Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . The Standard Needed For Conservative Politicians: Confront And Educate
By STEPHEN M. KRASON
As we approach a crucial national election year (2024), it is worth thinking about what kind of campaign should be conducted by candidates to seek to finally put the forces of cultural radicalism which dominate the Democratic Party on the defensive. Ultimately, of course, these forces must be defeated if Western civilization is to survive. It’s true that such survival will not depend entirely on politics, but it is obvious that the political and governmental arenas are crucial to the battle.
What is needed — and the people who especially must get this message are the conservative-inclined Republicans running for national offices who can’t seem to understand that a “polite politics” doesn’t work — is both to go consistently on the offensive against the left and carry out the usually neglected educational function of politics.
Too often we see Republican politicians who call themselves “conservative” essentially accepting our devastated cultural landscape as a fact of American life and just moving on to talk about other things that don’t come anywhere near the same level of importance. Partly, of course, they are afraid to ruffle feathers or talk about things that will generate too much controversy.
Even if most of their constituents are concerned about what is happening, these politicians think that to hammer away at controversial cultural issues will only hurt them politically. So even if their sentiments are correct, they fall into the mode of engaging in “politics as usual.” Political courage, they figure, only goes so far.
What should politicians serious about challenging the cultural left do? How should they use the platform they have and all the public attention they can readily command to further the cause of truth? Let’s use the example of how they should confront the homosexualist movement (although, of course, it’s just one of many critical questions).
They should do what I suggested in both a guest op-ed in my local newspaper and in a monograph I did on family and sexual morality issues for the Society of Catholic Social Scientists (although as public officials their writing or public statements, unlike mine, will be noticed). This would include challenging the claim that people are born homosexual (e.g., have a “gay gene”) and making clear that homosexuality tends to develop from family dysfunctionality or sexual abuse in childhood (hence the need to restore sound family life).
They should point out that homosexuals are hardly a disadvantaged minority as some claim, with incomes higher than the national average. They should further tell people that, despite this, homosexuals are hardly happy in light of the many physical health problems caused by homosexual behavior and their having a considerably greater likelihood than heterosexuals of having drug and alcohol problems, mental health problems, a tendency to attempt suicide, and of experiencing domestic abuse.
Maybe they should also tell us, by contrast, how spouses in traditional — true — marriage have the lowest rates of domestic abuse. That, however, might have the added problem of making them unpopular with the cohabiters in their constituency. All this, of course, simply demands speaking the truth forthrightly.
When was the last time anyone heard a Republican politician — even a “conservative” one — publicly vigorously challenge the homosexualist movement and telling these truths about homosexualism? Not only should they raise these issues and educate the public about them to help it to see the real evil of the homosexual “lifestyle” — especially when they are hearing so much the opposite from the media and the dominant institutions in our culture — but they should pound away at it and aggressively and consistently confront the promoters of it.
Confronting homosexualism is just one example. There are many other issues that conservative Republican politicians should also help lead the charge against. Even those running for office in leftist-dominated constituencies should pursue the strategy of confronting and educating, consistently. The spirit they bring to politics should be like that of the Catholic who seriously seeks to evangelize for the Faith.
Just as the latter person is motivated by the understanding that what is at stake is people’s eternal life, the conservative politician needs to realize that the stakes in the struggle he is part of — even if he doesn’t want to think he’s involved in it — is the very future of our culture and the maintenance of true liberty and human dignity. Politics as usual — an attitude that so often ends up afflicting even those who get into it with the best of intentions — has no place in these critical times.
A sense of true mission always must predominate. Those in politics concerned about the truth need, again, to confront the adversary and seek to educate — always, of course, with true charity (something seen so little in politics). It may be that this spirit of charity, which can especially help him to make people open to the truth, may even help him to get through to some of his adversaries. He should speak the truth fully and courageously even when his constituency may not be inclined to readily listen or accept it.
It should be apparent that when I talk about “conservatives” in this column, it is with the understanding that true conservatism — as one of its most prominent expounders, Russell Kirk, emphasized — upholds the highest principles of the Western tradition and perennial truths about man. It is obviously not merely or basically a current policy agenda or ideological scheme. Upholding such principles and truths cannot be called, in the correct sense of the word, an “ideology.”
The guideline, the watchword, for conservative Republicans — assuming they are truly committed to the principles they say they espouse — should be, again, to confront and educate consistently. For those politicians who are not truly committed to these principles, it almost goes without saying that they should stop calling themselves “conservatives.”
(Stephen M. Krason is professor of political science and legal studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville, associate director of the University’s Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life, and co-founder and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. His latest books are Catholicism and American Political Ideologies: Catholic Social Teaching, Liberalism, and Conservatism and a Catholic political novel, American Cincinnatus.)
