Natural Law is not Bigotry

Ken Cuccinelli

George Weigel's editorial, "The Natural Law = Bigotry" Please," is worth reading. The editorial is written in response to the histrionic attack in a Washington Post editorial against Ken Cuccinelli, elected attorney of Virginia by a 15% margin of victory. The Washington Post called the Catholic Cuccinelli "extremist" and moved by "bigotry" for having the audacity of stating in public what would have been a commonplace less than a generation ago, that is, that homosexual behavior is contrary to the natural law, and, what is worse, temerariously suggesting that the natural law may be a useful guiding in determining public policy. For the anonymous author of the Post editorial, the term "natural law" is nothing but a "retrofit [of] the old language of racism, bias, and intolerance in a new context."

Bohunk. All of it. To oust natural law from the public square is to condemn Plato and Aristotle, Cicero, all the Roman and medieval jurists, Thomas Jefferson, Supreme Court Justices Marshall and Wilson, the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, and every single pope from St. Peter to Benedict XVI. It is to commit to the ashbin such documents as the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. It condemns the Catholics St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suarez, Francisco de Victoria, and the Protestants William Blackstone, Hugo Grotius, Emmerich de Vattel, and dozen of other jurists in one fell swoop. It is to deprecate the United Nations declarations on human rights. Nay, it is to throw out of the public square as persona non grata all men of good will, regardless of color, creed, or culture. The natural moral law is universal, and not particular or confessional.

In a word, absurd. Read Weigel.

George Weigel