…and this is a 
Amy Sullivan's bad advice
Category: Godlessness • Politics
Posted on: March 6, 2006 10:04 AM, by PZ Myers
Amy Sullivan is not one of the people I want advising the Democratic party…unless, that is I suddenly decided I wanted to be a Republican, and was feeling too lazy to change my voter registration. She's got one note that she plays loudly over and over again: Democrats need to be more religious. Why? So we can get more religious people to vote for our candidates, and so we can steal the Republicans' identification as the party of faith.
Nationally, and in states like Alabama, the GOP cannot afford to allow Democrats a victory on anything that might be perceived as benefiting people of faith. Republican political dominance depends on being able to manipulate religious supporters with fear, painting the Democratic Party as hostile to religion and in the thrall of secular humanists. That image would take quite a blow if the party of Nancy Pelosi was responsible for bringing back Bible classes—even constitutional ones—to public schools.
By golly, she's right! If the Democrats led the way in abandoning the principle of separation of church and state, if we institutionalized the teaching of Christianity in our public schools, and if we out-preached and out-prayed the Republicans and put up bigger crosses ad bigger flags in our front yards than they do, we'd win!
Let's keep going with this. If we also pandered to big business more and did things like endorse strip-mining national parks and ditching those annoying safety regulations in the work place, we'd get more money and could fund bigger, bolder PR campaigns. Why not? Sullivan is simply endorsing the strategy of racing to the (religious) right, with the winner being the one who gets there the fastest and the farthest. Screw liberal and progressive values—all that matters is winning.
And it's so easy. If we embrace faith-based policy, we can just ignore that hard reality stuff and believe whatever we want. For example, Sullivan seems to buy into that abstinence nonsense:
A sign that Democratic leaders are beginning to get it is the plan—promoted by leaders such as Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton—to lower abortion rates by preventing unwanted pregnancies. Full-throated support of this effort, and a recognition that abstinence education plays a role in lowering teen pregnancy rates (along with birth control), puts Democrats alongside the majority of voters on this difficult issue, and it is especially appealing to moderate evangelicals.
Well, our current abstinence programs don't work and people are urging that the programs be abandoned. Birth control works, abstinence programs don't. That's one difficulty, that awkward suggestion that we should be on the side of programs that actually accomplish something. For another, it's delusional thinking to believe that the reason abortion is such a hot-button issue is because of some desire to help babies: it's mainly about controlling women and controlling sexuality. I would like at least one political party in this country to be willing to say that sex is fun and an important part of being human. Two sets of prissy prudes shaking their withered fingers at me and vying for leadership is just too much to take.
Kevin Drum is smart enough to recognize what he's being asked to do, but doesn't seem to be willing to think about what it means.
Religion has been a big topic in liberal circles for a while now, and I have to admit that I always feel a bit like a bystander when the subject comes up. It's not like I can fake being religious, after all. Still, no one is really asking people like me to do much of anything except stay quiet, refrain from insulting religion qua religion in ways that would make people like Brinson unwilling to work with us, and let other people do the heavy lifting when it comes to persuading moderate Christians to support liberal causes and liberal candidates. That's not much to ask, and Amy makes a pretty good case that it would make a difference.
Yes, Mr Drum, that's correct: we freethinkers are being asked to sit down and shut up and stay away from politics, and allow the evangelicals to shape the party. Let's let both political parties be vocally religious and give up the whole idea of a secular America.
Not much to ask, huh?
No thanks. I've got another suggestion. How about if we reassure the evangelicals that they will always be free to worship as they please, there will be no interference by the government in their religion, but that in a nation with so many different religions floating around, we must and always will be a secular state and religion must stop interfering in government. Your belief in Jesus or Odin or the FSM is not a qualification for service in government (nor is it an obstacle), and isn't even a testimonial to the quality of your character. The small-minded bigots who would like to see the non-religious effectively disenfranchised are not the solution to the Democratic party's problems: they are the problem.
I'm not alone in this opinion—Atrios picks up on some of the same things.
Comments
I was with you until you slandered the FSM.
I will only vote for candidates who appear with their families in devout pasta worship.
Posted by: mathpants | March 6, 2006 10:21 AM
My favorite line:
"...bringing back Bible classes—even constitutional ones—to public schools."
As though the best-case scenario were violation of the Constitution; but if push came to shove, mayyyyybe Sullivan would settle for just skirting this side of legality.
Truly a do-anything-to-win mentality. Doomed to failure of course, but sure to appeal to those losers who think Joe Lieberman's on to something with his Republican-lite "strategy" (if you can call craven, infinitely spineless bootlicking a strategy).
Posted by: minimalist | March 6, 2006 10:25 AM
Even though it's a universal topic it's about US internal politics, so I should refrain... but I can't! I nearly dropped my coffee when I saw "preventing unwanted pregnancies. Full-throated support of this effort". What is "full-throathed support" that "prevents unwanted pregnancies"? Please don't tell me it's the dirty version that popped up in my likewise dirty mind...
To stay OT, are they going to ask humorists to stay away too, from fear of aggravating others? Perhaps they should also issue a gag order on Hollywood, while they are at it. Nothing is as good for a healthy discourse like shutting people up and pretend that the discourse is healthy...
Posted by: Torbjorn Larsson | March 6, 2006 10:27 AM
Actually, Sullivan's latest iteration of her long argument for Democrats to make an overt appeal to religious sensibilities is remarkably better than similar efforts of hers have been in the past. If teaching comparative religion in high school can be done constitutionally (which I grant there are a lot of devilish details about), having some Democrats take the lead on it does help to neutralize the Republicans co-option of religion. I may be an atheist myself, but a class on the history of religion seems reasonable enough, especially if it drives the Republicans bonkers in the process.
