Morality a personal issue that divides us politically today

Joan King

COLUMNIST

Ordinary people don't get out of bed in the morning thinking, "Today I'm going to hurt people. Today I'm going to do bad things and cause pain and suffering."

Those who do are psychopaths. The vast majority of us want to do the right thing. We want to be liked and remembered as good people.

Some of us believe that humanity is naturally sinful. These people seek salvation through faith. Others believe mankind is naturally good. They try to help the fallen and unfortunate by working for social justice and a deeper understanding of the human condition.

Let's be generous and agree that the vast majority of us start out with good intentions, which includes our leaders and other people in positions of power. If this is true, why do things go so terribly wrong?

Something else is at work in the human psyche: the drive for power. And power corrupts. Politically, it's a "Catch-22" situation. Without power there is little a leader can do. With power, human nature becomes vulnerable to corruption.

But power doesn't just corrupt leaders; it corrupts followers as well. There is something in human nature that takes comfort in authority and seeks out powerful leaders. People often remain loyal to authority even when the leaders fail them and power has corrupted the system.

Joseph Stalin was responsible for the death of millions, but when he died Russians stood in line in the bitter cold for days to pay him homage.

It shouldn't be that difficult. "By their fruits ye shall know them," the Bible says, but sometimes it's hard to recognize sound fruit from fruit that has begun to decay at the core.

How do you recognize it when well-intended actions go astray? One person's morality can become another person's curse.

I fear this is what's happened in our country today.

Americans have become dangerously divided over values, over morality -- public morality, and I'm not sure there is any such thing. Can a body of people rightfully be called moral, or is morality a personal attribute?

Morality is certainly not limited to sexual behavior, but sex is usually on everyone's mind when the word is mentioned. Two of the most divisive issues on the horizon today are sexual: gay marriage and abortion. Both have been and are being used as political wedges in a struggle for power.

If our government outlaws abortion, we won't become a more righteous nation. Abortion will simply go underground. Inequality and suffering will grow as wealthy women find ways to go around the law and poor women die from unsafe procedures.

If gays and lesbians are granted the same benefits and civil liberties accorded to the rest of the population, it will not undermine the American family. The family is only as strong, only as moral, as its individual members.

To politicize these issues and use them to garner votes is itself immoral. It plays on the public's desire for goodness and its ignorance of the consequences when well intended acts go astray.

How many of those who oppose abortion have held the hand of a young woman dying from septemia or experienced the desperation of a woman who knows she is incapable of caring for a child?

How many of those who condemn homosexuality understand the despair an individual experiences when compelled to deny his or her own nature and live a lie to placate others?

Nobody in this country is going to force abortion on the unwilling. No law is going to make a congregation accept a gay pastor or compel a church to perform same-sex unions if it is against their belief and teaching. To imply otherwise is reprehensible, but this is exactly what politicians have done in order to garner votes in certain communities.

"You can't mandate morality" was the cry of segregationists in the 1950s and '60s, and maybe they were right, because ultimately morality is a personal matter. No amount of legislation can make a segregationist see the black man as his equal or make the homophobic accept same sex unions as righteous, but that's beside the point. You don't mandate morality. You mandate behavior.

What we must do if we are to become a righteous people is to recognize that morality is between the individual and his or her God, and to understand that not every heartfelt and well-intentioned action results in goodness. In fact, the result be the exact opposite.

.

Originally published Tuesday, May 8, 2007, Gainesville Times