Robert G. Morrison

Mesdames et Messieurs, Senoras y Senors, Damen und Herren, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is an honor to join this distinguished Congress to discuss vital questions affecting the family in the new Millennium. I look forward to greater friendship, solidarity and mutual co-operation on all the matters that will be explored here in this historic and gracious Geneva.

We meet in the waning days of a century marked by unprecedented violence and terror. We may each pray that this Congress will help to usher in a new era in which human rights are respected, but in which human rights are clearly understood to be the gifts of the God who made us and loves us.

As we celebrate the recent anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, it might be wise for us to consider what brought about this inhuman symbol of tyranny. Berlin was, of course, a divided city in the middle of a divided state, and it symbolized a divided humanity.

Konrad Adenauer, the post-war Chancellor, saw the rise of Nazi Germany as having been made possible by the surrender of religious principles and beliefs to the idolatry of the state. He said:

Chancellor Adenauer understood the vital teaching of his Catholic Church and he applied to the problems of restoring his great country to the community of nations. First, though, he had to restore the sound philosophical basis for governance.

He recognized the danger posed by materialist philosophy:

Anyone who works for the centralization of political and economic power in the hands of the state or of one class…is an enemy of the freedom of the individual and bound to prepare the way for dictatorship in the minds of his adherents.[ii]

But Adenauer did not see the state and the individual as the only actors in the drama of social life. He certainly knew from his own life experience the importance of family as a bulwark against the overwhelming power of the state. It was, after all, Adenauer’s son, an army officer, who rescued him from prison and sure death at the hands of the Nazis. The future chancellor called his escape “a miracle of God.”

British statesman Edmund Burke gives to us one of the greatest examples of patriotism, piety and farsightedness. Burke was a friend not only to the people of Britain, but an advocate for Catholic emancipation in Ireland, an advocate of conciliation with the American colonies and an ardent defender of the natural rights of the people of India. This world-renowned statesman clearly knew of the vital role of family life and its relation to the life of the nation. Burke understood, as few have understood so well since, how important these “little platoons” are:

We should learn to love “the little platoon we belong to in society.” That little platoon is the “germ of public affections.” We can see in the recent spate of school shootings in America and elsewhere a failure to learn to love and guard the little platoons. That hatred of all that is warm, familiar and near can and does manifest itself as violence directed to others outside the family. Burke believed that our civic affections begin with the family.

Too often in today’s world, governments teach contempt for the family. This is tragically true in many places in the United States. Nowhere is this more the case than in the vital connection of family life to sexuality, to preparing children for responsible adulthood, marriage and the perpetuation of family life. For nearly forty years, it has been the policy of the government of the United States to use our taxpayer dollars to fund so-called family planning clinics. Democratic and Republican presidents and Congresses have perpetuated this policy. These centers seek out minor children with a message of sexual promiscuity and premarital intimacy. For most parents, this teaching goes against what they teach in the home. But in the case of sexuality education, the government actually pays its servants to debauch the youth.

Increasingly, we see attempts not only to fund free-standing clinics which send out these damaging messages to youth, but also in our country to create so-called health clinics within government schools that can more aggressively and more directly spread the message of sexual immorality to the young.

In Washington, D.C., pro-family organizations like the Family Research Council spend their days fighting off such attempts. It is particularly objectionable that these school-based clinics are often targeted at poor and minority youth—including many Black, Hispanic and Asian young people. The message in these instances is doubly damaging: Your government wants you to disobey your parents’ teaching and your government believes you cannot abstain from out-of-wedlock sex.

We believe that the already deeply divisive question of abortion is exacerbated by the effort of the federal government to support teenage sexual activity outside of marriage. So long as the government tells young people it is all right, millions of parents will be locked in a great struggle with the government of the country they love. In America, so arrogant have the practitioners of sexual revolution become that they brazenly demand the power to give contraceptive devices and sexually suggestive literature to the young without their own parents’ knowledge or consent. In the Christian community, we refer to these programs as “the millstone lobby” because of Jesus’ warnings against leading the young into sin.

I had the honor of discussing this with a counselor of the Japanese Embassy recently. He asked why American religious conservatives were so demanding, why were we so unwilling to be more accommodating of government programs. When I told him that a twelve year old boy or girl could be outfitted with contraception by government agents without first telling the child’s parents, he was genuinely shocked. Nothing like that would be likely to happen in Japan, he said, where the family is held in high regard.

In American public schools, religious children have been forced to submit to vulgar talk by sex instructors and to explicit models that offend all norms of modesty. For a religious child—Muslim, Mormon, Christian or Jew—to be subjected to actual demonstrations of how a condom is applied is a gross violation of family rights.

Not only on questions of family life and human sexuality do millions of Americans take sharp issue with government education policy in the United States. Aristotle said that education is intended to prepare the young to live the good life. But, since men disagree about what constitutes the good life, men will dispute about education. For all those of us who reject the materialist philosophy, dogmatic instruction about the origins of the universe, especially when taught under the auspices of the state, create serious problems of legitimacy.

