by Serena Sigillito
Valentine’s Day is usually associated with romance, but love matters in politics, too. In working to change our culture, we must remember that our opponents, like our allies, are human beings whose individual conversions can only be wrought through a combination of love, truth, and free will.
The culture war is nothing new. For decades, social conservatives have been responding to the sexual revolution, with its push for commitment- and consequence-free sex, unfettered access to abortion, and the redefinition of marriage. Happily, there’s been increasing pushback to the cultural narrative of the joys of hook-ups, birth control, and abortion. My generation is increasingly identifying as pro-life, and student groups like the Love and Fidelity Network are fighting for a positive alternative to the dissatisfaction and pain that come from denying the truth about humans and how we love.
But on other fronts, things don’t look so good. I need only log into Facebook to see the overwhelming support among my fellow millennials for the redefinition of marriage and the eradication of “homophobia.”
Now, I’m very lucky—I get to work with scholars who are making a rational, philosophically sophisticated argument in defense of marriage. They do an excellent job demonstrating that affirming marriage as the union of sexually complementary spouses, of man and woman, isn’t based on hatred or ignorance.
One scholar, Sherif Girgis, wrote eloquently here at Public Discourse last week on the place of philosophy in public debate. I agree with Girgis that, in addition to moral philosophers, social conservatives need more artists, musicians, and culture-makers who can give universal moral norms incarnate, particular forms that engage the heart as well as the mind. I only wish there were a pro-marriage song gaining as much traction as Macklemore’s anthem of unquestioning acceptance or Ingrid Michaelson’s new gender-bending music video.
Artistic expression of the truths of human nature is important because art engages the human person in a holistic way. By contrast, I often get frustrated with the aggressive, divisive approaches that certain pro-lifers and marriage advocates take toward those who disagree with them. Even though they get many key points right, such arguments are often based on faulty premises of their own. Most importantly, they fail to appreciate the role that love plays in intellectual conversions.
Let’s look at an example. At the March for Life this year, controversial internet personality Michael Voris took it upon himself to survey members of the crowd in order to assess their positions on the use of birth control and the morality of homosexual relationships. He uploaded the results to YouTube as videos titled “Pro-Life Birth Control” and “Gay & Pro-Life,” lamenting the fact that one third of marchers said that birth control might sometimes be acceptable and 20 percent said that it was okay for two men to be in a romantic relationship.
Other authors have already addressed some of the specific methodological problems with Voris’s needlessly divisive approach. What most strikes me about these videos, though, is how radically flawed the underlying assumption about the nature of conversion is. Whose heart or mind does Voris think he is going to change?
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