The Patriot Post® · The End of Principled Leadership in America
At what point will we know when America has been fundamentally changed? It was a nice campaign slogan, unfortunately many of us are realizing what a nightmare we are waking up to!
Congress’ repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – a flawed doctrine to begin with – marks the end of principled leadership in our country. America is officially under the tyranny of pure political whim. No longer can we count on the courage of elected men & women positioned to defend us from the attacks – predicted by our founding fathers – against liberty.
This attack is against conscience: the innate ability to distinguish between right and wrong. The issue is: the normalization of homosexuality. Through recent election cycles in states across the USA, the majority of people have soundly rejected attempts to mainstream homosexuality. Good and decent people have not been persuaded of the benefits to society of giving moral equivalency to the union of two people of the same gender and calling it marriage.
But the same legislative philosophy that gave us National Health Care, Fannie Mae, Fredie Mac, the takeover of GM & Chrysler, mountains of debt to fund forward thinking projects like training Chinese prostitutes the right way to consume liquor now believes it can force the normalization of homosexuality on our culture by legislative or judicial fiat! The nightmare has begun in the ranks of the people entrusted with the job of protecting us from the enemy without while we languish in protecting ourselves from the enemy within!
Our founding fathers were principled men, guided by history and practiced in their personal conduct. In his book, The Five Thousand Year Leap, author Cleon Skousen identifies twenty eight principles the founders used to create the most brilliant governing document in history. One of those guiding principles, all men are created equal, helped us rectify the hideous practice of slavery and continues to guide the fight against abortion on demand. Sometimes it takes a long time to win the moral debate; that’s why fighting from the position of principle is essential. To equate the struggle “gay” people (a misnomer if ever there was one) have in society with these two cultural struggles is intellectually dishonest.
This fundamental principle is surely part of the homosexual debate. Every legal, US citizen is entitled to protection under the law from abuse, acts of terrorism and protection of property. However, even though all men are created equal that is not the same thing as saying all behavior is equal. Behavior is not necessarily a protected right, especially bad behavior. Society has a right to establish rules of behavior that promote citizenship & responsibility.
Driving school bus is a good example: we have a list of rules for riding the bus. Is the goal 100% compliance with the rules? No, the goal is to get students home safely 100% of the time. The rules help do that. One day I reminded one student of a rule just to curb his distracting antics. His response, “I act this way because I’m hyper!” I responded: “That doesn’t give you a pass to act badly.” Labeling bad behavior doesn’t give you a pass to keep doing it. It’s interesting to me that we fought a civil war to free a group of people, the slaves, so that they could be treated as individuals under the law. But gay activists want people who engage in sexual acts with people of the same gender to be treated as a group so that any bad behavior connected with their “lifestyle” will get a pass.
Conscience, nature and religion are God given guides to acceptable behavior. I believe that decent, reasonable people don’t really care about other people’s sexual activities so long as they don’t become destructive to families, work places, and combat units! Faithfulness, integrity, service, love, fidelity are always in demand and too often in short supply no matter what your sexual proclivities.
The influence of Christian thought on law & society is that the basis for law is love. In other words, if one person won’t love & protect another person from harm & evil, then society will ensure it happens through the rule & enforcement of law. You can’t have justice without mercy, so we ought always view each other through the eyes of love & mercy, recognizing that each of us struggles with some evil in ourselves. As individuals, not groups, however. A good-hearted, honest individual struggling with moral, spiritual, cultural norms & practices will have a much greater chance of getting things set right – in themselves or others – because of the struggle. A much better chance than protecting them from themselves by placing artificial barriers of conscience around any group.
Back to my original point: If you take away the right of conscience to guide civil behavior & discourse, what are you left with? An elite oligarchy dictating even our very thoughts. It is a dark day in America when we secede our right to rule ourselves to a ruling class of people who truly believe they are smarter, stronger, better in every way than the rest of us.