Posted on 11/07/2006 6:45:45 AM PST by Zionist Conspirator
Don’t take the wrong lesson from Ted Haggard’s fall.
The meaning of evangelical leader Ted Haggard’s downfall needs to be well understood by religious conservatives, lest the tragedy be compounded. The pain that has befallen the man — now resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals — along with his family and church is the consequence of his poor decisions.
What would be worse than his personal destruction, however, is if the side of the culture war that Haggard ably fought against in his public life were allowed to define his sins as a final proof that religious conservatism itself is cruel, stupid, and morally corrupt. On the contrary, the Haggard story confirms some truths of the worldview he defended.
Accused of conducting a sordid homosexual affair, he admitted on Sunday, “The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There’s a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.”
Liberals descended like vultures. “I’m praying for Haggard,” Time-magazine blogger Andrew Sullivan assured his readers, “as I hope he is praying for me and every sinner. But the lesson of this to the religious right surely is: go and sin no more. Stop the lies. Stop the bigotry. Deal with the reality of gay people, our souls, our wounded hearts, our humanity, our right to be treated equally by our own government. It’s what Jesus did. And it is your true calling now.”
The key point in this spinning of Haggard’s humiliation is that the story exposes the “lies” underlying the conservative religious view especially as it pertains to gay matrimony.
What lies? The conservative case against redefining marriage is based on the observation of human vulnerability to temptation. Haggard confirms what we’ve said all along. It is pervasive moral weakness that makes such things necessary.
If everyone were in control of his appetites, there would be no need for the government to be involved in endorsing some sexual relationships while withholding endorsement from others. The more society undermines ancient standards of moral conduct, the harder it becomes to withstand temptation. This is why gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. When the awe in which people once held matrimony is diluted, by treating it as a man-made and thus amendable institution rather than a divinely determined one, heterosexuals find sexual sins of all sorts harder to resist.
So the experience of Ted Haggard strengthens the case for legally constituted social institutions like traditional marriage. Did the acceptability of gay love in today’s culture hasten Haggard’s fall? No doubt it did. It’s possible that the same man in a better time and place would have been beset by no such temptation.
But if even Haggard, this Christian fighter against homosexual culture, succumbed, doesn’t that prove that gay identity is natural, inborn, and therefore normal? Well, yes, in a way it does. But all temptations are natural, many are inborn, and to be called to fight against them in ourselves, according to a religious view, is the most normal thing in the world.
We know from experience that people have demons. Some of these are merely pesky, verging on the trivial. I have friends who keep kosher, for example, who confess they feel tempted by the smell of pepperoni pizza when passing by a non-kosher pizza store.
Other temptations go incomparably deeper in the human personality. There appears to be spectrum, from the easiest to fight (for a Jew, pepperoni pizza?), to the moderately difficult (gossip, perhaps), to the very difficult (alcoholism, anger, pornography, adultery, you name it). If temptations fall along such a spectrum, there must be one end that represents the sin or sins that pose the toughest challenge to those affected by them. At this extreme end, perhaps we would locate homosexuality. Partly that’s because traditional morality provides it no legitimate outlet at all. Possibly, another thing that makes a homosexual temptation difficult to resist is that, at least until the advent of AIDS, it produced no physical ravages (as alcoholism and anger do).
These are some of the reasons that all homosexuals deserve not our condemnation but only our most sincere compassion.
The Haggard story, in short, recalls and thus confirms a traditional understanding of how God sees humanity and our struggles. Christianity has its own teachings on this theme, which possess their own integrity. You can find a neat overview of Judaism’s perspective in a classic 18th-century work of religious philosophy by an Italian mystic and sage, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s The Way of God.
Luzzatto compactly explains that “God’s purpose in creation was to bestow of His good to another.” For this goodness to be meaningful to us, He set certain challenges to allow us to feel we had merited it: “God therefore decreed and arranged that creation contain elements of both perfection and deficiency, as well as a creature with equal access to both. This creature would then be given the means to both acquire perfection and avoid deficiency.
“By clinging to the elements of perfection, this unique creature would make itself resemble its Creator, at least to the degree that this is possible for it. As a consequence, it becomes worthy of being drawn close to God, to derive pleasure from His goodness.”
Choosing between perfection and deficiency, good and evil, is the human condition in a nutshell. Admittedly, it doesn’t seem fair that some people appear to be given easier challenges than others are. But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.
When we fail, it hardly impugns the Biblical framework. This basic religious view, whether in its Christian or Jewish version, stands at loggerheads with secularism. The latter denies personal moral responsibility, which may in turn be the bottom-line point of disagreement between conservatives and liberals.
Gay advocates reason that because a man has a temptation to homosexuality, he has little moral choice other than to obey it. This view of morality goes back to Darwin, who reduced behavior to biologically determined instincts. In The Descent of Man he wrote, “At the moment of action, man will no doubt be apt to follow the stronger impulse; and though this may occasionally prompt him to the noblest deeds, it will far more commonly lead him to gratify his own desires at the expense of other men.” In his private notebooks, Darwin was more blunt, commenting that “the general delusion about free will [is] obvious.”
In the Ted Haggard affair, then, we are confronted with questions not only of right and wrong but, more fundamentally, of moral responsibility versus biological determinism. Conservatives, not only religious ones, need to be very clear where we come down on this.
For surely the greatest intellectual and spiritual corruption is not the failure to fight off your demons, but the decision to urge upon other people a view that tells them they are justified in giving up their own moral fight. In that sense, I hope Ted Haggard does pray for Andrew Sullivan, because it is Sullivan and those on his side of the culture war who do much greater damage to our lives.
-- David Klinghoffer is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a columnist for the Forward, and the author of Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.