I think it's a win-win situation for Democratic atheists such as myself, because any class dealing in religion will have to take a neutral POV to be constitutional, in order to avoid violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Which means that it will also have to discuss the skeptical POV of atheists such as myself. Would that the likes of August Berkshire get such a chance on a regular basis... :-)
Posted by: David Wilford | March 6, 2006 10:40 AM
PZ says "I've got another suggestion. How about if we reassure the evangelicals that they will always be free to worship as they please..." etc. and getting more strident as he goes.
Here's the thing folks. This is a pretty religious country. There are a sizeable minority who would be called "Fundamentalist", but above that you have a huge sector who feel a deep affinity with some kind of religious thought along an at least vaguely Christian line. There are only a handful of us (relatively) who are non-Christian in some way (atheist, Moslim, Hindu, Odinistas, FSMers, etc). No MAJOR political party is EVER going to buck that reality. If you want a real choice, that's different, you are probably going to have to go to a 3rd party. Otherwise, you are going to have to put up with a lot of people, even in the Democratic party, giving the devil his due - so to speak.
Just do your science, substantiate your points, make a good case for what the next line of action on any given matter should be. You'll win some, you'll lose some and hopefully you'll make your mark in creating a little better planet. But one thing that probably doesn't make this a better place EVER is being openly hostile to people just because everything they think and do is clouded by their religious perspective. Hostile is hostile, whichever side it comes from and it breeds - you guessed it - hostility.
Posted by: john | March 6, 2006 10:48 AM
Or, they could focus on pocketbook issues instead of a hodgepodge of dumb issues that the government has no business being involved in... all in a quixotic effort to get states like Alabama (for fuck's SAKE!) to like the national party. Oh.. wait a minute. She writes for a MAGAZINE. That's practically like running a bunch of successful political campaigns.
There's no point in debating the advice. Just ignore it.
Posted by: norbizness | March 6, 2006 10:50 AM
You know, PZ, if there were an entry on Kevin Drum in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it would consist of two words:
Mostly useless.
He's such a waste of electrons, yet another milquetoast moderate in a long line of undistinguished pundits who say not much of anything at all.
Posted by: spencer | March 6, 2006 10:59 AM
"Your belief in Jesus...is not a qualification for service in government...."
And here I thought you were an empiricist! (Or did you mean "is" in the de jure rather than the de facto sense?)
Posted by: "Q" the Enchanter | March 6, 2006 11:03 AM
"If teaching comparative religion in high school can be done constitutionally (which I grant there are a lot of devilish details about), having some Democrats take the lead on it does help to neutralize the Republicans co-option of religion."
Sure, comparative religion classes works in practise (except they don't cover atheists and agnostics well, at least here). But Sullivan seems to be talking exclusively fundamental christian "Bible" classes here: "the Bible in a historical and cultural context", "the Bible literacy bill". Not even christianity itself in a historical and cultural context, even less comparatively.
Posted by: Torbjorn Larsson | March 6, 2006 11:10 AM
If teaching comparative religion in high school can be done constitutionally (which I grant there are a lot of devilish details about)...
I don't know that there's really a Constitutional issue there. I had a couple of English classes in my public high school where we read some portions of the Bible, the rationale being along the lines of if you're going to read and discuss Absalom, Absalom, it's probably a good idea to give the kids some background on where the title comes from and why Faulkner used it. So long as religious material is presented historically or culturally rather than theologically, I can't think of a legitimate objection - like it or not, the Bible is an integral part of the socio-cultural vocabulary of the Western tradition, and discussing that fact does not violate the Establishment Clause.
Posted by: Sean Foley | March 6, 2006 11:11 AM
Posted by: Curtis Cameron | March 6, 2006 11:16 AM
If a fundamentalist Christian POV was adopted to the deliberate exclusion of other POVs on the Bible, I think it would run afoul of the First Amendment. I think you could have a class on the Bible as a historical document, but not a class that taught theology based upon it. Of course, once you pull the pin on Mr. Hand Grenade by bringing the Bible into public school, it might prove exceeding hard in practice to avoid teaching theology, especially if a teacher is of a mind to do so.
Posted by: David Wilford | March 6, 2006 11:22 AM
"where we read some portions of the Bible"
IIRC, that is not part of any comparative religion classes I've heard of. Tiny excerpts from major religions texts may have been used to illustrate central concepts, but in general the religions are described from an outsiders 'neutral' view. If you want to read the Bible as litterature, I'm sure it can be part of a litterature class. Religion as history or culture, it's not.
Posted by: Torbjorn Larsson | March 6, 2006 11:26 AM
Too bad you don't get trackbacks from my office door... that's where this post is now.
Posted by: Dustin | March 6, 2006 11:46 AM
What is strident about saying people can practice their religion freely, but that the government is and must stay secular?
I don't think the argument that anti-abortionists are all about controlling women is a strawman at all. While some are consistent in their respect for life (the ones who oppose abortion and the death penalty, and favor better support for the poor), they are a minority: if an anti-abortionist is also against contraception and sex education, forget it, they are in that anti-woman, anti-sex majority.
Posted by: PZ Myers | March 6, 2006 11:46 AM
The interests of religious people and secularists often coincide. The same separation of church and state that keeps the believers from imposing their beliefs on nonbelievers protects believers in one religious system from the believers in other religious systems. The faithful should be reminded that they have more to fear from each other than from us.
