I'll be on vacation for most of the next few weeks. Prediction is sun with intermittent blogging.
July 2009 Archives
I'll be on vacation for most of the next few weeks. Prediction is sun with intermittent blogging.
Over the last few days there's been some chatter (led by Terry Mattingly) about why the Catholic bishops haven't been weighing in on health reform. This has been a big issue for them, so what's up? Pretty clearly, they've been hamstrung by the abortion issue, having to deal on the right with the likes of Ave Maria Law School's Rev. Michael P. Orsi, who thumps them as abortion-rights fellow travelers for refusing to attack health reform legislation. Actually, Orsi's got the full conservative ideological agenda, and so attacks the whole idea (asserted previously by the USCCB) of health care as a basic right.
Recently, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development released a statement made to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate stating that "health care is not a privilege but a right and a requirement to protect the life and dignity of each person." They couldn't be more wrong.Having made his case, Orsi smugly concludes by citing Pope Benedict's recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate: In asserting a basic right to healthcare, the bishops have violated the pope's principle of Truth.
To promote health care as a right under the aegis of Catholic morality by the USCCB is not the truth. As a matter of fact, it is not even charity because, as the Pope says, "Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way."
Such carelessness with the truth, whether intentional or unintentional, by the USCCB undermines both the Catholic Church and American society.OK, so what does the pope himself say in that encyclical about health care?
Continue reading Rev. Orsi v. Pope Benedict.
Steve Waldman reports on what happened last night in the House Energy and Commerce Committee's health care bill in re: abortion coverage. Both sides claimed to be aiming at preserving the status, but in the end only the amendment of Lois Capps (D-CA) was left standing. Pro-choicers rejoiced, pro-lifers said bah. I predict that Congress will be going around the mulberry bush for some time on this one, trying to establish what preserving the status quo means. At least everyone claims to be fighting for the same principle.
In response to my recent postings (here and here) on the correlation between Catholic presence and support for same-sex marriage (SSM), I've received an interesting (yet unpublished) paper from Darren Sherkat of Southern Illinois and some colleagues conjuring via regression analysis with a number of factors involved in the politics of the issue over the past two decades. The money finding is that whereas just about everyone was in the same place on SSM in 1988 (Democrats and Republicans, Catholics and Protestants), now opposition has become locked into GOP identity. That is to say, the most Republican groups in American society (including those Sherkat et al. call "sectarian Protestants"--i.e. your basic white evangelicals) oppose same-sex marriage at the same rate that everybody did 20 years ago. The problem for the GOP is that everybody else has moved toward acceptance--including Catholics, most of whom continue to identify as Democrats. Opposition to SSM, in short, has become a mark of Republicanism--not a good thing if you're interested in expanding the party, as the proportion of Americans opposing SSM continues to shrink.
Courtesy of A.E. Housman:And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
Paul Stanley is the Tennessee state senator who resigned his office a couple of days ago when it was revealed that he was having an affair with a 22-year-old intern.Stanley acknowledged in an interview with WREC radio host Ben Ferguson that he had an affair. He also defended statements he had made condemning sex outside of marriage and a legislative record that included backing a ban on adoptions by unmarried couples.
"Whatever I stood for and advocated I still believe to be true," Stanley said. "Just because I fell short of God's standard ... doesn't mean that God's standard is reduced."But it does mean that he's a hypocrite. Does he imagine that, having paid homage to virtue, he should get credit for it?
In recent days, the opposition to health reform legislation has been cranking up a pro-life meme, to the effect that the legislation will mandate government funding of abortions. I've addressed the elements of the charge here, and proposed a federalized solution to the issue here. But because the meme is being pushed so hard--as in this ad from Family Research Family Action--it's worth making clear the extent to which "the government" is already paying for abortions.
Since 1993, the Hyde Amendment restricting federal funding of abortion has required that Medicaid pay for abortions in cases of rape and incest, and when the life of the pregnant woman is endangered. Beyond that, 17 states comprising over one-third of the U.S. population, provide funds of their own to cover abortions in all or most circumstances. An additional six states supplement the federal Medicaid mandate to cover abortions in some circumstances. Here's a precise enumeration, and here's a brief summary of the Medicaid funding situation in the states:
Since 1993, the Hyde Amendment restricting federal funding of abortion has required that Medicaid pay for abortions in cases of rape and incest, and when the life of the pregnant woman is endangered. Beyond that, 17 states comprising over one-third of the U.S. population, provide funds of their own to cover abortions in all or most circumstances. An additional six states supplement the federal Medicaid mandate to cover abortions in some circumstances. Here's a precise enumeration, and here's a brief summary of the Medicaid funding situation in the states:
Funding under Hyde Amendment Only: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.
Hyde Amendment and Additional Health Circumstances: Indiana (physical health), Iowa (fetal abnormality), Mississippi (fetal abnormality), Utah (physical health and fetal abnormality), Virginia (fetal abnormality), and Wisconsin (physical health).
All or Most Health Circumstances: Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.
Noncompliant with the Hyde Amendment: South Dakota (life endangerment only).
In short, public funds underwrite abortion services everywhere in the U.S. in certain circumstances and in states comprising close to half the population in others. The point to emphasize is that by deciding what to cover and not to cover under Medicaid, the federal government and the states have all established minimum standards of treatment with respect to abortion. Health reform should, it seems to me, aim to maintain the status quo with respect to abortion, which means keeping these minimum standards intact.
Thus, the Hyde Amendment rules for Medicaid, which is to be modestly expanded, should remain as they are. And such additional Medicaid abortion coverage as states provide should be included in the public subsidy program for those who are eligible--with the states that currently underwrite abortions not funded by the feds providing that subsidy as well.
USA Today's Cathy Grossman at Faith & Reason and the Boston Globe's Michael Paulson at Articles of Faith have been pondering my little correlation between the proportion of Catholics in a state and the state's support for same-sex marriage, so let me offer a possible explanation.
It's fair to point out (as Michael does) that Catholics tend to be concentrated in liberal states like Massachusetts, New York, and California, where there are a lot of non-Catholics (Jews, say) who we know support same-sex marriage. But what needs to be looked at are the actual rates of Catholic support for gay marriage. According to a recent WaPo-ABC News poll, white Catholics were evenly split (as opposed to white evangelicals, only 20 percent of whom supported it). That may understate Catholic support, however, at least in some places. For example, in 2003, a poll taken in working class, heavily Catholic Hudson County, New Jersey, found that over 60 percent of Catholics supported gay marriage, as compared to 30 percent of Protestants.
Cathy offers the suggestion that what's going on here is Catholic social justice principles outweighing the magisterium's natural law arguments against non-heterosexual unions. We here at the Greenberg Center tend to argue (see One Nation, Divisible, chapter 3) that New England, anyway, is a place where Catholics remember their own minority status well and so don't want to inflict their current majority views on those who feel otherwise. But I'd like to propose a third idea: that it is because Catholics value the idea marriage so highly that they don't want to deny it to those who want to embrace it.
It's important to recognize that in the Catholic thought-world, marriage is the most potent of terms for describing relationships other than the conjugal union of one man and one woman. A bishop has for centuries been considered to be "married" to his diocese. And religious women wear rings to signify their marriage to Christ. What "marriage" signifies in the Catholic imagination, in other words, is the most powerful of spiritual bonds. Under the circumstances, it's just plain obvious that that two people who want to commit themselves to each other, regardless of gender, should be married, isn't it?
It's fair to point out (as Michael does) that Catholics tend to be concentrated in liberal states like Massachusetts, New York, and California, where there are a lot of non-Catholics (Jews, say) who we know support same-sex marriage. But what needs to be looked at are the actual rates of Catholic support for gay marriage. According to a recent WaPo-ABC News poll, white Catholics were evenly split (as opposed to white evangelicals, only 20 percent of whom supported it). That may understate Catholic support, however, at least in some places. For example, in 2003, a poll taken in working class, heavily Catholic Hudson County, New Jersey, found that over 60 percent of Catholics supported gay marriage, as compared to 30 percent of Protestants.
