Defending the Family

     As you look at the rhetoric around social issues over the past 40 years, one thing becomes very clear.  The people who have the truth on their side have been very clearly put on the defensive.  We live in a world so corrupted by the pollution that is moral relativism that there is no more “normal”.  Without a “normal” there is no presumption of truth or that there is a right way to do anything.

       Two generations ago it was taken for granted that a wedding ceremony would involve a biological male, a biological female, and a church.  If you were meeting a child’s parents, you would have expected to meet a biological male and a biological female who had been married prior to the birth of their children.  If a woman was pregnant, regardless of circumstances, you assumed she would give birth to the child.  None of these assumptions can be made today.  Yet, what is the common thread, what do they all involve – the definition and social expectation of what constitutes “a family”.

      The family has been under constant assault for a long time, but only in the last 40 years has it become the very culture of the western world itself that has become anti-family.  The knee jerk reaction of those who would defend the family has been to engage with those on the other side.  To debate the pros and cons of gay marriage, abortion, birth control, sex outside of wedlock, etc. 

      This approach has backfired, badly, and for a very logical reason.  It gave away the affirmative position in the debate.  Instead of the burden of proof being on the argument devoid of truth, the burden of proof was put back on the truth.  Furthermore, if you dared argue against any of these causes, you were quickly labeled a “bigot” or “closed minded”.  These were weak comebacks of course, but nonetheless all too effective in creating the perception of moral high ground. 

     So the pro-family forces in this country need to regroup and quickly.  The reality is there is a generation growing up in this country that will always know “gay marriage” to some degree.  They will likely have gone to school with Jack or Jane who have two mommies or two daddies.  They may even grow up knowing someone who had an abortion.  To ask them to take a position in the abstract that would cause them to condemn real people in their lives will be futile.  So what is the answer?

     I believe the answer is to reclaim that which we were defending, the traditional family.  This is not about “family values” as some of this rhetoric was derisively tagged in the 1980s, this is literally a campaign for the family itself.  Why did we spend almost 2,000 years with a simple definition of marriage between a man and a woman?  Must be something to it right?

     Could it be that men and women are endowed by their Creator with unique and complimentary physical, mental, and spiritual gifts?  Is there a reason that dads went to work and moms stayed home all of those centuries?  Could it be it just worked so darn well?  When my 2 year-old and 4 year-old instinctively gravitate towards dad for protection and mom for comfort, is there something deeper we should understand there? 

     The answer to all of these question is of course yes, yes, yes, and yes.  It is not about condemning choices that fall outside of the traditional definition of family, but it is about making sure the choice of the traditional nuclear family is fairly represented.  I think that is the great opportunity before us.

Welcome!

                This blog was an idea I first had several years ago, there were some good posts, but the timing was not right.  It was the early days of the Obama administration and the tone was too negative.  It was too easy to point out what was wrong in a fallen world.  Easy, but unproductive as easy things often can be. 

                People know there is something wrong with this world and our culture at this particular time in history.  Anyone over the age of 30 can track the cultural decline just within their lifetime.  The economy is in the tank, government is getting bigger, and our pop culture is a wasteland.  But what to do about it?  Those were the answers I did not have a few years ago.  I am not sure I have them now, but I believe at least there is a thread to pull on to find the way forward.

                If you trace the relationship between the Catholic Church and American politics through the 20^th century you find a different story at both ends.  In the early 1900s, it was the teaching of the preferential option of the poor, the concern for the immigrant laborer, the thinking of Rarum Novarum that guided the teaching of the church and tugged at Catholics. 

That led to a natural alliance with labor unions and the Democratic party.  This has been the case for most of the last century in this country.  It was the Catholic vote that gave us President Kennedy in a close election in 1960.  But in 1973, a giant fault line was laid down through that alliance with the Roe vs. Wade decision.  The legalization of abortion paved the way for a grave threat to innocent human life that Catholics could not ignore. 

I believe the biggest implication of Roe vs. Wade was that a generation of Catholics would grow up with a wedge between themselves and then Democratic party.  It has taken several decades for that wedge to become a rift, but lately Democrats have applied pressure to the wedge and it threatens to become a full blown separation. 

In recent years Democrats have taken action to fund abortion here and abroad, override religious conscience protections in health care, drive Catholic Charities out of the adoption business because they will not accept homosexual couples, to dictate who churches can or cannot hire, and even to make the abortion pill available over the counter. 

Catholics who have voted Democratic have never before been slapped in the face with so many affronts to their personal lives.  But what is the opportunity?  That is what I would like to flesh out in this blog.  I believe a Catholic conservatism offers a way forward for this nation, a way through these troubled times. 

                To be clear, it is not about using Catholicism or religion as a hammer to beat down others – that would only serve to further divide us.  What it is about is looking for the medicine America needs right now.  That is economic healing, but economic healing cannot happen in a vacuum.  We are past that point where economic healing, cutting taxes, cutting spending will be enough to refuel us for long-term growth.

                We can no longer ignore the social ills and the direct impact they are having on the economy.  It was a positive sign when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was driven from the Presidential race after he suggested the GOP just focus on economic issues.  The way forward must make the case to Americans that their economic fortunes are linked to the health of the family which is then linked to a number of issues.

                So if you come to that conclusion, then the only place, in either political party, to find those solutions is where conservatism and Catholicism converge.  I believe the campaigns of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, while not THE answer, are at least a step in the right direction.  Americans have not been confronted with a Catholic Republican before on the national stage.  Putting that candidate and those ideas before the American people is the way forward.  That is what this blog will be about.  Defining a Catholic conservatism that can move this country forward.