Posted by: Jim Harrison | March 6, 2006 11:50 AM
IMO, what the Democrats need to do is less about racing to the religious right, but about selling progressive ideas to religious people. Americans are religious (not as much as they'd like to believe, but religious nontheless), and we cannot avoid that reality. Instead, we should be selling our ideas for that reality. How well could the morality of single-payer healthcare go over? How about education? Or minimum wage? These are progressive issues that could easily be translated into the langauge of religion.
Instead of being Republican-lite or dark, Democrats should work on showing how our policies serve a moral good and fit in line with what Christians are hoping to see. Don't change the policies, change how you approach your audience; the atheists will understand that these are just good public policy without someone having to explain how this fits into their worldview of morality. So just explain slowly in small words to the rest of America.
Posted by: NoVA liberal | March 6, 2006 11:55 AM
Nothing. It's those who mistakenly think that state silence on religion equates to atheism who get upset about the separation of church and state.
Whether or not you can teach a public school class on the history of the Bible is another matter. I think it can be done, but I'd be interested in hearing what August Berkshire might have to say about the subject.
Posted by: David Wilford | March 6, 2006 11:56 AM
You can't get around the fact that an intellectually respectable course on the Bible would come across as hostile to traditional religion for the uncomplicated reason that so many religious beliefs are simply false. For this reason, politically feasible religion classes in American high schools would surely be utterly mealymouthed in the blue states and a cover for the imposition of generic evangelical Christianity in the red states.
Posted by: Jim Harrison | March 6, 2006 12:11 PM
Besides what PZ said, another point is their actions "after". Once born it wouldn't matter if the child had millions of dollars of medical problems and four arms or got dumped into a shipping crate to go to a third world country for training to work in a sweat shop. As far as *most* of the anti-abortion people are concerned their involvement and interest ends once they prevent the abortion. Some are even sick enough to claim that any and all problems arising from keeping the child(ren) or the less than optimal life they often have through adoption agencies and foster homes are merely God's will. Like that somehow explains away probably billions spent trying to keep track of all the abandonded ones, help those whose parents hurt them because they are not wanted, etc., or the thousands spent (and often bankrupting) some parents talked into keeping them, do to medical bills from congenital problems, genetic diseases and so on. Maybe one tenth of 1% of those protesting against it would donate a dime to offset the cost of taking care of any of them.
Posted by: Kagehi | March 6, 2006 12:20 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/03/05/bonobo.disappearing.ap/index.html
Why did God make bonobo meat so tasty if he didn't want us to eat them?
Thus spake Casey Luskin.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 6, 2006 12:21 PM
I had a couple of English classes in my public high school where we read some portions of the Bible, the rationale being along the lines of if you're going to read and discuss Absalom, Absalom, it's probably a good idea to give the kids some background on where the title comes from and why Faulkner used it.
This is Number One in today's list of Stupid Ass Arguments.
So why do you need to read (or gob forbid -- touch) a freaking Bible if you want to know where Faulkner got the title?
You're a teacher. Simply tell the kids that there's this story in the Bible (a book of religious myths held in high esteem by Christians) and it goes like this blah blah blah and that's where Faulkner got the title.
That saves you time. You can spend the time you saved discussing Faulkner's incredible book ... what was it called again?
Yaaaaawwwwn.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 6, 2006 12:25 PM
Curtis
Anyone I've ever known who is opposed to abortion, views it as equivalent to killing an already born baby, with all the moral repulsion that comes along with that. I think you're doing what the religious so often do - building a strawman to represent your opponents' views.
Try travelling outside of Joplin, MO every once in a while, Curtis.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 6, 2006 12:27 PM
john
But one thing that probably doesn't make this a better place EVER is being openly hostile to people just because everything they think and do is clouded by their religious perspective.
How bout this? If the fundies stop being hostile to everyone else, I'll stop being hostile towards them.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 6, 2006 12:29 PM
If teaching comparative religion in high school can be done constitutionally (which I grant there are a lot of devilish details about), having some Democrats take the lead on it does help to neutralize the Republicans co-option of religion.
I don't think it's what the fundamentalist voters want. They don't want neutrality, except when it's contrasted with a reality that they oppose (i.e. evolution). They have railed in the past against teachers who taught the Bible as literature and applied modern methods of literary criticism to it, for example; now they rail against teachers who don't teach the Bible at all.
The only way to defeat a totalitarian movement as every brand of religious fundamentalism is is to pull the carpet from under its feet, i.e. address the social causes that brought it into existence (thence my preferred approach to European Islamism, incidentally). American Dominionism is particularly hard to deal with, because it's a movement based ultimately on a privileged rather than oppressed class; radical movements based on oppressed classes tend to dissipate when the oppression ends, unless they have been around long enough to create a clear group identity, in which case they breed counteroppression (e.g. Eastern Europe's independence movements around and right after World War One).
However, part of the drive behind the Dominionist movement is a campaign of diversion from class issues. Indeed, so far the most effective response to it seems to be the Dean/Feingold response: change the subject to "What have they done for you?". For all my criticism of Dean, I think his line, "I am tired of being divided by X," where he then substitutes "race," "gender," "income," "sexual orientation," and "religion" for X in various permutations, is the right way to handle the situation.
When you come down to it, you don't need to convince the hardcore fundamentalists. These are part of the Republican base; they'll go for the Democrats on the same day NOW and the ACLU will endorse Republicans. You need moderates, and the above Dean/Feingold strategy gets you moderates: moral values or no moral values, Feingold won Wisconsin with 59% of the vote compared with 52% for Kerry.