Cathy offers the suggestion that what's going on here is Catholic social justice principles outweighing the magisterium's natural law arguments against non-heterosexual unions. We here at the Greenberg Center tend to argue (see One Nation, Divisible, chapter 3) that New England, anyway, is a place where Catholics remember their own minority status well and so don't want to inflict their current majority views on those who feel otherwise. But I'd like to propose a third idea: that it is because Catholics value the idea marriage so highly that they don't want to deny it to those who want to embrace it.
It's important to recognize that in the Catholic thought-world, marriage is the most potent of terms for describing relationships other than the conjugal union of one man and one woman. A bishop has for centuries been considered to be "married" to his diocese. And religious women wear rings to signify their marriage to Christ. What "marriage" signifies in the Catholic imagination, in other words, is the most powerful of spiritual bonds. Under the circumstances, it's just plain obvious that that two people who want to commit themselves to each other, regardless of gender, should be married, isn't it?
Yesterday's annual report on volunteering in America was promoted by the White House (press release after jump) to highlight the unsurprising fact that a lot of volunteerism is connected to religious institutions--one-third, to be precise. But the relationship between religion and volunteerism is not simple, as the report's rankings demonstrate. The high rankings in Utah (#1) and the Upper Midwest point to the emphasis on volunteer service in Mormonism and Lutheranism. At the same time, states with the lowest rates of religious adherence--Vermont, Washington, Oregon--also rank high in volunteerism. At the other end of the scale, it's clear that the relatively low priority placed by evangelicalism on good works (as opposed to the Great Commission) helps explain the relatively low rankings of the Southern states.
Of course, there are factors besides religion at work here. A sparse population tends to encourage volunteerism, while an historically high level of public services seems to discourage it. The point is, faith-based volunteering is not an undifferentiated exercise.
Continue reading Volunteering and religion.
A new study by Columbia political scientists Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips (h/t Robbie Jones),
forthcoming in the American Political Science Review ,
ranks states according to public support for same-sex marriage and civil unions.
Putting the rankings together with the 2008 Trinity ARIS survey reveals that six
of the eight states where 50 percent or more of the public supports gay marriage
are the states with the highest proportion of Catholics, ranging from Rhode
Island at 46 percent to New York and California at 37 percent. Meanwhile, the
eight states most opposed to gay marriage include six of the seven with the
lowest proportion of Catholics, from Alabama at six percent to North Carolina at
nine percent. In other words, support for same-sex marriage is directly related to the proportion of Catholics in a given state. Way to go, bishops!
On first blush, last week's round-up of New Jersey rabbis and pols looks like good old corruption-as-usual in the state where I grew up. That is, the Garden State cleaves to the ancient (back to the 17th century) Middle Atlantic tradition of community-by-ethno-religious group (see One Nation Divisible, chapter 2)--and, repeatedly, news reports have highlighted the fact that this story is about the "insular Syrian Jewish community" in the coastal town of Deal, where that community is 10,000 strong year round, and a lot bigger (thanks to vacationers from Brooklyn) in the summer.
A classic version of latter-day New Jersey ethno-corruption occurred a few years ago in the large South Asian community in Edison, 35 miles to the northwest. Then, a wheeler-dealer named Rajesh "Roger" Chugh put the arm on Hindus rich and poor to support the gubernatorial candidacy of Jim McGreevey--and was duly rewarded with an assistant commissionership in the secretary of state's office. (Chugh later resigned in disgrace, as did McGreevey.)
But while the Edison story involved a new immigrant community's move into the big world of state politics, there's no evidence that this is what was going on in Deal. The wheeler-dealer in this case is Solomon Dwek, whose fraudulent real estate dealings permitted the FBI to turn him into an instrument for exposing 1) the alleged money laundering business of some rabbis; and 2) the fabled readiness of New Jersey public officials to take bribes from developers. So far, there no evidence that the Syrian (Sephardic) community as a whole was doing anything other than minding its own business; moreover, the alleged money laundering involved non-Syrian, Ashkenazi rabbis as well. To the extent that the rabbis were themselves involved in politics, it seems to have been Israeli politics.
There is doubtless much more to the story than has yet emerged, not least information on where all that laundered money came from, and what the rabbis were doing with their cut. But for now, the laundering and the state politics need to be kept separate.
A classic version of latter-day New Jersey ethno-corruption occurred a few years ago in the large South Asian community in Edison, 35 miles to the northwest. Then, a wheeler-dealer named Rajesh "Roger" Chugh put the arm on Hindus rich and poor to support the gubernatorial candidacy of Jim McGreevey--and was duly rewarded with an assistant commissionership in the secretary of state's office. (Chugh later resigned in disgrace, as did McGreevey.)
But while the Edison story involved a new immigrant community's move into the big world of state politics, there's no evidence that this is what was going on in Deal. The wheeler-dealer in this case is Solomon Dwek, whose fraudulent real estate dealings permitted the FBI to turn him into an instrument for exposing 1) the alleged money laundering business of some rabbis; and 2) the fabled readiness of New Jersey public officials to take bribes from developers. So far, there no evidence that the Syrian (Sephardic) community as a whole was doing anything other than minding its own business; moreover, the alleged money laundering involved non-Syrian, Ashkenazi rabbis as well. To the extent that the rabbis were themselves involved in politics, it seems to have been Israeli politics.
There is doubtless much more to the story than has yet emerged, not least information on where all that laundered money came from, and what the rabbis were doing with their cut. But for now, the laundering and the state politics need to be kept separate.
Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury (ABC), is not at all happy with the Episcopal Church's resolutions declaring that partnered gay people can be called to all church offices and preparing the way for the church's blessing of same-sex unions. In a letter issued from his palace yesterday, Williams charges ECUSA with 1) not having done the necessary biblical and theological work to justify its position; and 2) failing to properly abide by some kind of general consensus of Christendom:So long as the Church Catholic, or even the [Anglican] Communion (AC) as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.These seem to this theological naif like pretty darned deep doctrinal and ecclesiological waters. But leave us pass on to consequences. The ABC envisages a future AC as a two-track entity--one, "covenanted" under his proposed Anglican Covenant and therefore kind of like a coherent church; the other, incorporating uncovenanted "provinces" (what he sometimes calls "local churches") that are part of the family but don't get invited to tea. This concept raises in the ABC's mind the question of whether some portion of an uncovenanted province might be admitted onto the favored track. As in:
It is my strong hope that all the provinces will respond favourably to the invitation to Covenant. But in the current context, the question is becoming more sharply defined of whether, if a province declines such an invitation, any elements within it will be free (granted the explicit provision that the Covenant does not purport to alter the Constitution or internal polity of any province) to adopt the Covenant as a sign of their wish to act in a certain level of mutuality with other parts of the Communion. It is important that there should be a clear answer to this question.Naturally, this raises the question of the status of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), the break-away body of conservatives that was officially brought into being in June. Does the ABC consider it an "element" of the Episcopal province, such that it might be admitted to the AC as one of the covenanted ones? ACNA seems to regard itself as a new province altogether (and was recognized by the Anglican Church of Uganda as such). And what does it mean for the proposed Covenant not to "purport" to alter the workings of a given province? Murky as all this is, the ABC does appear to be opening the door a crack to ACNA.
...completely. Roger Cohen, in his powerful piece on Iran in the current New York Review, tries to capture the mix of anti-clericalism, religiosity, and secularism he witnessed during last month's post-election protests:
In that moment, the crowd seemed irresistible, too large to be harmed, too strong to be cowed, and it was as if the whole frustrated centennial Iranian quest for some form of democratic pluralism, some workable compromise between clericalism and secularism that denies neither the country's profound Islamic faith nor its broad attraction to liberal values, had welled onto that broad avenue.What Cohen witnessed was "a fundamental battle between nationalist-revolutionaries and reform-minded internationalists...stirred by President Obama's overtures." His bottom line:
A great desire and a great rage inhabited those rooftop cries. I hear them still. Iran, thanks in part to the revolution, now has many of the preconditions for democracy, including a large middle class, broad higher education, and a youthful population that is sophisticated and engaged. If Khamenei and the revolutionary establishment deny that, as they did with violence after June 12, they will in the end devour themselves. When that will be I do not know, but Iran's government and people are marching in opposite directions. I do know that if the hard-liners maintain their current tenuous hold, the one way they will lock it in for a long time would be if bombs fell on Iran. Offers of engagement have unsettled the regime. Military confrontation would cement it.Ugly Thought: Perverse though it seems, this suggests that a shaky Iranian regime might want there to be a military strike against its nuclear facilities--and self-interestedly provoke it.
