Yet another election season is upon us, and through it, Americans hope to play a part in influencing the course of this great nation. But despite the solemnity of the decision facing the country, neither of the two main parties will do much in stemming the downward moral spiral griping the United States.
In enunciating his position on gay marriage, Vice President Dick Cheney has said people ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want.
Really? Does that mean, if I can find a dozen women amicable to the arrangement, that I can form a harem that caters to my every whim, allowing me to lead a life of luxury since such a situation would allow me to sit back and send a number out to work, a number to tend house, and a number to shower affection on when in the mood.
If our base desires now constitute the basis of our connubial ethics, whose to say such an arrangement is illegitimate so long as no parties are coerced into it? After all, Cheney did say “any kind of relationship they want.” Seems polygamy makes much more sense than homosexuality from an evolutionary standpoint if we are going to descend to the level of common beasts.
But we are not common beasts. Though a part of creation, we have also been set apart and above it by being made in the image of God. As such, He is the one --- not our individual libidos --- that determines the moral parameters in which humans are suppose to live.
Both Scripture and common sense reveal that the well being of the greatest number of human beings is maximized when marriage is limited between one man and one woman rather than allowing helter skelter to take place at the marriage altar between any combination in any number. When we refuse to acknowledge these limits, we literally invite all hell to break lose.
The end result goes beyond social confusion and emotionally shattered lives. In fact, innocent people end up losing their rights and even their lives.
In addressing the issue of abortion brought up during the debates, John Kerry --- in a classic display of his famed forked tongue --- in effect said that, while he thought abortion was wrong, it would be unconscionable to impose his own views upon anyone else. But what is law but the codification of someone else’s morality we are forced to live by?
Attempting to delude Catholic and Evangelical voters, Kerry admits the unborn are alive but refuses to lift a finger on their behalf since such a belief is religious in origin. Thus, since even the safety and well being of innocent human beings are not sufficient grounds to impose your morals on someone else, on what grounds can you then bring the sanction of law against a restaurateur for refusing to serve Black customers? After all, this also comes down to a matter of belief: whether or not all men are created equal. Besides, the customer discriminated against certainly isn’t suffering to the same extent as the hacked-apart fetus.
Abraham Lincoln did not win his place in America’s pantheon of historical greats by enunciating, “I believe slavery is wrong, but who am I to impose my conception of emancipation on those not sharing it?” It would be interesting to see if someone as vacillating as John Kerry would handle the greatest moral quandary of another era in the same manner as he does that of our own.
It would be unreasonable to expect any candidate to single handedly reverse America’s ongoing moral decline since the origins of the crisis go beyond anything the political process is able of resolving completely. However, it does not bode well for this great nation when those seeking to serve as its foremost custodians lack the will to do the simplest things within the scope of legitimate governmental authority to stand against the tide of desolation sweeping across this great land.
Copyright 2004 by Frederick B. Meekins
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