THE GAY RIGHTS DECISION
Very recently, the United States Supreme Court rendered a decision of epochal importance concerning the rights of homosexuals. Declaring that "the right to privacy" protects the sexual preferences of consenting adults, Lawrence v. Texas appears to be the definitive "Gay Rights Decision" and a final judicial ratification of the controversial "Equal Rights Amendment" which was narrowly defeated during the 1970s. One of the effects of the ERA was to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.
The ramifications of this decision are far-reaching in their application. The Supreme Court in effect has declared that whatever heterosexuals do, it is ok for homosexuals and whatever homosexuals do, it is ok for heterosexuals. So whatever sexual arrangement the imagination of consenting adults can conjure (multiple partners, incest, etc.), it's protected by the Constitution.
Liberals are elated, of course, and conservatives are horrified. Believing that this decision will produce chaos for the institution of marriage, conservatives are faced with few options. Here they are:
The use of violence is normally the recourse of minority groups which have no political influence. In this case conservatives and traditional Christians have lost control of the culture in general but are still powerful in certain areas. I expect civil disobedience but not in the form of massive protests. Rather, the refusal of some jurisdictions to enforce this decision following the same scenario that we saw after the Brown decision which ended segregation.
There is a fourth possibility, a troubling one, and that is the possibility of civil war. I am not talking about the kind that produced the War Between the States but rather the kind which leads to a military coup. The social and political chaos in Germany of the 1920s led to the rise of Hitler in the 1930s. Hitler promised a return to traditional values, law and order, and a protection of the nation from international predators who were plundering the country. A similar scenario could occur in the United States. Considering the resentment of a majority of Americans toward global corporations, the fear of terrorism, and the sense of social chaos which Court decisions like this one will elicit in American pulpits, and then combine that with the fact that our military is manned (and womanned) largely by traditional Christians - we have the right ingredients for a repeat of history, if a savvy and self-serving political coalition wanted to exploit it.
It will not be the first time that a land has been bathed in blood in the name of Christ. But if that were to occur, it would only prove in the minds of many the failure of the Gospel. I remember some years ago a profound statement from Barry Lynn, the President of the liberal organization "Citizens for the American Way". In a radio debate with conservative commentator and Presidential candidate, Patrick Buchanan, Mr. Lynn challenged him with this theological justification for liberalism: "if God trusts people with free will to choose their eternal destinies, we should trust them with their virtue".
Buchanan didn't have a response. Instead, he shifted to another topic.
I wondered, why? It was hard for me to believe that he didn't have a response: the Jesuit educated and articulate Buchanan. No, Buchanan had an answer to Lynn's remarks but he could never dare to tell the truth. It would have been unacceptable and repulsive to the American people. His response would have had to declare the dogma of the Church, to wit, man has no free will. His choices are the work of God. God does not trust mankind with free will or with their eternal destinies. In the shadow of Augustine, the Church says that God predestines our eternal destinies.
Likewise, in reference to our virtue, God does not trust mankind with that either, according to Church dogma. He has ordained "ministers of the sword" to enforce a moral standard upon society. Had Buchanan stated this he would have been rightly branded a fascist. All conservative Christians who embrace classical Christian theology are necessarily fascist in orientation.
Classical Christian theology is not the fount of individual liberty. Pelagianism, the Celtic Church, and classical liberalism (the political philosophy of Jefferson and many of the other Founding Fathers) is the true fount of freedom. The kind of freedom that comes from Augustinianism and its Protestant imitation - Calvinism - is really a clever form of social engineering, creating a dialectic of competing special interest groups which are acting according to their selfish ambitions (sinful natures) from which comes the success of the nation ("Let us do evil, that good may come"). The political philosophy of Machievelli is really Augustinianism, a practice of the Popes since the earliest centuries and secularized in the form of Communism. In Communist Russia, for example, people are allowed to have their zones of freedom, otherwise, the society would collapse. Farmers have their garden plots, without which, the nation would starve. In medieval times, men such as Augustine and Aquinas taught that prostitution was a necessary evil, a safety valve or the sewer of society. The only difference between medieval social theory and that behind the Gay Rights Decision is that the Court says the prostitute ought to be treated as a human being with dignity and fairness. In the medieval world of the Church, once the prostitute has done her service of gratification, she may be murdered or cast out into the dung of the streets.
The desire for a "Christian" dictator will grow among conservative Christians. And if they are successful, it will change nothing. If all the sexual deviates of the nation were executed tomorrow, there would be new ones the next day. Blinded by their hypocrisy, like the Pharisees of old, Christians do not understand that the source of homosexuality is their own dysfunctional, fractured, monogamous families. I am not the first to state this. The Protestant Reformers saw it and blasted celibacy as the source of sodomy in the priesthood. Nor am I the first to argue that the polygamous family is the Biblical remedy for the needs which the fragile monogamous household can never meet. I am certainly preceded by Luther - and also John Milton, who was perhaps the greatest Puritan of his time. With every woman with a husband and every child with a father, there is no excuse for prostitution. What kind of logic is indulged by the Augustinians that can justify prostitution but condemn polygamy? It is just as evil to forbid what God permits than it is to permit what He forbids.
The Gay Rights Decision will not cause the collapse of morals in our society. They have collapsed already. They collapsed a generation ago. What we have now is a level playing field. Finally, the Christian man who aspires to a patriarchal mission now has the chance to compete with our sodomite culture. The homosexuals hope to adopt children. Where do these children come from? From broken monogamous families. There is a safety net in the polygamous home unlike that of the monogamous one. In a monogamous society, the children are given to the orphanage. If Christians could ever see their opportunity, they could successfully compete with the homosexuals - and I might add with the rising tide of Islam - but only if they will embrace polygamy.