Conserving the Culture

A new column, “Canadian Crackdown,” by Michael Coren, at National Review shows where the U.S. may be headed if same-sex marriage is legalized throughout the country or if the Supreme Court declares same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right.

Just last week, in fact, a New Mexico appellate court ruled against a photographer who had declined to take the commitment ceremony photos for a same-sex couple. The photographer was appealing a decision of the New Mexico Human Rights Commission that had required her to pay the couple $6,000 for legal costs. (See “Eviscerating Religious Liberty in New Mexico” for additional information and links on this case.)

In Hillsdale College’s Constitution 101 (a free course I just completed and that everyone should consider taking), one of the lectures is on the founders’ concerns about how to guard against majority tyranny, a definite danger in a democratic republic.

While the founders were right to be concerned about majority tyranny, in America today the much greater threat is minority tyranny.

We see this in the case of same-sex marriage, for example, where homosexuals, who comprise only a small percentage of the U.S. population — probably five percent or less — nevertheless are becoming more and more successful — as the above case (one of several I could name) illustrates — in imposing legal and other sanctions against those who disagree with them.

Another case of tyranny by the minority is occurring in a rural county near where I live. In this case, a single student’s complaint forced a local high school — against the wishes of most county residents — to remove a copy of the Ten Commandments that had been hanging on a wall at the school since shortly after the Columbine shootings.

In a democratic country like the U.S., tyranny by majority is an ever present danger. But while we seem well aware of that potential danger, we seem far less aware of the dangers of tyranny by minority.

In Exodus 23:2-3, Moses instructs the Israelites to not “pervert justice by siding with the crowd [in a lawsuit], and [to] not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit” (NIV). Without doing injustice to the text, I think we could find good advice for the problems of both majority and minority tyranny by substituting “majority” for “crowd” and “minority” for “poor man.” As with the crowd and the poor man, neither the majority nor the minority should automatically be favored by the law.

Such favor can result in a form of tyranny and tyranny — whether instituted by the majority or the minority — is wrong. Both marjority and minority tyranny are equally dangerous, equally ugly, and equally to be avoided.

With this week’s ruling against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the same-sex marriage issue moves one step closer to the Supreme Court, and same-sex marriage moves one step closer to becoming the law of the land. For those who believe the slippery slope argument to be a fallacy, the speed with which the culture has gone from viewing homosexuality as deviant behavior to viewing same-sex relationships, and even same-sex marriage, as perfectly normal — a civil right, in fact — should put that notion to rest.

Last year I wrote a post recommending Robert George et al’s treatise, “What is Marriage?” written in opposition to the efforts to legalize same-sex marriage. It’s a lengthy and complex piece but well worth reading for anyone who wants a thorough understanding of why same-sex marriage is an oxymoron. For those who’d rather read something just as enlightening, but a little less daunting, Gerry McDermott has “A quick and dirty guide to why we should reject same-sex marriage” over at the Northampton Seminar.

Both pieces make a rational and compelling case for why, as McDermott says, “we should reject same-sex marriage.” But I’m afraid the only people who’ll find them persuasive are conservatives. Progressives, for the most part, I’m coming to realize, don’t approach such issues rationally. As Dennis Prager said recently in a talk at the Heritage Foundation, “the entire ediface of leftism is feelings based,” which explains why progressives’ support of same-sex marriage is based on emotion, not reason.

For progressives, legalizing same-sex marriage comes down to what they perceive to be fairness. It isn’t fair, they believe, that two people who love each other, regardless of their sex, should be denied the legal and moral sanction of marriage. To deny them that sanction would be to hurt their feelings, which, next to being intolerant, is the worst thing one person — or group of people — could do to another.