Posted by: Alon Levy | March 6, 2006 12:31 PM
In principle, I'd like the Bible studied in terms of literature and history, in a completely secular way. That would be a great thing in public schools.
The two big problems with that are that
(1) the main things people would learn would directly contradict the popular views of the Bible, and
(2) there would be an undending culture war about what to teach about the Bible, and overwhelming political pressure to dumb it down and make it more palatable to Christians
For example, if considering the Bible as either literature or a historical artifact, it's important to know who wrote it, and why. Except for religous loonies, scholars know that the Bible was written by many people with contradictory views and axes to grind. It's largely a bunch of myths and screeds, edited and amended by many hands.
Moses clearly did not write the "The Five Books of Moses," for example; they were written by at least five different people or groups of people---at different times, in different dialects, and with different cultural assumptions--- and none of them were Moses. Mosaic authorship is a completely untenable theory by any reasonable secular standard.
And the Gospels were not written by the apostles whose names were attached to them later. They're just a bunch of accreted, legendized, and contradictorily axe-grinding stuff that a committee selected when editing the Bible together.
If you teach that fundamental historical and literary fact in public schools, the fundies will go ballistic. They will accuse you---rightly---of teaching their kids that their religion is largely wrong. And that's true---it is demonstrably largely wrong.
The only thing the fundies would consider fair and balanced would be to avoid teaching anything that contradicts their views---and that means not teaching the most basic facts about the subject: that the Bible is inconsistent, ahistorical in many ways, factually incorrect in many other ways, and nothing remotely like inerrant on any level.
It's very, very errant---factually, historically, and morally. And it's just execrable literature if you try to interpret it as unified whole. It's got some good bits in it, and a lot of crap, and as a whole it makes no literary sense. It is incomprehensible without understanding the various authors' and editors' and anthologizers' clearly conflicting agendas.
There's no way on God's green Earth that we are going to teach about the Bible objectively; it will not be allowed. If we try, we will be pereceived the bad guys, corrupting the nation's children with liberal, atheistic, anti-Christian propaganda. It will be an unending field day for the right-wing pundits and incensed parents.
It's hard to think of anything that would galvanize the religious right more than that.
So what would happen in practice is that we'd dumb down the study of the Bible to a point where the right-wing rage was just a dull roar. And to do that, we'd effectively end up lying to children---as we'd have to to teach ID without pointing out that it's a bad theory with no support.
And that would be handing the Religious Right a victory; we'd more or less confirm typical Christian kids' view that there's nothing wrong with the Bible, by telling them that it's interesting and literary and important and that we don't know that it's wrong.
The devil is very much in the "details" on this one---only they're not details. The most important and basic facts we know about the Bible are exactly the ones we could never get away with saying. It'd be like trying to teach Mein Kampf without offending either liberals' or neo-Nazis' sensibilities; it cannot be done.
Posted by: Paul W. | March 6, 2006 12:33 PM
You know, even if I were to ignore all of my morals, and I were to look at the world through the "winning is all that matters" glass... I'd still say that this is a terrible idea. I can imagine legions of Democrats lecturing from the podium with a lot of riffs that go to the tune of "My faith is very important to me, but [insert issue here]". Basically, I'm envisioning the entire Democratic party floundering around like John Kerry did in the third of the debates when it came time to watch the candidates try to out-God each other. Does anyone here think that insincerity is going to resonante with any voters? And does anyone honestly think that parroting Republican strategies is going to help, either? We tried that in 2004, and saw how well that worked.
If we must try to model ourselves in a more religious fashion, then my advice is this: The Democratic party needs an excommunication clause in its platform. Anyone who listens to Amy Sullivan and her simple-ass "strategy" gets excommunicated.
Posted by: Dustin | March 6, 2006 12:35 PM
"teaching comparative religion in high school can be done constitutionally" What a waste of a student's time, teaching comparative garbage.
Posted by: roger | March 6, 2006 12:35 PM
Jesus H. God. Kevin Drum really is stupid beyond endurance. It amazes me that anyone still takes him seriously.
Great line about the prissy prudes with withered fingers, by the way.
Posted by: Phila | March 6, 2006 12:36 PM
That's the genius of Dominionism: it brings together fundamentalist movements that in the past were at one another's throats.
On the contrary: so far attempts to sell progressive economics using moral language have failed. It'll be far better to use economic, practical language: single-payer healthcare is better because it's so much more efficient than private insurance that instituting it will be equivalent to a 7% tax cut without increasing the deficit or reducing government spending; the minimum wage doesn't increase unemployment; more spending on education does in fact increase the level of education. The "reality-based" frame is an immensely powerful when accompanied by pragmatist rhetoric.
Posted by: Alon Levy | March 6, 2006 12:43 PM
Here's a rather hateful snippet of the pro-life movement for ya:
(From here http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060306/OPINION/603060305/1010 )
Yup, I think PZ's got 'em pegged. It's all about controlling sex, and to heck with the baby.
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | March 6, 2006 12:45 PM
GWW - I think the better, less tribal response is that we're not being hostile to religious people, but to religious thought. You know, "hate the sin, love the sinner".
John, why do you think criticism of religion equates to hostility toward people? And what does "strident" really mean? In this case it sounds like a compliment..
Posted by: Pete | March 6, 2006 12:48 PM
Roger's right. And you know what? This whole "we should teach comparative religion" slag is exactly what the outcome will be if the Democrats try to get all uppity about religion. Every time I've heard someone praising the notion of a course in comparative religion which will cover the Bible, it's to placate the evangelicals and their insistence that the Bible be a part of our public schools.
