Reasons without virtueA claim that gay marriage requires only modest changes to family laws has a Swiftian air, minus the satire. In its June 21-22 edition the venerable Wall Street Journal published an op-ed, “Gay Marriage Is Good for America”, in which Jonathan Rauch argued in support of the California supreme court’s recent decision to allow homosexual marriage. There have been many such favorable articles, but this one is the best illustration I have seen of the inexorable logic of rationalization that drives those who choose a moral disorder upon which to base their lives. It achieved an air of complete unreality.
There is a Jonathan Swift aspect to Jonathan Rauch’s argument that would serve it well if it were intended as satire. In his Modest Proposal Swift suggested eating babies to alleviate the famine in Ireland: “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled.” This was brought to mind by Rauch’s suggestion that homosexual marriage required only “modest changes to existing family laws.” Homosexual marriage, he claimed, would serve to stabilize American society “on the conservative -- in fact, traditional -- grounds that gay souls and straight society are healthiest when sex, love and marriage all walk in step.” However, Rauch is not a satirist. He is serious, which would make it funnier, if it wasn’t so sad. Rauch wrote, quite correctly, that marriage is not only a contract between two people; it is a contract with the community which recognizes it. The couple is bound “to society with a host of legal and social ties”. However, can you spot the missing word in this formulation? It is the word “moral”, which does not appear once in Rauch’s disquisition. There is a reason for this. Rationalizations for moral misbehavior work like this. Anyone who chooses an evil act must present it to himself as good; otherwise, as Aristotle taught, he would be incapable of choosing it. In our minds we replace the reality of the moral order with something more compatible with the activity we are excusing -- in this case, sodomy. In short, we assert that bad is good. For any individual, moral failure is hard to live with because of the nagging of conscience. Usually, conscience wins, and the person repents -- first of all by admitting to the evil nature of the act committed. The temporary rationalization crumbles and moral reality is restored. Habitual moral failure, however, can be lived with only by obliterating conscience through a more permanent rationalization. As I wrote in National Review several years ago, “If you are going to center your public life on the private act of sodomy, you had better transform sodomy into a highly moral act. If sodomy is a moral disorder, it cannot be legitimately advanced on the legal or civil level.” On the other hand, if it is a highly moral act, it should -- in fact, must -- serve as the basis for marriage, family, and community. This requires the assent of the community to the normative nature of the act of sodomy. In other words, we all must say that the bad is good. This is why advocates of the homosexual cause like Mr. Rauch insist that everyone participates in the rationalization -- in this case, by making homosexual marriage legal. If the community gives the assent he seeks, then the rationalization is safe; the unreality has been securely established legally as the new reality. (Speak against the new reality and you may be committing a hate crime.) However, the community is not safe -- despite Rauch’s claims that homosexual marriage “is good for America.” Why not? By endorsing the unreality of the rationalization, the community undermines its own real foundations. (Even if the communities are unwilling to do this, the courts will do it for them.) Read the opening to Aristotle’s Politics. It begins with a man and a woman in marriage as the foundation of the polis – not with Jim and Ed, or Phyllis and Jane. Try to imagine a polis founded on such relationships. You cannot. As it could not perpetuate itself, it could not survive. Then ask yourself: why did Aristotle understand this and the homosexual proponents of marriage do not? Perhaps the answer is in the prerequisite that Aristotle required of anyone before they could truly philosophize: moral virtue, without which one simply rationalizes one’s moral misbehavior. Our founding fathers also knew that the key to democratic constitutional rule is virtue. Only a virtuous person is capable of rational consent because only a virtuous person’s reason is unclouded by the habitual rationalizations of vice. Vice inevitably infects the faculty of judgment. When that happens broadly to the public, you can kiss your democracy goodbye. The California supreme court just said goodbye. Robert R. Reilly writes from Washington DC. He is a contributing editor to Crisis magazine. |
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Andrew said...Thank you for this post. I read the article in the WSJ and thought, `hem, yeah, this kind of makes sense`, even though my consciense said `no, this can`t be right`.
I am glad to have found this correcting article here which confirms my gut feelings.
United States | Saturday, 28 June 2008 at 2:28 pm
Hector Raynal said...It’s amazing the degree to which the homosexual community has advanced their agenda and now they are being recognized even by supposedly “enlightened” legislators almost all over the world, at least in the West. But these days in which evolution is also capturing the fancy of so many, my astonishment comes from the fact that a great majority of people don’t mind considering themselves direct descendants of the apes; how come nobody has noticed that these primates and any other species of animals don’t mate with those of the same sex. Maybe they are telling us that to do that in not NATURAL, it is an aberration that cannot bring anything but disaster to our race, like the crumbling of the family and, consequently, of society. WE don’t seem to see much ahead of us and be able to fathom the unfolding of these mistakes in the relatively near future.