To subsidize coverage of abortion services or not to subsidize, that is the question. Pro-life activists and legislators don't want health insurance reform to provide a back door for federal funding of abortions. However, not only could that make it impossible for some taxpayers to obtain coverage for abortion services that private insurers now offer, but it could also run up against legal requirements in some states that abortions services be available to women who can't afford them. The answer: federalization.
As Ezra Klein argues, the core of the reform proposals making their way through Congress is the health insurance exchange, a regulated market where consumers can go to purchase the best plan for them. The exchange would require providers to meet certain standards for marketing and coverage, and permit them to compete on price and additional coverage offered. Currently under consideration are a single national exchange or individual state exchanges, such as the Commonwealth Connector that is part of the Massachusetts health plan passed under Mitt Romney. The Massachusetts plan, by the way, does cover abortion services.
State health insurance exchanges could be easily be differentiated in such a way as to cover or not cover abortion services, depending on the preferences--and dollars--of the state in question. The model for such differential treatment is Medicaid coverage. The problem is that state insurance exchanges are a much weaker option than a national exchange. For starters, the pools of customers would be much smaller, and they are therefore far less likely to generate the savings that national pools would. But in principle, there's no reason a national exchange couldn't be set up to allow for different state requirements--in this case on abortion. The minimum, federally subsidized coverage standard would be what's currently required under Medicaid: federal funding in cases of rape, incest, and endangerment to the life of the pregnant woman. Subsidies for any additional abortion services mandated by individual states would have to come from those states.
Would such a approach fly? On June 25, 19 pro-life Democrats wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi saying that they could not support "any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan." That would seem to exclude a federalized solution. Last week, however, a group of five more centrist Democrats led by Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan (of Ryan-DeLauro) sent their own letter to Pelosi advocating an approach that maintains the current status quo in the private insurance market while not permitting federal funds to be used to pay for abortions. Such an approach seems more amenable to federalization, assuming the willingness of the sponsors to accept the Medicaid standard. Call it a common ground solution, if you must.
Update: Both Dan Gilgoff and Jacqui Salmon call attention today to President Obama's apparent ruling out of government funding of abortions, in an interview with Katie Couric:
As Ezra Klein argues, the core of the reform proposals making their way through Congress is the health insurance exchange, a regulated market where consumers can go to purchase the best plan for them. The exchange would require providers to meet certain standards for marketing and coverage, and permit them to compete on price and additional coverage offered. Currently under consideration are a single national exchange or individual state exchanges, such as the Commonwealth Connector that is part of the Massachusetts health plan passed under Mitt Romney. The Massachusetts plan, by the way, does cover abortion services.
State health insurance exchanges could be easily be differentiated in such a way as to cover or not cover abortion services, depending on the preferences--and dollars--of the state in question. The model for such differential treatment is Medicaid coverage. The problem is that state insurance exchanges are a much weaker option than a national exchange. For starters, the pools of customers would be much smaller, and they are therefore far less likely to generate the savings that national pools would. But in principle, there's no reason a national exchange couldn't be set up to allow for different state requirements--in this case on abortion. The minimum, federally subsidized coverage standard would be what's currently required under Medicaid: federal funding in cases of rape, incest, and endangerment to the life of the pregnant woman. Subsidies for any additional abortion services mandated by individual states would have to come from those states.
Would such a approach fly? On June 25, 19 pro-life Democrats wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi saying that they could not support "any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan." That would seem to exclude a federalized solution. Last week, however, a group of five more centrist Democrats led by Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan (of Ryan-DeLauro) sent their own letter to Pelosi advocating an approach that maintains the current status quo in the private insurance market while not permitting federal funds to be used to pay for abortions. Such an approach seems more amenable to federalization, assuming the willingness of the sponsors to accept the Medicaid standard. Call it a common ground solution, if you must.
Update: Both Dan Gilgoff and Jacqui Salmon call attention today to President Obama's apparent ruling out of government funding of abortions, in an interview with Katie Couric:
I'm pro-choice, but I think we also have the tradition in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded healthcare. My main focus is making sure that people have options of high-quality care at the lowest possible price.But, as noted above, the tradition in D.C. (since 1993) has been to fund abortions under Medicaid in certain circumstances. Is the president aware of that?
For 30 years, abortion has been the keystone of the culture wars. It is the issue that galvanized the religious right as a national political force and brought evangelicals and conservative Catholics together. If gay rights has been a moving target that wise conservative heads see as a losing cause, abortion stands solid, as divisive an issue today as it was in 1980. Politically, the Ryan-DeLauro "Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act" threatens to remove the abortion keystone by promoting policies that arguably would reduce the number of abortions without restricting women's access to abortion services (aka "reduce the need for abortions"). Democrats and their allies in both the pro-choice and pro-life camps are all on board. Yes, there's a little grumbling here and there from some common-ground skeptics who don't like the religious, "abortion is not a good thing" mood music, but it doesn't amount to much.
On the other hand, the old-line pro-life forces are not at all happy. What they've fixed on is the contraception-promoting portions of Ryan-DeLauro, claiming 1) that more contraception won't reduce abortions; and 2) that even if it did, it would be a bad thing because it promotes immoral behavior. Unfortunately for them, the American public is way supportive of contraception--including government programs to promote it. Anti-contraception does not hold a lot of promise as a an-anti-Ryan-DeLauro rallying cry. But for the GOP's pro-life allies, it's essential to keep the culture wars going, and that means finding whatever way they can to oppose Ryan-DeLauro.
So in the coming weeks and months, the abortion debate comes down to Ryan-DeLauro and Health Insurance Reform. The former's a winner for the Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration, who will use it to make the case that they are with the abortion reduction program. Meanwhile, the Republicans will do what they can to ramp up the charge that the other side is all about abortion promotion via abortion coverage in health reform. Trench warfare, if you ask me.
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that while the Humanities are most likely to attract religious youth as majors, they are also most likely to turn them away from religion. The explanation? Postmodernism. The authors suppose that what's taught in Humanities (and many Social Science) courses is one or another form of cultural relativism--and that this particular acid of modernity tends to eat away at religious belief more even than science. Makes sense to me.
WaPo's lede on its new poll is that Sarah Palin's favorables are down with the American public. That's news? We're talking about a decline from 51-46 unfavorable last October to 53-40 now. The actual bad news for Palinites, if not for Sarah herself, is that Mike Huckabee is now the 2012 front-runner among Republican and GOP-leaning voters at 26 percent, with Mitt Romney next at 21 percent and Palin at 19 percent. Worse, Huckabee leads Palin 2-1 among white evangelicals. I won't say I told you so, but at the moment 2012 is looking very Huckabee-Romneyish.
The religious right is up in arms about the place of abortion in the health insurance reform bills making their way through Congress. Today, an all-star cast of pro-lifers will appear on a webcast headlined as "Stop the Abortion Mandate Now." Not surprisingly, several separate issue are being conflated to create an abortion healthcare bogeyman. They ought to be kept separate.
First, there's the fear that abortion services would be included in the package of benefits required of all health insurance programs. That would be a true "abortion mandate." There seems little likelihood of such a mandate beyond the exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the pregnant woman provided under the current version of the Hyde Amendment governing Medicaid coverage. Most private insurance plans now offer the option of abortion coverage, but many employers don't choose it. It's not part of what most Americans assume should be covered.
