Tolerance as Moral Principle

Judie Brown
American Life League

Have you ever wondered if the results of Gallup polls are skewed? If you have, the following opening statement from the latest Gallup report may not shock you: “The American public has become more tolerant on a number of moral issues, including premarital sex, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. On a list of 19 major moral issues of the day, Americans express levels of moral acceptance that are as high or higher than in the past on 12 of them, a group that also encompasses social mores such as polygamy, having a child out of wedlock, and divorce.”

As more Americans become willing to live with what used to be unthinkable, the practices in question become more acceptable. In other words, ignoring the murder of a preborn child and calling it choice is nowadays simply a “political issue.” What arrogance!

Perhaps it has not occurred to the framers of this poll and its results that a moral absolute—also known as the Ten Commandments—is not available for amendment. These tenets, as set forth in the Old Testament, are rock solid, just as one would expect given the author.

So why is it that average folks appear vague, or at least willing to reinvent morality based on public perception or generally acceptable behavior? The answer is as clear as a freshwater lake just after a snow: “Moral relativism,” or what some might call the “new morality,” has eaten away at the very fiber of our once Christian nation.

St. John Paul II taught that such recreations of the truth come about “as a result of a loss of awareness of the originality of Gospel morality and as a result of an eclipse of fundamental principles and ethical values themselves.”

When this occurs, behaviors such as acquired abortion, premarital sex, the use of birth control, divorce, human embryonic stem cell research, and homosexual marriages acquire “cultural and social legitimacy.”

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