Moral Relativism, the NBA, Pickens County, GA, et al

In a letter he wrote in 1953, C.S. Lewis lamented the “apostasy of the great part of Europe from the Christian faith.” This apostasy, Lewis warned, presented “very grave dangers.” If Lewis could see Europe today, he would rightly conclude that his warnings went almost completely unheeded.

Lewis continued,

For my part I believe we ought to work not only at spreading the Gospel (that certainly) but also at a certain preparation for the Gospel. It is necessary to recall many to the law of nature before we talk about God. For Christ promises forgiveness of sins: but what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know that they have sinned?…Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle Atheism.

If moral relativity was an “enemy” in 1950s Europe, I’m not sure of the correct noun to describe what it is in twenty-first century America. What’s a more definitive word than “enemy?” For, while atheism is still quite rare in the U.S., moral relativism is rampant—far more rampant than in 1953 Europe, I would wager. The National Basketball Association (NBA) provides the latest in a long line of recent examples.

Since so many of us pay little to no attention to the NBA, you may have forgotten their “principled” stand on the North Carolina “bathroom bill.” In late February of 2016, ignoring science and sound morality, liberals on the Charlotte City Council passed an ordinance that would allow men into women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and so on. As is typical with the left, the ordinance did not apply only to city-owned property, but to private businesses as well. In other words, Charlotte liberals “legislated morality,” and they did so to the point of forcing all of its citizens to adhere to perverse liberal dogma.

To correct this gross injustice, the North Carolina legislature passed a common sense law (HB2) that reversed the foolish Charlotte city ordinance. In opposition to HB2, later in 2016, ignoring the long-understood truths on sex and sexuality, and goose-stepping along with the rest of the liberal elite, the NBA decided to pull their All-Star game from the city of Charlotte. To justify their discrimination against the good people of North Carolina, an NBA spokesman declared, “We have been guided...by the long-standing core values of our league. These include not only diversity, inclusion, fairness and respect for others but also the willingness to listen and consider opposing points of view.”

Guess who doesn’t “consider opposing points of view?” The godless communists who run China. Because it has billions of dollars on the line, when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong—and the Chinese reacted as communists do in such situations— many in the NBA scrambled to grovel before the totalitarian state.

In other words, according to the “morals” of the NBA, allowing men into women’s restrooms and locker rooms is worth a “principled” stand, but supporting liberty in Hong Kong is a no-no. What’s more, it seems the NBA is willing to enthusiastically support political protests that are anti-American but cautiously rebuke protests that are anti-Chinese.

At The Federalist, David Marcus was astounded by the NBA’s hypocrisy. He wrote,

The NBA has very consciously crafted an image as a woke corporation. While showing support for protests against the U.S. government, and even engaging in a protest such as their stunt in Charlotte, the NBA is trying to position itself as a moral entity. Even as an arbiter of what is morally acceptable.

Marcus concludes that, “This is cultural relativism at an astounding level.” I don’t think that we’re dealing with mere “cultural relativism” in this instance, but rather moral relativism “at an astounding level.” How askew must one’s moral compass be to conclude that communism—in which millions are unjustly imprisoned, and worse—is tolerable, but keeping men out of women’s restrooms is repugnant? As I’m sure C.S. Lewis would agree, such ignorance of sin is indeed “astounding”—and telling.

Another astounding and telling moral collapse—thanks to the Obama administration and organizations like the NBA—is the fact that we now must debate who is a male—even in one of the most conservative parts of the U.S.! As was the case in 2015, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, my congressional district—the Georgia ninth (GA-9)—is the third most conservative district in the U.S. (Trump beat Hillary here 78% to 19%.)

Half of Pickens County, Georgia is in GA-9. The other half is in GA-14, the tenth most conservative district in the U.S. (Trump 75%, Hillary 22%). In 2016, Pickens County went for Trump over Hillary 74% to 21%. In spite of this, about a week ago, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution (AJC) reported that, per a directive from their misinformed school superintendent, Carlton Wilson, the Pickens County school system had decided “to allow transgender students to use their preferred bathroom.”

