Sex, Happiness, and the Presidential Election

Christopher West

The election of an African American president shows just how far our nation has come in addressing its racial prejudices. This is a sign of hope in which we should all rejoice. For our nation has demonstrated that it can change its wrong-held beliefs, even deep-seated ones. That's a good thing, because I'd contend that our nation's embrace of Barack Obama points to some other deep-seated beliefs that we will eventually need to change if we are ever to flourish as a people.

It should go without saying that my reservation about Obama has absolutely nothing to do with his skin color. Rather, it has to do with fundamental issues of life and death and love and sex that Obama believes are "above his pay grade." Well, I'd like to lobby for Obama to receive an increase in salary so that he can take a deeper look at what does and does not lead to human happiness and the flourishing of a nation.

It comes up during every presidential election. Eight years ago, during the Bush-Gore "chad saga," Francis Fukuyama, professor of public policy at George Mason University, summarized it well in his Wall Street Journalarticle entitled "What Divides America." The real debate, he argued, is not over foreign policy or the economy. The real issues, he said, stem from our understanding of and approach to sex.

He wrote: "The single most important social change to have taken place in the United States over the past forty years concerns sex and the social role of women, and it is from this single source that virtually all of the "culture wars" stem. Uncomfortable as it may be to acknowledge this fact, the breakdown of the nuclear family, reflected in rising divorce rates, illegitimacy and cohabitation in place of marriage, stems from ... the separation of sex from reproduction thanks to birth control and abortion" (Wall Street Journal; Nov 15, 2000, p. A26).

In short, it seems to me that "what divides America" are two competing ideas of human happiness. Both have enormous and divergent personal, social, moral, cultural, economic, and political implications. And the pivot is what we do with the basic fact that sex leads to babies.

One idea says that the key to human happiness is to sever sex from fertility. Once we are free to indulge our sexual urges without the burden and "punishment" (as Obama "perhaps in a slip of the tongue" put it) of children, we will find the earthly paradise for which we all long. The other competing idea is that human happiness, instead, comes from embracing "with all its required sacrifices " the most natural and beautiful result of sex: the family.

Sometime during the twentieth century, our nation " at least the majority of those in academia, the media, and politics " bought into the sever-sex-from-babies version of happiness. In turn, these influencers systematically injected this belief into our educational system, entertainment, and legislation. Obama is a card-carrying member of this program. By and large, those who hold the same views elected him president.

Much is at stake in our understanding of sex and fertility. Our choices here have the power to orient "not just individuals, but entire nations " towards respect for human life, or towards its utter disregard. Indeed, our sexual choices "for good or for ill" are, ultimately, what shape the world in which we live. How so? Sex builds and shapes families. Families build and shape neighborhoods. Neighborhoods build and shape communities. Communities build and shape cities. Cities build and shape states. States build and shape nations. Nations build and shape the world.

What might the world look like if we actually organized society around the fact that sex leads to babies rather than organizing society around fighting this fact? Why, we must ask ourselves, are we so prejudicial towards fertility? Have you heard the label "breeders"? It comes from the far left, it's aimed at those who are rearing and raising children, and, I assure you, it's not a compliment.

We've shown great strides as a nation in overcoming racial prejudice with the election of Obama. Can we also overcome our deep-seated prejudice against our own fertility? Human happiness and the future of civilization depend on it. And I have hope that it's possible. In a strange way, the election of Obama has increased that hope.