May 2009 Archives

We know how it goes. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, the late-term abortion provider, elicits condemnation from all but the fringe of the pro-life movement. Of course, at the near end of the fringe, there's Randall Terry, who sticks to his guns, expressing no regret for the killing other than what would be said on behalf of any convicted murderer who suffers a sudden, fatal accident:

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. 

But what of the likes of Bishop Robert Finn of the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, who in April spoke on the subject of "Warriors for the Victory of Life" at the 2009 Gospel of Life Convention in Overland Park, a couple of hundred miles up the road from where Dr. Tiller was shot to death? Quoth Bishop Finn:

We are at war. Harsh as this may sound it is true--but it is not new. This war to which I refer did not begin in just the last several months, although new battles are underway--and they bring an intensity and urgency to our efforts that may rival any time in the past. But it is correct to acknowledge that you and I are warriors - members of the Church on earth - often called the Church Militant.

Did the good bishop mean to suggest that his warriors go out and murder? Not hardly. He was at pains to say:

Our battle is ultimately a spiritual battle for the eternal salvation of souls--our own and those of other people. We are not engaged in physical battles in the same way military soldiers defend with material weapons. We need not--we must not--initiate violence against other persons to accomplish something good, even something as significant as the protection of human life.

But using the language of violence has a way of begetting violence. As one respondent to the speech put it a month ago on the NCR website:

As long as no one sentient creature is killed in this war, we're cool. It could be worse. I remember back in the summer of mercy days when a western Kansas priest called on Gov. Joan Finney to call up the Kansas National Guard to shoot the U.S. Marshals keeping Dr. Tiller's clinic open in Wichita. He wanted "a battle for life on the streets of Wichita." Thankfully, they sent that guy packing soon after. So, this could be worse. We could have some dead politicians on our hands from some of these crazies.

Now, of course, we're not cool. A sentient creature was killed in this war. Is none of Dr. Tiller's blood on on Bishop Finn's hands? I wouldn't presume to say so. Will any responsibility be shouldered by Bishop Finn? I'm not holding my breath. But somebody in the pro-life movement should have the decency at least to entertain the possibility that what happened today in Wichita is a consequence of the heating up of anti-abortion rhetoric since the election of Barack Obama. And to urge that it be cooled down.

Is it interesting that the senior director of Focus on the Family's Sanctity of Human Life department thinks the Obama administration is "really listening" on the subject of foster care? Yes it is. And even more interesting that the thought is purveyed via a canned quote on Focus' CitizenLink website.

One other politically significant fact about Diaz: He's Cuban-American. I would not be at all surprised to find him playing a role in normalizing Cuban-American relations--something Obama has already begun to do, and which the Vatican, with its own religious agenda, wants to foster. Diaz brings to the table a particular sensitivity to the role of religion in creating communal identity in the Cuban-American community, whose support will be essential for any Obama-led normalization. To give a sense of this, here's some of Diaz's review of Tom Tweed's 1997 book on a Marian shrine in Miami, Our Lady of the Exile:

 This book provides an excellent but limited introduction in the social, cultural, political, and religious landscape that shapes the identity of Cuban exiles in Miami. Although few would question that the Miami shrine to Our lady of Charity serves as a central gathering place for remembering and reconceiving an exiled identity, there are other landscapes in Miami associated with the exiled Virgin of Charity, the exiled Cuban community, and the children of those exiles equally worthy of scholarly consideration. First, there are places heavily populated by subjects not represented in high numbers in Tweed's work (e.g. younger Cuban American exiles and exiles from the eastern provinces of Cuba). Second, and most signifancly, Tweed needs to emphasize and explore more the centrality of the home as it shapes Cuban religious experiences. More attentiveness to this place and the way it has formed the identity and religious worldview of of Cuban exiles as well as their relationship to and interpretation of the Virgin and her Miami shrine (and not just the other way around) would expand, deepen, and modify Tweed's enthnographic theory regarding religious, place, and displacement, especially as it applies to Cuban exiles. (Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70 [December 2002], 935-36.)

Nor, of course, will this appointment hurt Obama as he works at prying Cuban-Americans, especially those susceptible younger ones, away from their allegiance to the GOP.

It's St. John's theology prof. Miguel Diaz, and here's the thumbnail just put out by the White House (with his surname oddly misspelled as DC-az).

Miguel H. Diaz, Nominee for Ambassador to the Holy See Dr. Miguel Diaz is a Professor of Theology at St. John's University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota. He is the co-editor of the book "From the Heart of Our People: Explorations in Catholic Systematic Theology" and author of "On Being Human: U.S. Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives", named "Best Book of the Year" by the Hispanic Theological Initiative at Princeton Theological Seminary. Dr. Diaz taught Religious Studies and Theology at Barry University, the University of Dayton and the University of Notre Dame. From 2001 to 2003, he taught and served as Academic Dean at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida. He is a Board Member of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) and Past President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS). Dr. Diaz holds a B.A. from St. Thomas University and a M.A. and PhD in Theology from the University of Notre Dame.

For starters, with Sotomayor this makes for a serious one-two punch with Latinos. It's very interesting that he's a theologian rather than your basic Catholic pol or lawyer type. He served on Obama's Catholic Advisory Board during the campaign, which puts him firmly in the Kmiec camp. This strikes me as the shrewdest of moves, and one that will cause no end of teeth-grinding on the Catholic right, including the likes of Archbishop Burke. But we await learned commentary from his co-religionists.

Update: Turns out Diaz is a consultant to Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. Big win for social-justice, common-ground Catholics.

Exegesis: Catholic conservatives would be free to rail against a pro-Obama Catholic politician. "Not a real Catholic," etc. A pro-Obama Catholic theologian who teaches at a major seminary, well, that's a different story. And the fact that he's a Latino working on issues in Hispanic theology, at a time where we're experiencing the Latinization of the American Catholic Church--that's a ten-strike.

Morning update: Gorski's story, Lopez' snark. Gibson notes Obama's upcoming visit to Italy--confirmation in time?

Barring some unlikely unforeseen revelation, the Sotomayor nomination will go through as smoothly as these things can these days. Like Roberts and Alito on the other team, she's been a Supreme Court possibility for a long time, has known it, and has proceeded with the caution that such wannabes must. Nowhere is identity politics more firmly engrained in the American system than on the Supreme Court. Beginning with Louis Brandeis and the "Jewish seat," through Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O'Connor, both parties have long recognized that the principle of equal justice for all implies a visibily inclusive court.

