Stormy Weather[by]

In my post, “Lessons From Detroit,” I mentioned an article by JC Weatherby in which he called evangelical Christians the American Taliban. My first thought was to wonder how any intelligent person could make such a ridiculous comparison. Then I tried to imagine how I look to someone with a progressive ideology concerning gay marriage and abortion and such. Maybe I am more like the Taliban than I originally thought. But wait.

Of course the analogy breaks down in matters of true moral equivalency. There are no sword swinging evangelicals lopping off the heads of infidels as far as I know. Nor does the Bible mandate the establishment of civil government to enforce its policies as does the Koran. Despite the cries of misogyny by Weatherby and his ilk, Christians do not participate in honor killings, female genital mutilation, or virtual imprisonment of women in bourkas and houses. The worst Weatherby can offer by way of explanation of his label is that certain Taliban-like Christians have offered to pray for him. Of course, he is also against the Taliban-like practice of denying women’s reproductive rights by protecting the lives of unborn children.

Weatherby is correct to suggest that the Taliban seeks to impose moral principles on its subjects. But a more apt comparison in American society would be our Constitutional government. Contrary to the often spoken, mistaken assertion that you cannot legislate morality, that is precisely what legislation is for. Laws prescribe, proscribe and punish those who violate certain moral standards. Civil society is impossible without rules; governments are instituted to identify and enforce those rules. Weatherby’s real problem is with the rules.

Weatherby makes another false claim in his piece: he says that the efforts of Christians to form a government patterned after their ideals is unconstitutional. He believes the First Amendment establishment clause prohibits those of any religious faith from voting their beliefs at the ballot box. Nothing could be farther from the intent of the founders of our country. True, once elected, no official may enforce his particular religious beliefs outside of due process. However, if a governing body from local school board to US Congress decides through membership consensus that a religious principle that is held by a majority of his constituency is good for the population in general, they may enact it without fear of violating First Amendment rights. That is not establishment of religion; that is representative government.

The Bill of Rights, of which the First Amendment is primary, was intended by the framers of the Constitution to keep a majority from trampling the rights of a minority. They so feared tyranny that they even took steps to thwart the tyranny of a majority over a minority. Hence there could be no majority vote to establish any religion as a national law. This in no way precludes the enactment of moral and civil standards which may be drawn from a religious viewpoint. In fact, the moral basis for government itself is based on rights “endowed by the Creator” on every human being according to our Declaration of Independence. Natural law, which was the underlying principle which informed their world-view, was drawn explicitly from the Judeo-Christian moral tradition. By following that tradition, the founders did not establish religion; they did establish a moral basis for what they considered a civil society.

It is this moral basis established by the founders against which moderns like Weatherby rage. It saddens me to realize that understanding of our form of government is so paltry that large numbers of people toss about phrases like “separation of church and state” with no clear idea what they mean. There was never any intention to separate morals from state. In fact, George Washington stated that without a moral populace, the form of government being created would never work. We are seeing that sad state of affairs today. Having eroded large sections of the moral basis of government, our elected officials no longer share a common understanding of principles that used to make compromise possible. It is now as Weatherby says, us against them.

So a tiny minority of the population now controls the definition of marriage, and a miniscule group of deviants controls who uses what bathroom. Gallup’s most recent polling estimates 3.8% of Americans self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender – 3.8%. Unbelievably, only 0.3% call themselves transgender – three people in a thousand. Yet this tiny minority has mounted a propaganda campaign which has duped over half of the country into redefining marriage. Opening women’s restrooms to men who identify as female has been foisted upon all of us, though it apparently has less support than gay marriage.

As it happens, the number of gays in this country is approximately the same as the number of radical Muslims. With so many people having a complete misunderstanding of what the First Amendment really protects with regard to religion, it is now conceivable that Sharia law will be accepted as an alternative life-style in America. In Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan, it is already de facto done. I doubt even JC Weatherby would be in favor of that. If he thinks the evangelicals as “American Taliban” are bad, wait until he sees the real Taliban taking over his neighborhood.

One uncomfortable principle that makes a civil society possible is the concept that the good of the many outweighs the good of a few. I say it is uncomfortable because minorities represented by people like JC Weatherby might be restricted in who they can marry or which restroom they may use. Government is instituted among men to maintain order. The order is derived from a set of moral principles. Everyone will not agree about every detail of the moral code, but a majority can usually be found. If Weatherby represents a majority of voters in this country, we will be voting to abandon the moral principles on which America was founded. That may make him more comfortable, but it scares me to death.