America is inundated with “marital equality” chatter: The whole issue of government involvement in our personal lives is a tortuous one and the obvious answer is, as it has always been in ordered states, “yes” and “no.” Problem is, of course, where to draw the lines.
Several observations are pertinent to any balanced discussion of the matter.
(a) Political liberals are absolutely desperate to impose their morality on us. Simply check out the democrat platform of the last general election. Conservatives are doing the same. Both see a value in their view. Currently, the liberals own the entire show (with the “free” press, Hollywood and university professors —not to mention pulpits—leading their parade), and they will, in my view, for the foreseeable future. That’s simply our historical context. To question their views is to be in the president’s “clutching their guns and their religion” mob.
(b) Without an ethic based on a transcendent moral law, the true liberal has no grounds to say “no” to any behavior. He cannot logically argue, based on his totally subjective moral (actually, amoral) foundation, that a man should not be allowed to marry five other men, his mother, his daughter, his son, and/or his cocker spaniel, and have sex with all of them. Such ideas are being bandied about currently. The (in)famous Princeton ethics (!) prof Peter Singer defends all of that. Sigmund Freud often said that incest was the first and most restrictive taboo of human history. It is, he said, against all nature, and is, “…perhaps the most maiming wound ever inflicted throughout the ages on the erotic life of man.”(From his highly instructive essay, “Civilization and Its Discontents.”) The OT, one remembers, has much to say against bestiality for the precise reason that it was (along with many other sexual perversions) commonly practiced among the early inhabitants of what we now call Israel. Many modern liberals are either saying such things outright or nibbling at the edges. The legitimacy of the conservative angst in this specific regard is evidenced by an attempt to imagine libs saying “no” to any behavior with ethical content (which is all of it!).
If that shocks you, get your seatbelts on. (Honestly, who will be surprised when, not if, the newest “liberty” will be to go without clothes in public America? “Hey, who in God’s name made you the clothes police in America? I have my rights! The only people who benefit by it are Paris and New York salons and their avaricious capitalistic—the great new hate word—clothing outlets”! Etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Young mothers to come (especially university females who are indoctrinated with liberal trash every day) might do well to ask, “How will we, the next generation of young mothers guide our children (all the while assuming that tomorrow’s young women will choose to have them) through such a cultural minefield?”
(c) We Baptists are keen on “separation of church and state.” Famous for it. It occurred to me years ago that jour church-state spokespersons (excepting Richard Land) say it plainly: “We Christians should be political activists UNTIL we are of sufficient strength to substantially affect the culture by political action, and—at that point—we should back off.” (James Dunn of my earlier years yelled both things with equal force “be active politically” and then “shut up.” Barry Lynn, now on the scene, is worse. A Baylor church-state prof of mine, Dr. James Wood, was of the same mind. It amounted to “practice your religion quietly, unobtrusively, and in private.”)
(d) A helpful soporific for young modern adults is to obtain a copy of C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man,” and read it very, very carefully. I am reading it for the fifth time, I think. Many excellent books are written on this entire matter (see especially the late and exceptional ‘ Indivisible” which every American college freshman needs to read), but Lewis is an absolute necessity. Undoubtedly a genius, he is worth a lifetime of study, I almost said, “especially the second of his three essays” which comprise the short book. (Re-reading? Lewis is profoundly simple but simply profound. One discovers, in re-reading him, like Chesterton, various levels of implications.)
One other word about freedom. All family members must give up some personal freedoms for the welfare of the family, all athletes must give up some personal freedoms for the success of the team, all military personnel must give up some personal freedoms for effective platoon activity, and all citizens must give up some personal freedoms for the health of a civilization. Complete freedom is anarchy, which is a synonym for hell. In fact, civilization is, by definition, the self-imposition of discipline which—as all human history demonstrates—allows for, in fact, educes, a flowering of art, science, music, widespread human rights and freedoms, robust entrepreneurial economies, etc.
It all would not be so lethal if the “marital equality” people and their ilk practiced their lifestyles in private, as has been the case since Eden. People do weird things; that’s a given. The trouble is that a disproportionately small group must be in our faces, must demonstrate in parades and in all the media, must rub our faces in their outré behavior, must—having been blessed by the supreme court of the land and labeled by modern psychotherapy as, well, psychotherapeutic— demand that we come into their bedrooms (either actually or by means of the media or by practicing their “equality” in public parks or on street corners for all to see) and applaud their behavior. They are so insecure, but so brazen, that nothing short of that will satisfy them. We may expect much more volume from them because, again, they now sit in all—yes, “all”— the seats of cultural power.
I think, often, of the poignant sentence of Psalm 60:3, “Thou hast showed thy people hard things: thou made us to drink the wine of astonishment.” I wonder: is it possible our sovereign God is pouring us the drink—as we speak?