Respecting religion, as with Roberts and Alito, Sotomayor's Catholicism will figure in only a minor way. The constitutional ban on religious tests for office casts its penumbra over all federal offices other than the presidency (and perhaps the vice presidency). There will be no wafer watch--at least not until after she's seated. We'll have the usual abortion two-step at the hearings. The tough GOP partisans will hold their fire for a candidate more likely to make a real difference.

The exemplary David Gibson has a nice column up on Politics Daily about the attraction American evangelical women seem to have for Queen Esther as a role model. Along the way he makes that point that Esther's story (the beautiful Jewish girl picked to be queen of Persia who saves her people) "allows conservatives to mediate-or accommodate-conflicting feelings about sex and purity, women and power."

David notes that, at one point during last year's campaign, Hillary Clinton agreed with a supporter who compared her to Esther and said it was one of her favorite Bible stories. To that I'd add that at the Compassion Forum held at Messiah College a year ago April, Campbell Brown asked Clinton to name her favorite Bible story and she did in fact name Esther:

But clearly, for me, the recent Purim holiday for Jews raised the question of Esther. And I have been -- ever since I was a little girl -- a great admirer of Esther. And I used to ask that that be read to me over and over again, because there weren't too many models of women who had the opportunity to make a decision, to take a chance, a risk that, you know, was very courageous.

And so that's the one that's most recently on my mind, because I have some rabbi friends who send me readings that go with the scripture of the week. And certainly, Esther is someone who I wish I knew even more about than what we know from the Bible.

To me, it was one of the more revealing moments of the entire campaign.

Frank Rich devoted his Memorial weekend column to smacking Barack Obama for going mute on the big equal rights issue of his presidency. The promised repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell has vanished down the rabbit hole, and as a succession of states has legalized same-sex marriage, nary a peep has issued from the White House. I even suspect that Hillary Clinton's decision to provide all domestic partners (same-sex and otherwise) of State Department employees  with the same benefits as married ones was made now in order to protect the administration from getting embroiled in a congressional fight on the issue. Last week Rep. Harold Berman dropped plans to push legislation doing the same after learning that Clinton would act.

"This is a civil rights moment," Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson told Rich, "and Obama has not yet risen to it." No doubt, the cause of gay rights has taken a back seat to the fierce urgency of rescuing the economy and getting health care passed. But Obama's evasiveness can also be viewed in wider context, as another way in which he is following the example of Abraham Lincoln. For a reminder of just how mixed Lincoln's performance on slavery was, take a look at Garry Wills' piece in the current New York Review. Frederick Douglass, whom Lincoln's prevarications drove crazy, gave this assessment:

Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

In due course, Lincoln stepped up and became the Great Emancipator. In due course, the tardy and indifferent Obama may step up too.

At the risk of repeating myself, I will venture a few more words on the Guantanamo issue, which doesn't seem to be going away. The question is: Why should this, of all things, have become the issue that has led congressional Democrats to cross over and hand the Obama administration the rudest awakening of its young life?

After all, the actual arguments against moving the detainees to detention facilities in the U.S. are bogus. No one escapes supermax prisons; and there's no evidence that their presence will draw terrorist attacks or family members to nearby communities. And exactly what "plan" is needed to move a bunch of prisoners from one federal facility to another? But these days it takes more than Republicans and their apologists making bad arguments at the top of their lungs to panic Democrats. Something else is going on here, and it would behoove the administration and its supporters to understand it, and address it head-on.

In her NYT column yesterday, Gail Collins quotes Montana's two Democratic senators as follows:

"We're not going to bring Al Qaeda to Big Sky Country -- no way, not on my watch," said Max Baucus.

"If these prisoners need a new place, it's not going to be anywhere near The Last Best Place," said Jon Tester.

These are statements not about physical threats, but metaphysical ones. The Guantanamo detainees threaten a kind of ritual pollution of American sacred space. They must be kept out of Big Sky and the Last Best Place because their very presence contaminates it. "These people hate America; they truly hate America," Glen Morlan, a disabled Colorado welder, told the NYT's Kirk Johnson yesterday. "Why would you want to bring them here?"  Only felons who love America need apply.

What's an administration to do? I'd recommend a campaign of demystification. Make it clear how many of the detainees are not "the worst of the worst." Make it clear how many terrorists and suspected terrorists are already being held on American soil, right there in God's country. Talk about the metaphysics. Just exploding the bogus arguments and denouncing the opposition rhetoric won't cut it.

The Roanoke News & Advance reports:

Liberty University has revoked its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club, saying "we are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by the university."

A new cause for Catholic critics of Notre Dame, Fordham, Georgetown, B.C., Marquette, Holy Cross, Creighton, et al.? Hey, Deal!

What is to be done with religion in the military?

Those neat Bible verses adorning the cover art on Don Rumsfeld's Worldwide Intelligence Updates for the president (thanks, GQ) represent one approach. Some may cavil that this sort of thing puts us in the same boat as our enemies (crusade = jihad), but I'm sure Dick Cheney would have gotten around to explaining why it was a great idea if only his hosts at AEI had given him a little more time yesterday.

Then there was that little Bible Study at Bagram that al-Jazeera reported on the other day, the one with all those nice color-coded Bibles to distribute to the natives, blue for Pashto and green for Dari, or was it the other way around? OK, so it's kind of against the rules for American military to evangelize the people we're making safe for democracy. And you've got those weak sisters over at Christianity Today wringing their hands about the "entanglement of fervent faith and lethal military might." At least Brody's got his head screwed on right, distressed as he is that the powers and principalities in charge of the base collected the books and burned them.

Speaking of hearts and minds, how about that National Guard unit that Sharlett reported on for Harper's, whose idea of a good time was to spend Easter Sunday riding around Samarra with "Jesus Killed Mohammed" emblazoned in Arabic on the side of its five-ton armored pickup? Cool, even though the five-ton ended up a little worse for wear.

And what about the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches, a military chaplain-endorsing agency that, according to Chris Rodda's investigation over on Talk to Action, has placed a couple of hundred men of God in the military? The organization believes that you cannot be both a good Muslim and a good American, and it's not so sure about Catholics and Mainline Protestants either. Actually, it's not so sure about the U.S. Government, judging by its leaders' views on how that organization is infected by satanic forces. The leaders happen to be devotees of a Topeka-based organization called the Prophecy Club, which puts out a magazine called The Crusader. Enough said.

