From sin through toleration to approval

As any sin passes through its stages from temptation, to toleration, to approval, its name is first euphemized, then avoided, then forgotten. A colleague tells me that some of his fellow legal scholars call child molestation intergenerational intimacy”: that’s euphemism. A good-hearted editor tried to talk me out of using the term sodomy”: that’s avoidance. My students don’t know the word fornication” at all: that’s forgetfulness.

J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience

September 21, 2019


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