Pickens County residents were justly irate and demanded a hearing. They got one, and the school board rightly reversed the superintendent’s decision. The AJC, Georgia’s largest—and very liberal—newspaper was quick to show their disappointment and disapproval. Their headline on the news declared, “Pickens County school board no longer allows transgender students to use bathroom of their choice.”

The first sentence of the piece stated, “Bowing to pressure from parents and residents, the Pickens County Board of Education announced today that it will no longer allow transgender students to use restrooms of their choice.” Of course, “bowing to pressure” should’ve read “surrendering to science” or “kowtowing to the truth,” but liberals are so blinded by their efforts to undo any and every reminder of absolute truth that they will seemingly go to no end to spread their deceit. And again, note that this is happening in one of the most conservative parts of America.

In what should surprise no one—because psychology isn’t science and because the field is dominated by the godless—according to recent reports, the American Psychological Association (APA) “has published a guide that instructs graduate programs in psychology to end language that refers to biological differences among individuals.” Breitbart also reports that “The guide was authored by the APA’s Graduate Students (APAGS) subcommittee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.”

Breitbart also notes, “The guide contains an ‘Action Plan’ in which the APAGS committee instructs graduate programs to ‘include pronouns as part of class introductions’: ‘We don’t know someone’s gender pronouns from their appearance, so it’s important to ask.’” So graduate students in psychology are now going to be instructed to ignore biology further and grossly pervert the English language. Thus, future Americans seeking mental-health help from these fools will be driven even further from the truth.

Portland liberals are so far removed from the truth that they’ve decided to ban urinals in their $195 million remodel of the Portland Building, which houses the city’s administrative offices. In an email to city employees explaining this ignorant decision, Portland Chief Administrative Officer Tom Rinehart said, “I am convinced that this is the right way to ensure success as your employer, remove arbitrary barriers in our community, and provide leadership that is reflective of our shared values.”

Similar perverse “leadership” and “values” recently led insurance giant Kaiser Permanente to promote the evil “Drag Queen Story Time.” The television ad shows a grown man dressed as a woman laughing and dancing with small children. As Tyler O’Neil rightly notes, this is a “clear attempt to normalize Drag Queen Story Hour. The smiling, laughing children are a subliminal message that full-grown men dressing up like women and acting sexual around children is fun, not disturbing.”

The extent that moral relativism has corrupted our culture is most disturbing. America will never truly be “great” until our lives, families, and institutions—corporate, educational, medical, political, spiritual, and the like—are dominated by the truth.

(See this column at American Thinker and LifeSiteNews.)

Copyright 2019, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Writing Our Own Moral Code

Ohio GOP Senator Rob Portman, who, for the last several years has frequently been in the conversation for national office, recently reversed himself and declared his support for same-sex marriage. According to Portman himself, two years ago, his son Will announced that he was gay. Not wanting to stand in the way of his son’s opportunity “to pursue happiness and fulfillment,” is, evidently, what led to Portman’s change of heart when it comes to the definition of marriage.

Writing for New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait (a supporter of same-sex marriage) describes Portman’s decision as a “moral failure, one of which he appears unaware.” According to Chait, this “moral failure” is due to the fact that Portman “opposed gay marriage until he realized that opposition to gay marriage stands in the way of his own son’s happiness.”

Chait goes on, “Portman ought to be able to recognize that, even if he changed his mind on gay marriage owing to personal experience, the logic stands irrespective of it: Support for gay marriage would be right even if he didn’t have a gay son. There’s little sign that any such reasoning has crossed his mind.”

Notice that? Chait is appealing to a moral standard (one of which he appears unaware). Chait decries Portman’s “moral failure” while appealing to logic, reason, and what is “right.” What makes Portman’s seemingly self-serving conversion a “moral failure”?

