Secondly, when a nation is having a crisis of meaning and has no foundation for making moral choices other than the majority vote, or vague feelings, you have a recipe for an outpouring of fundamentalist extremism on the part of whoever has enough money to hire the lawyers. The whole vision of the law being an ass and being a curse (both thoughts abounding in the bible by the way) is forgotten.

What shape might such extremism take? Bombs and flames? That’s highly unlikely in a society like ours, which prides itself on being ‘nice’, meticulously nice. It was recently said of a famous inquisitor, for example, that, ‘He was in possession of a brilliant intellect, he was a religious fundamentalist and you could not hope to meet a nicer bloke.’33 Niceness is a favoured quality of all the best dictators whether they talk of Jesus, PC Democracy or the Third Reich.

So, with all the pc courtesy in the world, and without the complications of inner meaning in the heart of the ‘young man’, we can do our work unhindered by any gods or sacred texts. Our dilemma of course is that in our efforts to create meaning inside ‘the young man’ through politically correct pronouncements, we have come full circle to law as the only means: politically correct law. All we now have are shame and coercion, rather than wisdom and grace, as our weapons of choice. Government administrators—not friends, not parents, not the young man’s soul (he’s not even allowed to have one)—make the calls on what family, marriage, home and family life will look like.

Not that all pc is bad. The original thought behind courtesy and duty of care etc. was love. Where it all begins to go wrong is when we lose the heart and soul of it and begin doing it for no other reason than the fact that it is ‘the done thing’. As TS Elliot said, ‘The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.’

Another way it can go awry is when an entire nation loses its spiritual core and pc becomes the only moral compass left. Suddenly everything must be legislated and we find ourselves living in an absurd world where freedom of speech, freedom to camp somewhere, freedom to walk somewhere, freedom of expression and all kinds of other freedoms are seen as threats. Classroom Moralists who were once politely tolerated, are now heroes, even Prime Ministers.

Art is one of the first things to begin to wilt in such a poorly fertilised garden. A brilliant song will be written but all the audience will think about is the fact that it used a stereotype, wasn’t inclusive, was done by someone of the wrong racial grouping or didn’t fit the funding criteria. How did this disease of thinking like a responsible social scientist creep into so many souls, even (God-forbid) artistic souls? How the mighty have fallen! I once came away from a writers’ festival with the distinct impression that every writer there had been tamed, de-clawed and de-fanged.

When a society (that idolises lifestyle choice) invites people of faith to agree with its opinions about what is right and wrong in sex and marriage, it’s asking ancient mythical music to sit down at table with bureaucrats and lawyers and endorse the majority vote. Since when was God the puppet of the government? Lots of times unfortunately, thanks to compliant priests and ministers of the Royal Order, as the bible (and recent history) shows us.

The real question is, as Ravi Zacharias says, ‘How does anyone ever know if anything is right or wrong?’ The only solid ground the prosecutors found—at Nuremberg—for prosecuting the Nazis, was to invoke the moral law of God. In the heat and the dust of legal debate, this point of view was almost lost.

Not that legal debate is a bad thing. Everyone should be allowed to have their say. For example, a ‘magazine for homosexuals explains that people today “Don’t want to fit into any boxes—not gay, straight, lesbian or bisexual ones.” Instead “they want to be free to change their minds.” The article was addressed to people who had come out of the closet as homosexuals, but later found themselves attracted to heterosexual relationships again. So ‘What am I?’ they wondered. Not to worry the author reassured them. The idea that one is born with a certain gender that cannot be changed is so modernist. Society is moving to postmodern view in which you can choose any gender you want, at any time.” It’s being called the ‘PoMosexual view.’ 33 (a)

Steve Gershom (a gay Catholic), has another perspective: ‘I have heard a lot about how mean the Church is, and how bigoted, because she opposes gay marriage. How badly she misunderstands gay people, and how hostile she is towards us. My gut reaction to such things is: Are you freaking kidding me? Are we even talking about the same Church?

‘When I go to Confession, I sometimes mention the fact that I’m gay, to give the priest some context. I’ve always gotten one of two responses: either compassion, encouragement, and admiration, because the celibate life is difficult and profoundly counter-cultural; or nothing at all, not even a ripple, as if I had confessed eating too much on Thanksgiving.

