Liberalism speaks

Tony Blair says:

There is no place in our society for discrimination. That’s why I support the right of gay couples to apply to adopt like any other couple.

And that way there can be no exemptions for faith-based adoption agencies offering public funded services from regulations that prevent discrimination.

I have often said that non-discrimination is the ruling idea of modern liberal society, meaning that any preference for the religious, moral, philosophical, aesthetic, or ethnocultural components of traditional Western society over those of minority or marginal cultures is prohibited. This is confirmed by the prime minister’s remarks. If, as he charmingly puts it, there is “no place in our society for discrimination,” then non-discrimination rules in all situations, and discrimination—the preference for any value based in Western culture, or even in nature itself—must, at least in principle, be eliminated in all situations. This anti-discrimination ideology is more radical, more anti-reality, than even Marxism-Leninism, yet there is no articulate objection to it anywhere in the Western world, including from conservatives. Find me a conservative who will disagree with Blair’s position in principle, and not just on the basis of seeking some special exemption for Catholic adoption agencies.

Once you understand the belief system that actually controls the modern West, and once you see that there is no “respectable” opposition to it anywhere, then you will understand how extreme our “mainstream liberal” society really is.

- end of initial entry -

Charlton G. writes:

One of the reasons “conservatism” cannot articulate an opposition to liberalism is that the main political organizations that incorporate conservatism in the West are dominated by business interests. Are salesmen going to suddenly acquire the vocabulary of political philosophy? Don’t hold your breath. Most of the successful businessmen I have met in my life were incredibly narrow when it came to matters of history, culture and literature. Don’t even ask about political theory. And another reason they do not step up to the plate is because any serious confrontation with the left over the issues that concern people like us is bound to be inconvenient for them. Political thinking that even slightly suggests any sort of disruption (or threat of disruption) to their business enterprises will send these “conservatives” scurrying to the microphone to denounce “hate mongering” and “intolerance.” Salesmen, and that’s who and what the Republicans really are, will never constitute the kind of leadership pool that can lead us out of this morass. They have been compromised morally and ethically. Call it blackmail, if you will, but the left knows the weaknesses within the “conservative” leadership and they never hesitate to exploit those weaknesses whenever they catch a principled conservative sniffing around issues that really matter to them.

Spencer Warren writes:

One issue to consider here is that it applies to churches offering publicly funded adoption services. The article is silent about those offering such services without government funding. (See what law school is about!) I don’t think it affects your point; I just note it.

LA replies:

I don’t understand why this would be limited to publicly funded adoption services, since as I understand it the underlying law outlaws, without exception, all sexual-orientation discrimination in the provision of goods and services, as well as all discrimination related to religion and belief in the provision of goods and services. Perhaps someone could clarify this for us.

Howard Sutherland writes:

Spencer Warren asks a good question, one that Tony Blair’s climb-down statement invites. I suspect that is just how Treacherous Tony, who is a practiced dissembler, wants it. Blair said “there can be no exemptions for faith-based adoption agencies offering public funded services from regulations that prevent discrimination.” That italicized language (offering public funded services) is a typical Blair blur. As you noted in an earlier post, the definition of discrimination in the Equality Act 2006—the definition applied by the Sexual Orientation Regulations Blair is discussing—makes no distinction between privately and publicly funded services. Blair tossed that distractor in there to make the scope of his climb-down appear narrower than it is.

His muddying the issue also makes it easier for Tories like David Cameron to go along with him, as they can pretend they are only addressing the narrower point Blair appears to be making. The truth is that Labour have given the whole thing away, and the Tories (their so-called leadership, anyway) will do nothing to impede it. I read something recently (comments on a Sunday Telegraph opinion column against this monstrosity by Roger Scruton, I think) speculating that Cameron and his cronies in the Tories’ Central Office calculate that there are more active homosexuals in Great Britain than there are active Catholics, and so they have nothing to lose by going with Blair in rejecting any faith-based exemption re adoption (or anything else, no doubt). A sad commentary, if true. It is certainly true that Cameron, a slick ad-man, is worse than useless.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 29, 2007 04:56 PM | Send