So what is to be done?

Clearly, this is a job for the Obama's administration's faith-based initiative. Probably because it was invented prior to 9/11, its Bushian predecessor restricted its activities to the home front. But Obama has extended its reach. As the White House February 5 press release announced:

Finally, beyond American shores this Office will work with the National Security Council to foster interfaith dialogue with leaders and scholars around the world.

So whereas the Bushies did not include the Department of Defense among the agencies having faith-based offices embedded in them, the Obamaites have good reason to bring DOD into the fold.

Actually, I think it might be a good idea. Never in American history has religion been more of a challenge for the U.S. military. The increased influence of evangelicalism within the chaplaincy and in the ranks have put strains on the traditional way of doing religious business that show few signs of abating. And the intensified military engagement with the Muslim world--as allies as well as adversaries--has imposed new demands for dealing with religious difference. The chaplain corps cannot be tasked with this entire mission. Creating, say, a new assistant secretary for religious affairs might be the way to go. What's needed is a civilian in the Pentagon who's in charge.

Something, anyway, to think about over Memorial Day Weekend. Have a good one!  

Amy Sullivan brings us up to date on Obama-friendly words from Osservatore Romano, the latest being an interview with its editor, Gian Maria Vian, in which he expresses the belief that Obama "is not a pro-abortion president." I presume that Archbishop Burke, the Vatican's head canonist, would beg to differ. So yes, Rome sometimes speaks in different voices. But amidst what some are prepared to call a civil war within American Catholicism, it might seem to be a good idea for someone who speaks more authoritatively that either of the above to enunciate a position.

Gilgoff intervieweth:

I asked Gingrich if his conversion had changed some fundamental political beliefs for him. He said it was the other way around--that political developments had made him more overtly Christian: "The whole effort to create a ruthless, amoral, situational ethics culture has probably driven me toward a more overt Christianity.

Such as his engineering of the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994?

Before our eyes, America's robust tradition of religious free exercise is opening the door to same-sex marriage. Prior to this year, the "defense of marriage" forces based their case on purely secular claims about the harm that SSM would do to children, families, and civilization as we have come to know it. Empirical data was cited in an effort to show that families fared badly in countries that permitted it. There was also the slippery slope argument that SSM would inevitably lead to polygamy, bestiality (remember Rick Santorum's "man on dog"?), and maybe necrophilia. The case was weak, but it avoided the pitfall of religious special pleading: We must keep traditional marriage because the Bible tells us so.

But now that SSM has become the law of the land in a growing number of states, its opponents (as Jacqui Salmon wrote in WaPo last month and Gilgoff noted yesterday) have begun portraying it as a threat to their religious liberties. And while many of those who support SSM don't see it, some prominent First Amendment lawyers (including SSM supporters) are sufficiently concerned that they have been writing letters to governors and legislators urging that religious liberty protections be written into SSM bills. Call them SSM conscience clauses. And sure enough, in state after state, they're being written in.

Yesterday, the New Hampshire state senate's judiciary committee did so, in deference to gubernatorial wishes, and the revised bill is expected to go through today. Meanwhile, Maine's secretary of state has finalized the language of the referendum that state's voters will have before them should opponents come up with enough signatures to make a referendum necessary, said language making reference to the religious exemption the law provides.

Update: Looks like the NH bill hit a bump in the road--stay tuned for renegotiation.

What to make of the findings on political identification and church attendance in Gallup's new survey on the Flight from the GOP in the 21st century? The headline is that the only demographic group showing no flight are the frequent church attenders--those who say they go to church at least once a week. What's odd about this finding is that it does not track the shift in this group's voting behavior. By 2000, weekly attenders were preferring Republicans to Democrats in presidential and congressional elections to the tune of 60 percent to 40 percent--the famous God Gap. That 20-point margin held in 2002 and 2004 but in 2006 sunk into the low teens, where it remained in 2008. So if the weekly attenders have voted increasingly Democratic in the past decade, how come there's no sign of it in their party ID?

As this disquisition from Pew makes clear, party ID and voting patterns are different animals, with the former tending to show greater volatility (though, not, apparently, in present instance). It's important to bear in mind that the 60-40 gap among weekly attenders in  2000 translates into a 52-41 gap among Republican identifiers (including leaners) in Gallup's 2000 ID numbers. That's allowing for 11 percent who refused to give even a "leaning" preference. In 2009, the percentage of refusniks went down to 8 percent, meaning that the party ID gap among frequent attenders shrunk by three points, to 52-44.

Still and all, it's clear that the Democrats made significantly less headway among the most observant than they did among the less so. The GOP lost 9 points among those who seldom or never attend and 6 points among the nearly weekly or monthly attenders. Factoring out the non-identifiers, this means that the Democratic advantage among the least observant nearly tripled, jumping 21 points from 51-38 to 63-29; while among the pretty frequent attenders, the Dems have turned a three point deficit (43-46) into a 12 point advantage (52-40).

These latter shifts do track voting patterns, and they suggest two things; first, that the Republicans have driven the least observant voters into the arms of the Democrats; and second, that the Democratic Party's effort to show a more religion-friendly side has borne its fruit among the pretty observant. What's important to recognize is that the latter is the critical religious swing group that Democratic faith-based efforts have always been directed towards.

One way to think of that group is in terms of the abortion issue. As I recently noted, there are a lot of Americans who now call themselves "pro-life" but who support the right to abortion in some instances--according to Gallup's recent poll on the subject, over 20 percent. A large proportion of them are likely to be pretty frequent church attenders. They're the ones who have found themselves increasingly susceptible to Democratic appeals, and it's clear that President Obama will do what he can to keep them in the fold.

Update:  Chip Berlet takes the anti-common ground liberal perspective today over on Religion Dispatches.  A good try, but he's wrong from a practical political perspective, in my view. The Democratic play is to keep the pretty religious from getting scared by culture wars appeals, so they can base their votes on Democratic issues like health care and economic recovery. The left is entitled to resist the temporizing on principle. But it shouldn't kid itself about what's pragmatic.  

L'Osservatore hearts Obama (again). Donohue does for the first time (sort of).

Predictions:

1. Obama gets props from the general public, including moderate pro-lifers, for common ground talk.
2. Even more, if backed up by common ground policies.
3. Pro-life activists look more like angry zealots, including the Catholic bishops amongst them.
4. More pro-choice politicians are in evidence on Catholic campuses.