After all, isn’t looking out for one’s children noble behavior? Why must Portman think of others (or, as Chait puts it, “consider issues from a societal perspective”) to be considered moral, himself? What standard is Chait using?

Of course, Chait is appealing to Natural Law. He has rightly recognized Portman’s apparent hypocrisy. However, as I noted in my last column, by appealing to what is “right” in one situation, but ignoring it in another, he is sawing off the limb upon which he is sitting. For millennia, guided by Natural Law, civilizations the world over have deemed homosexual behavior as immoral.

No less than the U.S. Supreme has said so. As recently as 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court declared, “Proscriptions against [homosexual] conduct have ancient roots. Sodomy was a criminal offense at common law and was forbidden by the laws of the original 13 States when they ratified the Bill of Rights. . . . In fact, until 1961, all 50 States outlawed sodomy, and today, 24 States and the District of Columbia continue to provide criminal penalties for sodomy performed in private and between consenting adults. Against this background, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition,’ or ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty’ is, at best, facetious [silly].”

Of course, the Court reversed itself in Lawrence vs. Texas in 2003, declaring that, “The petitioners [Lawrence and Garner] are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”

In his dissent, Justice Scalia correctly concluded that, “Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.... [T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.”

Unsurprisingly, after gaining the legal justification for homosexual sex, the next moral domino in the sights of the homosexual agenda has been marriage. On November 18, 2003, just four-and-a-half months after the Lawrence decision, the Judicial Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled in favor of legalized same-sex marriage. Thus Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to grant marital rights to same-sex couples.

The Chief Justice of the Massachusetts court, Margaret Marshal, referenced Lawrence in the ruling: “Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.”

But “mandating our own moral code” is exactly what supporters of the homosexual agenda seek to do. Again, what existing moral code are they using to justify homosexual behavior? They rarely, if ever, appeal to one. The argument is simply, there are some people who want (it makes them “happy”) to engage in homosexuality, thus “liberty of all” dictates that it should be allowed.

The majority in Lawrence also concluded that, “[Liberty] gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.” Of course, no such conclusions have been reached when it comes to prostitution, or polygamy, or incest, or bestiality. In other words, liberals have decided that homosexuality deserves special privilege when it comes to the law and “private sexual conduct.”

And thus we see the real goal of the “so-called homosexual agenda:” the legal legitimization of homosexuality across all of America. After all, if it makes liberals “happy” then it shouldn’t be illegal. And if it’s not illegal, well then, it must be moral.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com

Answering Steve Siebold

Per Steve Siebold’s letter to the editor in the Gainesville Times March 14: Yes, it would be immoral to associate oneself with an organization that has devoted itself to pornography—even if the “cause” might be deemed moral. In other words, (of course) the end does not justify the means. One would think that a man who, according to one of his many websites, “ranks among the top 1% of income earners in the professional speaking industry worldwide,” would be aware of this.

Obviously Mr. Siebold has built his house on a foundation of sand and resides in the flimsy world of moral relativism, as he declares that I was “suggesting that an agreed-upon set of morals has been established by society.” He concludes, “They have not. The religious community can kick and scream that the Bible dictates morality, but until they present sufficient evidence of its divine inspiration, they will continue to be marginalized.” Marginalized or not, when a person lives under a “morality” that justifies pornography, abortion, etc., is it little wonder that we are now debating “post-birth abortion?”

He then calls Ben Franklin an “atheist.” Franklin wrote his own epitaph which declares: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, stripped of its lettering, and guilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author.”

Also, at a very crucial point at the Constitutional Convention in May, 1787, Franklin gave a short, but resounding speech. (The debate over representation was becoming very bitter, and the Convention was on the verge of breaking up.) In it he said, “In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered…I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: ‘that God governs in the affairs of man.’ And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?…We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."

Doesn’t sound like an atheist to me. Mr. Siebold needs to take some of his vast “mental toughness” (see his website) and devote a little of it to studying American history.

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com