Second, there is a question of whether abortion services would be included in the "public option." This should not in itself be a problem for pro-lifers. The principle behind prohibiting public funding of abortion is that it compels some taxpayers to pay for something they conscientiously oppose. To be sure, we have no problem doing that when it comes, for example, to carrying out the death penalty conducting wars. Regardless, it's irrelevant here. The insurance plans will pay benefits out of the same mix of funds provided by the insured themselves and public subsidies. Those who do not want to underwrite abortions would need to choose an insurer that offered no abortion services.
Third, there is a bona fide issue when it comes to the public subsidies that would help those with insufficient incomes pay their premiums. The problem here is that banning the use of such subsidies for any abortion services could have the effect of making it impossible for some taxpayers to obtain coverage for abortion that actually is offered by private insurers. One way to solve this issue is to treat government heath insurance subsidies as vouchers. Just as families can now use government vouchers to subsidize their children's attendance at religious primary and secondary schools (thus avoiding direct government subsidy of those religions), so it seems reasonable to use the same mechanism to let them obtain abortions. Not that this argument will cut much ice with the pro-life community...
First, there's the fear that abortion services would be included in the package of benefits required of all health insurance programs. That would be a true "abortion mandate." There seems little likelihood of such a mandate beyond the exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the pregnant woman provided under the current version of the Hyde Amendment governing Medicaid coverage. Most private insurance plans now offer the option of abortion coverage, but many employers don't choose it. It's not part of what most Americans assume should be covered.
Second, there is a question of whether abortion services would be included in the "public option." This should not in itself be a problem for pro-lifers. The principle behind prohibiting public funding of abortion is that it compels some taxpayers to pay for something they conscientiously oppose. To be sure, we have no problem doing that when it comes, for example, to carrying out the death penalty conducting wars. Regardless, it's irrelevant here. The insurance plans will pay benefits out of the same mix of funds provided by the insured themselves and public subsidies. Those who do not want to underwrite abortions would need to choose an insurer that offered no abortion services.
Third, there is a bona fide issue when it comes to the public subsidies that would help those with insufficient incomes pay their premiums. The problem here is that banning the use of such subsidies for any abortion services could have the effect of making it impossible for some taxpayers to obtain coverage for abortion that actually is offered by private insurers. One way to solve this issue is to treat government heath insurance subsidies as vouchers. Just as families can now use government vouchers to subsidize their children's attendance at religious primary and secondary schools (thus avoiding direct government subsidy of those religions), so it seems reasonable to use the same mechanism to let them obtain abortions. Not that this argument will cut much ice with the pro-life community...
Corners of the blogosphere have been atwitter with a remark made yesterday by House minority whip Eric Cantor to the annual conference of John Hagee's Christians United for Israel; to wit:
I'd put it somewhat differently. From it's inception as a term of rhetorical art during World War II, Judeo-Christian was designed to differentiate "us" from "them." Originally, "us" meant Jews and Christians; "them" meant the Fascists--whose anti-Semitic ideology often resulted in the use of "Christian" as an identifying mark. During the Cold War, "they" were the (Godless) Communists; "Judeo-Christian" was the sacred banner under which all Americans--Protestant, Catholic, Jew--marched. During the past generation, the religious right has made the term its own, waving it against its domestic foes--Democrats and other secularists who would allegedly remove religion from the public square.
Cantor's game, then, has nothing to do with identifying any particular Judeo-Christian beliefs on which to ground American foreign policy. It's to identify "us" as Jews and Christians, "them" as the Muslim world. To that extent, Chait is right. So much for "Abrahamic" common ground.
Reaching out to the Muslim world may help in creating an environment for peace in the Middle East, but we must insist as Americans that our policies be firmly grounded in the beliefs of the Judeo-Christian tradition upon which this country was founded.What, Dan Gilgoff and Steve Benen want to know, would such a Judeo-Christian foreign policy look like? According to Jonathan Chait, Cantor should be understood as proposing a faith-based alliance between the U.S. and Israel.
I'd put it somewhat differently. From it's inception as a term of rhetorical art during World War II, Judeo-Christian was designed to differentiate "us" from "them." Originally, "us" meant Jews and Christians; "them" meant the Fascists--whose anti-Semitic ideology often resulted in the use of "Christian" as an identifying mark. During the Cold War, "they" were the (Godless) Communists; "Judeo-Christian" was the sacred banner under which all Americans--Protestant, Catholic, Jew--marched. During the past generation, the religious right has made the term its own, waving it against its domestic foes--Democrats and other secularists who would allegedly remove religion from the public square.
Cantor's game, then, has nothing to do with identifying any particular Judeo-Christian beliefs on which to ground American foreign policy. It's to identify "us" as Jews and Christians, "them" as the Muslim world. To that extent, Chait is right. So much for "Abrahamic" common ground.
A couple of days ago, the Israeli daily Haaretz broke a story about a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers asserting, among other things, that the pope and the cardinals of the Vatican "help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to
wipe out Jews." Purporting to tell the story of a Hezbollah leader who spied for Israel, the booket, "On Either Side of the Border," describes an alleged visit to the concentration camp led by Vatican officials: "We came to the camps. We saw the trains, the
platforms, the piles of eyeglasses and clothes ... We came to learn ...
Our escort spoke as he was taught. We quickly explained to him: Every
real Arab, deep inside, is kind of a fan of the Nazis." Privately published and given to the IDF for distribution, "On Either Side of the Border" has the imprimatur of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (OU), in cooperation with the chief rabbi of Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu.The OU is the mainstream umbrella organization for Orthodox synagogues in America.
To its credit, the OU has now apologized and disavowed the booklet, saying that its endorsement "was made by staff at the OU's Israel branch office, and was never submitted to, nor approved by, senior Orthodox Union management." Besides declaring that "some of what it contains is antithetical to the well-known views of the OU regarding respect for other faiths and their leaders," the organization said that an internal review had been initiated "to ensure that such a situation is not repeated."
It would inspire more confidence to hear that the branch office staff responsible for endorsing the pamphlet will be fired. It would also inspire more confidence had OU acted before Haaretz broke the story. After all, the booklet has been distributed to thousands of IDF soldiers, and the story it has to tell has been circulating on Chabad and Orthodox websites for months. Had OU leadership never gotten wind of the fact that it was identified as the publisher?
I wouldn't mind seeing Palestine Media Watch, which keeps a gimlet eye out for any expressions of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bigotry emanating from Palestinian leaders and media, weighing in on this scurrilous booklet. And what about the ADL? Its brief is not only to combat defamation of the Jewish people but to "secure justice and fair treatment to all." What's sauce for the goose and all that, eh Abe?
(H/T on this story to Bingo Prof.)
By writing about his decade-old departure from the Southern Baptist Convention in an Australian paper, Jimmy Carter has caught the attention of people who may have missed the news the first time. What's a little curious is that, the first time around, Carter gave as his reason his sense that the SBC's ''increasingly rigid'' doctrines violated the ''basic premises of my Christian faith.'' This time, he attributes his departure to the SBC's opposition to the ordination of women. Before Carter left in 2000, the SBC did reiterate its opposition to women as pastors, but that was hardly a new thing. Perhaps time has sharpened his commitment to gender equality in church.
"I enjoyed my meeting with President Monson and Elder Oaks. I'm grateful for the genealogical records that they brought with them and am looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters. It's something our family will treasure for years to come."
And give my best to Mitt...
Back in 1954, when "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and Congress required all U.S. coins and paper currency to bear the slogan "In God We Trust," the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments held hearings on proposal by Sen. Ralph Flanders (R-VT) to amend the Constitution to recognize the authority and law of Jesus Christ. This "Christian amendment" had been offered many times before, and was no more successful amdst that year's religio-patriotic gore than it had been earlier.
Now comes the Christian amendment's pallid descendant, the Spiritual Heritage bill, offered by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) as a way of combating . After a whole passel of whereases specifying examples (some dubious) of official religious words or deeds by national leaders from the Founding Fathers on, the bill resolves that the House of Representatives:(1) affirms the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day;
(2) recognizes that the religious foundations of faith on which America was built are critical underpinnings of our Nation's most valuable institutions and form the inseparable foundation for America's representative processes, legal systems, and societal structures;
(3) rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation's public buildings and educational resources; and
I guess this counts as progress.(4) expresses support for designation of a 'America's Spiritual Heritage Week' every year for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith.
