Do Christians have the right to promote their moral views in society?

In a recent discussion I printed a long e-mail exchange with a correspondent who was defending David Horowitz’s stand on gay liberation. Here the conversation resumes. Early in the exchange my correspondent seemed to say that traditionalist Christians have no right to oppose the homosexual liberation movement. I took this to mean that traditionalist Christians, apart from having a right to be defended from public abuse and calumny in their private beliefs and practices, have no moral right to urge the public acceptance of their beliefs and practices. But I could not nail him down on that point. The exchange (or rather my side of it) gets repetitive toward the end, because I kept trying to frame my question in a way that he would find acceptable and so be willing to answer. In the end, as you will see, I was unsuccessful. While no new substantive ground is broken in this conversation, I think the attempt to articulate the real question at stake here was worthwhile. Also, my correspondent’s repeated refusal to answer a straightforward question that went to the heart of the issue between us is a notable phenomenon in itself.

LA to Correspondent:

You should read this article at NRO which explains why the Family Research Council was upset by Racicot’s meeting with the Human Rights Campaign. It wasn’t just the fact of the meeting itself. It was that: (1) The meeting was held in secret; (2) No record of the meeting was made; (3) The only information that came out on it appeared in the gay press; (4) Racicot had a similar history of meeting in secret with gay advocacy groups when he was governor; (5) Most importantly, Racicot made comments during the meeting (which only appeared in the gay press) to the effect that Christian critics of gay liberation are driven by fear and hatred. Do you still believe, as you stated earlier in our discussion of Horowitz’s article, that the Christian right’s protest against this meeting was simply an expression of illegitimate “intolerance”?

Correspondent to LA:

I agree with Racicot that Christian critics of gay liberation are mainly driven by fear and hatred. No wonder he held the meeting in secret. And anyway that’s his privilege.

LA:

I’m shocked that you would say this. It turns out that what you’re condemning as intolerance and hatred is not just the Christian leaders’ particular opposition to this particular gay group, but any opposition to homosexuality and to homosexual liberation. It would appear, then, that the goal here is much more than mere “tolerance.” So I’m wondering what your specific stand is on the various goals of the gay liberation movement. Do you support official recognition and subsidy of homosexual relationships? Do you support single-sex marriage? Do support adoption by homosexual couples? Do you support homosexual propagandizing in the schools? Do you support the demand to allow open homosexuals in the military? Do you agree with the liberal indictment and ostracism of the Boy Scouts for not wanting to hire an openly gay man as a scout master?

Correspondent:

Well I said “mainly.” The Christian right is a kind of mirror image of the gay left. It’s dominated by the intolerant. I wouldn’t care except this causes the rest of us a problem in the political arena. To answer your questions: I do support official recognition of gay relationships—why wouldn’t any conservative considering the health implications? I don’t support a legal equivalency to marriage because I don’t support subsidies of heterosexual relationships but do think “society” has a stake in supporting child-rearing families. As for adoption I think it’s better for a child to have two caring gay parents rather than two abusive heterosexual parents or no parents at all. Don’t you? On the other hand, I would have a much higher scrutiny for adopting gay males than for adopting gay females. I don’t support any sexual propagandizing in the schools. I don’t support open homosexuals in military. I have defended the Boy Scouts against the absurdity of having gay scout masters.

LA:

You wrote:

“I agree with Racicot that Christian critics of gay liberation are mainly driven by fear and hatred.”

When I questioned you on this, you seemed to qualify it slightly, but it’s not clear what the qualification consists of. You haven’t backed away from the radical implication of the statement. If you believe that “Christian critics of gay liberation are mainly driven by fear and hatred,” you must also logically believe that the Christian belief that homosexual conduct is wrong is driven by fear and hatred. The two ideas cannot be separated. The Christian critics of gay liberation oppose gay liberation because they believe that homosexuality is wrong, and therefore to give it rights and recognition is doubly wrong. But you see that position as driven by hatred, and therefore as illegitimate.

The upshot is that it’s hard to see how your position leaves any legitimate place in the public square for traditional moral belief.

This is illuminated by your idea of tolerance. You said you believe in the older notion of tolerance that I offered: “to recognize and respect the beliefs and practices of others without necessarily agreeing or sympathizing with them.” Following this kind of tolerance, one still holds onto one’s moral judgments while suspending their operation in the interests of comity.

But apparently (and I differed with you on this) you believe that this duty of tolerance is virtually unlimited, that people owe this duty of tolerance even toward beliefs and practices they regard as wrong, harmful and wicked; moreover, they even owe this duty of tolerance toward activist organizations that are seeking to get those wrong beliefs and practices officially sanctioned by society. So, in effect, tolerance as you understand it comes down to people saying: “I personally believe in right and wrong, but I don’t believe in imposing my beliefs on others or in trying to get my beliefs supported and practiced by society.” The result is that the traditional disapproval of homosexuality cannot be recognized as a belief about right and wrong that has any role to play in the common life of society; instead, it must remain a purely private preference.

Traditional morality is only to be allowed so long as it remains a private belief. Heterosexual monogamy is just one preference among others, and can no longer be recognized as the standard or ideal of human society. All ways of life, all practices and preferences, are to be equally respected.

The Rick Santorum question inevitably arises: If you insist on rights and tolerance for gay liberation, why not for every conceivable sexual relationship that also claims rights? And if not, what is the principle that separates the forms of sexual relationship that you respect from the ones you wouldn’t respect? Having rejected traditional moral standards as driven by fear and hatred, what is your standard?

