morality the best option
Marion Gabl
Issue date: 11/20/08 Section: Opinion
Most disturbing to me from Jake Morgan's recent article was the general contention that "government is not a vehicle for religious morality." I will agree that in our country, founded on individual liberty (as well as republican ideals), we cannot canonize church doctrine into legal code. From where, then, is our morality to originate? Christians would answer Natural Law. This is certainly viable, and probably the most prudential way of arguing moral issues, considering how fashionable "political correctness" has become - but realize that this mode merely adapts the same arguments that Judeo-Christians propose, while eliminating biblical references from the table.
Judeo-Christian morality, based on natural law and an understanding of the human person, versus…what? Either a "relativist" view, professing no morality - which I would argue to be impracticable - or a secularist version of morality, grounded on arbitrary assumptions. Or perhaps worse, based on the lionized guiding principle that secularists exclusively cite today: toleration.
With regards to homosexual marriage, I do not purport to be an expert authority. As a Christian, I don't think this issue really entails debate. Sodom and Gomorrah. As a natural-law proponent, Robert P. George's definition of marriage seems the most rational to me: "Marriage is a two-in-one-flesh communion of persons that is consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type, whether or not they are reproductive in effect." How this view should be expressed in terms of positive law with regards to legal privileges, civil unions, etc., is another discussion.
Finally, as an American? Yes, our Constitution embodies individualist principles of Lockean theory; yes, I believe that minorities must be protected from capricious majoritarian oppression, regarding legitimate fundamental rights; but the American founding was also distinguished by the republican principle of shaping civil society and instilling virtue in its citizens. The First Amendment banned the establishment of a nation religion; but even after the ratification, six states retained an established state religion. To stifle the expression of Judeo-Christian morality in a natural-law context is to deny the true principles of the American founding.
Judeo-Christian morality, based on natural law and an understanding of the human person, versus…what? Either a "relativist" view, professing no morality - which I would argue to be impracticable - or a secularist version of morality, grounded on arbitrary assumptions. Or perhaps worse, based on the lionized guiding principle that secularists exclusively cite today: toleration.
With regards to homosexual marriage, I do not purport to be an expert authority. As a Christian, I don't think this issue really entails debate. Sodom and Gomorrah. As a natural-law proponent, Robert P. George's definition of marriage seems the most rational to me: "Marriage is a two-in-one-flesh communion of persons that is consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type, whether or not they are reproductive in effect." How this view should be expressed in terms of positive law with regards to legal privileges, civil unions, etc., is another discussion.
Finally, as an American? Yes, our Constitution embodies individualist principles of Lockean theory; yes, I believe that minorities must be protected from capricious majoritarian oppression, regarding legitimate fundamental rights; but the American founding was also distinguished by the republican principle of shaping civil society and instilling virtue in its citizens. The First Amendment banned the establishment of a nation religion; but even after the ratification, six states retained an established state religion. To stifle the expression of Judeo-Christian morality in a natural-law context is to deny the true principles of the American founding.
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