Even Men can Understand Women's Rights!

It is often heard, from women who support birth control, that they don't see where a celibate clergyman ought to be judge to the issue because they can't really understand woman's rights. Yet those same women won't denounce a celibate clergyman who agrees with them on the grounds they're men.

Similarly, they say that men shouldn't legislate about banning abortion, because they can't really understand what that might mean to women. But they don't hold the same point with male lawmakers who vote for abortion rights, even though they presumably can't understand woman's needs either. Indeed, whenever a man supports a so-called woman's right in a way which women (or, should we say, liberal women) like, he is not condemned. But why should male affirmation mean any more than male denial if men cannot possibly understand a woman's position?

Two things come up here. One is that it is arrogant to assert that men cannot understand a woman's rights merely because they're men. Women sure don't mind respecting a man's opinion if it coincides with theirs; dismissing male opinion as automatically wrongheaded if it disagrees with a woman's is, simply, hubris.

Two, it is more likely that someone not directly involved in an issue would be more readily impartial than someone who wants a certain outcome. We have umpires and referees in sports precisely because, although they may not be the actual players, they are expected and indeed are more likely to be impartial than the players. An umpire says safe or out independent of the player, who would more likely rule his own way given the chance.

This isn't to say that all umpires are right and all players wrong each and every time. But it is to say that objective right is something anyone can grasp if they want it. Whether the rule maker or opinion giver is male or female means nothing to right and wrong about anyone or anything.

Government and Right and Wrong

Over at the Daily Beast, they're ranting about libertarian conservative Rand Paul's seeming tilt to the traditionally conservative side on social issues. He has introduced, along with Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), a bill which defines life as beginning at conception. It is their plan to sidestep the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling of 1973.

The fear seems to be that the newly elected Republicans are more intent on addressing social issues than what the Tea Party as a whole appears to be. But why not address them? What we stand for as a nation is important, and there's no reason conservatives should take the flak they do over standing up for the moral points they believe in. Liberals social issues activists certainly aren't subject to the general disdain which is heaped on the GOP.

The fact of the matter is that things such as health care, education, and aid to the poor and unemployed, even questions of the exact nature of the state in our lives, are just as much social questions, are themselves as fully moral issues, as abortion and gay rights. Why should conservatives be expected to check their morals at the door when what is important to them is at stake? No one asks the pro-death crowd (those in favor of abortion) to leave their creed private.

Governments can, do, and indeed must address the critical social issues which face humanity day in and day out. It is time that people learned to accept that the sum of good government is in truth government which does only what it should, even, or, perhaps, especially, where important moral rights and wrongs are at stake.