I'm not very happy with the direction that science education and the scientific proficiency of the general population are heading, and I doubt many people are. So what sense does it make to waste even more time fooling around with this "comparative religion" nonsense for the sole purpose of making it look like we're not a bunch of anti-Christian heathen? (I mean, especially since that won't work). It's a waste of time and money.
Posted by: Dustin | March 6, 2006 12:48 PM
And Alon is absolutely right. It is boneheaded beyond comparison to try to sell our economic policies using morality. All that gets are a bunch of one-liners about "bleeding heart liberals". I have never used anything of the kind. I sell my economics using pragmatic justification and statistics. I have never once been called a "bleeding heart", and I've even managed to win some people over to the side of sensibility.
Posted by: Dustin | March 6, 2006 12:50 PM
I don't think the Democrats are anti-Evangelical, much less anti-Christian; Sullivan is right to observe that Democratic values are often more in-sync with what these people believe than what the Republicans offer. We're never going to get the Judge Moore theocrats, and we shouldn't even try, but
Where Sullivan misses the train -- and attempts to throw the party under it -- is when she proposes that the Democrats will get anywhere by attempting to pander to these folks. Republicans have spent the last twenty years with these folks framing the issues to make each Democratic position look as extreme as possible for them. Until Democrats succeed in discrediting the Republicans and the influence they've bought over the churches and ministry, they're only shadow-boxing no matter what position they take. What Sullivan proposes is not only a colossal waste of energy for Democrats, but it lets the Republicans continue to frame the issues and portray the Democrats as divided and lacking moral foundation.
Posted by: idlemind | March 6, 2006 12:56 PM
""teaching comparative religion in high school can be done constitutionally" What a waste of a student's time, teaching comparative garbage."
Um, yes, I forgot to tell you what students here thinks about those classes. That's on the money. Of course, it's a country with about half seculars (mostly just uninterested) and the remaining mostly private religious. Church on Sunday? Where was the church situated now again?? Do we have to go up so early??? Naa, don't think so!
Posted by: Torbjorn Larsson | March 6, 2006 1:03 PM
So why do you need to read (or gob forbid -- touch) a freaking Bible if you want to know where Faulkner got the title?
You're a teacher. Simply tell the kids that there's this story in the Bible (a book of religious myths held in high esteem by Christians) and it goes like this blah blah blah and that's where Faulkner got the title.
Excellent idea. I recant my earlier support for trying to educate students about some of the foundational texts of the Western Canon. However, may I suggest that you don't go far enough? Rather than having the students read Absalom, Absalom, the teacher can simply say that there's this book by a guy named William Faulkner (a Southern author held in high esteem by certain literary critics) and it's about this family blah blah blah and Sutpen's story is an allegory for the nineteenth century South. Your approach to literature (and how I wish my teachers in high school and college had only had the wisdom to adopt it!) is much faster than the way I was taught.
Posted by: Sean Foley | March 6, 2006 1:05 PM
The "religious right" would be outraged at a comparative religions approach, a Bible as literature approach, or a religion in cultural/historic perspective. These do not pay sufficient respect to or display reverence for the Holy Word of God. Amy and company are deluding themselves if they think otherwise.
America is not a land of faithholders and those who claim loudly to be so are most often fanatics (see Gordon Dickson's Dorsai novels, especially the Final Encyclopedia for details). The best that can be said is that the plurality of Americans are cultural Christians and many of those are simply superstitious within a Christian format. Religiousity is an expression of the human tendency to let beuarocracies substitute for beliefs and policies based on either faith or reason. There are rules to be followed to keep order, and divine imprimature makes keeping people in line easier. A tidy little path to order without thought.
moonbat
We have nothing to fear but fear itself. --- FDR
Be afraid. Be very afraid. --- BushCo
Posted by: moonbat | March 6, 2006 1:06 PM
But you have to agree that this: "preventing unwanted pregnancies" is the right way to tackle the abortion issue.
Face it -- we do need to convert some swing voters here or we are fucked. We can be holier-than-thou and have zero power or we can start presenting our agenda in a way that convinces the non-partisan to vote with us. Fact of life, folks.
Posted by: Michael Koppelman | March 6, 2006 1:09 PM
Uh, the only real instance of Democrats out-Godding Republicans that I can think of, is the case of Southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats") of the 1940's and on.
Case, hopefully, closed.
Posted by: DJ | March 6, 2006 1:15 PM
Curtis says: "Anyone I've ever known who is opposed to abortion, views it as equivalent to killing an already born baby, with all the moral repulsion that comes along with that".
Uhm, Curtis, if that's true, then why are so many fundamentalist Christian right-wing nut-jobs so pro-death penalty and pro-military? Seems to me that grown-ups are just "already born babies" plus a few years (we're all SOMEONE'S baby, afterall). I don't recall ever hearing about any anti-abortion group bombing a military base where soldiers are being trained to kill, or a prison which carries out executions, or the homes of Christian Scientists when they refuse to treat a critically ill child.
Posted by: Judy L | March 6, 2006 1:17 PM
Abortion opponents typically try to leave out exceptions for the mother's life or health, eg, the Intact D&C ban (no health exception) and the recent South Dakota law (no exception for either health or life). Their intent is preservation of the fetus above and beyond preservation of the woman. If a woman wants to risk her health and life in pregnancy and childbirth, well, it's her body and her right. If she chooses not to risk her health and life, it's still her body and her right. Anti abortion laws tend to ignore that little detail.
