The evolution of Gov. Corzine

As recently as 2006, Jon Corzine believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. But the governor of New Jersey has come into the light---and just in time for his reelection campaign---and is now espousing "marriage equality." "Equality" is an unbeatable word, a magical incantation. This is doubtless why the same-sex marriage political organization that has warmed up considerably to Corzine since his conversion calls itself Garden State Equality.

No one need prove that the governor's evolution represents progress and not regress. Of all the unexamined beliefs we 21st century types carry around that color our whole day like a drop of dye completely colors the water in a glass, the notion of progress seems to be the deepest habit of the mind. C.S. Lewis writes in The Weight of Glory about:

". . . the belief that human history is a simple, unilinear movement from worse to better---what is called a belief in Progress---so that any given generation is always in all respects wiser than all previous generations. . . . the whole world was wrong until the day before yesterday and now has suddenly become right."

As the demon Screwtape in Lewis' The Screwtape Letters wryly observed of human nature, we don't particularly ask ourselves regarding a proposed course of action whether it is "good" or "righteous" or "true," but rather:

"Is it in accordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or reactionary? Is this the way History is going?"

Gov. Corzine has put his finger to the wind and gotten his answer. In 1593, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, also a man who would be king, is rumored to have said, "Paris vaut bien une messe" (Paris is well worth a Mass). And thus did Henry IV become the Catholic monarch of France.

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