On the Agenda

We often hear people making a distinction between their personally held convictions and the moral principles that they think should underpin the public order. They may say: “Personally, I am of course against abortion. But I don’t think my view should be imposed on those who believe abortion is morally acceptable.” Or: “I am against same-sex marriage. But many other people do not share my belief in the sanctity of marriage”. Or: “I personally would not use the services of a surrogate mother. But people who think it’s ok should be allowed to do so.”

This hesitation to impose one’s own “values” on the rest of society would be understandable if those values were based on a merely subjective and irrational choice. But often they are not. Genuine moral precepts are not based on subjective “values” but rather on objective truth — and this is why imposing them on those who do not accept them is not only legitimate but also necessary. In fact, for a society to live in peace and justice, it is necessary for its legal order to be in compliance with natural law. Otherwise, legislation and moral principles that are not in conformity with natural law will ultimately destroy any society that embraces them. That is why it would be a mistake to view morality as solely a private matter. The acceptance of divorce, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, surrogacy, etc. has profound implications not only for those directly involved but also for society at large. Accepting these as merely “private matters” on which everybody should make his own decisions is tantamount to accepting that those with the lowest moral and cultural standards should be allowed to set society’s standards and make the rules for the rest of us. What results from this is nothing less than a process of de-civilisation.

The moral decline of a society usually takes place in stages that can easily be distinguished. In the first stage, just and equitable laws, although still in place, are not complied with. In the second stage, they are not enforced. In the third stage, they are publicly derided. In a fourth stage, such laws are “liberalized”, so that compliance with the precepts of natural law is no longer an obligation but merely an option. In a subsequent stage, the laws are modified once again, so that acting in contradiction to natural law is turned into a “duty” (and acting in compliance with natural law is transformed into a “crime”). In a final stage, criticising the new moral code is turned into a thought crime and critics are subsequently persecuted for expressing their opinion.

It hardly seems appropriate, therefore, to refer to the cultural revolution that has transformed the West over the last several decades as just a process of liberalization. On the contrary, what really has happened is that one moral code, which has been denounced as “outdated” and “too rigorous”, has been replaced with a new moral code that is different in content but enforced with equal, if not greater, rigour. And while the rights and freedoms of some have been widened, the rights and freedoms of others have been radically and brutally rescinded. For example, the right of women to have access to abortion has been acquired at the expense of the right to life of the unborn; the right of married couples to get divorced means that children have lost the right to grow up with both parents; and the right of homosexuals to publicly exhibit their proclivities means that those members of society with convictions rooted in moral truth are exposed to constant derision. All this — combined with severe restrictions of freedom of speech for those who do not accept the new moral code — has clear implications for the ability of people to convey moral values to the next generation. Societies that accept the new moral code are by no means “freer” or “more enlightened” but are societies enslaved by their own brutal egoism. The real difference between then and now is that the moral code of the past complied with natural law, whereas the moral code of today opposes it.

The cultural revolution of the 1960s was, more than anything else, a “sexual” revolution. And it has profoundly altered the way in which society looks at sexuality, transforming it into a commodity that should be available at all times, for all persons, in all possible forms. For this to occur, the sexual act itself had to be dissociated from its primary purpose — procreation — and from all the responsibilities associated with it. Thus, contemporary society wants sex without procreation and procreation without sex. That is what is meant by “family planning” and “birth control”, which include not only full control over whether or not a child is conceived but also over the qualities and characteristics a child should possess. Of course, the very idea of “planning” and “control” implies that, if and when something goes wrong, things can be corrected. So a child that was not “planned” or that is found not to comply with the aspirations or desires of parents can easily be disposed of — through an abortion.

The proliferation of such practices has had inevitable consequences for the way we live. To “plan” and “control” the existence and genetic identity of another human being means to disrespect their innate human dignity. It ultimately deprives them of their right to life — or enslaves them. At the same time, with the sexual act dissociated from its procreative purpose, the idea that sexual relations between persons of the same sex can be “equal” to the conjugal union between a married man and a woman becomes more plausible.

If a sexual relationship has the sole purpose of bringing pleasure to its “partners”, then it does not seem to matter who or what these “partners” are. Thus, it might seem ‘discriminatory’ not to allow homosexual or polygamous marriages. Thus, the concept of marriage has changed profoundly — and with it, the concept of the “family”.

With regards to matters of marriage, life, and the family, everything is interconnected and one decision follows from another. The “sexual revolution” thus came to us as a package deal. And one can either accept all of it or reject it entirely. But it seems impossible to accept part of it while rejecting the rest. Thus, whoever finds the use of contraceptives ‘normal’ must also accept homosexuality, and whoever accepts assisted procreation will find it difficult to argue against abortion.

Once this interdependence is understood, a fundamental choice must be made: resist or submit. But what is clear is that those wishing to overturn the cultural revolution and halt the civilizational decline of the West must be consistent in their arguments — otherwise they will not be heard.

The purpose of this website, therefore, is to offer a coherent overview of marriage, life, and family issues, explaining how they interrelate and tracing a possible policy agenda that could be pursued to restore a legal order that is consistent with human dignity and the dictates of natural law.

Forty to fifty years have passed since the cultural revolution of the 1960s. And since then, its destructive legacy has become more and more visible: disintegrating families, fertility rates far below replacement levels, atomized and ageing societies, social welfare systems on the brink of collapse, etc. It is apparent that the hedonistic ideology and lifestyle that has been promoted by the cultural revolutionaries is simply not sustainable. Indeed, it will quickly destroy any society that embraces it.

For those looking at the situation of the West today, the cultural revolution has lost all its glamour and credibility. With this loss of credibility, the chances of reversing the cultural revolution are increasing. Indeed, this revolution is so self-destructive that it might implode — even if there were no one to fight against it. Nevertheless, a strategy conducive to such a reversal is of great urgency. While the “achievements” of the cultural revolution (such as “legal” abortion, “legal” euthanasia, and the recognition of same-sex “marriages”) will ultimately defeat themselves, there is reason to fear that before this happens they will inflict irreparable damage on our societies. If, for example, an entire generation of young people is educated in a way that makes them unable to become good spouses and parents, due to a false understanding of sexual mores, they will be cut off from the long chain of tradition between generations, through which the moral values that have built and sustained Western civilization have been transmitted for centuries. We have a narrow window of time left today of ten to twenty years. If we do not use this time, then Western civilization, having embraced a perverse ideology, may easily destroy itself. And instead of continuing to survive with “new values”, it will simply cease to exist at all.