UNITED KINGDOM
Conservative Home
By Roger Scruton.
Our society has not come to terms with the sexual revolution, and one proof of this is the extent to which people seem now free to accuse each other of sexual misdemeanours and ‘inappropriate’ advances, without knowing or caring whether these constitute a crime. This matter is of great concern to conservatives who, for all their reticence in the matter, are well aware that sexual life ought not to be a free for all, and that conventions, manners and a certain distance between the sexes are fundamental to both individual happiness and social peace. Like other modern people, however, they stumble through this dangerous territory without the light of religious principle to guide them, and leaning, when it is necessary to lean, on an entirely makeshift philosophy. Indeed, it seems to me that the absence of a robust view of sex is one reason for the ideological weakness of the Conservative Party. The hesitation over family values, the sudden and unexplained enthusiasm for gay marriage, the easy toleration of ‘non-discrimination’ laws that marginalise the old morality – all these are ways of papering over an enormous hole in the conservative vision, and one that simply did not exist when the founding fathers of conservatism wrote in the 18th century. …
Even worse, it seems to me, is the case of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who is accused of entirely unspecific acts that occurred during his younger days. None of his accusers suggests that anything the Cardinal did amounts to a crime in law. Perhaps they are such virtuous people that they have never got drunk and attempted to kiss the attractive person sitting next to them. Indeed, one hopes that, being priests, they have behaved in the exemplary way that Cardinal O’Brien may not have been able always to live up to. But what a fuss, and with what consequences, not only for the Cardinal himself, but for the Church to which the primary loyalty of his accusers is owed!
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