By Cliff Nichols

Tolerance continues to march on. It is reported that Maryland Governor Ehrlich recently canned a public official for expressing his personal belief that homosexuality is immoral. In explaining his tolerance policy, Ehrlich said he is intolerant of any view that opposes the homosexual lifestyle and its promotion in government. Apparently he feels such people’s morals are opposed to his administration’s commitment to tolerance. I guess the gist of it all is that he just won’t tolerate people who are morally opposed to tolerating anything else other than more tolerant people may want to do. So, you few remaining out there who do have morals that contradict the politically correct should beware that George Orwell’s world lives.

One down side to all of this is that many — if not most — of our laws are predicated on some basis of morality. From requiring fair play in business to thou shalt not murder, cheat and steal, our laws are a reflection of our culture’s collective morality. That morality, in turn, is the product of consensus, and that requires open discourse. When some people’s freedom to express their opinions about morality is chilled, however, the consensus that will be reached over time will become increasingly skewed and our laws will follow.

A prime example of this principle is the moral debate that surrounded the death of Terri Schiavo. There were some who believed that all human life has an inherent sacred value. Generally speaking, they were referred to in the debate as the “Christian Right.” As such, they were relegated by our culture’s mainstream media to the fringe as nut-bar extremists whose opinion shouldn’t count for much. Thus, in the end, we witnessed a court of law ordering that a woman be made to suffer an excruciating death by dehydration for lack of anyone being permitted to give her a drink of water. The court apparently felt that life has value only sometimes, and when that is, or is not, is something that is subjective. In other words, the court held that in some instances someone may decide for someone else when they should die due to their having found that that person’s life is qualitatively not worth continuing. In the case of Schiavo, that subjective decision was obviously made by someone other than the woman whose life was to be ended. If that is acceptable, however, why then shouldn’t the reasoning of that decision be extended also to cases when the person who is going to die is capable of making the decision for themselves? And, if that’s all right, why should we have any problem with a person like Kervorkian?

I realize that many of you out there may have had no problem with what happened to Schiavo. I’m am sure there are many of you who would find that what Kervorkian did was not morally wrong, and would therefore support his release from prison. So far so good? Well, here’s the rub. If all of that is true, consider the three men who are being prosecuted for castrating other men on video in their basement. In that case, the men who were castrated were willing participants. Apparently they had decided for whatever reason that their experiencing this particular procedure would somehow enhance their “well being.” So why is our society choosing to prosecute the men who performed the castrations? Probably because our moral consensus is that their conduct is offensive and should be condemned. But my question is for how long will that be true? And here’s the reason I ask.

Several weeks ago, I was interviewed on public television about the very castrations at issue. Initially, the interviewer’s gut reaction to these events was the same as mine — the men’s actions were repugnant and deserving of punishment. Then the conversation took a twist. When the interviewer started questioning that conclusion, I said that the mutilation of even a willing participant’s body is immoral and should be deserving of punishment to reflect society’s condemnation of the act, as was the case with Kervorkian and should have been the case with Schiavo. Then I said if the interviewer were to think about it, if she favored punishing the castrators, she would ultimately have to agree that it is because society should hold inviolate the physical integrity of all human life. And, if she agreed with that premise, she also would ultimately have to find herself agreeing with the “Christian Right’s” positions in the cases involving Kervorkian and Schiavo.

Well, that did it. There was no way on God’s green earth that she was going to allow herself to be found taking the Christians’ position on any subject, and said so. It was all this lady had to hear for her to then vehemently opine that nothing these three castrators did in their self-made dungeon to other consenting adults was in any sense wrong, and thus, they should not be prosecuted. Then she went even further. She said it was her opinion that anything that anybody wanted to do to any other consenting adult should be tolerated under the law and not prosecuted. In other words, all imaginable forms of consensual sado-masochistic conduct should be legal? “Yes,” she answered, and sadly, to me she appeared to be serious. Well, good for her.

For the rest of us, however, the question becomes whether it is a good idea for our society to be silencing those among us who may hold views contrary to my interviewer. If they are, and only people who think like my interviewer are allowed to be heard, there is one certainty. Society’s consensus as to what the appropriate response should be when confronted with people like our three dungeon dudes will in time skew in favor of “tolerance” — and the law will soon follow. I ask you — do we really want to go there? If not, perhaps we should seriously reconsider the implications of silencing those who, based on their sense of morality, are only hoping to restrain us as a society from descending head-long into that abyss.

(Cliff Nichols is an attorney practicing criminal defense in Santa Monica. He may be contacted at either (310) 917-1083, cliff@cliffnicholslaw.com or www.cliffnicholslaw.com. You may join his blog at www.thedailystand.com.)