Meanwhile, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has filed a lawsuit to prevent Congress from spending nearly $100,000 to engrave the words "In God We Trust " and the Pledge of Allegiance in prominent spots at the new $621 million Capitol Visitor Center. Unfortunately for the FRF, Congress made "In God We Trust" the national motto in 1956, and the Supreme Court punted on the Newdow Pledge case five years ago. But this is the kind of stick in the eye of the Randy Forbeses of the world that is likely to get the Christian amendment folks going again.
From time to time, academics have noted the religious role performed by the news media in American society, and if there was anyone who emblemized that function it was Walter Cronkite. At the final moment of Mainline Protestant ascendancy, he was the Mainline presence on television par excellence--providing the comfortable, paternal, embracing, and morally serious presence that is establishmentarian religion at its best.He himself was a creature of the Mainline--raised Lutheran and Presbyterian and, when his father went in for Unitarianism, moved as a teenager into the Episcopal church. In that 1966 Time cover, he could just as well be one of those theologians Henry Luce loved to put out front. After retirement, Cronkite let his ideological hair down and served as honorary chairman of the Interfaith Alliance. As he put it in a dunning letter for the organization:
Like you, I understand that freedom of speech is a founding principle of our nation, and I respect people with the courage to speak their minds. As a concerned person of faith, however, I have watched with increasing alarm as Religious Right groups manipulate religion to further their intolerant, political agendas...They have shrewdly twisted the traditional healing role of religion into an intolerant political platform.His, of course, was the traditional role. A couple of days ago, Billy Graham issued a statement that read in part:
Walter Cronkite was one of the closest friends I had in journalism. He was an icon. I doubt if anybody will replace him in the hearts and minds of Americans. I respected his views on so many subjects.For there to be icons, cultures must have niches for them to occupy. Neither in the American media nor in Mainline Protestantism do such niches any longer seem to exist.
WaPo's Dan Balz profliles Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour today as the new-old face of Republican revival. Barbour's taken over as head of the Republican Governors Association, having assumed that high office after SC Gov. Mark Sanford took a hike, and he'll be hosting the National Governors Association in Biloxi, where religion takes a back seat to gambling as top leisure-time activity. Barbour himself belongs to the bourbon-and-branch school of Southern Republicanism. A few years ago, when Mississippi was going through some belt-tightening, the joke was that the only state account that wasn't trimmed was the governor's Maker's Mark account. As Balz points out, Barbour presided over the GOP during its heady rise to congressional power in the early 1990s--after which he made a ton of money in the lobbying business. That's pretty much his lens for viewing Washington, as in:
He said he also has high regard for Obama's political team. "They're tough as nails," he said. "This the first White House since [Richard] Nixon that K Street is afraid of."So much does Barbour represent his party's K Street wing that in his 2006s reelection campaign, which should have been a walk-over thanks to his adroit handling of post-Katrina reconstruction (including the revival of Gulf Coast gambling--against the wishes of North Mississippi religious folk), he got a run for his money from Democrat John Arthur Eaves, Jr., a pious Democrat who lambasted him up and down the state for being one of those moneychanger types that Jesus threw out of the Temple. For the story, here's Charles Reagan Wilson's account in Religion in the News.
In other words, if Barbour's to be the savior of the GOP, don't look for him to ramp up the culture wars. It'll be the money guys all the way home.
Dan Gilgoff holds that "churches most open to homosexuality are shrinking fastest." Pastordan counters with his UCC, than which no mainline denomination is more gay friendly and whose numbers are (by some measure) up. Partnered gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson says his own diocesan head count has risen by three percent. My hypothesis is that what drives numbers down is fighting interminably over gay and lesbian inclusion. Better to make your decision, and then focus on getting people who are OK with it in the door.
Update: Over at GetReligion, Mattingly questions Bishop Robinson's figures--based on the most recent Episcopal Church numbers. He's right: If the New Hampshire diocese has really turned around its demographics, it would be (pretty) big news.
Update: Over at GetReligion, Mattingly questions Bishop Robinson's figures--based on the most recent Episcopal Church numbers. He's right: If the New Hampshire diocese has really turned around its demographics, it would be (pretty) big news.
With the emergence of The Family as a subject of public interest, Religion Dispatches has posted a roundtable discussion on Jeff Sharlet's book of the same name (now out in paper), featuring Sharlet, Anthea Butler, Diane Winston, and Randall Balmer. The discussion is somewhat musty: It was conducted last summer, and so lacks references not only to recent events but also to the Obama Dispensation. It is, nonetheless, instructive.
To his credit, Sharlet has called attention to a little known religio-political enterprise that has plied its trade in Washington for a number of decades. It has operated largely under cover, reached out to political movers and shakers of both parties and different religious persuasions, and its mission is animated by a strong conservative Christian ideology. It is elitist, uninterested in democratic politics except as such politics lifts up the people who run the country. The question is: How significant a role has it played in national affairs?
Sharlet claims that this group is, as his subtitle puts it, "The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power." Now, does that mean that it is the heart of American power, or just that, like many another aspiring lesion, it has glommed onto Washington's power elite? Just like, say, AIPAC, which is the Secret Zionism at the Heart of American Power. (Well, maybe not so secret.) Sharlet is canny enough to leave some ambiguity, but what's clear from the roundtable is that he's offered the left an alternate interpretation of recent political religious history--one that shows the religious right not as the product of genuine popular reaction to the direction of American culture but as an inside job stretching back to the Cold War. The Family becomes a kind of Opus Dei, with Washington playing the role of Rome.
The participant in the roundtable not buying this view is Balmer, who had just savaged Sharlet's book in the Washington Post. What he particularly didn't like was Sharlet's effort to portray The Family as the culmination of an American evangelicalism stretching back to Jonathan Edwards--a lineage that, it seems, The Family has constructed for itself. But claiming a lineage doesn't make it so.
My own view is that The Family is at most a bit player in the spiritual politics of the past generation. To be sure, it's an interesting player, not least because of its determined establishmentarianism--its genetic inclination towards bipartisanship even as religion became ever more partisan. One of the curious things about recent coverage of The Family has been the disappearance of the Hillary Clinton angle. I suspect that's because the Family ties of Clinton, the great Sataness of the 1990s religious right, upsets the interpretive applecart. After all, if the The Family had been pulling all those strings back in the 1990s, surely it would have been able to get Falwell & Co. to chill out, right?
To his credit, Sharlet has called attention to a little known religio-political enterprise that has plied its trade in Washington for a number of decades. It has operated largely under cover, reached out to political movers and shakers of both parties and different religious persuasions, and its mission is animated by a strong conservative Christian ideology. It is elitist, uninterested in democratic politics except as such politics lifts up the people who run the country. The question is: How significant a role has it played in national affairs?
Sharlet claims that this group is, as his subtitle puts it, "The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power." Now, does that mean that it is the heart of American power, or just that, like many another aspiring lesion, it has glommed onto Washington's power elite? Just like, say, AIPAC, which is the Secret Zionism at the Heart of American Power. (Well, maybe not so secret.) Sharlet is canny enough to leave some ambiguity, but what's clear from the roundtable is that he's offered the left an alternate interpretation of recent political religious history--one that shows the religious right not as the product of genuine popular reaction to the direction of American culture but as an inside job stretching back to the Cold War. The Family becomes a kind of Opus Dei, with Washington playing the role of Rome.
The participant in the roundtable not buying this view is Balmer, who had just savaged Sharlet's book in the Washington Post. What he particularly didn't like was Sharlet's effort to portray The Family as the culmination of an American evangelicalism stretching back to Jonathan Edwards--a lineage that, it seems, The Family has constructed for itself. But claiming a lineage doesn't make it so.
