What does it mean to be human? Is the individual person made in the image of God or the image of the animal?
The question of human identity is perhaps the most important question of our time. Everything we talk about and argue over — whether it be politics, morality, justice or human rights — rests on how we respond to this one basic question: Who are we and what does it mean to be human?
The answer from progressives is clear. Their solution is to dumb down the definition of the human being to little more than what we are inclined to do. For the proponents of “Pride Month,” passions and proclivities define the person. Inclinations equal the individual. If you want to do it, then that is just who you are.
Reason and rationality take a back seat to emotions. There is no such thing as an objective definition of a man or woman or boy or girl. With apologies to Shania Twain, if a dude “feels like a woman,” then that is what he is. Desire defines everything.
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe human beings are more than this. Our appetites and desires do not determine who we are. We can and should rise above our instincts, our gut and our libido. We can and should choose to act differently. We can and should control ourselves and behave morally.
Conservatives know there are many things we may want to do that we simply should not do. Unlike the animals around us, we refuse to define ourselves by our desires.
For approximately 4,000 years, the Judeo-Christian tradition has affirmed all this. For several millennia, we have understood that people yearn for justice while our dogs, horses and cows do not. Throughout the annals of time, conservatives have known that issues such as tolerance, love, inclusion, equality and fairness are uniquely human.
