Moral courage vs. 'going with the flow'

Dear Editor,

Justice -- to render what is due -- requires fixed moral principles, and the courage to uphold them. Moral courage requires that men stand for truth, even when the truth is unpopular. Where moral courage fails there can be no justice.

Cowards hide behind the excuse: "I do not support (insert vice) but I think such matters an issue of individual choice." Surrendering the nation to those who desire to make public policy a matter of "personal choice" is why this nation finds itself plunging into the abyss. On the two great issues of our time -- the sanctity of life, and the sacred character of marriage -- justice requires there be no neutral ground. The only true "choice" we have is whom we shall serve in this life -- God or men.

Notwithstanding the novel proposition that "All just power comes from the consent of the governed," Jesus Christ stated that power comes from God alone -- He being the final arbiter of true Justice determines the fates of nations, dependent solely upon their "choice" to serve Him.

On the matter of abortion: Do the 5th and 14th Amendments not apply to the unborn?

"No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ... "

The phrase "Due process of law" originally meant that judgments could only issue when the defendant was personally given the opportunity to appear in court, pursuant to an appropriate writ. It retained this meaning in English law into the 18th century. Readers need understand that the U.S. Constitution is written in the verbiage of the English Common Law.

On the matter of "same sex marriage:" The word "Matrimony" derives from Latin: the prefix "matrem" -- mother, and the suffix "monium" -- an action, state, or condition. The phrase means "Office of the Mother." Thus, by definition, marriage requires the union of man and woman.

Liberals, Progressives and Libertarians share one common goal -- a rabid desire to abolish every traditional cultural norm derived from the Natural (moral) Law. Since it is Libertarians who have infiltrated the Republican Party, and infected it with their permissive ideology, I shall confine my remarks to them ...

Libertarians think the contest an issue of "states' rights;" but, given their philosophy of radical individualism and absolute autonomy, that claim is disingenuous. They vainly imagine 'We the people' are worthy to judge the correctness of God's prohibition against the shedding of innocent blood, and His plan for marriage. Presuming equality with God by asserting that individuals or the several states possess a "right" to supersede Divine Law is an ironic hypocrisy. Men are quick to claim unalienable rights when it suits their interests, but they forget that a thing "unalienable" requires the existence of a supreme external authority. Even while libertarians may acknowledge God, yet in their zeal to dismiss His supreme governance, they claim for themselves, or for the State, "rights" that belong to God alone.

While the State rightly holds the power of capital punishment as an instrument of justice, the State does not render justice when it is complicit in shedding innocent blood. Nor is it within the competency of the State (or individuals) to alter marriage, but only to uphold what God has ordained. Marriage is external to the State, and eternally defined by God. Its unique character exists outside of the State's proper temporal authority; its definition and administration belong solely to God and the Church. We do well to remember that the State is not co-equal with God, and neither is it separate from God; but rather the State was created by God for the sake of justice, so to be the temporal enforcer of God's Law.

Correspondingly, those organizations that exist to serve the State, by fact of their capacity to nominate competent individuals for public office, also owe a responsibility to the moral law. Recognized political parties -- being organs of the State's political apparatus, and having a charter to present and support individuals for the duties of public office -- have an obligation to nominate only those individuals who shall uphold the moral code, including the defense of traditional marriage and the protection of innocent life. Thus individuals who claim themselves members of these organizations cannot legitimately abrogate or diminish any aspect of God's law from the official platforms, since doing so violates the very purpose for which those organs exist -- to serve the State in its legitimate role to uphold and defend the moral law. Political Parties play with fire when, out of a desire to "go with the flow," they build their houses upon the shifting sands of "individual choice" -- a fig leaf wholly insufficient to cover moral cowardice.

Bruce C. Desautels

Stratton, Nebraska