By Douglas Murray, New York Post, August 10, 2023
You don’t always notice when you are living through a historical shift.
Most Romans probably didn’t realize that the ground was moving under their feet.
Most Ancient Greeks probably didn’t notice that the old gods were being phased out.
Today we seem to be living through such a moment.
Whether you are a Christian or not, there is no point denying that Christian ethics underpinned the foundation of this country and of the wider West.
The Founding Fathers were careful to keep religion out of the political realm.
They knew from Europe what happened if you didn’t.
But they certainly didn’t believe in banishing faith altogether.
Or launch a new religion and impose that on the population.
Yet this is precisely what our own era is trying to do. And from the very highest quarters in the land.
In January we learned of an FBI memo that claimed that traditional Catholic groups in this country are potential hotbeds of domestic terrorism.
When the story leaked the FBI tried to play it down.
Just last month FBI director Christopher Wray claimed before a House Judiciary Committee that the memo was a “single product by a single field office.”
This week we learned that was a lie. The FBI memo was in fact the work of multiple FBI field offices.
Which makes it even more of a slur on Catholics across America.
A slur that came about in part because the FBI was relying on information created by disgraced left-wing campaign group The Southern Poverty Law Center.
The SPLC once took on the KKK and other actually extreme groups.
Today it attacks almost anyone who holds traditional family values — and Christians in particular.
All this is just one part of a wider shift. One which sees Catholics and other traditional Christians in this country as enemies of the state.
Consider a case in Massachusetts this week, where a Catholic couple are taking the state to court over their foster child policies.
The couple — Michael and Catherine Burke — passed 30 hours of interviews and checks with the Department of Children and Families.
The couple would seem a perfect fit for any of the more than 100,000 children in this country waiting to be adopted.
But there was a problem. The Burkes are regular churchgoers and are even — wait for it — musicians in their local churches. Sickening, isn’t it?
The DCF certainly seemed to think so. The Massachusetts court filing says that during their interviews DCF social worker fixed on the couple’s Catholic faith.
The couple’s application to become adoptive parents was turned down because their religious beliefs “would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA.”
It is wonderful to know that there are so many good homes for the American children on the adoption waiting lists that a couple can be turned down for such a spurious reason.
But here is the thing. What such cases show is a wild social shift in America. One that is taking place even while a self-professed Catholic is in the White House.
LGBTQIA+ issues were won by a demand for tolerance and equality.
They were not won by threatening people with different beliefs to either get with the project or become enemies of the state.
Many of us who argued for those rights are horrified by this overreach.
Any pluralistic, genuinely tolerant society has to have room for people of a wide range of beliefs.
But that tolerant vision seems to be disappearing. Where one set of ethics used to be dominant, another is now being pushed onto the country. One which is filled with newly-invented purity tests.
I am not a Catholic, but I loathe this development. The Catholic church has its own dogmas. But at least we know what they are.
The church of LGBTQIA+ by contrast seems to be making its dogmas up on the fly.
And while you can choose to be a Catholic or not it seems you have to agree with this new set of ethics — or else.
So much for liberalism. So much for equality.
This article first appeared HERE.