My own view is that The Family is at most a bit player in the spiritual politics of the past generation. To be sure, it's an interesting player, not least because of its determined establishmentarianism--its genetic inclination towards bipartisanship even as religion became ever more partisan. One of the curious things about recent coverage of The Family has been the disappearance of the Hillary Clinton angle. I suspect that's because the Family ties of Clinton, the great Sataness of the 1990s religious right, upsets the interpretive applecart. After all, if the The Family had been pulling all those strings back in the 1990s, surely it would have been able to get Falwell & Co. to chill out, right?
What lies ahead for the Anglican Communion? Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, England, writes in the Times of London that schism is now inevitable. Wright is, to be sure, a leading conservative, but there's no doubt that, having decided, Luther-like, to take its stand on behalf of full inclusion of gays and lesbians, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church has smacked the ball into the Communion's court. The question is, what exactly can or will the Communion do?
Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury (ABC), is unhappy, but it's not in his power to say who is or is not in the Communion. Nor does it seem to be in the power of the Communion itself. For the past few years a Covenant proposed by the ABC has been circulating, with no agreement on what disciplinary procedure there should be for a member church that gets out of line. There is an Anglican Consultative Council that has the power to recognize a new member church with a three-fourths vote, but has no authority to de-recognize an existing member.
It's conceivable, then, that the new Anglican Church in North America could be recognized as a second member from this part of the world. And it's possible that the ABC could invite the bishops of that church and not the Episcopal Church to the next Lambeth Conference 10 years hence. So an Anglican schism would come down to the question: Who does the archbishop decline to invite to tea? The bottom line is that the Anglican Communion is not a church (like, say, the Roman Catholic Church), but rather a family of independent churches linked together by common heritage and practices.
In the meantime, while the ABC regrets, the Times itself has stood up for the Yanks:
Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury (ABC), is unhappy, but it's not in his power to say who is or is not in the Communion. Nor does it seem to be in the power of the Communion itself. For the past few years a Covenant proposed by the ABC has been circulating, with no agreement on what disciplinary procedure there should be for a member church that gets out of line. There is an Anglican Consultative Council that has the power to recognize a new member church with a three-fourths vote, but has no authority to de-recognize an existing member.
It's conceivable, then, that the new Anglican Church in North America could be recognized as a second member from this part of the world. And it's possible that the ABC could invite the bishops of that church and not the Episcopal Church to the next Lambeth Conference 10 years hence. So an Anglican schism would come down to the question: Who does the archbishop decline to invite to tea? The bottom line is that the Anglican Communion is not a church (like, say, the Roman Catholic Church), but rather a family of independent churches linked together by common heritage and practices.
In the meantime, while the ABC regrets, the Times itself has stood up for the Yanks:
It is possible to maintain that the Episcopal Church has been impolitic in its vote, but still maintain that it is right. A united Anglican witness to the nation and to the world is a valuable civic as well as religious resource. Those member Churches, including many in Africa, who conscientiously cannot accept homosexual bishops, should not have appointments forced upon them. But the issue is not one of denominational preference alone. It is also a matter of justice.Within the Church of England it could get interesting.
Last night, the Episcopal House of Bishops voted 99-45 to approve a slightly revised version of D025, a resolution that affirms the legitimacy of partnered gays and lesbians to be ordained. The key paragraph now reads:The new version of the resolution must go back for approval to the relevant committee of the House of Delegates, and then, if approved to the full house--but there seems little reason to think that it won't sail through.Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church
,; and that God's call to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church is a mystery which the Church attempts to discern for all peoplewhich call is testednonethrough our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church; and be it further
What the resolution certainly does is make clear that the 2003 election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire was no regretted action, no one-time thing. But does it also remove the effective moratorium that has been observed on such a choice over the past three years? No doubt, the Anglican schismatics in the U.S. and the worldwide Anglican Communion will take that to be the case. And, sooner or later, they'll be right.
Almost unanimously the Conference's Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music committee yesterday approved a resolution to put together "theological resources and liturgies" for same-sex unions, particularly "within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church." And another resolution is coming down the pike giving bishops wider than usual latitude in blessing same-sex unions in those jurisdictions.
In a word, the Episcopalians are moving with all deliberate speed to fully normalize the status of gays and lesbians within their church. More conservative religious bodies will of course regard this as surrendering to the culture, but the truth is that all religious bodies must slow march to the beat of the culture if they expect to remain relevant to the lives of their members--that is, unless they want to relegate themselves to sectarian status. The Episcopalians are more willing to own up to this than most; indeed, they are doing so precisely by citing the changes in civil law respecting same-sex marriage.
But this establishmentarian inclination can even be found among its conservative schismatics. The new-minted Archbishop of the Anglican Church of North America, Robert Duncan (Trinity College '70!), favors the ordination of women--a once controversial left-wing position in North America that raises hackles among Anglicans in other parts of the world and some of his own flock. Give the Duncanites a couple of decades, and they'll be fighting over the ordination of gays and lesbians too.
"This is not going to be your daddy's Christian Coalition," [Ralph] Reed said in an interview to describe his new venture, the Faith and Freedom Coalition. "It has to be younger, hipper, less strident, more inclusive and it has to harness the 21st century that will enable us to win in the future."Or, what do you mean us, Kemo Sabe?
The re-emergence of the Ensign sex saga last week put the C Street Gang (aka The Fellowship, The Family, The National Prayer Breakfast, etc.) back in the crosshairs of the liberal media. We knew that they had tried with indifferent success to get Mark Sanford and wife back together. Now it turns out that they twisted John Ensign's arm to write a "Dear Cindy" letter to his inamorata, which he immediately told her to ignore. Call them the gang that couldn't pray straight.
That letter, filled as it was with references to what God did and didn't want, inspired Vanity Fair to produce a sharp response from the Almighty, while NYT's Gail Collins offered her own opera buffa take on the doings of the "Prayer House." For those whose taste runs to the dark side, there was Rachel Maddow's two-barreled interview on Thursday and Friday of Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the book on The Family (The Family), and who laid on his ominous portrait of a powerful cabal of totalitarian "Jesus plus nothing" Christians able to pull numerous strings with Washington's movers and shakers. (No mention, though, of Hillary Clinton's involvement in the group.)
My sense is that The Family's heyday was some decades ago, when anti-Communism was still a force in the world, and establishmentarian Christian conservativism had a distinct role to play. The use of Christianity for tough partisan warfare, which came into its own in the 1980s and was honed to a fine edge by Tom DeLay, Karl Rove & Co., was an entirely different game--antipathetic to The Family's bi-partisan approach to life. Still, it's possible that there are still important revelations to come of what The Family guys have been up to recently.
That said, it's worth bearing in mind that evangelical Protestant religion in America has always been possessed of the imperative to bring male misbehavior under control--be it drinking, fighting, gambling, or screwing around. In that regard, the C Street collective that tried to get Sanford and Ensign back on the straight and narrow was simply doing what came naturally. In itself no particular biggie, in other words.
That letter, filled as it was with references to what God did and didn't want, inspired Vanity Fair to produce a sharp response from the Almighty, while NYT's Gail Collins offered her own opera buffa take on the doings of the "Prayer House." For those whose taste runs to the dark side, there was Rachel Maddow's two-barreled interview on Thursday and Friday of Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the book on The Family (The Family), and who laid on his ominous portrait of a powerful cabal of totalitarian "Jesus plus nothing" Christians able to pull numerous strings with Washington's movers and shakers. (No mention, though, of Hillary Clinton's involvement in the group.)
My sense is that The Family's heyday was some decades ago, when anti-Communism was still a force in the world, and establishmentarian Christian conservativism had a distinct role to play. The use of Christianity for tough partisan warfare, which came into its own in the 1980s and was honed to a fine edge by Tom DeLay, Karl Rove & Co., was an entirely different game--antipathetic to The Family's bi-partisan approach to life. Still, it's possible that there are still important revelations to come of what The Family guys have been up to recently.
That said, it's worth bearing in mind that evangelical Protestant religion in America has always been possessed of the imperative to bring male misbehavior under control--be it drinking, fighting, gambling, or screwing around. In that regard, the C Street collective that tried to get Sanford and Ensign back on the straight and narrow was simply doing what came naturally. In itself no particular biggie, in other words.