In re: the last of these. The strongest argument against Obama's appearance was that he shouldn't have received a degree honoris causa because that violated the bishops' injunction against honoring those who disagree with fundamental Catholic teachings. That, however, opens the door for Catholic institutions to say, "Well, we're just inviting so-and-so to give a talk, we're not honoring him." The riposte, that this would violate the "Catholic culture" of the place, runs up against the claim that it is important to engage the other side--made by even such eminent critics of Obama's Notre Dame invitation as the new Archbishop of New York. In honor of him, I call it the Dolan Doctrine. Let's see what happens at Fordham.

Obama made his pitch for common ground at Notre Dame today:

So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let's reduce unintended pregnancies. (Applause.) Let's make adoption more available. (Applause.) Let's provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. (Applause.) Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women." Those are things we can do. (Applause.) 

Now, understand -- understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it -- indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory -- the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Who in the pro-life community will unclench their fists and grasp his outstretched hand? We'll see.

Update: Not Deacon Keith Fournier on Catholic Online:

Instead, the slick, well delivered address of this compelling orator who has stopped his ears to the cries of the children killed by abortion was broadcast globally. That well delivered speech, full of self deprecating humor, sophistry, appeals to tolerance and human rights and artful rhetorical devices, was vintage Obama. We have offered it in full to our readers. The President called for reaching some kind of "common ground." He laced his presentation to this Christian group with Christian references to the reality of "original sin." It all sounded so "good." That is why it was so bad.

Nor Dreher.

Further Update: Nor Sister Toldjah. But on second thought, Dreher unclenches a bit.

On this day of protest against Notre Dame for sullying its Catholic identity by inviting a pro-choice president to give its commencement address, we might do worse than recall an earlier outcry against the university for bending its knee to the idols of American accommodationism. That occurred in the summer of 1953, when six members of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the religious order established by the excommunicated Jesuit priest Leonard Feeney, showed up on campus to call the university back to Marian devotion. But let's let the Slaves' organ at the time, The Point, tell the story.

Six Catholic Brothers were sent to jail in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. They were Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from Saint Benedict Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the charge against them was "disorderly conduct." All over the country their story was reprinted, supplemented by tabloid photographs and "serves-them-right" editorials. The Chicago incident got its start in South Bend, Indiana -- the whole story in the press sounding somewhat as follows:

On Tuesday, July 28th, six clerically garbed young men from Saint Benedict Censer, headquarters of the controversial Father Leonard Feeney, appeared on the Notre Dame campus at South Bend and managed to stir up the whole University summer school. Their apparent purpose was the conversion of Notre Dame to their own "peculiar" beliefs.

Two days later, the group of six presented themselves at the Chicago Chancery Building and demanded an appointment with Samuel Cardinal Stritch. The "rumpus" raised by them forced Chancery officials to call in Chicago police and have the noisy sextet locked up. On the following morning in a local courtroom, the young men insisted that their case was a matter for the Church, not the civil courts. They were fined. They refused to pay. They were sentenced to five days in jail. Next day, fines for the six were paid by a Chicago Catholic who did not agree with the boys doctrinally, but thought that they ought to be allowed to "go back to Massachusetts."

...

The whole thing might very well have ended just where it began, at Notre Dame, had it not been for what appeared in the newspapers as a result of the Notre Dame incident. All that the six Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary had originally intended to do was to go out to South Bend, talk to as many of the students and teachers as they could, and then come home again.

The message that they brought to Notre Dame was a simple, straightforward one: that no one can get into Heaven who does not love the Blessed Virgin Mary. Later, the newspapers scoffingly reported that the six Brothers had come to "convert" the Notre Dame students. This was the strange doctrine to which they wanted to convert them.

The Brothers talked to more than three hundred Notre Dame students and priests. They told them that Notre Dame was letting Our Lady down. They said that there had once been a time when every Catholic American boy had thought of the Notre Dame football team as somehow representing Our Lady; but now, they said, it had turned into an eleven-man Interfaith meeting, many of whose members would refuse even to say the Hail Mary.

It was this attack on the sacred Notre Dame football team that really aroused the press. There was hardly a newspaper in the country that did not print the Brothers' statement. Of course, it was twisted to try and make it sound queer and absurd: "The first sign of your approaching damnation is that you have Protestants on your football team." But people could see through the way the papers had put it to what the Brothers had said, and they could see that a very telling point had been scored against Notre Dame. The University was officially upset enough to issue a statement on its policy regarding Protestants in the athletic department.

Though the current protest against Notre Dame's behavior is more broadly based than this episode, involving as it did a handful of members of a small schismatic sect, the issue is the same: To what extent is Notre Dame a sectarian Catholic institution of higher learning and to what extent a true university, open to the world?

Or so says the latest Gallup survey on the subject. Just a year ago, those who "would consider themselves pro-choice" outnumbered those who "would consider themselves pro-life" 50 percent to 44 percent. Now the numbers are more than reversed, 42 percent to 51 percent. On the eve of Obama's trip to South Bend, this finding has been considered highly newsworthy and greeted with huge enthusiasm by pro-life activists and politicians. But look down the Gallup report a ways and it appears as though the shift is largely nominal. That is, when asked not how they'd label themselves  but what their actual position on abortion is, there's been hardly any change. For example, 53  percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal under certain circumstances. That's just about the same percentage as four years ago, and well within the 50-something range where it's been since the mid-1970s.

So if Gallup is to be believed, "pro-life" is now a term that 20 percent or so of pro-choicers now use to describe themsleves.

Sarkozy is to the Vatican? One of the pro-invitation talking points has been that in 2007 the pope himself conferred the title of Honorary Canon of St. John Lateran on Nicholas Sarkozy, the pro-choice president of France. How have opponents of the visit dealt with this apparently problematic fact? Almost entirely by not mentioning it. For a few not very impressive efforts to distinguish the Notre Dame situation (bad) from the Vatican situation (not bad), you can follow this discussion thread on Amy Welborn's Beliefnet blog, Via Media. Along the way, there's mention of a comment on the speech Sarkozy gave on occasion of his canonical installment by John Wauck, the prominent Rome-based Opus Dei priest who happens to be a former student of mine (in a Cantabridgian galaxy far, far away).