Philippines | Saturday, 28 June 2008 at 7:51 pm
Ken said...Rauch spends 1144 words rambling incoherently about why SSM is good for America and then tells us that “Space doesn’t permit me to treat ... objections (to same sex marriage) in detail, beyond noting that same-sex marriage no more leads logically to polygamy than giving women one vote leads to giving men two”. Jolly good argument, Rauchie, you’ve stumped us there! It seems to me that what he is revealing is the barrenness (no pun intended) of the homosexual lifestyle and the desperate hope that access to marriage will give it some meaning.
-- | Saturday, 28 June 2008 at 8:59 pm
Mariusz Wesolowski said...Albeit in a reduced (and demagogic) fashion, Rauch at least mentions the all-important social dimension of marriage. Most of the proponents of homosexual marriage talk only about “love”, quite in line with the general, choking sentimentalization of public discourse in our times. The example of Aristotle is telling - although homosexuality and pederasty were rampant and commonly accepted in his era, he wouldn’t even dream about conceiving an idea of a legal union based on such sexual attractions. That’s because he was still relying on common sense and practical considerations while we worship only the arbitrary “individual rights” and hedonistic “quality of life”. Whom gods want to destroy, they make them mad first…
Canada | Sunday, 29 June 2008 at 12:50 am
Darren Hall said...An excellent article. This rationalization put forth by WSJ writer Jonathan Rauch is the reason we have less morality and civility.
Why do we need morals or even pedestrian concepts such as common courtesy when we have government that “gives” us rights that excuse any immoral behavior, then promote it.
It is my fervent hope that the people of California take back their state this November.
United States | Sunday, 29 June 2008 at 3:37 am
Brian said...Allow me to play Devil’s Advocate--that is, someone who presented arguments against a candidate for canonization in the Catholic Church--for a moment. White nationalists insist that the mixing of races contradicts common sense and biology. How do I know that they are wrong? They insist that the mixing of races thwarts the perpetuation of culture. How do I know that they are wrong? White nationalists insist that the promotion of racial equality is inherently totalitarian. How do I know that they are wrong? More importantly, how can anyone else know that white nationalists are wrong?
United States | Monday, 30 June 2008 at 3:31 am
Ted K. said...Since the late 1960’s it has become almost impossible to speak seriously about virtue and vice in all areas of life in the Western societies that are de-evolving back into ethical primitiveness. These concepts are important for the advancement of a community as much as for the individual creating a harmony between them. But the “me” generation now in control of society continues to imbibe its individualistic agenda in all areas of society, particularly through the notion of legal “rights” which has now become not what the individual and community can do for each other, but what license (and not freedom which always entails responsibility to others) the individual can extract from and and what privileges he can be owed by the community. The common good of society, in other words is secondary to the good of many privileged individuals. One wonders how long such a society can exist as a harmony for eventually individual “rights” will clash with each other into chaos. Attempts at maintaining order would be through policing ideas such as through the Orwellian feared notion of hate crimes to force all individuals to think the same way. But this can only be a temporary measure, for unless the society is founded on sound principles of virtuous living, the control of ideas will become become more tyrannical against those who are vying for control of society in the culture wars.
Sadly, the Catholic Church once fiercely taught the importance of virtue for living, especially through neo-Thomism founded on Aristotle’s observations but which has had a bad reputation (of being too oppressive of the individual)since after the Vatican II Council.
United States | Wednesday, 2 July 2008 at 3:57 am
Nike Ramos said...Thanks Robert...it helps us bi-sexual people to fight our tendencies of SSA. We need to read good articles like this that help support those who want to go to the right.
Philippines | Wednesday, 2 July 2008 at 4:13 pm
robert reilly said...Mr. Ramos,
I am very moved by your email. You will be in my prayers.
Brian,
You can know that white racists are wrong through the exercise of right reason, i.e. the apprehension of the “laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Are some people justified by nature in terms of their race in ruling others as if they were non-human? The very quesiton almost answers itelf. There could be no such thing as human nature if this were true.
Best regards,
Bob Reilly
United States | Thursday, 3 July 2008 at 1:04 pm
ck :-) said...hmmm…
Same Sex Marriage (SSM) is a proud degradation of moral excellence, goodness, and righteousness; a synthetic kind of relationship; an attempt to plastic surgery itself from the closet, and parade its way to the townhall.
SSM is the synthesis of stinginess, to the low, and poor quality of life, ...where if you look hard enough, you can tell, it’s a fake.
In an age where many things may seem artificial, why settle for something, less? Get something real. The burden is lighter, and it’s natural. Forget those crazy little voices for awhile, get a real life. Get a true marriage. It works!
ck :-)
Philippines | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 11:30 am
Brian said...Pardon me, but may I point out that ultra-nationalists would consider mixing races to be also artificial? I wish separating the two types of unions was so easy, but it’s not. I challenge you to read materials critical of the extreme right--you’ll be startled by the similarities.
-- | Friday, 11 July 2008 at 10:17 am
ck :-) said...hmmm…
Nope! Only to that which pertains to SSM.
Yes, there’s a very thin line that separates your idea, and thus we must admit the aberrations; so we have to be more careful, charitable and yet analytical. When we have more time, yes; but we’d rather KIS at this time.
ck :-)
Philippines | Friday, 11 July 2008 at 10:56 am
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