Posted by: Frumious B. | March 6, 2006 1:19 PM
"Face it -- we do need to convert some swing voters here or we are fucked."
Then we're fucked, and for all eternity. Swing voters are a hopeless, witless cause. Their defining characteristic is not some kind of self-conscious moderation or a set of conflicting policy agendas. It's outright ignorance. Back in late '04, an article made the rounds about one of them who decided the vote had to go to Bush because he would support wide-open stem cell research and Kerry never would.
Posted by: Samnell | March 6, 2006 1:22 PM
Uhm, Curtis, if that's true, then why are so many fundamentalist Christian right-wing nut-jobs so pro-death penalty and pro-military?
Because the death penalty kills criminals and the military is necessary to defend the country (their arguments, not mine).
Posted by: Alon Levy | March 6, 2006 1:22 PM
Yeah, just what you need, more religious baboons in the office.
Posted by: romunov | March 6, 2006 1:25 PM
Excellent idea. I recant my earlier support for trying to educate students about some of the foundational texts of the Western Canon.
Thanks.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 6, 2006 1:26 PM
My guess is that even in the Bible Belt, a lot--maybe most--folks are profoundly sick of these elected and/or ordained nosy Parkers presuming to micro-manage everyone's sex lives. Why don't we try appealing to them?
Obvious Point: You really don't want these Jesus-hates-sex-and-so-do-I types to make public policy. If they were mere hypocrites, it wouldn't be so bad, but a lot of them are the kind of True Believer who figures he'll, say, end up frying in an eternal lake of fire if he should ever get a BJ from the missus. It's this sort of mental and emotional context in which abstinence ed makes sense.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | March 6, 2006 1:37 PM
The real problem is that is there are only two political parties in the US. Up north we have about six or seven depending on what's happening that year. So if one of the parties wants to wrap it's lips firmly around the Xian cult peckers, let them. They just end up getting the tar kicked out of them really fast in an election. Or in the most recent case, they end up with a miniority government that is watched like a hawk by center and center left political parties.
It's too bad that the american system can't be more democratically diverse in the party selection. From outside of the states they just seem to be the exact same party with different coloured coats.
Posted by: SpankyTClown | March 6, 2006 1:48 PM
My guess is that even in the Bible Belt, a lot--maybe most--folks are profoundly sick of these elected and/or ordained nosy Parkers presuming to micro-manage everyone's sex lives. Why don't we try appealing to them?
Because Americans tend to be Puritans who love nothing more than to dictate their personal morals to others. The only way to make the average American support more sexual liberalism is to paint it as a moderate position contrasted with a more radical position, such as social acceptance of BDSM. One of my favorite talking points is that apparently the gay marriage debate has caused a sharp increase in Americans' acceptance of civil unions and letting gays openly serve in the military, even as it mobilized religious homophobes.
Posted by: Alon Levy | March 6, 2006 1:50 PM
I have a few more ideas on this topic, by the way.
Posted by: Alon Levy | March 6, 2006 2:06 PM
I don't care who believes in God and under what name (Christ, Allah, Vishnu, Odin, Og, Invisible Pink Unicorn), but to the extent that the Democratic Party is actively hostile towards Christianity, it can forget about winning elections for a good, long time.
Most Democratic voters, right now, are Christians. You not only want to pick up a few more Christian votes, but you don't want to chase away the ones you've got with this sort of rhetoric.
I'm used to seeing plenty of leftwing ire at the fundies, and that's fine - I've already been fighting that battle for a generation. But increasingly I've been feeling that the leftwing antireligious ire isn't just aimed at the fundies, but at me too.
I don't know how many lefty, pro-union, anti-fundie Christians there are in America, but if we start feeling unwelcome in the Democratic Party, you don't have a prayer, because every Christian to the right of us will have already jumped ship.
Posted by: RT | March 6, 2006 2:23 PM
The right wing is largely about what George Lakoff calls "Strict Father" morality. That basically means that they generally want to draw hard and righteous lines and defend them tooth and nail.
They see this as "tough love"---it's for people's own good to punish them early and often for crossing the lines, and when it's not for their own good, it's for the greater good---to discourage freeloading that's bad for everybody, etc.
Bible-based Christianity has never been pacifistic. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" never meant that all killing is justified. It comes from the Hebrew Bible, and it's dead obvious from the context that it did not ever mean that killing is always wrong. It meant that murder---i.e., unjustified killing---is wrong.
This in no way contradicts killing people in a "just war," such as Joshua's utterly genocidal conquest of the holy land, or to enforce the moral rules about murder or sex. State-sanctioned killing is not murder.
The liberal Christians who are anti-death penalty have a very, very weak position, if they base their position on scripture. It's obvious that at least the Old Testament is not anti-killing, if the killing is "justified." And the New Testament kisses the Old Testament's ass so much that the Strict Father types have a very good case. For the most part, Jesus emphasizes love and forgiveness, but he doesn't repudiate things like the death penalty or slavery.
(And in Luke, I believe, he talks about himself by analogy to a King who says to bring his enemies "and slay them before me." Jesus sounds vaguelly like a Nurturing Parent pacifist in places, but in other places he's clearly not, so there's no good argument that Old Testament morality doesn't still apply in any particular cases.)
The problem here is that there are two conflicting moral principles---both of which are quasi-rational and make sense in light of evolution and game theory---and both are clearly in the the Bible in different places. (Both are in both testaments, in fact.)