John, whose blog-motto is "Sanctis omnia sancta mundana mundanis" ("All things are holy to the saints, worldly to the worldly"), undertakes to praise Sarkozy's public embrace of France's Christian roots--a significant provocation in the Land of Laïcité. The priest is worldly enough--politique enough--not to have a problem with the fact that Sarkozy, who actually claims to be Catholic, should receive such an honor. OK, so Opus Dei priests are not going to be caught raising a public eyebrow about anything the pope might do. But as with this Zenit report on Sarkozy's visit, the idea that you wouldn't make with the usual diplomatic courtesies to heads of state would never occur to the folks in Rome. Unfortunately, this is not part of the magisterial teaching that conservative American Catholics and their bishops have absorbed. If only they were a little more Roman than they are.

Gov. Lynch's proposed language for revising New Hampshire's same-sex marriage bill extends exemptions to "any individual who is managed, directed, or supervised by or in conjunction with a religious organization, association or society." That goes farther than the language on religious exemption of other New England states, which extends only to institutions--but not, on a plain reading, so far as to give individuals exemptions simply based on personal religious convictions. Whatever, it appears that the legislature will go along and let the legal chips fall where they may. The Manchester Union-Leader is not happy. The damage, it saith, will be "widespread and irreversible." Perhaps the end of civilization as New Hampshirites know it.

Writing in specific religious exemptions has now become a standard lever for getting SSM bills enacted. This has in no way appeased the organized opposition, since it won't do anything to prevent gays and lesbians from actually getting married. It also has the effect of identifying opposition with religious doctrine, as distinct from, say, natural law. In so doing, it actually strengthens the case for SSM by suggesting that those defending "traditional marriage" are seeking to impose their religious beliefs on others. Which is, in fact, largely the case.

Gov. Lynch says he'll sign same-sex marriage bill with more religious protections, thereby making it five out of six in New England.

I have heard, and I understand, the very real feelings of same-sex couples that a separate system is not an equal system. That a civil law that differentiates between their committed relationships and those of heterosexual couples undermines both their dignity and the legitimacy of their families.

I have also heard, and I understand, the concerns of our citizens who have equally deep feelings and genuine religious beliefs about marriage. They fear that this legislation would interfere with the ability of religious groups to freely practice their faiths.

Throughout history, our society's views of civil rights have constantly evolved and expanded. New Hampshire's great tradition has always been to come down on the side of individual liberties and protections.

That is what I believe we must do today.

Rhode Island will take another year or so.

From the other side of the cafeteria:

 

Catholic Theologians Denounce Attacks on Notre Dame

For Immediate Release

 

May 14, 2009

 

Contact:

John Gehring

Senior Writer

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good

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Washington, DC --- As controversy swirls around President Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame this Sunday, over 20 Catholic theologians issued a statement today denouncing shrill attacks against the university as betraying a rich Catholic intellectual tradition and injecting partisan politics into the graduation ceremony.

 

The statement, signed by the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and other prominent Catholic scholars, will run as a full-page advertisement in the May 16 edition of the South Bend Tribune. It cautions "those who seek to disrupt these joyous proceedings or to divide the Church for narrow political advantage that history is not on your side."

 

A few days ago, Rod Dreher lamented the costs imposed by same-sex marriage (really gay rights altogether) on the scruples of those who have religious objections to SSM and gay rights. And he's right, there are costs. The irony is that the Supreme Court's 1990 Smith decision, written by social conservative Antonin Scalia, deprives these social conservatives of constitutional remedy. The courts can no longer hear Free Exercise claims where the laws are neutral and of general applicability--e.g. laws mandating non-discrimination in employment and housing. So where are the conservative calls for overturning Smith?

The Spiritual Politics server was down. As you can see, it's back up. Sorry.

Given the array of signatories, I'm inclined to disagree with Pastordan's worried judgment that Harry Knox, the faith guy for the Human Rights Campaign, will be dumped from the OFANP Advisory Council for remarks critical of Pope Benedict. If he listened to those folks, Obama would withdrawing from his Notre Dame speech and walking around the White House in a "Most Anti-Life President in History" T-shirt. 

The Immanent Frame, purveyor of religious cogitation from the Social Science Research Council, has begun a new series of essays inspired by this passage from President Obama's inaugural address:

Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism--these things are old.  These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.

Is there a problem with this rather banal reflection? Well, there's the perennial worry among some religion scholars that any appeal to shared values is by definition exclusionary. As Frame editor-at-large David Kyuman Kim frames it:

Nonetheless, by casting certain values as "old" and as "true," Obama has enjoined the American public in an affirmation of a tradition that may or may not be in fact be as "common" as he claims.  For while he invites the American citizenry to think of ourselves as part of a common conversation that makes for a tradition, he presumes a common inheritance.  And yet: there will no doubt be those who feel left out of this inheritance and from this invitation.  They will feel so for a host of reasons: differences over political positions or moral points of view, or disputes about the master narratives that have rendered the lives of various people invisible or "insignificant."  This is one of the perils of making an appeal and a claim to "the common good" and to shared values. When a tradition aspires to be encompassing, if not universal, in its moral claims, it will inevitably leave many feeling excluded.

This, it seems to me, is a fine expression of the characteristic American concern that the ingrained celebration (viz: valorization) of pluralism (viz: difference) as marker of America's collective identity not be threatened by the enunciation of common traditions (except, of course, pluralism itself). The great bogey for such religion scholars is the idea of an American civil religion. The hegemony, the hegemony!

But the species of civil religion experienced in America is a far cry from the kinds of political religion associated with Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, , and Soviet Russia. Here's how Europe's great student of those political religions, Emilio Gentile, defines it (in his Politics as Religion, p. xvi): 

the conceptual category that contains the forms of sacralization of a political system that guarantee a plurality of ideas, free competition in the exercise of power, and the ability of the governed to dismiss their governments through peaceful and constitutional methods. Cvil religion therefore respects individual freedom, coexists with other ideologies, and does not impose obligatory and unconditional support for its commandments.

Those scholars anxious about creeping Obamaite civil religion would do well to broaden their national and historical horizons, perhaps bearing in tmind he president's response when asked by a reporter if he subscribed to the "school of  'American exceptionalism.":

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

Michael Steele has apologized to Mitt Romney for telling the truth about his candidacy. As in:

[R]emember, it was the base that rejected Mitt because of his switch on pro-life, from pro-choice to pro-life. It was the base that rejected Mitt because it had issues with Mormonism.

Doubt it? Read this.