No. It demonstrates that SIN is inborn. It doesn't make the act any more natural or normal than beastiality or kleptomania (though a certain percentage of a population do these acts).
The government has no business endorsing ANY sexual relationships.
I think you and Klinghoffer are pretty much saying the same thing. Sin being inborn means that we are inclined to evil and must fight to overcome our sinful natures. Homosexuality is one such temptation to which man, in his current condition, may be drawn. That doesn't change the fact that it is forbidden and, in fact, a capital offense.
Dear Sloth,
"The government has no business endorsing ANY sexual relationships."
I disagree. Government is established, in part, to promote the general welfare of society. Societies are well-served by stable heterosexual marriage, yet heterosexual marriage is not always an easy endeavor. Government support for this institution can help folks establish and maintain stable marriages. This accrues to the general welfare of the society.
sitetest
I noticed that, too. No, of course it doesn't. We have no idea why Mr. Haggard experiences homosexual desires.
'General welfare' is vastly too broad and vague to use to justify governmental activity, as it can mean anything to anyone. I much prefer to stick to the enumerated powers of the Constitution.
*Anybody who has experience with Aristotelian Logic does. Follow...
The First GAY Pride Parade happened in 1969.
1969 was the same year Sesame Street debuted. Sesame Street is on Public Broadcasting
PBS was incorporated in 1969.
Therefore, the gay characters Bert and Ernie are to blame.
It is all so easy when you just take the time to break it all down.
Try ninth and tenth amendments
Heh ... try "The State governments pre-exist the US Constitution". Likewise government and human society as concepts.
You forgot to mention that Hillary Clinton was on the board of Children's Television Workshop.
Talk about your vast left wing conspiracy
Dear Sloth,
Your argument seems to have shifted from a more general one - that governments generally shouldn't endorse marriage, to a somewhat narrower one - that the authority to recognize marriage is not within the powers granted in the Constitution.
If your argument is the latter, then I have a few replies.
First, marriage is usually recognized, and its legal implications regulated, at the state level. Thus, most governmental recognition of marriage isn't implicated in federal constitutional issues.
Second, government generally dealt with, and gave its endorsement of marriage at the time of the Founding, and it seems that the Founders didn't have any particular problem with government endorsing this institution.
Third, marriage precedes the government at all levels. That's why we say government "recognizes" marriage rather than "creates" it. When government activities at any level impinge on the institution of marriage, the government is dealing with marriage. As an example, an income tax that refuses to recognize marriage is one that harms families and marriages. Thus, writing the income tax code in a way to favor marriage is an appropriate "endorsement" of marriage by the federal government (whether or not one likes the income tax, it is explicitly permitted by an amendment to the Constitution).
Fourth, most of the current efforts to protect marriage have been at the state level, and even the federal efforts have been to protect the capacity of the people, through republican means, to ensure these protections at the state level. The actions at the federal level to prevent judicial activism in overturning laws instituted through democratic and republican means clearly fall within the scope of the federal government's obligation to protect the republican nature of each state's government.
A society where governments at various levels don't favor heterosexual marriage is one that takes a dangerous risk.
sitetest
I guess he's right, but there's two bad signs here: 1) Andrew Sullivan sets the terms of the argument and everyone else has to respond and 2) Klinghoffer, Frum and others put so much effort into defending an obnoxious liar. When we reach that point it looks like things are starting to implode. They aren't, but people will get that impression.
Sorry, when you used the expression 'general welfare', I thought you were alluding to the Preamble. Actually, my position is the former one, that endorsing sexual relationships is outside the scope of government.
First, marriage is usually recognized, and its legal implications regulated, at the state level. Thus, most governmental recognition of marriage isn't implicated in federal constitutional issues.
I would tend to agree with that.
Third, marriage precedes the government at all levels. That's why we say government "recognizes" marriage rather than "creates" it.
I have no problem with the government recognizing that marriage exists. The government can also recognize that death, peanut farms, solar radiation and cockroaches exist. It does not follow that it ought to subsidize or endorse these things.
As an example, an income tax that refuses to recognize marriage is one that harms families and marriages. Thus, writing the income tax code in a way to favor marriage is an appropriate "endorsement" of marriage by the federal government (whether or not one likes the income tax, it is explicitly permitted by an amendment to the Constitution).
I disagree with this. How is marriage harmed by a tax code that treats all people equally?
A society where governments at various levels don't favor heterosexual marriage is one that takes a dangerous risk.
I don't believe a government ought to 'favor' any one legal activity over another. Government is charged with making moral judgments, but those judgments should be implemented within the criminal justice system when the immoral thing has been outlawed, not administratively when it hasn't. About the only exception I can think of to this is where the state has to make choices between legal options, such as placing children for adoption; in that sort of case I have no problem with favoring a heterosexual married household. Even then, I'd rather see a private entity doing the choosing.
Dear Sloth,
"I disagree with this. How is marriage harmed by a tax code that treats all people equally?"
Because marriages often entail a division of labor where one party is the sole or primary income earner, and the second party either stays home full-time or has a significantly lower income. Without recognizing marriage and making an allowance for the fact that both parties, in a sense, earn the one sole or primary wage, the income tax would have a deeper bite on married couples than should be.
"I don't believe a government ought to 'favor' any one legal activity over another."
In that government activities often impinge on legal activities, one may only have a choice of favoring or disfavoring, not of acting neutrally.
But even so, if governments exist generally to promote the general welfare of a society, encouraging good things seems a perfectly reasonable thing for the government to do.
sitetest
Sure, but I disagree with the premise. I believe governments exist purely to secure human rights.
Dear Sloth,
"I believe governments exist purely to secure human rights."
Well, I think that the founders disagreed. As a Catholic, I'm obligated to disagree.
sitetest
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