.
Ideologues wish that politics and ethics could be made “scientific” or that bright and perfect lines could be drawn between the moral order and politics, but in doing so they are in error. They mistake an art that is very human (politics) for a science. People are not so simple or tractable as matter or energy . . . and then even these are complex enough! Religious extremists simplify too much by merging church and state. Secular radicals pretend there is a self-evident morality that can be drawn from “reason” alone.
Such secular ideologues have recently attacked the traditional minimal interplay between the moral order and politics called concerning marriage. The considered wisdom of our ancestors is that marriage is vital to producing a civilized life and happy future generations. Like racists who invented new “scientific” categories (such as “race”) in order to justify their desires, so contemporary people also have their blind spots and temptations to deviate from this hard won cultural wisdom.
The chief problem with gay “marriage” is providing state sanction for vice. It is not so much libertarian as libertine. While most Americans see wisdom in allowing some vice to simply be legal, the law need not actively support it either.
Procreation may take place in private, but when it leads to children it is a public act, since the culture depends on it for its very future. Raising children is hard and so the state has wisely given special privileges and benefits to a social structure that will produce and raise the vast majority of the future population.
What is the norm is not always comfortable for individuals. The world is imperfect and many of us cannot live up to what is ideal. But when what is the moral norm is not comfortable for an individual, this becomes a pastoral problem and not a matter for law. People who wish the government out of bedrooms should keep it out by not demanding state sanction for relationships in which the state will usually have no interest.
“Is” does not, of course, equal “ought.” Most of us find it difficult to do what we wish or what society needs of us. It is the case that a desire for vice exists. That does not justify acting on it for any of us.
While ecclesiastical organizations must be separated from the state, morality cannot be. Somebody’s moral vision will prevail in the public square. As a result, public benefits should be handed out with great care. Forcing millions of Americans to provide government approval for actions most of the human race believes to be wrong is imprudent. Hi-jacking a social institution created by one group of people to benefit another is unwise.
Citizens should and must use their religious wisdom to make decisions about what is good and what the state should approve. Of course, this particular religious reasoning should be communicated and defended to others who do not share their opinions with common language and reasoning where possible. It is naïve or irrational ideology to hope that perfect agreement will be found or that all one’s opponents are bigots or fools. Traditionalists know they may be mistaken, so the wise amongst them have retreated from any state sanction for this vice, but the gay “marriage” ideologues cannot be satisfied with tolerance.
They demand full state approval.
Make no mistake. If gay “marriage” receives state sanction, the experience of Western Europe and Canada suggests that intolerance of any dissenting opinions as to its morality will follow.
Proponents of gay “marriage” cannot pretend they are not imposing their morality on the rest of us. Somebody’s morality will prevail. Advocates of this radical change, like all ideologues, claim with prophetic certainty that good will come of it. Such experimentation in economics and government did not work out well in the twentieth century even when it came wrapped in “youth,” the “future,” and promises of happiness.
Facile comparisons of race to sexuality do not advance the argument. Race was unknown to ancients and is not universal in the way sexuality is. As all ideologues do, racists invented weird categories and justified their desires with twisted religion and science. Race based slavery was not part of the received wisdom of the Eastern or Western worlds. America was morally wicked for embracing it for so long.
Most of the world fears that experiments with human life and procreation in the Western world are just such ideological experimentation. Our ancestors gave us great cultural treasures and this has made us the envy of much of the world, but such power does not justify doing whatever we can do.
Some cultural changes are good, but that does not mean all such changes are good. Sometimes cultural change is decay and decadence. The state has an obligation to support marriage, because future generations are vital to survival. It does not have the obligation to give everyone what they want.
A few decadent states in the world are busy pretending redefining words can redefine moral realities. They have yet to show that they can sustain themselves in the future, let alone defend their short term social experimentation. Pope Benedict has spoken with moral clarity on this issue from his global vantage point.
Most Americans hate to disappoint anyone. They may not approve of some behavior, but pity makes them loath to judge it publicly. All of us have our own failings and want to deal with those before throwing any stones. To vote against gay “marriage” in California, they need not throw stones. They must merely decide that there is no good reason to approve this private behavior publicly.
