Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, the Meaning of Marriage and Political 'Conservatism'

The Santorum family on the campaign trail

Returning fundamental moral issues such as the Right to Life and the definition of Marriage to each State would result in a new form of "half slave/half free" mess not unlike the situation in the time of the Lincoln Douglas debates.

P>AMES, Iowa (Catholic Online) - While eight Republican candidates prepare to debate over matters of great importance in Iowa and contend with one another in a Straw Poll, the Governor of Texas, speaking through surrogates, has captured the attention of the Press. Governor Rick Perry announced that on Saturday, while the Iowa Straw Poll is underway, he will make the official announcement of his candidacy for the Presidency from South Carolina.

As a Catholic and an American who is deeply concerned for the Nation I love, I have been actively involved in political action for decades. I was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts to a blue collar family which identified with the Democratic Party because we thought it was the Party of the "little people". The last Democratic Candidate I could support for the Presidency was the late Governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey. He defended those who had no voice, including those whom Mother Teresa called the "poorest of the poor", children in their mother's womb.

By the time his Party censored him from speaking at the 1992 Democratic convention (it was because of his defense of children in the womb - no matter what the historical revisionists try to now argue) I had already seen the sad takeover of that once proud political party. I also decided that the Anti-Life zealots who had captured the Democratic Party were dangerous for the common good. Like others, I can say I did not leave the Party, the Party left me. 

I had already been moved by a Republican named Ronald Reagan who had disabused me of my childhood prejudice that all Republicans were "blue bloods" with silver spoons in their mouths. I began to see the advance of Statism and the growing disregard for fundamental human rights which had spread in the Party of my youth. I never officially left the Democratic Party. When I moved to Virginia you did not have to declare a Party membership to register to vote. However, I have not been able to vote for a Democrat for decades. Sadly, I have also not been very happy with many of the Republicans.

I am Pro-Life, Pro-Marriage, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom, and Pro-Poor. On that last one, I believe that giving what the Church calls a "love of preference" to the poor does not equate with being pro-federalized big government solutions to the challenges we face. Rejecting big government "solutions" (which are often no solutions) doesn't mean rejecting our obligation in solidarity. It means building a ground up model of economic opportunity which expands opportunity and participation to all and respects the mediating institutions and their vital role in good governance. 

Along with solidarity, which confirms the truth that we truly are our brother/sister's keeper, we must always keep in mind the importance of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a social ordering principle which respects the proper role of the family and the mediating instituions as the first place where governing should occur. It is about much more than federalism and it certainly is not satisfied with a misguided "States Rights" approach to issues such as Life and marriage.

Human rights - such as the Natural Law Right to Life - and human freedoms such as the freedom to be born - are goods of human persons. When there is no human person to exercise them all the rhetoric extolling them is nothing but empty air and sloganeering. Nor is the Pro-Life position simply a matter of our "religious" belief. It is a response to the truth revealed by the Natural Law and confirmed by medical science. The child in the womb is an innocent human life and it is wrong to intentionally kill him or her through procured abortion.

The embryonic human person, the child in the womb, the disabled, the needy and the elderly are all members of our human family. We can never condone their intentional killing as some kind of exercise of the "freedom to choose". It is never a moral choice but a crime, whether the positive law prosecutes it or not, to kill our neighbor. They have rights as do we!

Rights are not ethereal concepts floating around in the cosmos somewhere. Rights are endowed by a Creator and not conferred by the State. This insight was enshrined by the American founders in the Declaration of Independence. Because rights are goods of the human person, we must defend the human persons who will exercise them. Our opposition to the judicial manufacture of an alleged "right" to take innocent human life in the womb must never take a back seat to any other concern in the public policy arena. Freedom must be exercised with reference to what is true and good in a just and moral society.

Our insistence upon defending the institution of marriage is also not only because of our religious faith.  Yes, for those of us who have faith, our faith informs our position. However, the truth about marriage is also confirmed in the Natural Law which is written on every human heart and knowable through the exercise of reason. Marriage, a lifelong union between one man and one woman open to the bearing and raising of children, is accepted across cultures.

The effort to give an enforced legal equivalency to non-marital relations and force all of us to call what can never be a marriage to be a marriage, such as homosexual partnerships, is unjust. It can never serve the true common good.The defense of marriage is also a defense of the blueprint for a just, healthy and happy society where children's rights are also respected. Marriage - and the family founded upon it- is the first government, first hospital, first economy, first school, first mediating institution and the foundation of our life together as a truly free people.