‘Of the two responses, my ego prefers the first—who doesn’t like thinking of themselves as some kind of hero? — but the second might make more sense. Being gay doesn’t mean I’m special or extraordinary. It just means that my life is not always easy. (Surprise!) And as my friend J. said when I told him recently about my homosexuality, “I guess if it wasn’t that, it would have been something else.” Meaning that nobody lives without a burden of one kind or another. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel said: “The man who has not suffered, what can he possibly know, anyway?”

‘Where are all these bigoted Catholics I keep hearing about? When I told my family a year ago, not one of them responded with anything but love and understanding. Nobody acted like I had a disease. Nobody started treating me differently or looking at me funny. The same is true of every one of the Catholic friends that I’ve told. They love me for who I am.

‘Actually, the only time I get shock or disgust or disbelief, the only time I’ve noticed people treating me differently after I tell them, is when I tell someone who supports the gay lifestyle: “Celibacy?! You must be some kind of freak.”

‘Hooray for tolerance of different viewpoints. I’m grateful to gay activists for some things—making people more aware of the prevalence of homosexuality, making homophobia less socially acceptable—but they also make it more difficult for me to be understood, to be accepted for who I am and what I believe. If I want open-mindedness, acceptance, and understanding, I look to Catholics.’ 33 (b)

The Royal Order ‘god’ of the West. doesn’t want to know about the above point of view. It always insists that its way of doing things—’acquiring enough power and knowledge to tame the terror and eliminate the darkness’ and make it easier for us to indulge our appetites—is making ‘everything better and better’. It must insist on this, and it must silence the voices raised in alarm—especially those voices in non-western countries. Hence it’s indignation, its strident affirmation, its determination to keep it’s perspective on the issues on the front page and to never, ever talk about what is being assumed behind these issues. In our case, what is being assumed is that ‘we all know what is right and what is wrong’ when it comes to sex and marriage: ‘we all’ being that wealthy minority group (in the global village) known as ‘the west’.

Seriously, how can we—the western, secular enlightenment world, which is lousy with ‘free sex’, drugs and broken families—even begin to talk to the non-western world about what is right and wrong with marriage and sex? Our social workers tell us that we are facing a virtual tsunami of abused children right here in Australia. The rumour is that—in order not to cause too much alarm—childhood trauma categories are being re-written.

Words come to mind, words like, ‘self-importance, sense of superiority; high-handedness, condescension, contempt, sneering, scoffing; presumption.’ According to the thesaurus, these words relate to one single word: ‘arrogance.’ Perhaps even embarrassment. The world of horse racing might use the metaphor of a ‘nerve-blocking operation’ being carried out in order to hide the truth of the embarrassing social train-wreck called ‘Australian family life’.

It’s the kind of thing that provoked Jesus to say, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Matt 23:27)

‘If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything,’ John Mellencamp used to sing. But what if the thing you’re standing for has been made to look ridiculous? “Do not give dogs what is holy,’ Jesus said. ‘And do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.’34 It’s no surprise that there’s so much anger directed at God. We sense that our Maker has concluded we won’t be told, has walked away from us and is allowing an ‘unmaking’ of what we have made so well.

A few years ago I was reading a book on Spinoza (a philosopher from the 17th Century) where the author/editor, in his preface, had this to say: ‘For to-day in marriage, if anywhere, it is glaringly evident that the legal or religious or social ceremonial law can at best secure man or woman wealth and social position.’35

The writer (Joseph Ratner) had a point but in making it he betrayed something about himself. What he failed to see was the fact that many couples will tell you they took the marriage vows not primarily to secure their happiness—or because they thought their love was so great it would never fail—but because they loved each other and God so much, they wanted to give themselves to creating a mysterious thing called a home and a family. They wanted to grow a garden where children would be safe and blessed and where friends (and even the lost and hurting and broken) could come and enjoy the warmth and grace of a lovely fountain of faith, hope and love.

What an ambition! What a high hope. Of course they know their love will waver, it’s why they take the vows. And it’s during those times they will need something as sober and as public as a vow (supported by a God who is a forgiver, and a community of family and friends) to hold them to what they promised each other. And this promise is not just a matter of ‘staying married’, it’s a commitment to cultivating a beautiful garden where things like kindness, forgiveness, honesty, reconciliation and communion can grow.