ASSUMPTIONS

A piece on TAC deals with the Supreme Court's ruling regarding homosexual marriage.  The author's citation of Phillip Rieff inspired the following thought.

“To Rieff, “the essence of any and every culture” is “what it forbids.”

I say that at least as important is what is assumed. The forces organized against traditional Christian society are winning for several reasons. One of these is the failure of conservatives to debunk the enlightenment posture that all emanations of society are subject to purely rational critique.

I, and I believe The Founders, would argue that societies have the right to define what is or is not agreeable to them, and to solidify such in law. While charity demands that non-conforming persons be granted a degree of tolerance and freedom from mob aggression, the law ought to reflect deeply held cultural assumptions (norms).

Justice Kennedy asserts that Homosexuals have been denied marriage licenses due to unreasoned animus. But is the natural inclination of any society composed overwhelmingly of heterosexuals to maintain itself by enforcing the primacy of hetero-normative legal measures, irrational hate, or is it simply the stance of any legal regime reflecting the morays of its populace. Kennedy ignores well known cultural assumptions of the constitution’s writers while citing that same constitution to strike down laws that only attempt to enforce those assumptions.

The idea that a nations law ought not to reflect the sentiments of its people is nonsense. Of course no system of law can save a people who abandon virtue. It may be that our population is no longer repulsed by what their ancestors found criminal. Don’t imagine that people who overthrow laws founded in tradition and ancient sentiment will refrain from imposing equally non-rational tastes through laws of their own.