Ancient Wisdom

A few weeks ago in a 4-3 vote, California’s Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, saying that sexual orientation, like race or gender, “does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.” Two of the dissenting judges called this ruling an “an exercise in legal jujitsu” that will “create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the people’s will and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference.” The third dissenting justice said that while she personally supported the right to same-sex marriage, the majority should have deferred to the Legislature.

The key here is “new understanding of the meaning of marriage.” This ruling indeed declares a redefinition of marriage, which for millennia in all societies and cultures has been defined as the union of one man and one woman. Now, in their infinite “wisdom,” four judges have decided they have a better way to define it.

Dennis Prager, a Jewish commentator and author, suggests that this is a natural result of the “modern supplanting of wisdom with compassion as the supreme guide in forming society’s values and laws.” After all, why not exercise compassion and let people marry whomever they want?

Some have argued that this ruling represents nothing more than what courts did to end legal bans on interracial marriage in the mid-20th century. In that case the courts corrected a moral injustice perpetuated by the will of the majority. Isn’t this the same principle? But Prager notes a key difference in the two scenarios:

"No major religion – not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism – ever banned interracial marriage… American bans on interracial marriages were not supported by any major religious or moral system; those bans were immoral aberrations, no matter how many religious individuals may have supported them. Justices who overthrew bans on interracial marriages, therefore, had virtually every moral and religious value system since ancient times on their side. But justices who overthrow the ban on same-sex marriage have nothing other than their hubris and their notions of compassion on their side…Not a single religion or moral philosophical system – East or West – since antiquity ever defined marriage as between members of the same sex. (“California Decision Will Radically Change Society,” 5/20/08, Townhall.com)

The fact is that laws are designed to channel peoples’ behavior. Murder is against the law so that people will be channeled away from murder. These behavioral rules emanate from a value system. And the value system emanates from… what? The answer is, “ancient wisdom.” And the ancient wisdom from which our laws emanate comes primarily, though not wholly, from the Judeo-Christian religious heritage.

This ruling and others like it declares that in our modern “wisdom” we have seen a moral light that no theologians, philosophers, religions or moral systems saw before. That is why this is about far more than “extending a right” to homosexuals, who indeed should be protected from unfair discrimination. This is about a significant social change the implications of which will be massive. I will talk about those next week.