THE PRENUP

Ungodly Ways: The Dark Side of the European Union (Mary Jo Anderson, June 2003, The Crisis)

Christian members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and religious leaders fear that a constitution that does not recognize the Judeo-Christian foundation of European identity is in fact a threat to Europe itself. Part of that fear stems from the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, set to become a "first pillar of the constitution." The charter, similar to a Bill of Rights, is considered by many to be flawed and dangerous. While it isn't yet legally binding, if the constitution is ratified, the charter becomes European law. And because the charter is a "lowest common denominator" approach, critics understand that its practical effect is to reduce rights at the national level. In other words, the anti-God policies of the EU would become law in all the member nations...even those that still retain some fidelity to Christianity.

This sobering reality is illustrated by the current negotiations between Poland and the EU. Poland is a candidate nation seeking admittance to the EU without having to give up its legal protection for the unborn at the national level. As it stands now, Poland's pro-life laws could be overturned by EU mandate.

But Poland isn't alone in fearing for its sovereignty. Consider the recent skirmish between an incensed Greek government and the European Parliament and courts. The court examined a Greek provision that permits the monks of Mount Athos to remain a men-only monastic island, as it has been since 1045. The court officially pronounced the ban on women a violation of human rights. The parliament passed a resolution that judged any exclusion of women at Mount Athos to be in violation of community nondiscrimination and gender equality legislation, as well as the provisions relating to free movement of persons within the EU. The Greek government angrily responded by reminding the court and the parliament that when Greece joined the EU, protection of the monastic community was part of its accession treaty. Greek Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos compared the all-male situation at Mount Athos to the Vatican-a city-state-represented by men alone.

Yet, the very fact that a nation must negotiate a prenuptial agreement before joining the EU in order to preserve its cultural identity and the sanctity of life reveals the peril that awaits any rights not so well-preserved in advance. [...]

Ambitious politicians, willing to sacrifice national sovereignty for a more powerful European state, are embracing anti-Christian policies in the name of inclusiveness and tolerance. At stake are democratic self-determination for nations and traditional cultural values and legal freedoms for Christians and others to practice their faith in peace and security.

The sweeping secularism of modern-day Europe has already led to serious confrontations with Christians, particularly Catholics. From prohibiting schools from serving hot cross buns (it might offend non-Christians) to European rules requiring churches to employ atheists (or be in violation of antidiscrimination laws) to an outrageous resolution entertained by the European Parliament denouncing the Catholic Church for gender bias, examples abound.

If the constitution is accepted, the centralizing power of the EU will threaten the national laws of all member countries. Some European nations have constitutions that acknowledge God, protect life, and defend the family. Others do not. Without an explicit reference to God and the Christian heritage of Europe-as religious leaders have requested-the proposed constitution will lack a vital framework for interpreting human rights, family law, and traditional values.

And perhaps that's exactly the point.

Can there be any doubt that this is exactly the point? The point of democratic secularism is precisely to remove the most significant impediments--churches, religious beliefs, traditions--to the exercise of authority by the State, which the people imagine will do their bidding. But as Benjamin Constant warned, in On the Sovereignty of the People:

When you establish that the sovereignty of the people is unlimited, you create and leave to chance in human society a degree of power too large for itself and which is an evil no matter into which hands it is placed. Entrust it to one, to several, to all, you will equally find it an evil. You will lay the blame on the depositaries of this power, and depending on the circumstances, by turns you will accuse monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, mixed government, and the representative system. You will be wrong; it is the degree of force and not the depositaries of this force which must be charged. It is the weapon and not the arm you must deal with severely. There are maces too heavy for the hands of man.

The error of those who, in good faith with their love of liberty, have accorded to the sovereignty of the people a power without limits comes from the way in which their ideas in politics were formed. They have seen in history a small number of men, or even just one, in possession of an immense power which was doing much evil; but their wrath was directed against the possessors of the power and not the power itself. Instead of destroying it, they have thought but to move it. It was a scourge; they considered it a prize. They bestowed it upon the whole society. It inevitably passed from there to the majority, from the majority into the hands of a few men, and often into one hand alone; it has done just as much evil as before; and the examples, the objections, the arguments, and the facts against all political institutions have been repeated.

In a society founded upon the sovereignty of the people, it is certain that it becomes no one individual, no one class, to subject the rest to one's particular will; but it is false that the whole society possesses over its members a sovereignty without limits.

The universality of citizens is the sovereign, in this sense that no individual, no fraction, no partial association can arrogate to themselves sovereignty if it has not been delegated to them. But it does not follow from this that the universality of citizens, or those vested by them with sovereignty, may dispose sovereignly of the existence of individuals. To the contrary, there is a part of human existence which, of necessity, stays individual and independent, and which is of right outside of all social purview. Sovereignty exists only in a limited and relative way. Where individual independence and existence begin, the jurisdiction of this sovereignty stops. If society steps over this line, it becomes as guilty as the despot who has no qualification other than his exterminating blade; society may not go beyond its purview without proving to be a usurper, the majority, without proving to be a faction. The consent of the majority by no means suffices in all cases to legitimate acts; there exist some things which cannot be sanctioned; when any sort of authority commits such acts, it matters little from which source it emanates and it matters little whether it is called an individual or nation; it could be the entire nation minus the citizen it oppresses, and it would not be more legitimate for it. . . .

The citizens possess individual rights independent of all social or political authority, and every authority which violates these rights becomes illegitimate. The rights of the citizens are individual liberty, religious liberty, liberty of opinion, in which is included its publicity, the enjoyment of property, guarantee against all that is arbitrary. No authority may infringe upon these rights without tearing up its own title.

The problem is that where the American Republic is based on the limitation of sovereignty generally, thus our ambivalent attitude towards government, the French experiment is based on making the people sovereign in just this way, hence their worship of the State. And now the Euros are letting a Frenchman write their constitution... Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2003 7:48 PM