Correspondent:

Larry, stop hairsplitting. I’m referring to Weyrich, especially Sheldon and Bauer, and Dobson. Do you seriously believe otherwise? Obviously we’re talking about conservative Christians as well, since liberal Christians don’t even criticize the gay left’s agendas. I support Christians’ rights to their moral opinions. I agree with Horowitz in making a distinction between the moral and the political realms, the sacred and the profane. I said that tolerance is not acceptance and I support Christians’ right to be intolerant if they choose. What more do you want. Your Santorum question is ridiculous, and every time opponents of gays make the analogy with the bestiality, rape, alcoholism they make themselves look silly and lacking compassion.

LA:

You say I’m hairsplitting when I was striving to lay out a clear, logical argument. Meanwhile it’s hard to derive a coherent position from what you’re saying.

You made a blanket statement which I found shocking: “Christian critics of gay liberation are mainly driven by fear and hatred.” You weren’t, as you now suggest, merely referring to some pushy comment by Gary Bauer. You were condemning Christian critics of gay liberation, which means ALL Christians who hold traditional moral beliefs.

Now, if that’s NOT what you believe, will you retract that blanket condemnation of traditional Christians and declare that the Christian disapproval of homosexuality and gay liberation is a legitimate position that can be publicly expressed in society with the aim of having that view prevail in social practice—as is the case with all moral and political positions that various people and groups publicly advocate?

For example, if a local grammar school or high school had invited spokesmen from a homosexual rights organization to teach a course on “tolerance” for gays (which doesn’t mean tolerance, it means the removal of all moral disapproval of homosexuality), and if a group of Christians told the school authorities that they should have nothing to do with that gay organization, would you regard those Christians as exercising a legitimate moral position (even if you disagreed with that position), or would you regard them as being driven by fear and hatred?

[That last message was just before the holiday weekend. When the next week rolled around and I hadn’t heard back from my correspondent, I wrote again.]

LA:

In our e-mail discussion last week, I had the impression that you were saying that all Christians with traditional moral beliefs were driven by fear and hatred. You replied, no, you only meant that a handful of conservative Christian activists were driven by fear and hatred. In order to clarify the issue, I then presented a fact pattern and asked you what your position would be on it, but you haven’t yet replied. So here is the question again: If a public school invited a homosexual rights organization to teach a course on “tolerance” for gays, which in reality was a course that showed homosexuality as normal and acceptable, and if a local Christian group told the school authorities that they should have nothing to do with that gay organization, would you regard those Christians as exercising a legitimate moral position (even if you disagreed with that position), or would you regard them as being driven by fear and hatred?

Correspondent:

The issue alone, particularly the way you have fudged it here (“which in reality…”) tells me nothing.

LA:

I don’t understand your objection. I’m laying out a fact pattern that conforms to well-known reality. Liberals promote programs which they say are about encouraging “tolerance” of homosexuality but which actually mean presenting homosexuality as normal and acceptable. “Promoting Tolerance” is the standard way the left presents gay liberation, as I’m sure you’re aware. And in any case that’s just a detail. The question I’ve posed to you goes to the heart of our discussion and I’m still hoping to get an answer:

If Christians urged their local school district not to allow a homosexual rights organization to teach a course in the schools promoting “tolerance of homosexuality,” would you regard those Christians as exercising a legitimate moral position (even if you disagreed with that position), or would you regard them as being driven by fear and hatred?

Correspondent:

The objection is that my statement refers to an emotional response not an intellectual one.

LA:

I am at a loss to understand your objection to my question, but let me try again to remove any possible objection you may have.

You originally wrote:

“I agree with Racicot that Christian critics of gay liberation are mainly driven by fear and hatred.”

When I said that this meant that you regarded any traditionalist Christian opposition to homosexuality as driven by fear and hatred, and thus as illegitimate, you said that that wasn’t true, that by “Christian critics of gay liberation,” you had only meant Bauer, Dobson, et al., not traditionalist Christians per se. So, in order to reach clarity on this point, I then presented you with a generic fact pattern not having to do with those particular Christian activists in their effort to get the GOP to shun a particular gay organization, but with the general principle that is at stake here: whether it’s legitimate for Christians to seek to restrict the access of pro-homosexual organizations to public institutions, particularly the schools.

So, here is my question once again:

If Christians urged their local school district not to allow a homosexual rights organization to teach a course in the schools promoting “tolerance of homosexuality,” would you regard those Christians as exercising a legitimate moral position (even if you disagreed with that position), or would you say that they are mainly driven by fear and hatred?

There is nothing odd or tricky about this question, which I’ve now asked for the third time. It is a perfectly logical, good faith attempt to understand where you draw the line between Christian positions that are legitimate and Christian positions that are based on “fear and hatred.” If you decline to answer for a third time, I will assume that, for whatever reason, you don’t want to answer it.

[My correspondent did not reply. Thus, despite his earlier remark that he didn’t support “any sexual propagandizing in the schools,” he refused to answer whether people who were trying to STOP sexual propagandizing in the schools were driven by fear and hatred or not. It’s almost like an anti-Cold-War liberal who says he doesn’t like Communism, but that anti-Communism is much worse.]

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 29, 2003 10:21 AM | Send