Politics

Author: Richard R. Tryon and others

Human Sexuality in the campaign

Another in the series of ‘litmus test’ concepts touted by the media to promote controversy and interest in the papers relates to matters of human sexuality. We see it as another part of the age of civil liberties and it again involves the need for compassionate conservatism to deal with such matters as so-called Gay and Lesbian rights, Sex education, genetic manipulation and sexual practices of the unmarried.

In the quest for voter support, every candidate likes to avoid taking a position that alienates anyone.All votes look the same in the tabulations! So it is easy to see why politicians like to take mother’s advice! If you can’t say something nice,don’t say anything at all.

How does the ‘compassionate conservative’ stand-up to be counted on the many sex related issues?

1. On the institution of marriage as traditionally defined vs same sex unions. It is not possible for anyone who understands the value of conserving, to easily endorse actions and positions which tend to destroy the strength of any historic practice that is thought to be generally valid and useful to the preservation of the species and the welfare of the people. The compassionate conservative therefore needs no rocket science level of thinking to know that all of the history of society is based upon the family. Without marriage between the sexes, the family of people would be a lot smaller! Therefore, any attempt to weaken the institution of marriage between committed heterosexual adults, is easily seen as a step toward self destruction of the species.

That being said, a compassionate conservative can still find room for tolerance of those who, for whatever reasons, want to share property and living quarters with others of the same sex. But, it is hard to bless such relationships and to put them into a category that takes the same name. Call them ‘partners of life’ or legally bound persons, but do not label such combinations with the same word that defines the legal and sacramental union of man and wife.

2. Sexual morality and God before, and during marriage is another facet of this question and for the compassionate conservative, the laws of God and many of the laws of man proscribe a clear view. Thou shalt not commit adultery is a commandment from the time of the ancient Hebrews and it is not uncommon in the history of other parts of the world either. Unfortunately, it is a very difficult law to follow for an endless variety of reasons. It is fruitless to catalog the ways for failure or to try to place blame. What must be recognized, however, is that God’s law was made not as because the problem rarely existed, but because it has always been difficult for those engaged in marital bliss to maintain it; or to avoid acts destructive to it. Certainly adultery has been grounds for much divorce and unhappiness. But, like the position on abortion, one must admit that some people make bad marriages- a few of them find ways to get out of them and into better unions. Most that try, however, fail!

Given then that heterosexual marriage is imperfect, if not as an institution, at least in terms of those that try to practice it; is it good compassionate orthodoxy to conclude that evidence of failure dictates the need to encourage different styles of family living?

Some people can probably live very honest and healthy lives that will be recognized by most conservatives as proper until it is revealed that they do this by living in nudist camps! If the rate of failure in marriage is lower among those that live in such colonies, I have never seen any data to support the concept! Therefore, most compassionate conservatives are going to be somewhat tolerant of the nudists, but somewhat anxious that they are putting possibly more problems in their way than they need, and as a result not want to encourage such.

So it is also with the idea that same sex unions, based on the contention that some males or females are genetically more like their physical opposites, at least in the sense of sexual organs, should be accepted and even encouraged! If this is so, then we must deal with a strange combination. If one male is more like a female and is perceived as such to the homosexual mate, what does this make of the one who is still being a dominant male, but only with those males who assume the female role? That makes it likely that the dominant of the two males should find females in general to be equally acceptable! But it doesn’t. Why?

It is the answer to this why that makes it necessary for the compassionate conservative to contend that while it may be reasonable to be tolerant, it is not good conservative thinking to believe that such relationships are as equally healthy as those among marriages among heterosexuals.

What is it that makes some men sexually more attracted to other men in this type of union?  In spite of the fact that such unions can not produce babies, they can produce opportunity for far more frequent sexual exercise, and I suspect that they do! For the conservative to allow that such is healthy, normal and to be encouraged among those that claim to have a genetic predisposition, most will question the validity of the claim. What they suspect is that they are seeing evidence of men whose libido demands far more frequent exercise than is suspected as being common in any heterosexual union. For a variety of reasons that is no doubt so. In most species, the female spurns the male except when in ‘heat’, a God given requirement for continuation of the species.
Humans have an ability to organize their lives differently and some males and some females do, but in no case is it reasonable to hold that such arrangements are equal to or preferred those that make for healthy heterosexual families.

