Britain has become an extremely intolerant country. We
have reached the stage where in the name of liberalism and tolerance only
certain views are allowed to be expressed. This is neither liberal nor
tolerant.
It should be completely uncontroversial that a
Catholic or at least some Catholics follow the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Yet many people now appear to think, and it looks like they are right, that
even to say that you agree with these teachings is to commit some sort of
unforgivable sin that disqualifies you from public office. This is not
tolerance. It is intolerance.
When Jacob Rees-Mogg calmly and rationally explained
his opposition to gay marriage and abortion no-one, but no-one actually looked
at his argument. His opponents did not provide counter arguments rather they
simply asserted that his views were unacceptable. Do we not have freedom of
religion in Britain? Yes of course we do, but some religions are more equal
than other religions.
The Church of England is no longer the established
Church, nor indeed is the Church of Scotland. They may be this officially but
in reality the only established Church is the Liberal/Left establishment that
establishes what is correct and what is incorrect. Although some people in
Britain can believe what they please and will never be asked about God and the
consequences that follow from actually following the teachings their religion,
others must cease believing what their religion tells them to believe and
follow the Church of Political Correctness. This is not freedom of religion.
This is not tolerance. It is intolerance.
Rees-Mogg thinks that gay marriage is simply not
possible because marriage is a sacrament and Parliament has no power over
sacraments. This lack of power is self-evidently true. The difficulty with his
argument is that it would logically imply that only those who believe marriage
is a sacrament are actually married. This would have the consequence of
dissolving the vast majority of marriages in the UK.
Strictly speaking Protestants including those in the
Church of England ought to think that there are only two sacraments (baptism,
and communion). Catholics and Orthodox Christians think there are seven one of
which is marriage. The difficulty for Rees-Mogg’s argument then is that it would
not only invalidate gay marriage it would invalidate the marriage of everyone
who is neither a Catholic nor Orthodox.
Where I think he is right however is in the
suggestion that marriage is at least connected with God. Until relatively
recently everyone believed this. Nearly every marriage in Britain until a few
generations ago would have followed the words of the Prayer Book which
explained why there was such a thing as marriage.
First, It was ordained
for the increase of mankind according to the will of God, and that children
might be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of
his holy name.
This is why we have marriage rather than simply
living together. Even people who have ceased to believe in God still maintain
the traditions of marriage, just as many people who have ceased to be
Christians still follow Christian morality. But why?
Why should we think it necessary for people to
marry? Why when they do marry should we think it desirable that they remain
married? The Church has an answer. Marriage was created by God, firstly so that
there would be children.
Secondly, It was
ordained in order that the natural instincts and affections, implanted by God,
should be hallowed and directed aright; that those who are called of God to
this holy estate, should continue therein in pureness of living.
The problem is that if you don’t believe in God why
should you want to be a part of something ordained by God? Alternatively if you
don’t think that marriage was ordained by God, but instead was created by human
beings, why should you want to be part of it at all? Why not just live
together?
The whole point of marriage and the reason it
developed in our country as it did is to regulate our natural instincts and to
make them pure. But if you think this is all lies and nonsense why get involved
at all? Why follow this tradition? The fundamental problem is that marriage is
above all a promise to love someone and remain with them forever. If it isn’t
this, it isn’t anything. But what makes me keep this promise. For a Christian,
like Jacob Rees-Mogg the answer is clear. He must remain married because he
promised to do so in the sight of God. But if you don’t think God sees, why
should you keep your promise?
We also, of course, have secular laws with regard to
marriage. We don’t have to marry in a church at all. But we still promise. But why
and what makes us keep it? The answer I’m afraid is that nothing makes us keep
our promise. As soon as many of us tire of our wives or husbands, or as soon as
we cease to feel the passion that we once felt, or as soon as we meet someone
else, well at that point we break our promise. But this isn’t marriage. It is
living together with a few legal strings attached.
It turns out then that Rees-Mogg is at least partly
right. Most people in Britain marry in a conditional way, crossing their
fingers when they promise. The loss of God is the loss of marriage. No law
holds us to our promise, not for long anyway. No secular morality tells us that
we must keep our promise. We are all free to break it when we please. But this
means that we don’t promise and therefore don’t get married.
It turns out then that marriage is inherently
connected with the Church. Without God the idea of marriage as
traditionally conceived simply collapses. We are left with the ritual, quite an
expensive one, but it has become empty and quite literally meaningless. This is
what happens when you keep the tradition but lose the foundation that keeps it
from standing. It falls down.
The reasons given for marriage by the Church make
the very idea of gay marriage inconceivable. Gay marriage contradicts the
purpose of marriage. Of course society can decide to make any civil laws it
pleases. If gay people wish to live together and make certain legal promises
there need be nothing to stop them. But it isn’t marriage. The way to discover
what is a thing is to ask the question what is it for? The purpose of marriage
is so that women can have children in safety and security and so that the
natural instincts of both men and women are regulated in a way that is beneficial
both for themselves and for society. We have forgotten this purpose and so
marriage has become purposeless. Worse by extending marriage beyond its purpose
we have ended up with a situation where only those who believe that marriage is
a sacrament or at least that they promise in the sight of God actually marry.
