Of Potties And Moral Culture

By LAWRENCE P. GRAYSON

It almost seems a fantasy that there is a national debate about allowing people to use any public restroom they desire. In spite of the fact that only 0.1 to 0.3 percent of the population has been deemed to be transgender, 41 percent of respondents in a recent CBS-New York Times poll stated that people should be permitted into public bathrooms of their choice; 46 percent said they should be limited to bathrooms of their birth sex; apparently the remainder have no opinion or are hesitant to voice it.
Not too many years ago, a scenario of men using women’s lavatories would have been a spoof for late-night comedians. Today, it is only the latest indicator of the moral degradation of the country.
The virtue of a nation is displayed in its laws and regulations, in the general ethos of the people, in the way its leaders govern. America was founded as a nation under God, with a belief in the inherent dignity of every person, who was endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
These convictions, rooted in Christian dogma, are embedded in the nation’s founding principles, reflected in its originating documents and governing institutions, etched in stone in the halls of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the iconic monuments to many of our greatest presidents, and have helped shape some of the most critical events in the country’s history.
As essential as a belief in God is to America, the Supreme Court in 1942 discovered a “wall of separation between church and state,” in an 1802 letter written by Thomas Jefferson. His phrase, intended to assure a group of Baptists that the government would not interfere with their religious practice, has been inverted to mean that religion must be divorced from public life. With any mention of God removed from the public schools, several generations of Americans have been taught a secularist view of life and the purpose of man’s existence.
As a result, Christian ideas have faded from the consciousness of large segments of the population and are being replaced by a humanistic concept of man and society — that God, if he exists, is irrelevant to society, that man is the master of his destiny, that material progress is the primary aim of existence.
For too many in our nation, their behavior has ceased to be regulated by Christian principles, religious practices have been abandoned, and temporal prosperity is their driving goal. In a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, 23 percent of American adults identified themselves as atheists, agnostics, or with no particular religion. Almost 80 percent of these “nones” said they were raised in a faith, mainly Christianity, but left it. Further, their numbers are increasing, especially among the young.
America is a nation in which people govern themselves through their elected representatives. A government with power concentrated in an elected few requires a moral and upright people working for the common good. These virtues are best developed through religion. George Washington, in his Farewell Address as president, identified this precondition, stating: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
Religion and government were to have complementary roles. Government was to be secularly neutral and not favor any one religion, but allow all denominations to practice their faiths as each saw fit. Religion, in turn, was to develop a virtuous character in the people so they could govern for the common good.
Since at least the mid-20th century, the meaning of secularity has been mutating to isolate government from all religion, to ensure that God and religious expression have no role in public affairs. Benign secularity has become an intolerant secularism, a secularism that is a religion of no God, which provides materialistic norms for how life should be lived and society operated. Secularism is now pitted against Christianity in a religious battle for the soul of the country.
Karol Cardinal Wojtyla (the future Pope John Paul II), in his 1976 address to the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, commemorating the Declaration on Independence, stated:
“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. I do not think that the wide circle of the American Society, or the whole wide circle of the Christian Community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the antichrist. The confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God’s Plan, and it must be a trial which the Church must take up, and face courageously.”
The past four decades have shown the truth of his perception. The “battle of the bathroom,” which includes unrestricted access to locker rooms and showers as well, is not about equality or tolerance. It is merely the latest stage in the effort to destroy the distinction between the sexes, to eliminate religion, to have a limitless, hedonistic society. The ongoing attacks on life, marriage, family, and religious liberty are simply different fronts in the cultural war against Christianity.
There will no detente, no peaceful coexistence. Accommodation will not work. This expediency may delay, but will not stop the hostility, for militant secularism allows no opposition.
The Church must recognize this movement to destroy Christianity for what it is. Church leaders and its lay members must uncompromisingly oppose the nihilistic secularism and work to change the moral landscape of society.
The Church militant will be significantly smaller than the cohort of people who self-identify as Catholics, but the resulting committed minority will be able to affect society through prayer, repentance, and invigorated evangelization. With God’s help, those who remain faithful to His teachings will emerge victorious.

+ + +

(The author is a visiting scholar in The School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America.)