By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
I think all of us have some constants in our life — beliefs or facts that we rely on to help light our way. But it’s not just in our personal lives that we find such truths: businessmen, professionals, and tradesmen also hold certain propositions to be so firmly based in reality that they are directed by them without giving them a second thought.
In law, for example, there are certain propositions: such as the burden of proof is on the moving party, or motorists have the right to presume that other drivers will obey the rules of the road. Architects, physicians, and accountants all have the same type of universal principles that, the assumption is, can never be challenged.
Today’s society, however, has broken the rule that there are some universally held unassailable truths.
Didn’t we all once think there were only two sexes, or that children did better with a mom and a dad? And that parents had an obligation to instill discipline and values in their offspring? Not everyone abided by them, of course, but society did recognize them, and many other principles, as immutable truths.
But not now. Now, as they say, the barbarians are at the gate; barbarians who, like the Devil himself, style themselves as sheep, bearing gifts to the people: fruit from the forbidden tree, as it were.
Up is down, white is black, and truth is in the eye of the beholder. Sex is fluid; children are nuisances whose life is not theirs until birth, and sometime not even then. And, of course they don’t belong to you, but to the state because, after all, it takes a village.
And so now we’ve had to depend on the government to try to set things right by restating something that should go without saying: No one should be forced to violate his conscience or to perform any act that is forbidden by his religion, not some wacked-out cult, but by his Christian faith. Unfortunately, that could change, the government protection part, on a dime next year, depending on the election results.
That is because one side of the aisle views universal truth as relative and the other side views it as fixed. Case in point: Last month the Trump administration promulgated a rule to protect the religious beliefs and conscience rights for health-care workers. It was immediately met with lawsuits claiming that truth is not true and that our eyes deceive us.
The rule has to be challenged because it transgresses the basic belief of the relativists: the absolute autonomy of the individual, the ability to do and live as he pleases and that right trumps all others, including those whose assistance he needs for his complete freedom. Thus, a nurse must assist in procuring an abortion because the right to an abortion transcends the nurse’s right not to participate. The same can be said for the patient who wants his physician to assist him to commit suicide, or the clinic that must affirm the gender identity of a confused and tormented child because to do otherwise will rob the child of self-worth and identity.
You can easily see the common thread in all this. It is the complete rejection of truth, especially in the area of traditional moral values, sexual ethics, family, and life itself. It is the relativists’ vision of life: Do what feels good, for there is no higher good than your own pleasure. Everything else, you see, is subservient to that.
We are, according to this logic, our own deity, which puts us at the panicle of a universe that exists to serve its god.
But a good and just society must be built on something stronger than that. Until now it has been. We have become great — and not just as a political slogan — because we, as a nation, have adhered to a set of basic values that were fixed truths, not transitory beliefs that changed with political or societal winds.
So now we need a list of rules, from a government that can be voted out of office next year, to protect our rights from the societal gods of communal-individualism who seek to relegate hard truth to some unacceptable odd fantasy held by lesser, if not deplorable, members of society, as if we were the crazy aunt living in the attic.
But it needn’t be that way. Not if we stand up to the secularists. But in order to win that confrontation, we have to first reclaim the high ground and that can only be done with respect, intellect, and prayer. And with the realization that for the most part this will be hand-to-hand “combat” — fought one-on-one, over the back fence, at the water cooler, and in PTA meetings.
You need to carry your own weapon and ammunition: May I suggest a rosary, because in all probability there will be no cavalry riding to our rescue since so many of our leaders are preoccupied with their own troubles.
Now the rule and litigation it engenders that I started to write this column about are not perfect, in fact, the rule may be overly broad which will give those attacking it targets for their wrath. For example, the rule could be read by some, and probably will be for those litigants challenging the rule, to allow an ambulance driver to refuse to take a woman from an abortion clinic to a hospital because the follow-up treatment would help facilitate her abortion. I think that’s a little far-fetched, but it will be arguments like that that will be used to denigrate the rule and the conscience protection it seeks to advance.
Another time and another day we can get into the weeds of the rule and the legal posturing and objectives of those who are now filing suit against it. For now, let’s just leave it at this: The rule shouldn’t be necessary. Conscience protection and the freedom to live out your religious beliefs should be part of societal truth. Just like the number of sexes.
(You can contact Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com.)
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress