“With the country moving toward
inclusion, the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have instead sent a message
to young people that only some of them are valued…They’ve chosen to teach
division and intolerance.” Such was the response by the president of the
Human Rights Campaign (described as the largest U.S. gay rights group) to a
recent decision by a Boy Scouts of America (BSA) review board to maintain its
existing membership policies, as reported by the Associated Press. After reading the article I am left with
feelings of dismay and wonderment; and with a lingering question: In
contemporary society in the United States of America is this what passes for
rational thought and legitimate argumentation?
Based on the frequency of such statements it would seem the answer to
that question is “yes." In my opinion, the reason for such
disconnected thinking is systemic yet explainable if one considers the foundational
principles undergirding contemporary viewpoints on fairness, tolerance and the
like as expressed in the AP article.
Indeed such reasons are worth taking time to consider.
The first foundational principle emerges with the following: “With the country moving toward inclusion…” Notice please the question begging, as the
dissenter assumes the good to be defined by the direction the country moves and
then proceeds to use that assumption as proof that those who move differently are
wrong. Obviously this is nothing more
than foisting an arbitrary ethic on American culture and demanding its
acceptance. Surely what is good and
right and true must come from outside culture, from outside the individual in a
culture, lest morality become transient and ultimately meaningless for all members
in a society.
Secondly, the assertion is made that the BSA “has
sent a message to young people that only some of them are valued.” This is nothing more than a bald and baseless
assertion. Once again, it is assumed in
this statement that valuing young people is equivalent to celebrating any
lifestyle any individual youth or group of youths might choose to adopt. However, it is obvious all ideals are not
equally true and legitimate. Values are
not so capricious as to be defined by some select group in society. They also must transcend culture.
Like much of the reasoning permeating American culture today, the president of the
Human Rights Campaign is doing nothing more than foisting, conditioning and
presenting question begging and self-stultifying arguments. His view that everyone must accept his groups
definitions of values, fairness, inclusion and tolerance (which are based on
the current whims of a segment of contemporary American culture) or be derided
into submission seems somewhat less than tolerant of others viewpoints. Apparently the position that a young person
can be valued for their personhood while declining to celebrate their lifestyle
is tolerance that will not be tolerated.
This nation was not founded on such arbitrary and vapid principles. Our Declaration of Independence begins and
ends with transcendent, objective, self-evident truths: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights…with a firm reliance on the protection of divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our
sacred Honor.” American society was
established on the principle that each member is created by a divine Sovereign
Creator that He endows with unalienable rights by members who once pledged
themselves to the sacred. This Creator
then is the definer and arbiter of the right and the good, and He says: “at the beginning the Creator made them male
and female, and said ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother
and be untied to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let
man not separate” (Matthew 19:4-6, NIV) and “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave
thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were
darkened” (Romans 1:21, NIV). Futile
thinking and foolish hearts permeate the society who neither glorify nor give
thanks to the Creator who has created them in His image.
In my opinion, the only hope for mankind, the only way back to reasonableness of
thinking undergirded by foundation of the Truth, is Christ Jesus. “Jesus
said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth
shall set you free.” (John 8:31b-32) With this firm foundation, ideas of tolerance,
fairness and equality can be carefully considered against the backdrop of a
transcendent absolute moral law that does not ebb and flow with the cultural
current, for the betterment of society.