Three years ago, the triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed B033, a resolution that effectively declared a moratorium on ordaining gays and lesbians in same-sex relationships. The resolution did not stop the conservative schismatics from going ahead and establishing their own denomination, but neither did it intensify conflict over homosexuality with the worldwide Anglican Communion. This year, meeting in Anaheim, the Convention seems on the point of bringing the moratorium to an end--and let relations with the Communion be what they may.
Yesterday, the Convention's Committee on World Missions passed a revised resolution (D025) with [correction: almost] all the Deputies but only two of the five bishops on Committee voting aye. The resolution, which "affirm[s] that God has called and may call such individuals to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church," concludes:
Yesterday, the Convention's Committee on World Missions passed a revised resolution (D025) with [correction: almost] all the Deputies but only two of the five bishops on Committee voting aye. The resolution, which "affirm[s] that God has called and may call such individuals to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church," concludes:
Resolved, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge that members of The Episcopal Church, as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not of one mind, and Christians of good conscience, disagree about some of these matters.
Next up, votes in the House of Deputies and House of Bishops.
Update: The House of Deputies passed D025 by a better than 2-1 margin. According to Jim Naughton, the vote in the House of Bishops will be much closer. As JB Chilton reports from England, it's clear the the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) regards the status quo ante (B033) as a moratium on ordaining partnered gay bishops and wishes that to continue. How much deference the American bishops will pay the ABC is anyone's guess--but for what it's worth, I'm betting on a narrow margin in favor of D025, putting the fat back in the fire.
Gilgoff?
The most important Roman Catholic figure in preparing the president for his first meeting today with Pope Benedict XVI--and in reaching out to the American Catholic community in advance of the visit--is someone whom few Catholics would recognize.
His name is Mark Linton, and though his official title is director of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he doubles as the White House's top liaison to the Catholic world.Or Gerstein?
[Deputy National Security Adviser Denis] McDonough, a graduate of St. John's and Georgetown universities, is the key architect of Obama's Catholic outreach. The former foreign policy aide to Senator Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has organized discussions for liberal Catholic politicians about how their faith shapes their political views.(h/t to Georgetown's Michael Kessler)
That's my score sheet from the meeting at the Vatican today. Obama got his audience with pics and gifts and thanks "for all your work." Benedict got a chance to lay his thoughts (including on Life) on the prez and chits with him for not sticking in the needle. The American Catholic Right (including its episcopal champions) got set back in its effort to paint Obama as a prince of darkness.
According to the press pool report, Pope Benedict gave President Obama a mosaic rendering of St. Peter's square; an autographed, leather-bound copy of Caritas in Veritate; and "a pontifical medal." Would the last of these be considered "an honor"--comparable, say, to an honorary doctorate from, say, Notre Dame?
Francis Collins is a common ground evangelical.
T
is for Total DepravityU is for Unconditional Election
L is for Limited Atonement
I is for Irresistible Grace
P is for the Perseverance of Believers.
The OFANP Advisory Council has been meeting in D.C. the past couple of days, hearing reports from its various task forces. In his account over on WaPo's GinG, William Wan notes that although the contentious hiring issue has been formally taken off the Board's plate and assigned to the lawyers, questions about it were nonetheless voiced yesterday. Specifically, a representative of the ACLU "got up to make a pointed statement near the end about the legal implications of allowing World Vision, a Christian group focused on helping children, to hire [to government funded positions] based on religious views." (World Vision president Richard Stearns, who serves on the Council, announced a couple of days ago that the organization has had to lay off 4-5 percent of its U.S. workforce.)
Now one might suppose that the hiring issue is so contentious because those engaged in the discussions are divided into two implacably opposed camps: strict church-state separationists and faith-based providers. But in fact that's not the case. There's a significant group of professionals--lawyers, social scientists, and service provider types--who 1) are concerned about letting faith-based providers use religious criteria to discriminate in hiring for government-funded jobs; 2) recognize the difficulties in strictly separating functions in many faith-based organizations; and so 3) are willing to agree to reasonable compromises. The problem is that faith-based advocates like Stearns have thus far signalled no such willingness--or if they have, no one I've talked to is aware of it.
Under the circumstances, why not let the Advisory Council actually try to address the issue? Unlike, say, abortion of same-sex marriage, faith-based hiring is eminently accessible to common ground solutions, and it should not be beyond the capacity of sophisticated insiders to work them out.
Now one might suppose that the hiring issue is so contentious because those engaged in the discussions are divided into two implacably opposed camps: strict church-state separationists and faith-based providers. But in fact that's not the case. There's a significant group of professionals--lawyers, social scientists, and service provider types--who 1) are concerned about letting faith-based providers use religious criteria to discriminate in hiring for government-funded jobs; 2) recognize the difficulties in strictly separating functions in many faith-based organizations; and so 3) are willing to agree to reasonable compromises. The problem is that faith-based advocates like Stearns have thus far signalled no such willingness--or if they have, no one I've talked to is aware of it.
Under the circumstances, why not let the Advisory Council actually try to address the issue? Unlike, say, abortion of same-sex marriage, faith-based hiring is eminently accessible to common ground solutions, and it should not be beyond the capacity of sophisticated insiders to work them out.
Rep. Steve King (Eccentric R-Iowa), cast the lone vote against putting a plaque in the new Capitol Visitors Center noting the use of slave labor in Capitol's construction. Why? Because, it seems, Democrats obtained otherwise unanimous Republican support for the plaque in exchange for agreeing to depict "In God We Trust" in the Visitors Center as well. As King put it:Our Judeo-Christian heritage is an essential foundation stone of our great nation and should not be held hostage to yet another effort to place guilt on future Americans for the sins of some of their ancestors. Christian abolitionists gave their lives by the hundreds of thousands to end slavery. Great American leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. worshipped God just as our Founding Fathers did. We must never forget this important aspect of our heritage or use it as a political bargaining chip."Judeo-Christian" is the great religious shibboleth of post-World War II American religion. I (modestly) should know, because I wrote the book on it--well, the article anyway: "Notes on the Judeo-Christian Tradition in America," American Quarterly, 1984. It came into use during the war as a way of including Jews in the American religious thing, and after the war was on the tongues of politicians from Dwight Eisenhower on down. In that sense, it is of a piece with "In God We Trust," which became the national motto in the same era. More recently, it has come to be the special province of religious conservatives like Rep. King, while those more inclusively inclined reach for terms like Abrahamic (i.e. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim).
To the extent that "Judeo-Christian" signifies actual religious history, it surely includes the species of slave labor that went into building the pyramids, or whatever it was that the Egyptians put the resident Israelites to work building--and the great importance attached to remembering that hard labor prior to the Exodus. Which stood as the model of liberation for African-American slaves, as in:
When Israel was in Egypt land,In that sense, the plaque should be seen as keeping faith with our Judeo-Christian heritage, no Rep. King?
Let My People Go!
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let My People Go!
Andrew Sullivan calls attention to the Biblical allusion in Sarah Palin's comment, "Politically speaking, if I die, I die." It's a quote from Queen Esther (Esther 4:16), a figure that we know Palin identifies with. So how good is the analogy? Here's the context. Mordecai has just read Esther the riot act, telling her that her new status as queen will not save her from the fate pronounced against all Jews by King Ahasuerus. And, he adds, if she remains silent, relief for the Jews will come from elsewhere but she and her family will perish. And who knows, Mordecai says, but that you have been elevated to your royal status for just this moment? So Esther decides to suck it up and approach the king. And as spiritual preparation, she undertakes a three-day fast and asks that all the Jews in the city do the same. Then if she dies, she dies.
If Palin is Esther, then she must have conceived of her resignation as the only possible public move for her: I resign, and if I die politically, I die--because I believe that I'm going to die anyway. So the resignation is an exercise in self-denial preparatory to undertaking a risky but politically necessary move--running for president. Perhaps she has been elevated to national status for just this moment. At any rate, she claims (repeatedly) to be acting on behalf of her people, Alaska. But like Queen Esther, she is really looking out for herself and her family.