Among the five ways Obama is, in the view of Kristol's latest WaPo column, "surprisingly vulnerable to political and substantive attack," is his decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Kristol does not specify the nature of the president's Guantanamo problem, contenting himself with the reflection that it is very like Jimmy Carter's returning the Panama Canal to Panamanian control--"a perhaps mostly symbolic issue that caused terrible political problems for both the Democratic administration and Democrats in Congress." For him, this is merely a political target of opportunity. Not that the analogy is perfect; after all, the U.S. really did surrender control of an important piece of real estate and regaining sovereignty over the Canal Zone was hardly a symbolic issue for the Panamanians.

On the other hand, to call Guantanamo "a perhaps mostly symbolic issue" is an understatement. The Supreme Court has determined that it makes no legal difference whether the prisoners are held there or in the U.S. proper, and no one seriously proposes that American high-security prisons are incapable of holding dangerous persons. So what, exactly, is the symbolic problem here?

In a smart article in Religion in the News on the Oklahoma City bombing eight years ago, Ed Linenthal argued that transgressors like Timothy McVeigh are treated as "contaminants of the body politic" that somehow represent a toxic presence wherever they happen to have been present on American soil. Ed distinguishes such native sources of contagion from alien ones, but it seems to me that the Guantanamo detainees represent the same sort toxicity. Their mere presence on American soil is metaphysically intolerable.  

Does this interpretation seem a little too academic for your taste? Well, last week the House Appropriations Committee defeated an amendment by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. that would prevent any detainee from entering the United States. "Do you want the terrorists in your hometown?" Tiahrt asked. He went on say, according to Fox, that "the government frequently tells people to wear their seatbelts and wash their hands to stay clear of H1N1 flu, and a vote for his amendment would also bolster safety."

I'm inclined to doubt that Guantanamo will achieve the traction that the Panama Canal did three decades ago. But it won't be for lack of Kristoline agitation.

Writing in the Guardian yesterday, Ed Kessler contends that the current pope is not seriously interested in Catholic-Jewish interchange:

The central problem for Pope Benedict resides in his vision of the Catholic church. He sees it as a totally completed institution that does not need to learn anything new theologically from dialogue with other Christians or other religious groups. Consequently, interfaith relations are reduced to symbolic conversation rather than genuine dialogue.

I'm not a huge fan of Benedict's, but the following remark of his, from a Q&A with journalists on the way to Amman Saturday, suggests otherwise.

The important thing is that in reality we have the same roots, the same Books of the Old Testament which is - for the Jews as for us - the Book of the Revelation. But naturally, after 2,000 years of different, even separate, history, it is not surprising that misunderstandings should arise. Highly diverse traditions of interpretation, language, and thinking have been formed - what we could call very different "semantic universes" - so that the same words have different meanings for each tradition. With the use of these words, which over the course of history have taken on different meanings, misunderstandings are obviously born. We must do everything to learn one another's language, and it seems to me that we are making great progress. Today it is possible for young people, the future professors of theology, to study in Jerusalem, in the Hebrew University; and the Jews have academic contact with us. Thus these "semantic universes" meet. We learn from one another and we progress along the path of true dialogue. We learn from each other and I am convinced we are making progress. This will also help peace, and what is more, reciprocal love.

Last week, Politico's Ben Smith reported that the Obama Administration had x'ed out funding for abstinence-only sex ed programs. Beloved as these are of social conservatives and their political watercarriers (cf. Administration, Bush), there's no evidence that they actually work (Levi 1, Bristol 0). Also, liberals don't believe in abstinence. (OK, OK.) Brody has leapt on this report, reminding his readers that elections have consequences. But meanwhile, someone has whispered in Smith's ear that actually there is a pot of unspecified dough available for abstinence-only, provided that the programs are promising and subject themselves to rigorous evaluation. I've heard the same. The point here being that, once again, the Obamaites are proceeding with excruciating care on the hot-button social issues. 

A lot of people, even the odd Republican herself, are indulging in the thought experiment of imagining what the GOP should do to get its groove back. Open the doors to moderates! Throw social conservatives under the bus! Go back to basics! Stay the course! Unless I'm missing something, though, no one has proposed readjusting the anti-regulatory, tax-cutting, government-is-the-problem orthodoxy that has been in command since the Reagan era. Take Mike Huckabee, he who once dared to question said orthodoxy (a little). In a recent discussion of religion and politics, he wouldn't go anywhere near there. The result is that you've got Republicans in Congress prepared to vote for measures cracking down on credit card shenanigans and predatory housing lenders, but against the position of their leadership and without an articulated adjustment of philosophy. So sure, dial back on the social conservatism; but while you're at it, dial back on the laissez-faire too. In a pragmatic country, a party wedded to ideology has no place to go but down.

Update: RealClearPolitics' David Paul Kuhn has a column up about how social conservatives are feeling all aggrieved about being scapegoated by the GOP establishment. But why the hell aren't any social conservatives proposing to broaden the party by softening its economic conservatism? Does Grover Norquist have them by the short and curlies? Are their leaders just a bunch of clerical frontmen for the hard-eyed money guys? It's been a century since William Jennings Bryan led the social conservatives of his day on a crusade for economic justice. Has that gene been surgically removed from the evangelical body politic?

The increasingly agitated, increasingly bishop-led anti-abortion crowd in the Catholic church gets a firm pop from the always mannerly Peter Steinfels in his NYT column today. Noting the 1-4 ratio of those joining and those leaving the church in America today, he concludes:

Under normal circumstances, it is hard to imagine any institution's leadership contemplating that kind of gain-loss ratio with equanimity. But for Bishop Finn and a growing number of other Catholic leaders, these are not normal circumstances. "We are at war," they say; and the road to overturning Roe v. Wade first requires overturning Notre Dame.

It's been 35 years since Roe v. Wade. Despite the propaganda, Barack Obama is no more pro-choice than other Democratic presidents since then. It could be  So why are Finn, Burke, and Company now in such a lather? Next column, Peter.   

"Man, these Islamic guys want to cut my hands off. Maybe it's time for a change."

                                                                                        -- Abshir Boyah, Somali pirate boss

In his keynote speech at the National Catholic Day of Prayer breakfast, Archbishop Burke declared:

But, there is no element of the common good, no morally good practice, which a candidate may promote and to which a voter may be dedicated, which could justify voting for a candidate who also endorses and supports the deliberate killing of the unborn, euthanasia or the recognition of a same-sex relationship as a legal marriage. The respect for the inviolable dignity of innocent human life and for the integrity of marriage and the family are so fundamental to the common good that they cannot be subordinated to any other cause, no matter how good it may be.

