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Democratic congressman from California taunted Republican J. C.
Watts one day last week on the ground that his first child (of five)
had been born illegitimate. This gratuitous mention of his own family
in a public hearing got Mr. Watts smoking, and afterwards he confronted
the offender. The congressman from California tried to explain:
He was, he said, just calling attention to the "hypocrisy" of conservatives
who say illegitimacy is bad for kids, mothers, fathers…
"Hypocrisy" is a charge liberals resort to first when attacking
social conservatives on moral issues. They rightly point out that
conservatives often fail to live up to their own standards. They
fail to grasp the importance of upholding high standards by which
even one's own conduct can be seriously faulted.
But no one has to tell J. C. Watts that he needed and wanted to
be converted.
In that sense, the charge of "hypocrisy" is actually a compliment.
It not only accepts the high standard to which conservatives have
been trying to point, by using it to condemn certain forms of behavior.
It also, implicitly, honors conservatives for holding to standards
in whose light they are willing to be judged at fault.
A younger friend of mine once pointed out to me how this reflex
works at dinner parties when only one or two Catholics are present
and the subject comes round to sex (as in our day and age conversation
tends to do). "I suppose your Church will never get up to date on
homosexuality [or contraception or abortion or transvestitism or…],"
someone is bound to turn to the Catholic present.
My friend tells me he finds it most shocking just at such moment
to pause thoughtfully, then say: "To the contrary, I think the Church
should one day soon come round on sex — the whole bit, even
bestiality. What is sex, after all? Reflexes, plumbing. The Church
should take the mysticism out of it. Get up to date. Peter Singer
has it right, doesn't he? Pigs, chickens? Who cares?"
That's a little rough for dinner repartee, of course. The odd thing
is, my friend says, many at the table rather hope the Church doesn't
give in. They wouldn't dream of defending the Church, but don't
want her suddenly to collapse, either. They turn on my friend.
Which, of course, was his point.
The whole business of defending "Western civilization" means condemning
ourselves for not living up to it. Anyone who upholds high standards
must pay a heavy tribute, and falling short, a.k.a. hypocrisy, is
the tribute we must pay to virtue.
For Christians, the whole idea of grace takes flight from the recognition
that alone we do not live up to all that we are called to be, and
need not only to be forgiven, but to be borne again by grace above
ourselves. Sinners are at the heart of Christianity. That's where
it all begins.
The best retort to the taunt, therefore, is that standards matter,
and we will defend the standards even at the cost of being found
daily falling short of them ourselves. The standards we defend do
not make us feel superior, but on the contrary daily humbled. They
are not standards for other people only. They take bites out of
us, too.
The problem with Democrats is that they feel so morally superior
that they can't bear to hear talk of any morality that finds them
personally wanting. That's why they hate social conservatives.
They can't stand moral reproach. Their best armature is nonjudgmentalism.
That is their comfort and their refuge. They hate anyone who implies
that they are morally wanting.
As experience teaches, There ain't no hate like liberal hate.
For social conservatives, most of all, they know cold fury.
The hypocrites! (But of course!)
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