Caveat Emptor is a latin phrase which loosely translated means "buyer beware".  Returning the issue of the Right to life to the States is no solution to the evil of legalized abortion on demand. It would result in a new form of "half slave and half free" States not unlike the time of the Lincoln Douglas debates. To suggest the same approach for defining the nature of marriage does not serve the common good and would erode our social order. If "conservatism" only means a new form of "States Rights" then buyer beware.

This issue has been addressed with clarity and courage by Presidential candidate Rick Santorum in an editorial which was recently published. It can be found on his campaign web site here. As I regularly say in articles such as this, I write as an individual citizen. Because this individual citizen thinks this article should be read by as many people as possible, it is reprinted below.

*****

On Marriage, Republicans Should Embrace Lincoln, Not Douglas

By: Rick Santorum

"From its inception the Republican Party has been the party of the family and great moral causes. "This is only one of many reasons why it is so disturbing that some prominent Republicans have seemingly washed their hands of the value and importance of marriage.
 
"When asked about New York State's new law recognizing homosexual marriage, Texas Governor Rick Perry recently told an audience in Aspen, Colorado: "Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me."
 
"Governor Perry later attempted to clear up his statement saying, "I probably needed to add a few words after that 'it's fine with me,' and that it's fine with me that a state is using their sovereign rights to decide an issue. Obviously gay marriage is not fine with me."
 
"By taking refuge behind "states' rights" as it relates to moral wrongs, the definition of marriage then becomes subject to fifty different interpretations and versions.  What's even worse is for one to say you fundamentally disagree with homosexual marriage but then claim you don't have the right or will to fight it.
 
"Governor Perry is not alone. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann also characterized what New York has done as an issue for each state when she said:  "I'm running for the presidency of the United States. And I don't see that it's the role of a president to go into states and interfere with their state laws." In a subsequent interview she said, "states have, under the 10th Amendment, the right to pass any law they like." 
 
"These positions are deeply troubling for the Republican Party and the country.  Consigning these moral issues strictly to local decision-making runs contrary to the positioning of our party's founding and to Abraham Lincoln's philosophy that there is no moral right to enact a major social and moral wrong.
 
"Once the definition of marriage is discarded, there will be no rational or legitimate legal or moral argument left to prevent the acceptance of any other kind of definition of marriage, including other moral wrongs like polygamous marriages. Would those same candidates say that New York State has the right to allow for polygamous marriage-and then leave it at that?
 
"In Lincoln's time the political debate was over the foundationally immoral institution of slavery. Lincoln rightly criticized Stephen Douglas' "don't care" attitude about that great moral issue this way: "When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical, if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong."
 
"Using Douglas' rationale today, we subject the definition of marriage to 50 different versions and that leads to settling of the conflict by the U.S. Supreme Court. This is precisely the same road that led to the downgrading of human life with abortion laws.  By allowing the states to define and grant the right to life in a multitude of ways, the Supreme Court was forced to step in to settle the conflict; and it did so by granting localities even further latitude on the most important of all moral questions.
 
"We simply cannot allow this to happen to marriage too. Traditional marriage is one man and one woman, and it has been the essential building block of every truly free, fruitful, and lasting society. Marriage-and the family founded upon it-is the first government, the first economy, the first school, the first hospital, and the first religious institution. The family is the first mediating and civil institution of society.
 
"Conservatives simply concede too much when they communicate that there exists some "right" to commit a great moral and civil wrong, and then leave it at that.  We must not give up our moral authority and say it is "fine" for a state legislature, or a court, or an executive, to redefine marriage in the name of states' rights or say it is none of our business.  As Thomas Jefferson said the people are free, and "inherently independent of all but moral law."
 
"I believe marriage is important enough to fight for and I've done it in my home state and in Iowa - actually campaigning last year against unelected judges when they re-wrote Iowa's marriage law.  We must push for legislative and federal amendment fixes to the wrongs that have already been done and Republicans should not remain silent or inactive.
 
"Running for president means running for president of all of the United States, unifying them behind great moral causes, taking sides, and then speaking to what a President or the federal government can do to ensure our national morality. Marriage simply cannot be fifty different things, and the states do not have the right to choose what marriage will be. Marriage is one thing; one very important thing-the basis of all family law and morality - one man and one woman."

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