More about choosing to live a difficult life.

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BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT
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The Whisper Zone
Why We're Losing Our Right to Speak Out

May 1, 2008

David Woodward is a political science professor at Clemson University -- one who has first-hand experience on how dangerous it can be to speak out in favor of traditional values: He almost lost his job over it.

In 1993, Woodward was asked to testify about the political power of homosexual groups in American life. He agreed to serve as an expert witness for the state of Colorado, which was fighting to defend the recently passed Amendment Two, which made it illegal to give protected status based on sexual orientation.

In his new book, WHY WE WHISPER: RESTORING OUR RIGHT TO SAY IT'S WRONG, co-authored by my friend, the able South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, Woodward writes, "In that one decision, I unexpectedly jeopardized my academic career and entered . . . into the fiercest battle of the emergent culture wars."

To publicly oppose the campaign for same-sex "marriage" and gay rights was, he writes, "the equivalent to being sent to the university Gulag." He was denied an administrative position on the grounds that he was "ideologically incompatible" with the values of the university. He often found the word homophobe scribbled on his office door. The press viciously attacked him for his views.

But in private, Woodward was hearing a different message. People would call to whisper encouragement. So did parents and university staffers. Some students came into his office, carefully closed the door, and whispered their support. "The one thing they all had in common is that they were all scared, and they all spoke in whispers," Woodward writes.

Homosexuality is not the only issue Americans can no longer speak freely about: Speaking up in support of any traditional belief will earn you attacks from secular elites. "Whether individual, parent, church, or business, Americans holding traditional values are trapped in a 'whisper zone'," Woodward and DeMint write, "surrounded by invisible electric fences that threaten to 'shock' them if they cross unmarked legal lines."

This can come sometimes in the form of ridicule and intimidation -- sometimes with lawsuits, as we at Prison Fellowship know so painfully well after three years of fighting Americans United over our successful prison program in Iowa. All too often, secularist judges and legislators have thrown the power of the law behind their views -- making it ever harder to speak out for traditional positions.

But as Woodward and DeMint point out, "historically, freedom of speech is crucial in any democracy." They note that our founders understood that the ability to express our differences publicly was democracy's substitute for violence.

Democracy is -- by definition -- a conversation about what is good and what is right and wrong; what is fair to all. "The demise of good government comes when this conversation is abbreviated, as we believe it has been," Woodward and DeMint write. The result: We are now suffering from, as John Stuart Mill put it, the "tyranny of prevailing opinion."

"The continued decline of America's moral life," Woodward and DeMint say, "will prove fatal to our society."

I agree, and that is why you need to become informed about biblical worldview and about the so-called culture wars. And a good place to start is with DeMint and Woodward's book, WHY WE WHISPER. Learn more about how and why we are losing our right to speak freely. And then -- speak up! Loud and clear.

Imagine the following social experiment: You divide up Americans into two groups. Those who agreed to live by traditional moral values live in certain states. Those who reject traditional values take up residence in other states that would allow them to do whatever they pleased, morally speaking.

After 20 years, which states would be better off -- economically speaking? The traditional values states would be far better off, because the liberal states would be spending $500 billion dollars every year dealing with the economic costs of their moral decisions.

Senator Jim DeMint and David Woodward outline those costs in their book, titled: WHY WE WHISPER: RESTORING OUR RIGHT TO SAY IT'S WRONG. As the authors note, “As elected officials and judges continue to throw traditions overboard from the ship of state,” conspicuously absent from the political debate “is the mounting cost in dollars [and] debt.”

For example, there is the cost in treating sexually transmitted diseases. Research shows that more than half of all Americans will contract a sexually transmitted disease at some point. The cost: Some $17 billion in higher taxes and health insurance costs every year. And that does not include secondary costs, like treating cervical cancer, infertility, birth defects, and brain damage. And yet, our government does little or nothing to discourage premarital sex.

And then there are the huge costs of out-of-wedlock childbearing. Welfare costs alone to single-parent families amount to $148 billion per year. We pay indirectly, as well, through costs associated with child abuse -- much more common in single-parent homes -- and in higher crime rates.

We know about this at Prison Fellowship. We see it in the faces of the inmates day after day. Crime and incarceration rates are soaring -- so much so that corrections budgets in many states exceed education budgets. And what is the leading cause of crime? Fatherless families, the lack of moral training during the morally formative years, according to respected studies.

Americans spend billions on abortions -- mostly to single women -- not counting the expense of treating post-abortion medical and psychological problems.

We also pay huge economic bills associated with pornography and government-sponsored gambling. We pay for the easy availability of divorce and for the choice of many to cohabit instead of marry. In time we will, like Scandinavian countries, be asked to pay the economic costs of destroying traditional marriage.

As DeMint and Woodward write, the quest for unfettered moral freedom has come at a very steep price -- a price we all pay, whether we engage in these behaviors or not. And at the same time as we pay -- more and more each year -- we are being told we are narrow-minded bigots if we speak out against the destructive behaviors that are causing the increased costs.

The economic costs -- not to mention the costs in human suffering -- are why you and I need to speak out. We ought to insist that our lawmakers support policies that make good economic sense and relieve human misery. Instead of making biblical arguments, which sadly, most people do not listen to anymore, we ought to make prudential ones: that encouraging destructive behavior is destroying the economic health of our nation. And it is demonstrable.

If special-interest groups and liberal lawmakers tell us to pipe down and stop trying to “impose our morality” on everyone else, we need to remind our leaders of that little clause in the Constitution: the one that talks about promoting the general welfare.