For decades I’ve felt that such organizations as Focus on the Family and Moral Majority were little more than vehicles for those who grasped for power. A recent piece by Michael Gerson in WaPo reminded me of this – and lets me add a bit more to my internal narrative:
On sexual harassment, our country is now in a much better ethical place. And how we got here is instructive. Conservatives have sometimes predicted that moral relativism would render Americans broadly incapable of moral judgment. But people, at some deep level, know that rules and norms are needed. They understand that character — rooted in empathy and respect for the rights and dignity of others — is essential in every realm of life, including the workplace.
And where did this urgent assertion of moral principle come from? Not from the advocates of “family values.” On the contrary, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family (now under much better management), chose to side with GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama against his highly credible accusers. “I have been dismayed and troubled,” Dobson said, “about the way he and his wife Kayla have been personally attacked by the Washington establishment.”
It is as if Dobson set out to justify every feminist critique of the religious right. Instead of standing against injustice and exploitation — as the Christian gospel demands — Dobson sided with patriarchal oppression in the cause of political power. This is beyond hypocrisy. It is the solidarity of scary, judgmental old men. It is the ideology of white male dominance dressed up as religion.
Michael notes the divergence between the behaviors of Dobson and the stated principles of his creation, Focus on the Family. In fact, it occurs to me that this is inevitable and diagnostic of just such a situation – that is, the hidden motivations, usually quite base, are at odds with the stated principles and, when a situation becomes critical, those hidden motivations rise and overwhelm the principles.
In all honesty, Focus on the Family has a long history of tawdry behavior, drawing on my memory of various news stories over the decades; I’m not aware of Michael’s reference that it’s under better management now. Then again, I haven’t seen any troubling statements from FotF in a while.
But for those who live their principles, they have less to fear from their behaviors. Not nothing; sometimes principles, even those you generate and enunciate, are ill-understood by yourself; or their implementation is flawed; or they are wrong, in part or in whole. This is ideologically blind, which is to say both left & right have such groups. The question is whether they are capable of self-criticism and mutation; if not, then like any biological species, they risk dying as the environment becomes unsuited to their uncouth conclusions. An extreme and painful example is the Jim Jones cult.
But the mendacity of the former can lead to difficulty in predicting their goals and behavior, beyond certain generalities. At least the latter can be trusted to cling to their principles; the difficulty is dissuading them from bad principles. You can apply this to your favorite group to distrust, whether they’re the too-shrill feminists, the antifa movement, or the anti-abortionists.