Everyone else is just taking part in a very expensive charade involving white
dresses, castles and drunkenness.
When you take away the foundation of morality, you
are left with mere law. Everything at this point becomes permissible so long as
you can get away with it. But the logical outcome of permissiveness is to say
that marriage is an outdated tradition that we should dispense with. In the end
if everyone can get married, then no-one can. We have already reached the point
where almost no one does.
Rees-Mogg also got into trouble because of his views
on abortion. His argument will go something like this:
Killing people is wrong,
Babies in the womb are people,
Therefore killing babies in the womb is wrong.
You really have two choices here. Either you can
deny that killing people is wrong or you can deny that babies in the womb are
people. The first option is unpalatable for obvious reasons. If killing some
people is not wrong, where are we going to draw the line? The problem with the
babies in the womb are not people argument is that it looks awfully like the
slaves are not people argument that meant that in the United States they could
declare that all people are created equal except slaves. Why should we
discriminate against these people who happen to be situated in a womb?
If I was teaching in a school and discovered that
one of the children in the class was conceived as a result of rape or incest
would I be morally justified in killing it? Obviously not. But why should I be
justified then in killing it because it is situated in a womb rather than a
classroom?
But what about the rights of a woman to do what she
wants with her body? Indeed these rights must be taken into account. But which
human right gives me the right to kill another human being? Self-defence
perhaps gives me that right. But babies in the womb are only rarely a threat to
a woman’s safety.
The babies in the womb are not people argument is
faced with the difficulty that we all accept that babies outside the womb are
people. Killing babies which have been born is liable to lead to a
murder charge. But then if we wish to maintain that babies in the womb are not
people, we are forced to say at what point they become people.
Jacob Rees-Mogg thinks that the moment of conception
is the moment at which life begins. For this reason he thinks that all abortion
is wrong. This is logical rather than shocking.
But why should the moment of conception be theologically significant. I
think he is mixing up science (the moment of conception is only known about
because of science) with theology.
Traditionally the Church knew no more about the
mechanics of conception than did anyone else. A few hundred years ago no-one
knew that a sperm entered into an egg. They didn’t have microscopes that were
powerful enough. When did the Church think life began? It thought that it began
with quickening or the moment when the woman first feels the baby in the womb. The
Church traditionally treated this moment as the moment when the baby gains a
soul.
And it came to pass,
that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb;
and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, is filled
with the Holy Spirit at the point when she first feels her baby moving. The
baby gains a soul at this point not before.
For this reason it is not necessary to believe as
Rees-Mogg does that all abortion is wrong from the moment of conception. It is
perfectly possible to say we have an actual person when it gains a soul but
prior to that we only have a potential person. But two people who first meet
and think about marrying have in them any number of potential persons. Their
failure to marry and have sex may prevent one of these potential persons from
becoming an actual person. But there is clearly nothing wrong in this. If there
were, a man could demand sex on the grounds that it makes a potential person
actual.
From this we need not be quite as strict as
Rees-Mogg. There is a window of opportunity where it is possible to abort
babies without doing anything seriously wrong. Quickening occurs between 15-20
weeks after conception. Rape victims and victims of incest ought to be able to
have an abortion prior to that. Other women too who elect to have early
abortions need not feel that they are doing anything particularly wrong. A
cluster of cells that is neither conscious nor self-conscious may or may not
become a human being, but it is not a human being yet. A potential thing is not
the thing it might become. An acorn is not an oak and therefore while chopping
down an oak may be wrong throwing an acorn on the fire is morally
unproblematic.
We ought to be living in a free society which is
tolerant of the views of everybody whether religious or not. The law about
things like marriage and abortion must take into account the wishes and beliefs
of everyone. It cannot be that religious views dictate who can or cannot form a
life-long partnership. But I must be free to say that I don’t think that it is
possible for gay people to marry. I believe it contradicts the meaning of the
words “man”, “woman” and “marry”. They on the other hand are free to call what
they are doing what they please. But they are not free to compel anyone else to
go along with the way they use or misuse language. Likewise religious views
ought not to determine at what point abortion is legal or illegal. We do not,
thank God, live in a theocracy. But I am free to think that early abortion is
morally and theologically unproblematic while also maintaining that late
abortion is a form of legalised murder. Rees Mogg should be free to believe
what he believes. It should not disqualify him from high office, nor lead to
him being described as a bigot. He is not the bigot. It is those who describe
him as such who are bigots. Only when we allow everyone to believe what they
believe without fear of prejudice will we find that we are living in a tolerant
country. We are not living in it today.