The materialist philosophy is perhaps best expressed by the views of the late Lord Bertrand Russell of Great Britain. One of this century’s truly brilliant mathematicians, Lord Russell nonetheless scandalized many in his country and abroad with his atheist declarations. He believed that all that exists is “the result of an accidental collocation of atoms” and that “all the noonday brightness of human achievement is destined for extinction in the vast death of the Universe.” Such a nihilistic philosophy, we believers know, cannot help but have profound and disastrous consequences for the moral code of any society that embraces its hopeless message. It should not surprise to us, therefore, that Lord Russell urged the United States to wage a pre-emptive nuclear war against the Soviet Union in the years before the Kremlin obtained atomic weapons. Once the USSR had obtained nuclear weapons and the means to retaliate against the West, Russell turned on his heels and said he would crawl on his knees to Moscow to beg for peace.

We thank God that Lord Russell’s ignoble advice was not followed by Britain or by anyone else. But his materialist philosophy surely has a corrosive effect on national honor and public morality wherever it is applied. In the United States, we do not seek to force our religious ideas of life's origins on resisting schoolchildren, but many of us want the growing evidence for intelligent design of the universe to be presented fairly to all. And we urge government honestly to teach students why the controversy over origins exists and why it matters which view is taken.

In the United States, we have no crown jewels. Our gold reserves are not on public display. But our national archives are open to all. When our national capital was invaded during the War of 1812, many soldiers ran away and let the White House, the Capitol building and the Library of Congress be put to the torch. But men and women risked their lives to save the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Simple parchment. Ink on sheepskin. Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, asserts not only that all humans are made equal, but that we are endowed by our Creator with our inalienable rights—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This statement of moral and political philosophy is not a mere expression of antiquated opinion held by a number of white men who are now all dead. It was intended to apply to all mankind and to be the highest expression of our national creed. It was to that opening paragraph that Lincoln returned in his Gettysburg Address. Lincoln believed that America was a nation “so conceived and so dedicated.” When it was suggested recently that schoolchildren should be able to recite the Declaration’s key passage, a feminist group in New Jersey denounced the idea: they did not want young students to learn that the right to life is included in their nation's founding document.

The militance and arrogance with which secular forces demand that the children of believers be indoctrinated into a materialist worldview in government schools is nothing less than stunning. Nearly sixty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the question of whether the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a minority sect, might be compelled by law to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. The Supreme Court in 1943 said that the state had no such power. The decision was widely hailed—as it should have been—as a victory for freedom of belief. Mr. Justice Jackson, who would later win distinction in Europe as a prosecutor at the Nuremburg Tribunals, gave the famous opinion of the court in the case of West Virginia v. Barnette.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

Regrettably, today that sound constitutional doctrine is being undermined in government schools throughout our great country. Officials high and petty do prescribe what shall be orthodox opinion on a whole host of subjects in the curriculum of the schools and in the administration of the schools.

In addition to the previously cited cases—the teaching of sexuality education and the indoctrination into a materialist worldview—American schools today are being force-marched along the path of intellectual, political and religious conformity by federal laws which mandate the setting up of educational “goals” and “standards.” In the guise of achieving a higher level of learning for our young people, the federal government has in effect set up a Ministry of Truth to regiment the teaching of American History, English language, Mathematics, Science and other subjects.

The American History standards established five years ago by a government-funded coalition of professors and high school history teachers were disastrous. Columnist George Will thought they might be better titled “anti-American History Standards.”

These standards mentioned former Sen. Joe McCarthy 19 times, included references to the racist Ku Klux Klan 17 times and laid heavy emphasis on America’s perceived misdeeds, both foreign and domestic. To the standards committee, America is a place where injustice and oppression have been a way of life since Columbus.

Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett challenged that dark and grim view. Apply the “Open Gates Test,” Bennett says. Just announce that for one weekend a year, all the border checkpoints will be opened up to allow free entry or exit from the mainland U.S. Try this just one year, he said, and see which way the traffic flows.

We do not expect American History to be censored. We do not think injustices like slavery or segregation should be de-emphasized. Neither do we think evidences of religious bigotry—against Catholics or Mormons, against Muslims or Jews—should be dismissed. We want to see a more frank discussion of where abortion, infanticide and euthanasia can lead us.

But we do expect that the picture should be a whole one. If the left-leaning history standards committee had been charged with the painting a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, it would not have produced a portrait “warts and all.” Instead, they would have given us Cromwell’s warts—and that’s all.

For example, the very significant presidency of George Washington and the meeting of the First U.S. Congress were completely omitted. So were the figures of Paul Revere, who cried “the British are coming, the British are coming!” throughout his famous ride in 1775. Gen. Robert E. Lee, the brilliant military leader of the Southern Confederate army in the U.S. Civil War was likewise unmentioned. Dr. Jonas Salk, famed discoverer of the polio vaccine was censored out. Very significantly, the history standards committee emphasized Soviet gains in space in the 1960s, covered the tragic Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986, but completely omitted any mention of the U.S. landing on the Moon! That’s correct, they promised us the Moon, but they missed it!