The harsh mostly-OT rules are designed to preclude freeloading and sliding down slippery slopes. (Spare the rod and spoil the child, an eye for an eye, etc.) That has a certain logic to it; a society cannot be infinitely forgiving of corruptors, cheaters, and freeloaders. Parasites and predators are a problem, and any functioning society must limit the damage they do. The more forgiving mostly-NT rules have a different logic to them---avoiding the escalation of violence (feuds, etc.) by being more tolerant.
Both of these principles make sense in many real situations. The big problem is that there is no clear underlying basis for them in the Bible (except "God Says So") and no clear way of deciding which principle is more important in which cases---e.g., when to enforce the rules harshly and when to turn the other cheek.
That's why the Bible can be used to justify just about anything. It doesn't have a particular moral code in it, just simplistic maxims that embody certain basic moral (or game-theoretic) principles, and it's a free-for-all how to apply them in specific cases. And there really are moral conundrums where both principles apply.
And in my view, that's one of the reasons for the tremendous success of Christianity. It's got a system of rules that must be selectively applied to generate an practical moral code, and no clear rules for arbitrating, so it's essentially a recombinant religion generator. Christianity can evolve to be whatever it needs to be, by selective application of conflicting principles. The internal contradictions in Christianity are what make it work.
In the specific case of abortion, I think the main intuition is that aborting a fetus is a refusal to take responsibility for one's actions. Some right-wing and more orthodox Christians think that a fetus is literally a person, and abortion is literally murder. Many don't, and many more theologically liberal people don't, but still think it's wrong to a lesser extent---a fetus is sort of like a person, with something like rights or at least interests, which deserve some significant weight and therefore some protection.
This makes abortion on demand morally repugnant to many people. Even if a fetus is only sorta-kinda-like a person, it's something with moral weight. On this view---which I do not agree with, by the way---people do not have the right to have casual and careless sex, and create a fetus, and then proceed to ignore the fetus's interests. If they take a risk and get pregnant, it's their responsibility if the risk doesn't pay off.
Many "moderates" on this subject do recognize that many women take reasonable precautions and get unlucky. They do realize that it's not fair to force these women to bear children that they took responsible steps not to conceive.
Unfortunately, there's no good way of enforcing a rule that says that "responsible" but unlucky people can get abortions and "irresponsible" ones can't. (E.g., those who use reasonably effective birth control vs. the few who "use abortion as birth control" or who use bad birth control, or use it carelessly, with abortion as a backup.) Keeping tabs on who's being "sufficiently responsible" about sex would be even more intrusive than laws restricting abortion.
(And naturally, once you start talking about "reasonable risks" for which you shouldn't be held accountable if you're unlucky, it matters what you're taking a risk for. People who are pro-sex will naturally think that the acceptable risk level is higher, and people who are anti-sex will set it much, much lower. It matters whether you are taking the risk just so that you can have sex, and especially whether that's sex you "shouldn't be having anyway"---is it justified risk-taking, or obviously unjustified risk-taking?)
On this view, people are gambling by having sex, and if they lose, they're asking "somebody else" to take the hit. It's like driving and running over a pedestrian. (Or at least a dog, if you don't think that a fetus is a full-blown person with full blown rights or something.) The more careless you are, the more you are at fault, and you "have to draw a line somewhere" to avoid a slippery slope where irresponsibility is simply accepted as okay. Or so the argument goes.
At any rate, the underlying issue is that the right-wingers are all about "personal responsibility" and whether people are justified in expecting others to bear their costs or accept their risk-taking. This is more consistent and rational than it often seems to liberals.
(E.g., their seemingly inconsistent stance about abortion vs. the death penalty really isn't inconsistent, or not in the obvious way. They view the former as a case of imposing death on a completely innocent party, and endorsing irresponsibility. They view the latter as imposing death on a guilty party, and enforcing responsibility. If we miss that utterly obvious distinction, we sound stupid to them.)
By the way, in case it's not obvious, I am not anti-abortion. I'm pro-abortion. But it's not because I don't understand the conservative argument against abortion; I do. I disagree with its basic premises---e.g., that a fetus is a person, or that non-procreative sex is something that's not worth taking any risks for.
Posted by: Paul W. | March 6, 2006 2:27 PM
it's delusional thinking to believe that the reason abortion is such a hot-button issue is because of some desire to help babies: it's mainly about controlling women and controlling sexuality.
Word.
If the wingnuts are *really* so prissy, what's the deal with that Blogad (and I know you've ALL seen it) featuring the busty young lass clad in the anti-Hillary t-shirt & not much else? Just remember, young missy, all your uterus are belong to us!
Posted by: tikistitch | March 6, 2006 2:29 PM
Of course it's an obstacle, and it's a powerful testimonial to the quality (or lack thereof) of your thinking processes.
What do you consider to be an obstacle, Dr. Myers? Holocaust denial? Belief that you've been given a mission by Greys and that UFOs regularly visit us from the Hollow Earth? Certainty that Elvis walks among us? Faith in the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus?
Just how outrageously stupid do a person's beliefs need to be before they're disqualified for public office? Or, here's a better question: how unpopular and uncommon to a person's beliefs need to be?
Posted by: Caledonian | March 6, 2006 2:45 PM
I dunno.
If we righteously embrace Jeebus, don't we get to stuff ballot boxes- er, I mean, adjust electoral software results, too?
Posted by: kelley b. | March 6, 2006 2:46 PM
RT,
Stop listening to the Republican talking points on what Democrats are supposed to believe, and start listening to actual Democrats. That's all I ask. You've been fed a bill of goods, mostly by a media which is addicted to the "controversies" political operatives are only too happy to feed them.
