- Feb 5, 2002
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Our Catholic World News service has already reported—and Phil Lawler has already commented—on President Biden’s unfortunate and morally confused declaration when he signed the new and morally inventive Respect for Marriage Act. In doing so, he claims to have struck “a blow against hate in all its forms” because “racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, they’re all connected”.
What I wonder is why a president of the United States cannot think clearly about morality. It would seem to be the first requirement of sound government.
First of all, of course, the language of our dominant secular and relativist culture has been deliberately stacked against morality as known through the Natural Law. To describe opposition to homosexual acts and transexual bodily mutilation as a “phobia”, which is most succinctly defined as “an extreme or irrational fear”, is already a deliberate distortion of moral discourse. It is designed to shame those who are in fact opposed to particular behaviors not because they are afraid of those who practice them but because the behaviors themselves are immoral and destructive. This is nothing but how people distort language when they wish to justify the indefensible. We could just as stupidly speak of “murderophobia” or “abusaphobia”. No intelligent person can possibly resort to this sort of name-calling without knowing that he or she is deliberately biasing the discussion—shifting it from moral discourse to shaming discourse.
Continued below.
www.catholicculture.org
What I wonder is why a president of the United States cannot think clearly about morality. It would seem to be the first requirement of sound government.
First of all, of course, the language of our dominant secular and relativist culture has been deliberately stacked against morality as known through the Natural Law. To describe opposition to homosexual acts and transexual bodily mutilation as a “phobia”, which is most succinctly defined as “an extreme or irrational fear”, is already a deliberate distortion of moral discourse. It is designed to shame those who are in fact opposed to particular behaviors not because they are afraid of those who practice them but because the behaviors themselves are immoral and destructive. This is nothing but how people distort language when they wish to justify the indefensible. We could just as stupidly speak of “murderophobia” or “abusaphobia”. No intelligent person can possibly resort to this sort of name-calling without knowing that he or she is deliberately biasing the discussion—shifting it from moral discourse to shaming discourse.
Continued below.
Moral clarity is a requirement of love
To describe opposition to homosexual acts and transexual bodily mutilation as a “phobia” is already a deliberate distortion of moral discourse.
www.catholicculture.org
