The political season is old and stale and even the candidates are getting tired of hearing the same old lines and they’re groping for something else to say. Last week, Ruth Dwyer, the right-wing Republican who’s running for governor in Vermont, was railing against the state’s civil union law, the one that allows lesbians and gays to enjoy the legal equivalent of marriage. Ms. Dwyer reminded voters that if such excesses of liberty are to be tolerated, Vermont could well wind up going the way of Rome.
The Roman comparison is a favorite for politicians on a morality jag. “Elect me or, well, you’ll all go the way of wicked, corrupt Rome and fall to the barbarians.” Like many things Ms. Dwyer says, the Rome analogy is just plain wrong. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Roman history can tell you pagan Rome – of gladiators and bacchanalia and throwing Christians to the lions and all-night orgies – those Romans were the undisputed leaders of their part of the world. The Roman Empire did not fall into serious decline until the emperors, and everyone else, converted to Christianity. Now that we’ve got our historical facts straight, what was it you were trying to tell us, Ms. Dwyer?
In fact, if you look at the fall of the Roman Empire, you’ll see the institution that survived was the church. For the next several centuries, the church’s power, both political and spiritual, was the only constant in European life. This period was known as the Dark Ages. It was not until people began to challenge the church’s spiritual authority, with the Protestant Reformation and the church’s intellectual authority, with the Enlightenment, that democracy had a chance to emerge in Europe.
OK, so what am I saying now? That good orgies make good government? Bill Clinton would like to think so. I’d have to say, from the evidence, it appears orgies and good government are not mutually exclusive. But that’s not the point. One point is that morality is between you and your conscience and your God, if you believe in God. Another point, the main point, was made by Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The reason the Dark Ages were dark is not because there is a doctrinal flaw in Christianity, but because too much power was vested in the hands of too few people – a handful of kings and bishops and popes.
It’s bad enough when political power is concentrated in the hands of a few people, it’s worse when the same people claim moral, as well as legal superiority. Laws can be broken, laws can be changed. Laws are human creations and we can admit that the law may be wrong, or perhaps outdated. But if the person handing down the law is a pope – or an ayatollah – then it’s not easy for Joe Sixpack to stand up on a street corner and say the law is bunk.
That’s why people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan bother me, because by framing their political arguments in moral terms, they don’t admit the chance they may be wrong.
That’s why Ruth Dwyer bothers me, because her crusade against civil unions and her ranting about “homosexual agendas” carries a subtext that says our gay and lesbian fellow citizens will never, in her eyes, be true Vermonters. And that’s bad government.
There’s one thing those wine-drinking, orgy-attending Romans had going for them: they respected the rule of law and respect for the rule of law is the distinguishing characteristic of all successful governments.
For those of you who need to hang everything on a Bible quote, try Matthew, chapter 22, verse 21: “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, render unto God what belongs to God.”
That advocate for the separation of church and state was Jesus of Nazareth.
Render Unto Caesar
The political season is old and stale and even the candidates are getting tired of hearing the same old lines and they’re groping for something else to say. Last week, Ruth Dwyer, the right-wing Republican who’s running for governor in Vermont, was railing against the state’s civil union law, the one that allows lesbians and gays to enjoy the legal equivalent of marriage. Ms. Dwyer reminded voters that if such excesses of liberty are to be tolerated, Vermont could well wind up going the way of Rome.
The Roman comparison is a favorite for politicians on a morality jag. “Elect me or, well, you’ll all go the way of wicked, corrupt Rome and fall to the barbarians.” Like many things Ms. Dwyer says, the Rome analogy is just plain wrong. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Roman history can tell you pagan Rome – of gladiators and bacchanalia and throwing Christians to the lions and all-night orgies – those Romans were the undisputed leaders of their part of the world. The Roman Empire did not fall into serious decline until the emperors, and everyone else, converted to Christianity. Now that we’ve got our historical facts straight, what was it you were trying to tell us, Ms. Dwyer?
In fact, if you look at the fall of the Roman Empire, you’ll see the institution that survived was the church. For the next several centuries, the church’s power, both political and spiritual, was the only constant in European life. This period was known as the Dark Ages. It was not until people began to challenge the church’s spiritual authority, with the Protestant Reformation and the church’s intellectual authority, with the Enlightenment, that democracy had a chance to emerge in Europe.
OK, so what am I saying now? That good orgies make good government? Bill Clinton would like to think so. I’d have to say, from the evidence, it appears orgies and good government are not mutually exclusive. But that’s not the point. One point is that morality is between you and your conscience and your God, if you believe in God. Another point, the main point, was made by Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The reason the Dark Ages were dark is not because there is a doctrinal flaw in Christianity, but because too much power was vested in the hands of too few people – a handful of kings and bishops and popes.
It’s bad enough when political power is concentrated in the hands of a few people, it’s worse when the same people claim moral, as well as legal superiority. Laws can be broken, laws can be changed. Laws are human creations and we can admit that the law may be wrong, or perhaps outdated. But if the person handing down the law is a pope – or an ayatollah – then it’s not easy for Joe Sixpack to stand up on a street corner and say the law is bunk.
That’s why people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan bother me, because by framing their political arguments in moral terms, they don’t admit the chance they may be wrong.
That’s why Ruth Dwyer bothers me, because her crusade against civil unions and her ranting about “homosexual agendas” carries a subtext that says our gay and lesbian fellow citizens will never, in her eyes, be true Vermonters. And that’s bad government.
There’s one thing those wine-drinking, orgy-attending Romans had going for them: they respected the rule of law and respect for the rule of law is the distinguishing characteristic of all successful governments.
For those of you who need to hang everything on a Bible quote, try Matthew, chapter 22, verse 21: “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, render unto God what belongs to God.”
That advocate for the separation of church and state was Jesus of Nazareth.