How today’s identity politics is fueled by hypocrisy

OPINION:

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column titled “Conversations About Sex.” In this article, I asked this basic question: If our culture has decided there is no such thing as an objective moral standard pertaining to sexual behavior then on what basis can we make any moral judgments about any behavior?

As a matter of making my point, I used a rhetorical tool called “the argument in the extreme” (something which, by the way, is not always a logical fallacy as some detractors may claim). It went like this. If there is no “measuring rod outside of those things being measured” regarding sex, then on what basis is there any “measuring rod” regarding any other human act?

In other words, if it’s all about “acceptance” and “tolerance” what standard do you have left to decide anything is right or anything is wrong and, if such a standard exists, where does it come from? After all, who are you to judge?

For asking such a logical question, many in the progressive world such as those at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Right-Wing Watch (RWW) came absolutely unglued.

But lest we give these folks and their diatribe any undue attention, I, instead, draw your attention to a comment posted this week by one of my new “friends” on my Facebook page; a person who “friended” me as the result of my questionable column. Here is what she said: “I am under no obligation to treat others with respect, compassion and love. You are!”

I am not kidding. I actually received this. And it comes from someone who proudly waves her rainbow banner of “Love Trumps Hate,” “Love Wins” and “Love is Love.”

So much for inclusion. So much for acceptance. So much for pluralism. So much for claiming that “it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as it works for you!” So much for love. So much for respecting those from different cultures who have different views and different values.

So much for all that, and so much for any modicum of self-awareness that would recognize the obvious duplicity in all of this and the fact that you are sawing off the very rhetorical branch upon which you sit.

This is the logical end of the moral relativism of today’s identity politics. This is the blatant hypocrisy of those who promote themselves as accepting, while condemning all those they simply cannot and will not accept.

This is the inevitable consequence of our “name it, claim it” game of pretending human desires define the human being and that our personhood is little more than the sum of our proclivities; that human identity is equal to human inclination; and that “who we are” is of no more moral significance than what our libido temps us to do.

This is the very predictable, outcome (the extreme if you will), of placing personal feelings over biological facts and sexual “relationships” over sexual restraint. This is what happens when “gnosis” supplants God and man presumes to be the final authority of what is right and wrong, what is good and evil and what is even male and female.

M. Scott Peck warned of what he called, “the people of the lie” — those who deceive themselves so frequently and persistently that they actually start to believe their own fabrications and fantasies. Graham Walker talked of the pathology of the intellect where the “smarter” we think we are the more prone we become to our own intellectual deception and moral compromise.

St. Paul admonished that every time we presume to be “as God” we are given over to a reprobate mind. Augustine confessed of his own arrogance and the temptation to deem the product his overreaching intellect worthy of worship. The Greeks told of the death of Narcissus, not his triumph. His story was not one that celebrated the inflation of personal identity but rather one that predicted its ultimate demise.

If history teaches anything it is this: When we exchange the truth of God for a lie, and begin to worship the created rather than the Creator, this is what happens.

Oh, and by the way — here are some other notes I’ve received this week from my new “friends” who proudly champion “love’ and “tolerance”:

“You’re disgusting.” “You are a piece of excrement.” “If Jesus did exist, he’d tell you to take a flying f—k at a rolling donut.” “You’re a bigoted piece of s—t.” “You’re a clown.” “Christians are the Taliban.” “You’re a homophobic so-called educator attacking others for Jesus.” “What a sick, disgusting, small-minded man and an ugly blemish on our beautiful city.”

And perhaps the best example of “love” from these champions of the SPLC and their ilk is this: “You blaspheming hate-filled slime mold purveyor of lies and false religion. Your death will make the world a better place.”

Another of my friends summarized the week well: “Love. They keep using that word. But, I don’t think they know what it means.” Another suggested: “Tolerance is often demanded but seldom returned. Beware of the word tolerance. It is a very unstable virtue.”

• Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, is the author of “Not A Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery 2017).