My non-Trump loving but still very conservative parents read and shared their take on a recent Time magazine article about Gender Creative Parenting. They were appalled and had never heard of anything like this before. (I have no idea how deep the rock under which they’ve been is. Our kids were raised very neutrally until they defined themselves but we never labeled it.) and my Dad is in a tizzy about how against “natural law” this is. They obviously aren’t supporters of gay marriage or LG people in general in recommending lifelong abstinence- and certainly not BTQIA.
So I was put on the spot and didn’t have enough concrete pushback as at least my dad is willing and interested to hear out conflicting information. But I have been searching without good luck this morning for outdated articles which use the “natural law” argument against other topics. Some ideas that I came up with are:
Geocentric theory (pre-Copernicus)
Evolution/Scopes Monkey Trial
Segregation (my parents are absolutely not racist themselves as far too many BIPOC marriages and cousins, but they fully recognize they are voting for them)
Interracial marriage
Social Darwinism (this one is weak as doesn’t really have solid Christianity backing that I know).
but surely there are others you can think of.
If you have any other ideas that shatter “natural law”, I would appreciate them! And if you have any contemperaneous articles or books which use a natural law argument, I’d appreciate any references. (I am a scientist so much better at finding up-to-date research than older sources!)
Just as an aside, it always amuses me to see how these people think that “natural laws” can be upturned by a trend. I mean, if it’s really a natural law then casual efforts can’t possibly change it, right? They seem to lack actual conviction in their beliefs.
If they’re fans of Thomas Jefferson, he seems to have held that “our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Along those lines, and for an anecdote from the discussion, I went in the direction of what does natural mean? Reproduction, right? to keep the line going. So wouldn’t it be thus unnatural to sequester away the best people, those most in touch with God from being natural?.. Then how do you justify the abstinence of priests and nuns as being part of your natural law? Response was bible and Jesus, of course, to which I stated, “there is literally 0 mention of nuns at all and not really any mention of abstinence, so it really seems that you are conflating your natural law with just tradition” and thus the relevance to your comment about laws that seem to be able to be changed!
Ask him which element of his day-to-day existence is remotely “natural”. From his cell phone to the TV to his car to his morning coffee to his 40-hour-a-week (or whatever) job to basically everything in his day to day life. If he’s had a medical condition of any kind, ask if he should even be alive now if it were up to nature.
Humans spent most of their few hundred thousand years of existence in tribes of a hundred people or so and no more technology than fire, spears, and basic clothing. Anything past that is a very recent divergence from the “natural” state of our species. Even keeping solely to social elements, the typical American nuclear family is very different from tribal life; as much different as any gender whatever parenting style.
Only women get pregnant, only women menstruate, and so forth.
To an overwhelming extent, yes, there is a natural law that governs issues about gender, and they can’t be handwaved away by “I want to be a boy instead of a girl” or vice versa.
There are similar screeds about the “natural” inferiority and/or separateness of the Irish, the Jews, you name it. Tell me what your parents are proudest of being and I can probably come up with some historical source arguing that “natural law” requires it to be placed in some kind of subordinated or inferior position.
There’s a quote from The African Queen that might fit nicely here. From the very proper missionary played by Katharine Hepburn to the rough riverboat captain played by Humphrey Bogart, “Nature , Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.”
The words “natural law” don’t appear here but these are some examples much along the same lines – much was made of the “unnatural” speed of new-fangled technology like steam locomotives and later, automobiles. Notice, incidentally, the misogyny underlying all three of the examples here, especially the one about women being psychologically unfit to drive cars:
Notice that this speech is invoking “science”, not “natural law”. And I recently read an interview with the president of Hillsdale college which claimed that persons who made arguments in favor of slavery based on so-called “scientific reasoning” were therefore “progressives”. (Note: Hillsdale is a conservative college where “progressive” is considered a negative term.)
Definitions vary according to political leaning, but from listening to conservative comentators, I think they believe they differentiate between “regular” laws as “man made”, and “natural law” as “coming from” or “inspired by” God, although the details are fuzzy. I suspect they also would list science as a human activity that isn’t always related to God. I also suspect there are numerous books on this topic that I have never read because, as noted above, it seems like in most cases “natural law” is just persons claiming that “God wants the same thing that I do”.
Citing natural law is an indication of willful ignorance. My grandmother did this when we talked to her about gay people, but then again, she was born in 1891.