Perceptions #3

MORALITY IS NOT DEMOCRATIC

by Monroe Hawley
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Under the heading "Attitude Toward Sex Freer Today," Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a psychiatrist responded in the Milwaukee Journal to a mother concerned because her 21 year old daughter is living with her boy friend without the benefit of marriage.

Dr. Poussaint said, "Let your daughter make the choice." Obviously this is going to be the case since the daughter is an adult and is going to do what she wants regardless of her mother's feelings. Moral decisions are personal matters and ultimately this has to be the way it is.

However much of the article deals with the benefits of living together without marriage. Probably the key sentence is "It is just not enough to say that it is immoral, because what is considered immoral changes with the times." In other words, right and wrong are determined by society. This is pure relativism, which governs much of today's thinking and attitudes. One writer describes relativism as that which teaches "that everything is in flux, all knowledge is sociologically determined, all values are shifting opinion."

Think about this for a moment. Some of the ancient Greeks left their girl babies on the mountainside to die. Since they thought this was morally right, does this mean infanticide is proper if society approves? Can we kill the elderly when they are no longer able to contribute to the community if this becomes the attitude of society? And what about the genocide of the Jews under German Nazism, which was undoubtedly condoned by many who, lived under that regime?

No, it won't wash. Moral values aren't determined by a democratic vote, but by the word of God. Your opinion or mine, or that of society cannot determine whether it is right or wrong for a couple to live together without the benefit of marriage. What God says is morally proper is the bottom line.

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