In their 2007 statement, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," the U.S. Catholic bishops said:

34. ...A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter's intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate's opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.

35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.

This clearly envisages the possibility that a Catholic could conscientiously vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights. Will any active bishop, contra Burke, say so? 

Archbishop Raymond Burke gave the expected screed at this morning's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, including on Notre Dame. His words on the subject to the National Catholic Register last night were:

"What it should do is have Notre Dame come clean. Is it Catholic or isn't it? A Catholic institution, a Catholic university, cannot give honors to someone who is a promoter of things that are opposed to the most fundamental beliefs of Catholics, and so that's what needs to happen."

This view is not shared by all Catholic hierarchs, at least according to the recently retired Bishop of Monterey, Sylvester Ryan. In a letter to the editor of America, Ryan insisted:

I, for one, strongly support the president of Notre Dame, and although retired, know many active bishops who hold to the same position, precisely because we understand that holding a strong conviction about abortion (which I do) even as a fundamental moral imperative does not abrogate the need for cooperation with and recognition of our current U.S. president, especially considering the multiplicity of issues in our complex world.

To honor President Obama for what he represents simply as the president, and especially as the first African-American president, is a genuine and deserved action from and by the University of Notre Dame.

One is entitled to ask why no none of those active bishops have themselves spoken up. Lack of guts or omertà? Whatever the explanation, it is impossible to doubt that even as Notre Dame's president, John Jenkins, C.S.C., appears to be twisting in the wind, he is hearing words of support not only from Catholic progressives (including at America), but also from within the USCCB.  

For a few days now I've been pondering Christopher Evans' essay, "Grassroots Faith: The Lessons of the Social Gospel," over on Religion Dispatches. It's a rather Socratic exercise, in the sense that it raises questions without answering them; but what's clear is that Evans 1) is in favor of a grassroots approach; 2) is anxious that progressives not scant their spiritual side; and 3) believes that, mutatis mutandis, conservative evangelicals (i.e. the religious right) provide a pretty good model of what's needed.

What's important to recognize about the religious right is that, as a national movement, it began in close association with the GOP and has never sundered the connection. Naturally, it hasn't gotten all it wanted, but neither should its successes be minimized. That it has garnered real grassroots support and maintained real religious commitments (however one feels about the latter) cannot be denied. The point to ponder, then, is the degree to which religious progressives need to go and do likewise. The congeries of organizations prophetically dismissed as the Religion Industrial Complex are pretty much to the Democrats what the religious right has been to the Republicans. And they're marching as to war--most recently in the form of a new climate change effort by a new organization called the American Values Network.

There are obvious perils in tying a faith-based social agenda to a political party--as the religious right is finding out after three decades. But it's not clear to me that, in this day and age, there's any other game in town.

Madison would have liked this:

On this day of unity and prayer, let us also honor the service and sacrifice of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. We celebrate their commitment to uphold our highest ideals, and we recognize that it is because of them that we continue to live in a Nation where people of all faiths can worship or not worship according to the dictates of their conscience.

This, not so much:

I call upon Americans to pray in thanksgiving for our freedoms and blessings and to ask for God's continued guidance, grace, and protection for this land that we love.

Full text after the jump.

Brody has posted a piece of an interview with Harry Knox, representative of the LGBT community on the OFANP Advisory Council, in which Knox says he'll bring up with his fellow councilors the issue of gay adoption as part of its abortion-reduction strategy. Here in Connecticut, where we've had same-sex marriage for a year, I know of a gay couple who recently adopted a child in order to prevent the unwed mother of two who cuts their hair from aborting her third pregnancy. Family Values, Nutmeg Division.

Over on God In Government, WaPo's Jaqui Salmon reported  yesterday that D.C. Archbishop Wuerl and Arlington, Va., Bishop Loverde will not be gracing tomorrow's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast nor the accompanying evening Mass. The keynote address will be delivered by Raymond Burke, sometime archbishop of St. Louis and now Vatican canon law consigliere, who was prepared to lend his support to Randall Terry's campaign to get Wuerl and Loverde ousted for being soft on life. No love lost there. Justice Scalia is also speaking. You get the idea.

Indeed,  the NCPB is pretty much the Catholic equivalent of the National Day of Prayer Task Force--and just as President Bush was in the habit of putting out the East Wing punchbowl for the latter, so he was, in office, happy to be guest of honor at the former. For Catholics United's perspective (as of last year), see here. The founder and former president, Joseph Cella, served on John McCain's Catholic Outreach Committee. The current president, Leonard Leo, was national co-chair of Catholic Outreach for the RNC.

It tells you something that the NCPB is not interested in gaining the approbation of its local ordinaries. Terry-like, it would rather poke sticks in their eyes. As on the left, deference to episcopal authority on the right ain't what it used to be.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good has stage-managed a petition (see press release after the jump) from Catholic social justice types calling on the Obama administration to support an independent torture commission. While they're at it, how about calling on the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops to do the same?

The Hartford Courant's Susan Campbell has the goods on the National Day of Prayer Task Force. Definitely a bridge too far for even the most evangelical-friendly Obamaites.

...so goes the nation, according to the old saw. All the same-sex marriage dominoes in New England have fallen except New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and the former is teetering. (As in California but not elsewhere in the region, a popular referendum--known as a "people's veto"--could reverse the decision made in Augusta.) Here are the relevant quotes from Gov. John Baldacci, whose support for the legislation had been anything but assured. The NYT's Abby Goodnough caught up with him as follows:

"It's not the way I was raised and it's not the way that I am," the governor said in a telephone interview. "But at the same time I have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution. That's my job, and you can't allow discrimination to stand when it's raised to your level."

"Just as the Maine Constitution demands that all people are treated equally under the law, it also guarantees that the ultimate political power in the State belongs to the people," he said. "While the good and just people of Maine may determine this issue, my responsibility is to uphold the Constitution and do, as best as possible, what is right. I believe that signing this legislation is the right thing to do."

The gov's explanation tends to undermine Goognough's explanation for the regional embrace of what its proponents now call "marriage equality." Goodnough writes: "The region's strong libertarian bent helps explain why the issue has found support." On the contrary, it's the regional commitment to equal treatment, to equality, that (in my view) explains what's going on. Annual town meetings are the classic form of regional government, where all citizens meet and get to have their say on equal terms. Libertarianism is something else.

