When I was young I thought how wonderful it would be if I could lift myself up. It really did seem that if I got strong enough in one arm, I could hoist myself into thin air, and carry myself along. Needless to say, all sincere attempts ended in my crashing to the ground. I soon discovered that I could lift myself sitting on the knot of a rope slung over the branch of a tree, but I was in the air precisely because the tree was firmly planted in the ground.
Something of my same youthful confusion seems to beset the Brits. As we recently reported, their Equality Bill was an attempt to enforce equality—a very particular notion of equality—with the brass knuckles of the law. Of course, even a light reading of the Bill reveals that its authors are not interested in equality, but are using equality to push forward their radical social and moral agenda. They are using equality to compel intransigent citizens, especially Jews, Christians, and Muslims, to accept homos*xuality and gender rearrangement—or else.
But suppose we take them seriously, and allow that the authors of the Equality Bill are actually interested in equality itself. What then? Can that save them? Over 1500 years ago, a Brit, St. Patrick, set about saving Ireland, and one of the things he saved them from was the horrible, inhuman practice of slavery. In fact, he excommunicated another Brit, Coroticus, for enslaving his new converts. In an interesting parallel today, Pope Benedict XVI is trying to save the Brits from themselves. He has issued an interesting warning, that "in some respects it [the Equality Bill] actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."
That really gets to the nub of the issue. Human equality is not a fundamental principle. It is a principle that must be grounded in something else, something deeper, sturdier, and far more definite—the natural law. Without that foundation, the Brits will soon find their society crashing to the ground.
Let's see why equality itself cannot be a fundamental principle. Suppose we ask the rather obvious and potentially embarrassing empirical question, "In what way are human beings equal?" Are they all the same size? The same gender? Are they all equally strong? Intelligent? Beautiful? Handsome? Healthy? Athletic? Are they all the same age? Do they all sing equally well? Spell? Draw? Dance with equal grace? Do they all work with equal diligence? Are they all equally honest? Prudent? Courageous?
Obviously not. Where's the equality, then? If equality were a fundamental principle, it surely ought to be exceedingly evident. In geometry and arithmetic, it's quite clear. Why not in politics?
If we can't find equality in any particular human trait—beauty, intelligence, athletic ability—then perhaps we must dig deeper. It would seem that the only possible way to ground the equality of human beings is in the surprising assumption that they are all equally human.
That is, no matter how manifestly unequal we are in other respects, we are all equally human. That is the real foundation of real human equality. The foundation is not in equality but in humanity. And that means—here's the great sticking point—our humanity defines and determines our equality. That is what is meant by saying that the natural law is the foundation of equality. The natural law is simply the law of our being, the moral parameters that arise from what a human being is.
If we attack or undermine our humanity, that is, human nature itself, then equality disappears. Or to return to my original image, we come crashing to the ground because we have happily sawed down the tree upon which our equality rested.
To understand, let's go through a little historical exercise. Imagine what would happen if a particular people decided that human nature is not real, that there is no such thing as a definite and inviolable human nature. Instead, they assert, what we call "human nature" is the result of endless evolutionary accidents. What we call the "human species" is a mere historical snapshot on a timeline, a smear moving from apes to endless evolutionary possibilities. Those possibilities are measured in terms of the very endowments or traits that we find unequally spread among "human beings."
Thus, allowing the sick, homely, clumsy, dull-witted, and deformed to breed dilutes the efforts of the healthy, handsome, athletic, intelligent, and perfectly formed to reach ever greater biological heights.
Such is the key lesson from the horrors of the eugenic mentality that has gripped us since the late 19th century. Eugenics actively opposes equality because it rests on the destruction of common humanity.
"But that is not what the Brits Equality Bill is about!" some will argue. "In fact, it aims at protecting individuals from unequal treatment in regard to the 'characteristics' of 'age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, s*x, and s*xual orientation.'"
There's more than one way to destroy humanity. The Equality Bill destroys it by attempting to define humanity by equality, rather than equality by humanity. More accurately, it attempts to define humanity according to the equality of desire. The fact that someone desires something becomes the fundamental thing, not (as with the natural law) whether what they desire is in accordance with or against human nature.
This is most obvious in regard to the Bill's treatment of s*xuality. For the natural law, s*xuality is defined by the fact that a human male and a human female form a natural s*xual union that is the cause of human society itself. Human society therefore rests upon this s*xual union as fundamental, and human law should always protect and nurture it. That is why it protects marriage.
In the Equality Bill, s*xual desire—of whatever kind—is protected as fundamental. The notion that male and female are fundamental natural categories from which morality arises, has therefore given way to the notion that male and female are themselves s*xually insignificant. S*x has no natural source or orientation—and here comes the crash of equality—anyone who holds that s*xuality is defined by male and female in marital union will be forced by law to keep their mouths shut.
Of course, we must not forget the obvious demographic crash that is happening all over Europe precisely because secularized Europeans have long-considered heteros*xual procreation to be an interesting s*xual option among other equally attractive possibilities, rather than a fundamental natural goal defining s*xuality. The principle of the equality of s*xual desire is all too obviously contradicting the need for new generations to keep society running.
The same contradictions arise elsewhere, or will soon arise. The Equality Law protects pregnant women, but only if they accept that anyone has the right to kill her baby. The Equality Bill protects the aged, unless they are dispensed through euthanasia. The disabled will be protected from harm, if they happen to escape abortion or infanticide. Marriage will be protected, but at the expense of defining marriage to include even the most casual and temporary union of anyone with anyone. Your religion will be protected, as long as you don't believe that it actually determines what people should really believe and how they should act.
In every case the result will not be equality, but the iron-fisted imposition of a radical secular agenda. The aged, infirm, disabled will be at risk; secularism will be the sole established religion; and marriage will soon disappear into mist. And where will the equality be then?
But will the Brits listen? Perhaps. An unidentified source at 10 Downing Street--Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s residence--is reported to have remarked, “We are clear that these parts of the Equality Bill should not go forward. The Pope's intervention has been noted.”
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