The question is not whether the history standards committee has done a good job producing standards for what every American student should learn about his country’s past. The question is not even whether a private organization like Family Research Council can produce a better study of American history. The real question is how can a free people allow their government to dictate to them what they shall know and what they shall think? Thomas Jefferson said that “it is in the manners and spirit of the people that a republic is preserved in vigor.”

The United States is hardly the only country where such conflicts are being played out. Our neighbor to the north—Canada—is involved in a similar great debate over national identity and the historic past. George Parkin Grant, the distinguished Canadian philosopher, showed how closely connected the nation’s history and its future are connected:

 “…a nation does not remain a nation only because it has roots in the past. Memory is never enough to guarantee that a nation can articulate itself in the present. There must a thrust of intention into the future. When the nation is the intimate neighbour of a dynamic empire, this necessity is even more obvious.”[iii]

For millions of religious believers in America, our reaction to the culture of Hollywood and Madison Avenue and to the government education policy of Washington, D.C. is not so unlike that of Canadians resisting the loss of their identity. We are aware that to the wider world, in the countries you call home, America is too often represented by these things.

But we hope this Congress will afford an opportunity for delegates from around the world to meet and work with Americans who believe in God, who honor marriage and who defend family life.

I am happy to report positive movement in education in the United States. Recently, Congress approved legislation we call “Straight A’s.” Although the President will surely veto it, this new approach to education would send money back to local communities and, with it, the authority to make vital education decisions closer to the schools, closer to the teachers and students and their parents. We are very hopeful about this new direction in education legislation. For thirty years, virtually all education legislation has concentrated power and resources in Washington. Now, at long last, we can see the tide turning.

I can also report on a fast-growing trend: home schooling. Although I will leave details of this exciting movement to the distinguished representatives of the home schooling movement, I want to emphasize what home schooling means to the constitutional and political structure of the country.

Nearly seventy-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court protected the rights of parents not to send their children to government schools. The state of Oregon had attempted to abolish religious schools by requiring all children to attend public institutions. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), the Court majority said:

The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.[iv]

This wise ruling is being violated every day, in spirit if not in fact. Yet, it continues to give strength and inspiration of the parents of more than a million American school children. Home schooling is a burgeoning movement because it recognizes the role of godly parents and their desire for safe, effective and free schools. In our country, critics often complain that home schooled children will not be socialized. We often counter by saying the home schooled kids will be civilized.

Over one hundred years ago, historian Frederick Jackson Turner remarked upon the closing of the American frontier how much we owed to that remarkable fact. Because the open frontier made it possible for people to leave the East Coast behind and “light out for the territories,” the mere existence of a frontier imparted a democratic character to American institutions and social life, Jackson contended.

I believe that the home schoolers are the pioneers of freedom in America and the world. The mere existence of home schooling in a community improves all education. Private and religious schools are forced by the home schooling alternative to be more attentive to parents. Public authorities, whether by wise choice or by court order, assume a much more reasonable and limited role when dealing with home schoolers. And once a state recognizes the rights of parents to educate their own children at home, the state automatically assumes a less domineering relationship with all parents.

America was based, as a constitutional system, on the idea of limited government. The first limitation on government—anywhere—is religious liberty. Religious liberty is essential not just for the freedom to worship God, but to keep government itself from becoming an idol. Just as Konrad Adenauer said. That is why I say today to all the delegates here that we must fight against religious persecution anywhere in the world.

As Edmund Burke said it: “We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good, and of all comfort.” The country that enjoys religious liberty will be much more likely to be able to mount effective resistance to the baleful influences of pornography, violent entertainment, alcohol and drug abuse.

The second great limitation on government is the recognition of the constitutional rights of parents. Steven Arons of the University of Massachusetts recognizes that when the state claims the right to compel belief, it not only violates the rights of minor children, it also violates the chartered rights of the parents.

A third great limitation on the power of government is an educated citizenry. James Madison said “that people who would be free and ignorant want what never was and never can be.” Home schoolers are proving every day that children educated by their parents are more than a match intellectually as well as spiritually for children regimented in government schools.

Too often in the past, it was the secularists who attended the international meetings. They have a vision of the world, one world, re-shaped in their image. I proudly recognize instead the religious-based worldview of Russia’s great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He called upon his beloved Motherland for “repentence and self-limitation.” His vision of a world of nations in which each historic home represented a different facet of God’s creative powers in human flesh is a deeply appealing one for me. For here, each nation can bring its own distinctive cultural, political and spiritual gifts to the human family.

I pray that this conference will move us toward that vision. And, as George Washington, citing Holy Scripture, wrote to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Rhode Island: “This government gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance and `Let each sit under his own vine and fig tree and let there be none to make him afraid’.”

Endnotes:

[i]  Quoted in Shattan, Joseph, Architects of Victory: Six Heroes of the Cold War, Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1999, p. 96.