A Passion for Destruction

Dear Editor,

On October 11th something very destructive occurred here at WPI. Sadly, it went seemingly unremarked as such because these types of displays have become banal mainstays in our culture. I am referring to the chalking of the WPI campus for "National Coming Out Day". The chalking was destructive for several reasons.

Recently many parents and other concerned citizens were utterly dismayed at the same type of phenomenon occurring at a statewide level and at a taxpayer expense of 1.5 million dollars. I am referring to the 10th Annual GLSEN(Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network)/Boston Conference that was held on Saturday, March 25, 2000 at Tufts University. Students and teachers from around the state were bussed to the conference and received school credit to participate. The program aimed at helping teachers introduce homosexual curriculum into classes with younger students. Worse, however, was that it encouraged the students who were present, students as young as twelve years old, to engage in perverse and physically dangerous sexual acts. Having seen photocopies of the handouts that were distributed at the conference, I can assure you that this is not an exaggeration. Audio recordings of the workshops are available even though the courts placed a gag order on people who are trying to alert parents of the situation. I will not detail here what was said and shown to these children for modesty' sake; it was beyond reprehensible, beyond pornographic, beyond belief and beyond description - what occurred at the conference was destructive, nihilistic, and infernal!

What kind of country are we living in when parents are denied the right to access the same information their children are learning in school programs? The Parent's Rights Coalition was not satisfied by the courts' judgment that wiretapping laws were broken. These laws were devised to aid the police in working against organized crime, not to frustrate the attempts of parents in providing their children with a safe education. So the Coalition invited former republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes to be their spokesman to Gov. Paul Cellucci at the state house in Boston. Dr. Keyes argued thoughtfully and at length that the GLSEN conference infringed seriously on first amendment rights: "...the true meaning of the first amendment to the Constitution which enjoins the state from interfering with the free exercise of religion...has to do not with what we believe, but with our right to translate that belief into action in the way we live." The state sanctioned program clearly thwarted parents attempting to exercise their religious values. The most fundamental way that parents exercise their religious beliefs is in the moral instruction of their children. The program violated this constitutional right because it forcefully exposed children to doctrines antithetical to this sort of positive moral instruction. The chalking on campus is, of course, not to be equated in intent with the GLSEN conference. The chalk messages washed away after a single day of rain, but the minds of the children who attended the GLSEN conference have been permanently scarred. Nevertheless, lack of moral sobriety easily leads from disregarding the seemingly benign to passing over the infernal unawares.

At the statehouse protest, Dr. Keyes also argued that the human ability to "confront and control" the passions is the very foundation for all moral instruction. To encourage children to indulge rather than to resist the impulses of the passions confounds moral instruction. Morality is denying oneself the pleasure of indulgence and forcing oneself to act in the opposed virtuous manner. The goal of moral instruction, according to Dr. Keyes, is to form children "Who in the face of passion can instead respond to compassion, who in the face of greed can instead respond to justice, who in the face of anger can instead respond to humanity and decency and mercy." The passions: gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, hopelessness, sloth, vainglory, and pride, are destructive to the individual and to society at large. Each passion is an aspect of our foul desire to exalt ourselves above others regardless of the harm this may cause and to satisfy ourselves with temporal things with which we will never be satisfied. Great societies and great people have not cultivated within themselves the passions, but rather the opposing virtues: self control, a pure and chaste heart, charity, long-suffering patience, hope in God, love of labor, contrition of heart, and humility.

It is in this way that the superficially good-hearted chalking on campus was destructive: beneath the mere language of ideals such as equality, respect, and tolerance is the message that we should be subservient to the passions that oppose the formation of character. During the chalking the message was promoted that sexuality is a condition equivalent to race. This is a manipulative appeal to emotion rather than reason. Race is a physical aspect of a person totally beyond that person's moral control. Sexuality, however, is not an imposed physical state but is the sexual behavior of a person and within the control of the will. Many argue, however, that sexuality consists not in behavior but in inclinations and predispositions. It is true that sexual thoughts and desires can arise spontaneously. However, like the thoughts that proceed any self indulgent action, we can choose not to attach our feelings to such thoughts, not to join our wills with them, to struggle against them so they do not become habit and bring us into captivity. The disease of the passions stains the entire human race; it is only the priority that differs. To equate sexual orientation to race is to say that it is impossible to control sexual passion, and by extension all the passions are beyond control. Such arguments are destructive because they propose that we serve the passions that oppose the formation of virtue and character. But if we are capable of overcoming the passions, then we should certainly refrain from making an immodest display of them as in the case of the campus chalking. Such displays mock the dignity to which we are called and of that which we are capable.

As a student of WPI, I was very embarrassed to be present on campus for the duration of the chalking. Further, I was uncomfortable seeing prospective students and their parents on campus during this time. I extend my empathy to administrators and especially to the professors who have taken the time to instill a right ethical awareness in their students. There are many organizations at WPI that encourage high moral standards for those involved. In addition there are many engineering projects aimed specifically at helping society and individuals with our many technical talents. However, as a university we must realize that character is far more than academics, service, or philanthropy, but it is an irreproachable standard and the cultivation of moral excellence.

Sources and information:

Information about the GLSEN conference can be obtained through "The Massachusetts News" at www.massnews.com.

All quotations of Dr. Alan Keyes come from his speech at the Massachusetts state house on July 25, 2000.