In 2005, Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, told the Nashville Tennesseean that it "is permissible to inflict discomfort to gain information that will save lives, as long as it doesn't cause permanent damage." In 2007, he wrote on the WaPo/Newsweek blog, "I condemn torture and physical abuse of prisoners, no matter how heinous their crimes. We must never sink to the level of our enemies often barbarous behavior." Yesterday, he told Jeffrey MacDonald of the Religion News Service:

I consider waterboarding torture...One of the definitions of torture is that it causes permanent physical harm. I can't separate physical from psychological. And I can't imagine that being repeatedly subjected to the feeling of drowning would not, in some cases, cause lasting psychological trauma.

But so far as I can tell, Land has never uttered a word of criticism of any government employee who during the Bush administration engaged in torture or in the justification or legitimation of it. The only U.S. government official he has been prepared to criticize  in re: torture is President Obama, for releasing the Bybee memos. And: "To leave open the possibility of prosecuting men for what the Justice Department had declared was legal, I think is a horrific mistake." As for praise of the current president's readiness to call waterboarding torture and ban its use--not a word.

Richard Land. Always the moralist. Always the partisan.

President Obama's decision to issue a Proclamation for the National Day of Prayer but take a pass on the East Room festivities laid on by his predecessor seems pretty much of a piece with James Madison's efforts to walk the line between custom and constitutional mandate in the matter of presidential religious leadership. As Madison put it in a letter written near the end of his life:

There has been another deviation from the strict principle in the Executive Proclamations of fasts & festivals, so far, at least, as they have spoken the language of injunction, or have lost sight of the equality of all religious sects in the eye of the Constitution. Whilst I was honored with the Executive Trust I found it necessary on more than one occasion to follow the example of predecessors. But I was always careful to make the Proclamations absolutely indiscriminate, and merely recommendatory; or rather mere designations of a day, on which all who thought proper might unite in consecrating it to religious purposes, according to their own faith & forms. In this sense, I presume you reserve to the Govt. a right to appoint particular days for religious worship throughout the State, without any penal sanction enforcing the worship.

The Day of Prayer is one of those religious encrustations that have formed on the body politic since World War II. (Cf. "Under God" in the Pledge.) Established by Truman in 1952 and given a date regular (the first Thursday in May) by President Reagan in 1982, it's become the province of a Task Force run out of Focus on the Family headquarters by Shirley Dobson, wife of James. She professes to be disappointed at the president's decision but religious indiscriminacy is not, shall we say, Focus' forte. We await the Proclamation.

I spent a little time covering Jack Kemp for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution during his unsuccessful presidential campaign for the 1988 GOP presidential nomination. He was a relentless character who attached his personal ambition to economic idees fixes like the Laffer Curve and the gold standard. His years in pro football had given him an ease with African Americans that other GOP candidates lacked, and at a time when most of the latter struggled to establish their bona fides with religious conservatives, he easily won acceptance as a kindred spirit. His campaign press secretary was John Buckley, a nephew of William F. who was into the New York punk scene and had the Buckley sense of humor. Kemp was not exactly his cup of tea, and I suspect the candidate returned the sentiment.

Kemp was dedicated to inclusion--not only racial but also religious. In the second week of December 2007, I tagged along on a South Carolina swing where he addressed a bunch of business folks in Greenville. He opened his remarks by noting the importance of "this Christmas and Chanukah season." It was pretty clear that the audience was mystified by that second term.

Thanks to Pat Robertson's remarkable success in Iowa and Vice President Bush's victory in New Hampshire, Kemp was pretty much a dead duck by the time of the South Carolina primary, which took place the Sunday before Super Tuesday. That day, I was following him into a mall north of Atlanta when I saw a familiar figure come out of a clutch of onlookers to shake his hand. "Hi," said the man, "I'm Lester Maddox and I want you to know that I endorse you." Maddox, symbol of unreconstructed segregationism during his 1967-71 term as governor, just happened to be at the mall shopping. "What was I supposed supposed to do?" Kemp said afterwards. "I shake anybody's hand."

Andrew Sullivan, who's been serving as Anti-Torture Tribune of the Blogosphere, is seriously distressed by Pew's new finding that the more people go to church, the more likely they are to support torture. I guess this wouldn't have surprised Torquemada--but to be fair, white evangelicals (as we already know) are more down with torture than white non-Hispanic Catholics (62 percent versus 51 percent.

Sullivan muses, "And people wonder why atheism is gaining in this country." His point, I guess, is that Christianity is so morally bankrupt that people of conscience are just giving up on it--and joining the moral folks who Pew calls "unaffiliated" and we call call "Nones." Only 40 percent of the latter believe that torture is often or sometimes justified. Of those who seldom or never attend worship, the number is 42 percent--as opposed to 54 percent of weekly attenders.

The real point here is that moral issues are tied into a whole array of ethical and political values and commitments. Explaining a particular position on a particular issue at a particular time according to religious identity or commitment is a complicated undertaking. One thing should, however, be clear. In this regard there are few if any slippery moral slopes. The oft-cited claim by the pro-life community that support for abortion rights leads individuals and communities inevitably into moral squalor cannot be sustained--certainly not when it comes to opposition to torture. The most anti-torture element in American society--the Nones--is also the most pro-choice.

Catholics may not love Obama as much as Muslims, Jews, and Nones, but a 67 percent approval rating isn't anything to sneeze at. That's four points higher than the national approval rating. Given that Catholics supported Obama in the election at just the national rate of 53 percent, it means that he is now outperforming the market with them.

According to a new Quinnipiac poll, 27 percent of blacks, 38 percent of whites, and 52 percent of Hispanics support same-sex marriage. The same poll has 48 percent of blacks, 56 percent of whites, and 71 percent of Hispanics in favor of repealing the law against gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. Forty-five percent or blacks, 43 percent of whites, and 62 percent of Hispanics agree that ending discrimination against gay men and women is as necessary today as ending discrimination against blacks was in the 1960s.

The poll also finds that zero percent of blacks, two percent of whites, and four percent of Hispanics consider themselves gay or lesbian. And that two percent of blacks, one percent of whites, and eleven (!) percent of Hispanics consider themselves bisexual.

Previous polls show that Hispanics are less likely to support gay rights than whites. What's up with these numbers, O Quinnipiac?

P.S. Among the religious tribes, support for gay marriage runs at 27 percent for Protestants, 43 percent for Catholics, and 81 percent for Jews. Those numbers I believe.