While I hate to be pessimistic or defeatist, I’m not sure how we bridge that gulf between emotion and reason, in the long run particularly. Progressive control of public education (and the entertainment media) has ensured that most young people today subscribe to this emotion-based, non-rational way of looking at issues. And progressive control of the law schools has ensured that many lawyers and judges hold to a positivist legal philosophy that in shaping and interpreting law — as I understand it — relies more on societal practices and sensibilities than on any objective ideas of justice and morality.

These realities militate against our ability to win the battle over the legal designation of marriage. Nevertheless, we can’t give up the fight. The welfare of our children and grandchildren, as well as our nation, depends on our faithfulness in doing what we can to preserve the legal definition of marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman. If you haven’t already, arm yourself with the arguments in these two articles by Robert George and Gerry McDermott, then find your place on the battle lines. And listen to Dennis Prager’s talk for a good idea of what we’re up against.

A week ago last Wednesday, my husband and I flew home from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon days ahead of schedule. A nasty bout of food poisoning had rendered my husband unfit for the rigors of the hiking we had planned to do. Add to that the hospitalization of our dog, who, in apparent sympathy with the favorite of her two owners, had developed pancreatitis, and curtailing our vacation seemed appropriate.

Late in the day, as we waited in the Atlanta airport for our delayed flight, a young man in Army camouflage, who looked hardly older than our 15-year-old grandson, took a seat among the other passengers at our gate.

When we finally boarded our flight, we were seated nearer the front of the plane than the young soldier, so once we disembarked and walked into the waiting area at the Roanoke airport, we were greeted by the sight of the soldier’s family and friends smiling joyously and holding up signs to welcome him home.

What a different experience this young soldier’s family and friends in Virginia had on that day than that of another young soldier’s family in Kansas. No doubt his family and friends had planned a celebration, too.

But the day before, while on his way home from Afghanistan, the other young soldier – a Marine – and his buddy had stopped to do some sightseeing at the Grand Canyon. Not long after we spent our last few hours in Grand Canyon village buying souvenirs and photographing a California Condor who posed just for the benefit of tourists it seemed, a few miles down the road at one of the Canyon overlooks, this young Marine slipped and ultimately fell to his death.

So while one family in Virginia was celebrating the homecoming of their young soldier, a family in Kansas was grieving the news that their equally young Marine would never be coming home, at least not in the way they had expected.

So why do such things happen? Even for Christians, that’s a tough question.

It’s tempting to think that maybe God favored one soldier – or one soldier’s family – more than the other. But we know nothing about each soldier’s respective spiritual state. And, in any case, Jesus warns against assuming that victims of tragic accidents are any greater sinners than anyone else. “Do you suppose,” he tells his listeners, “that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:4, NASB).

Christians do, however, have one consolation that others do not. We know that however tragic and senseless this young man’s death seems to us, God is working in this situation to bring about His Kingdom. We have hope that life has meaning and purpose and that ultimately we’ll see that purpose more clearly than we do now.

Atheists, on the other hand, have no way to make sense of such events. The problem of evil, both natural and human-generated, it seems to me, is more theirs than ours. Christians may not have all the answers now, but we have confidence that the answers exist. However hard it is sometimes to live without the answers and to quell the doubts that consequently assail us, to live in the answerless world of the atheist would be infinitely harder.

I haven’t posted to this blog for quite a while. But I plan to start posting regularly very soon. For now, here are links to my most recent commentaries

The Komen Debacle

A Heart for Prisoners

A Loud Vigorous ‘Boo’ to Leonard Pitts

Don’t Take Personhood for Granted

I had a commentary in The Roanoke Times yesterday on how the ‘living’ Constitution is draining the life right out of us. The headline writer gave it the title, “CPR on the ‘living’ Constitution.” A better title would have been “DNR on the ‘living’ Constitution” since the concept of the living Constitution needs to die a natural death.

For those of you who would like to understand the real Constitution better, read the announcement at Public Discourse about the new Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism project of the Witherspoon Institute and then check out the NLNRAC website. This will be a great resource for students, teachers, and — as the announcement puts it — the “educated” public.