Justice and True Sexual Nature: Day 34

‘Justice is the virtue which enables man to give to each one his due.’

(The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper, p. 44)

‘We cannot state the basis of a right…unless we have a concept of man, of human nature. But what if it is claimed that there is, absolutely speaking, no human nature?’ (The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper, p. 49)

‘Man, however, is a person--a spiritual being, a whole unto himself, a being that exists for itself and of itself, that wills its own proper perfection. Therefore, and for that very reason, something is due to man in the fullest sense, for that very reason he does inalienably have a right… which he can plead against everyone else, a right which imposes upon one of his partners the obligation at least not to violate it...If on the contrary, man’s personality is not acknowledged to be something wholly and entirely real, then right and justice cannot possibly be established.’ (The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper, p. 50)

We are in a muddle. When SCOTUS incorporated LGBT+ ‘natures’ into a status to be protected alongside ethnicity and biological sex (June 2020; Bostock versus Clayton County), we as a nation served injustice to confused persons today and generations-to-come. Justice means we recognize each person’s inalienable right to their essential nature which must be recognized and treated with dignity. Therefore, we commit a grave injustice to codify any person’s dehumanizing construct of self that violates prudence, ‘the truth of real things.’

Now, from the highest court, we defend destructive identities that violate human nature and a person’s own best shot at happiness. LGBT+ constructed selves are man-made--neither inborn nor impermeable--and are at core nothing like ethnicity or biological sex. We cultivate compassion for persons whose damage tempts them to find completion in their own gender or to seek to become the other. For this we offer healing, not confirmation of a perilous solution. Yet we now champion and guard that solution--an unravelling, ever-fracturing standard of identity that dehumanizes all involved. Further, we have deceived generations-to-come who will be that much more inclined to catch the contagion of ‘gender-is-whoever-I -want-to be.’

Justice--giving persons what is due them, for their own good, hinges upon prudence--Reality. Whether or not a person embraces the Father through Jesus isn’t the point. Someone designed us and we are at peace with ourselves only when we recognize His true design in us. Pope Emeritus Benedict writes: “Man has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-created freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is righty ordered if he respects nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.”

To forego our natures for confusing inclinations and destructive solutions is imprudent and unjust. J. Budziszewski writes: “A natural inclination is not whatever I desire…the point of the adjective ‘natural’ is precisely to call attention to design. It is natural for me to be attracted to the opposite sex, even if I am attracted to my own…The mere fact that I want something means little by itself…What matters is how we naturally incline--by design, according to the Designer.”

We must not allow bad legal precedents to sway us. We can and must embrace Reality as it is so that we can invite persons into the Designer’s best for them. We serve justice to the vulnerable precisely when we do. We love people most sacrificially when we refuse to agree with their self-imposed prisons. And we do our communities and our nations a favor by opposing decidedly unnatural precedents. Upholding human nature, we serve justice for all.

‘Jesus, have mercy on us. “Justice is driven back, righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets…whoever shuns evil becomes a prey” (Is. 59:14). Grant us clarity and courage to behold humanity as it is and to champion Your image and dignity in each one. Make us agents of Your justice today and for generations-to-come.’

‘Jesus, thank You that we are first and foremost citizens of Your Kingdom. Your saving purposes, the plans of Your heart, endure forever (Ps. 33: 11). Patriotism and its partisan interests must bow before “Thy will be done.” “The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, who hope in His unfailing love” (Ps. 33: 18).’