Normalizing Evil

Anyone paying attention would likely have to admit that we are moving on the morality scale. What was classified yesterday as "evil" is today considered "acceptable" and tomorrow "laudable". And sometimes that's laudable. Take, for instance, the miscegenation laws. These enforced racial segregation at one time. At one time in this country it was illegal for different races to intermarry. In 1883 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of miscegenation laws despite the passage of the 14th amendment. In 1913 the Democratic Representative Seaborn Roddenbery of Georgia tried to introduce a constitutional amendment that would prohibit all intermarriage between "persons of color" and whites. That didn't happen, but the repeal of these laws didn't really roll out until 1948-1967, finally removing "interracial marriage" from the list of "immorality".

In other cases, it's not so laudable. Prior to 1960, a girl getting pregnant out of wedlock was a disgrace. (Note that the disgrace of it was generally enough to prevent it from happening.) By 1970, numbers of these births started to skyrocket. In 1965 3.1% of white infants were born to single mothers; now it's closer to 40%. In the 90's I was taking my teenage daughter to school along with a friend of hers and they were talking about a girl coming back to school and how no one would like her. "Where had she been?" I asked. "Oh, she was out having a baby." "Is that why no one would like her?" "Oh, no," both girls scoffed, "everyone does that." Quite a change in a short time.

No one can rationally deny the radical shift in public perception about homosexual behavior or the redefinition of marriage. Within this century--not yet two decades--the public has gone from overwhelmingly affirming marriage as the union of a man and a woman to little definition at all. Inundated with homosexual characters in the media, porn on their computers, and a general decline all sexual morality, they've allowed these to be ... normalized in society's view. And the distance from society's norm of "no sex outside marriage" prior to 1960 to "If two guys want to do it, why should I care?" is no small leap.

The question is what do we normalize next? What of today's "oh, that's bad" items will become "Yeah, so?" things tomorrow? And at what speed? "Homosexual" was a disorder practically yesterday (okay, 1973) but not today. The drug culture took nearly half a century to get their recreational habit legalized, but they've come a long way now. All the same, we seem to be rolling along at a pretty quick pace.

So, now that marriage no longer means marriage and sexual morality is probing new boundaries, where do we go next? What other evils do we normalize? Reports are already out the pedophiles are born that way. How long until they're regarded as normal with all the rights and privileges of any other race (like Caucasian, black, or homosexual)? Since "man and woman" are out as a defining component of marriage, when do we cease limiting it to two? Seems arbitrary at this point. And why just humans? Who's to say that defines "normal" ... or "moral"?

And then what? Why is "democracy" moral and "totalitarianism" not? Why should we recognize rights endowed by a Creator who we don't wish to recognize? Why would "Freedom of Speech" be moral when we're moving away from "Freedom of Religion"? We've already eliminated the rights of the unborn; why not the born? Why not "post-partum abortion"? We're more and more accepting of voluntary euthanasia; why not involuntary? The concept of theft may be mostly bad, but not entirely, so how so wouldn't we legalize it? We really don't like those darn Christians telling us what's right and wrong, so maintaining any morality based on Judeo-Christian ethics ought to be suspect. And that ought to make this an interesting place. (Can you say "anarchy"?)

There really is no doubt that we've been, for a very long time in this country, normalizing evil. What was unbearable half a century ago is normal and applauded today. What parents condone in moderation children indulge in excess. It is really difficult, then, to imagine what next "evil" today will be wonderful tomorrow. I think we've demonstrated that we're willing to go a long way down that path, and not necessarily good directions.