Posted by: idlemind | March 6, 2006 2:50 PM
Great White Wonder:
You're welcome. Thanks to you, the scales have fallen from my eyes and I look forward to the day when your blinkered, philistinic view of the humanities finds its natural ally in the creationists' blinkered, philistinic view of the sciences. We shall finally be free from the burden of examining things!
Posted by: Sean Foley | March 6, 2006 3:01 PM
The liberal christians who are anti-death penalty have an extremely weak position? That's some good made-up bullshit. The liberal christians that hold that position are Christians, not right-wing control freaks. And what is the measure of Christianity's "success"? That its followers have made a prize of ignorance, superstition and intolerance? The Christians that are not anti-death penalty and anti-war are fake christians, and nothing more, unless hypocrisy is included.
Posted by: ronjazz | March 6, 2006 3:08 PM
As a born-again evangelical atheist, I was heartened by an old Albanian Communist's observation that about the only thing the Communists did right was to "outlaw religion." Amen to that, brother. My time in Skoder was worth the agony just for this (Albania is not a tourist Mecca. I was there at the behest of the UN at a time when Serbians and Kosovars were killing each other over, you guessed it, religion}. And the greatest Commandment is that you love one another. Ha! Fat chance of that. Maybe in a Christian country, like maybe in Ireland?
Posted by: Ronzoni Rigatoni | March 6, 2006 3:41 PM
Given the inconsistencies in the Bible, I think anybody who bases stuff on the Bible has a weak position. People who overlook a lot of stuff the Bible actually says clearly, or rationalize it away, have an extremely weak position.
So, for example, when the liberal Christians rail against the death penalty, they're going against scripture. They may come up with some scriptures whose general message seems to imply an anti-death-penalty stance, but there are many scriptures that reveal that God clearly demanded the death penalty not just for individuals but for large groups of mostly innocent bystanders, e.g., the Canaanites.
When God called Joshua on the carpet for failing to kill absolutely all of the Canaanites---e.g., letting harmless old men go---he was demonstrating that he was not anti-death penalty in a general or absolute way. Even the "justified" slaughter of innocent human beings who happen to live in the wrong place, i.e., religiously justified ethnic cleansing or outright genocide, is not murder. And given the various commandments to stone people to death for various transgressons---e.g., for gay sex or just being a disobedient teenager---it's quite apparent that the OT God was either plum crazy and hopelessly madly inconsistent, or not anti-death-penalty in general. He was clearly pro-death penalty, even if he was against murder.
This poses a problem for liberal Christians, because the NT god does not repudiate the OT god. They're supposed to be the same guy, and not to be a stupid evil schmuck who "got better" and became a nice guy. Even Mr. Nice Guy Jesus says he's come to fulfill the Law, not abolish it, that he "comes with a sword," and that his followers should be like those of a king who demands that his enemies be brought before him and slain.
This is some crazy shit, and it gives the fundies and Strict Father types plenty of ammunition to shoot down simplistic pacifist Christians who won't admit that the scriptures are extremely fallible on very basic issues.
I smell a No True Scotsman fallacy here. What special defensible claim do liberal Christians have such that you can make that distinction?
Yeah, pretty much. I don't like Christianity, but it's clearly one of the 10 most successful memeplexes ever---it's been around for a couple of thousand years, over a billion people "believe it" in some sense, etc. I'm not praising Christianity by saying that; far from it. It's successful like chickenpox is successful.
Of course hypocrisy is included. Christianity is based in the Bible, and the Bible is radically inconsistent and profoundly error-ridden. The only way to accept the Bible as anything like a guide to anything important is to either be a serious hypocrite or to engage in some spectacularly acrobatic and irrational explainings-away.
And without the Bible, there's no reason to be a Christian. Outside of the Bible, there's no real evidence that Jesus even existed, much less that he was a God worth of worship or even a particularly worthwhile person to listen to.
Posted by: Paul W. | March 6, 2006 3:48 PM
I think an important quote from the Washington Post article is:
With abstinence-only education, "the problem is not the 'abstinence', the problem is the 'only,' " said Dr. John Santelli
I don't think people supporting abstinence only programs realize that abstinence is very much a part of the more inclusive programs on sexual health. Or perhaps they believe that sex ed drives teens have premarital sex.
Posted by: Niket | March 6, 2006 3:53 PM
Even Mr. Nice Guy Jesus says he's come to fulfill the Law, not abolish it, that he "comes with a sword," and that his followers should be like those of a king who demands that his enemies be brought before him and slain.
As if it was necessary to show any more contradictions, Paul in the epistle to the Romans claims that Jesus came to release the followers from observance to the Mosaic Law. Of course, Paul then goes on in other epistles to condemn many of the things that were originally condemned in Exod. through Deut. Then, to make it more confusing, the later translations into English may have mistaken "I (Paul) find these things personally distasteful" to "I condemn these things".
These conflicts between epistles and gospels make me wonder if some follow Christianity and others follow Paulianity.
Posted by: natural cynic | March 6, 2006 4:15 PM
Why do they keep saying 'religion' when they mean 'Protestant Christianity'?
Surely this push doesn't include Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, etc?
Posted by: Ashley | March 6, 2006 5:17 PM
I agree that "The small-minded bigots who would like to see the non-religious effectively disenfranchised are not the solution to the Democratic party's problems: they are the problem." Unfortunately, they are also the majority. Maybe not literally disenfranchised but the vast majority of Americans (80% in one poll) frankly say they would not vote for an atheist. Somehow, they don't see this as sim