Representative Amash responded:
This exchange between two public figures known for their conservative bonafides highlights a central problem in our current political discourse. I'm not speaking of the sharp language that often characterizes modern political disagreements, though I think the two issues are related. I'm speaking of a way of viewing laws and public policy which has harmful effects on our ability to discuss such things.
In his book Natural Law for Lawyers, J. Budziszewski describes it this way:
Liberal legal thinkers...conclude that thick moral realism is all wrong. In their view, lawmakers should assume not the reality and necessity of the common moral ground, but the impossibility of a common moral ground. The only possible common ground is amoral, or as they say, "neutral." They say that laws and public institutions must award equal concern and respect for all possible goals, aspirations, and conceptions of the right way to live. Only in this way, they think, can we escape the futility of endless arguments and carve out a public space in which people of every point of view can get along. (Introduction: Why Natural Law?)Neutralism sees discrimination within and between moral views as the ultimate cause of disagreement and strife in society, and focuses on stamping it out using the law. Its ideal is an open society where all moral points of view are respected and people may freely choose between them.
However, neutralism itself is a mirage, an impossible goal. Budziszewski, again, provides an example based on the issue of abortion:
Neutralists apply the principle of equal concern and respect not only to competing views of what ought to be, but to competing views of what is. For example, rather than finding out whether the child in the womb is a human being, they claim to award equal concern and respect to the view that he is and the view that he isn't. Since we can't say which view is true, they say, a woman should be free to carry the child or abort him, as she sees fit.The neutralist, however, cannot maintain this position:
Instead of saying that "I can kill the baby because he might not be human," why don't we say that "Since he might be human, I shouldn't"? What this shows us is that would-be neutralists don't really award equal concern and respect to every view of what the baby is. Actually they award all of their concern and respect to one view of what the baby is: Abracadabra, he's human if I think of him as human, otherwise not. This is a Harry Potter view of reality, an ontology for sorcerers. I can make the child an abscess, a blood clot, or a tumor...whatever I want. It's all in my mind anyway.In the Twitter exchange above, Rep. Amash's view meshes closely with neutralism. In his view, the federal government should not give protections to religious employers who may wish to make hiring decisions based on "sexual orientation" or "gender identity." The law must be neutral, and religious persons should not be allowed to "discriminate."
By using that word, however, Rep. Amash falls into the trap described by Budziszewski. In this case, the law cannot be neutral.
If the law prohibits all employers from making hiring decisions on the basis of "sexual orientation" or "gender identity," it forces some religious employers to violate their sincerely held beliefs. In order to guarantee the most liberty to the most people, the law should at the very least exempt religious employers from such restrictions. If it will not, then the law itself discriminates against the moral views of religious believers.
The neutralist is therefore faced with a choice: drop the charade and hold that the law should discriminate against certain moral views held by religious employers, or admit that neutralism as a whole does not provide a satisfying answer to moral dilemmas in the law. Either way, neutralism does not and cannot stand as a valid method of interpreting law or weighing moral choices in the public square.
How does this relate to the way we discuss politics? We may wish to deny it, but our moral views affect our politics quite deeply. Neutralism unfairly cramps our ability to discuss political issues, because it forces us to pretend that all moral views are equally praiseworthy. Thus, political disagreements quickly turn personal, because our moral views depend only on our own beliefs.
There is another way, however: recognition that a higher law exists, beyond any human law, that provides a foundation for our moral decision-making. We innately know that some things are right, and other things are wrong. For example, Rep. Amash and Dr. Anderson may disagree about whether basing hiring decisions on "sexual orientation" is wrong, but they likely agree that it is right that everyone should receive his fair due. There is room for disagreement on what is "fair," and what is "due," and how to reach this end, but the moral principle still unites them.
Our political discussions are passionate, but they do not have to turn bitter or pointed. Neutralism guarantees that they will by denying any ground for moral views outside of personal preference, ignoring any possibility of moral principles that are true at all times and all places. Recognizing that such principles exist is the first step toward a more productive discussion of the moral choices and social issues that affect us all.