3. Sexual morality and God via homo or heterosexual activity becomes an issue to the compassionate conservative when the flaming liberal contends that sexual activity is only a recreational sport and nobody should be criticized for his or her preferences. The communists in Russia in the 1920s recognized that this position was a good one to take. It made the Church and marriage an obsolete concept- that was thought to be good. It gave the rank and file something to do when the lack of productivity of the state provided less than a full array of other alternatives. Compassionate conservatism finds that it is not necessary to encourage this type of living and it accepts the possibility that it will not be as encouraging to it as will those who run for office under the liberal banner.

4. No where is the failure of the liberals in matters of sexuality more significant than in the field of education. Its leaders, who want to claim that schools need to teach safe sex and offer students a way to know that there are many different ways to enjoy use of sex that are safe and proper in a liberated society. The gay and lesbian groups have jumped on the wagon for this crusade feeling that the time has come when they can not only ‘come out of the closet’ but fight for equal recognition so that they can practice their ideas in the open. Keep in mind that homosexual boys have very strong feelings about looking for new conquests to enjoy their innocent games together. They used to risk making other boys mad and in the past many gays were beaten by those that they approached. Now that perpetrators of such actions enjoy having the press label them as ‘hate crimes’ against innocent gays, who only wanted to be ‘nice’ to their detractors, the gays can afford to be more open. It is hard for compassionate conservatives to want to encourage this perverted or inverted behavior as being proper. Where does it build a better country? Still, a compassionate position is to try to understand what it is dealing with and how to help avoid a duality that seems to be unproductive.

5. The tie-in between the ‘boomer’ generation’s thinking on morality in general and sexuality is very significant. It provides many clues as to why compassionate conservatism has to try so very hard to understand and forgive those who lost sight of God in the quest for civil liberties. Too many failed to notice that the Clinton White House lost a lot more than a sense of sexual morality when it took office. The throwing out of the FBI’s security screening process along with the Travel arrangement staff were just the beginning. By the time of the suicide of one of Hillary’s law chums from Little Rock, it was clear to those on the inside that ‘situation ethics’ ruled the day. For it to lead to the Clinton affair with Monica Lewinsky took little more than letting nature take its course!

The great irony is that the liberals have had a lock for fifty years on the idea that only Democrats cared about people- the downtrodden and oppressed. Somehow personal sexual abuse of a White House intern did not seem important to the President- after all he could claim to represent the party that occupied the moral high ground on all socially important issues! The connection between personal conduct and leadership was confused in the mind of the President himself. No wonder that others have failed to see and understand that his personal failure casts a much longer shadow on his party and the liberal claim to being so moral.

Much more can be said about the failure of the liberals to live by their own rules, but in terms of this issue of sexuality, it is time for America to wake up to the need to call for leadership that avoids playing fast and loose with personal standards. Clinton now claims that he is at last at peace with himself and glad that he can think that 60% of Americans have forgiven him. Forgiving is not the same as condoning. Not once has Clinton tried to publicly seek forgiveness or express sorrow directly to his many victims.

Compassionate conservatism has an opportunity to help Americans be re-awakened to the basic moral laws that the ancients promulgated and early Americans used as their bedrock Commandments. We managed to keep a lid on the numbers of evidences of serious moral lapses, but we never lived in a perfect world free of sin. But, it helps to have a population that at least knows what is a sin!

A final note on the subject might seem strange to include here. It involves the test for where do you stand on the death penalty? Americans have been just recently encouraged to believe that the Republican candidate for President espouses a concern for compassion, yet he lets the law forces in his state put criminals convicted of horrible murders to death even when it can be shown that at one time or another the murderer managed to score only 65 on an IQ test. Somehow we are encouraged to believe that a) the test is telling us that this person should not be punished for sins that others should have known better not to do! Yet, the man now dead, had no problem explaining that he was just high on drugs and needed a victim! Society has a right to live without supporting this man until he dies of old age. Even if it costs more to beat down the anti-death penalty crowd than to feed and care for one man, that is no reason to let all such escape paying the ultimate price for such major transgressions.

It is often said that killing a murderer doesn’t stop others from doing the same. Does it follow that keeping them alive, well fed, and entertained at our expense is a better deterrent? Do we need to allow defenders of such persons right to live access to legal tools that delay the execution for years? If we need better laws, lawyers and judges to mete out justice, we should work to get them. In the meantime, compassion also needs to be shown for the victims and their families. Efforts to slow down such attacks are not without compassionate merit.