Final exam questions: Who is King Ahasuerus, the Republican National Committee or the Sovereign American People? Who is Haman, the Media or...President Obama?
Palin only helped McCain with white evangelicals.
Meanwhile, Obama enjoys the approval of 25 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of conservatives, 50 percent of weekly churchgoers, 53 percent of whites, and 95 percent of blacks.
Meanwhile, Obama enjoys the approval of 25 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of conservatives, 50 percent of weekly churchgoers, 53 percent of whites, and 95 percent of blacks.
Roma locuta est, but now the discussion of Caritas in Veritate commences in earnest. Nowhere in the American religious world are there smarter, more sophisticated, and, indeed, more connected intellectuals able to talk knowledgeably about their faith than in American Catholicism, and they cover the waterfront from hierarch to laywoman, from the nearly sedevacantist right to the almost universalist left. It's a tribute to a great tradition of discourse and debate stretching back to, oh, the Parisian schools of early 12th century.
For us outsiders, it's best to just sit back and watch them go at it. Personally, I'm doing so by following the respective blogs of America, Commonweal, and First Things--linking as needed. To be sure, when it comes to papal pronouncements, the discourse takes some getting used to, given the nature of pontifical authority in the Church. Take, for instance, this paragraph from Joseph Bottom's latest aperçu on Caritate over at Fidelity Central..ah, First Things:
I'm keeping my eyes open.
For us outsiders, it's best to just sit back and watch them go at it. Personally, I'm doing so by following the respective blogs of America, Commonweal, and First Things--linking as needed. To be sure, when it comes to papal pronouncements, the discourse takes some getting used to, given the nature of pontifical authority in the Church. Take, for instance, this paragraph from Joseph Bottom's latest aperçu on Caritate over at Fidelity Central..ah, First Things:
Does the pope actually understand what globalization is--economically? It would be a damaging thing to say that he doesn't, but nothing in the second chapter of the encyclical gives a strong showing that he does. Buzz words about globalization are certainly deployed, but they don't cohere in a way that lends confidence to the pope's economic reading of the world.Yah, well, but damaging to whom? Bottom? The faithful? Pope Benedict himself? Whatever the case, given that conservatives, being conservatives, are more reluctant than liberals to criticize a pope, it would be nice to see one of them show a little deference to the Magisterium and say, "Well, I've long been skeptical of the post-World War II welfare-and-regulatory model of late capitalism but perhaps, given the recent near collapse of the world economy, it's worth reconsidering the traditional teachings of the Church in this regard, as the pope urges us to do."
I'm keeping my eyes open.
Clever George. The real way to understand Caritas in Veritate is that all that Justice and Peace stuff is the work of those socialist gnomes in the Curia, while the good stuff about Faith and Reason and Life is the pope's own.
Benedict XVI, a truly gentle soul, may have thought it necessary to include in his encyclical these multiple off-notes, in order to maintain the peace within his curial household. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will concentrate their attention, in reading Caritas in Veritate, on those parts of the encyclical that are clearly Benedictine, including the Pope's trademark defense of the necessary conjunction of faith and reason and his extension of John Paul II's signature theme -- that all social issues, including political and economic questions, are ultimately questions of the nature of the human person.In short, ignore all that stuff Weigel disagrees with. Let's hear it for the Conservative Catholic Cafeteria!
Michael Novak really doesn't like what the pope has to say about the economic order. But it's one thing to jump all over liberal Catholics in America ("Economic Heresies of the Left"), and quite another to condemn His Holiness as one of the heretics ("The Pope of Caritapolis"). So Novak slathers his criticism with all the sugar-coating he can muster. Still:
What Benedict XVI has not spelled out yet is another forgotten lesson from St. Augustine: the ever-corrupting role of sin in the City of Man. Augustine points out how difficult it is even for the wisest and most detached humans to discover the truth among lies--and how even husbands and wives in the closest of human bonds misunderstand each other so often. The Father of Lies seems to own so much of the real world.
What are the most practical ways of defeating him? The Catholic tradition--even the wise Pope Benedict--still seems to put too much stress upon caritas, virtue, justice, and good intentions, and not nearly enough on methods for defeating human sin in all its devious and persistent forms.
Even the Pope's understandable nostalgia for the European welfare-state too much scants the self-interests, self-deceptions, and false presuppositions that are bringing that system to a crisis of its own making. This was a crisis John Paul II saw rather more clearly in paragraph 48 of Centesimus Annus.
Oh, dear, poor naive papa for failing to convey the dark Augustinian understanding that human nature is too flawed to secure social justice by means of economic regulation and public support for the least among us!
What methods for defeating human sin does Novak have in mind? The tough love of the free market? And does he really imagine that what has brought about the current economic crisis are the presuppositions of the European welfare state, as opposed to the deregulatory ideology that was meant to bring it down?
What ails Bill Donohue? Here's his reaction to the new ethics guidelines for stem cell research.
Over the years, Donohue has issued a couple of hundred pronunciamentos supporting one or another species of conscience clause. And no doubt, if the new guidelines ignored donors' religious scruples, he'd now be screaming at the Obama administration for that.
President Obama and other supporters of embryonic stem cell research hide behind ethical requirements to justify using tax dollars for destroying nascent human life. Such guidelines beg the question: if there is no moral dimension to destroying human embryos, why is there a need for ethics rules? While the answer is obvious to people who understand that life begins at conception, advocates of embryo destruction give lip service to ethics while simultaneously pretending that there is no moral issue. The fact of the matter is these requirements are a distraction from the larger issue of the legal destruction of innocent human life.Simply put, the ethics guidelines establish a "conscience clause" for stem cell donors. If the donors--parents, if you will--don't want the embryos that they have created to be used in stem cell research, then the federal government will not fund research on them. The ethical issue that the Obama administration felt the need to address is precisely the importance of respecting the conscientious concerns of the donors.
Over the years, Donohue has issued a couple of hundred pronunciamentos supporting one or another species of conscience clause. And no doubt, if the new guidelines ignored donors' religious scruples, he'd now be screaming at the Obama administration for that.
Tom Reese has gotten the first peek at Pope Benedict's long awaited encyclical on the economy, Caritas in veritate, and on his reading, it's firmly in the tradition of the social encyclicals of Leo XIII. That is to say, there's no new enchantment with the magic of the market, but rather, persistent worries about the effects of capitalism on human well-being. Where Leo worried about industrialization, Benedict worries about globalization. Here's a taste, from a Reese email.
Update: Whispers has it up.
Notables:
1. The pope is pro-union: "Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level."
2. Man does not live by bread alone: "There is another aspect of moder life that is very closely connected to development: the denial of the right to religious freedom."
3. New world order: In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making.
4. Culture of Death: In vitro fertilization, embryo research, the possibility of manufacturing clones and human hybrids: all this is now emerging and being promoted in today's highly disillusioned culture, which believes it has mastered every mystery.
Overall, the pope seeks to lay out a broad program of what he calls "Christian humanism," placing economics within the social and moral order generally. There's something for everyone--but pretty cold comfort for economic conservatives.
The pope disagrees with those who believe that the economy should be free of government regulation. "The conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from 'influences' of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way," he writes. "In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social freedom, and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise."
Benedict even supports "a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration; for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago."
While Benedict acknowledges the role of the market, he emphasizes that "the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy." He unflinchingly supports the "redistribution of wealth" when he talks about the role of government. "Grave imbalances are produced," he writes, "when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution."Now commences the predictable punditry, with liberals enthusing and conservatives looking for ways to claim that the pope is not really saying what he seems to be saying. Here's American Catholicism's foremost apologist for capitalism, Michael Novak, having at Reese and company a few days ago. Will he have at the pope with equal scorn and glee?
Update: Whispers has it up.
Notables:
1. The pope is pro-union: "Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level."
2. Man does not live by bread alone: "There is another aspect of moder life that is very closely connected to development: the denial of the right to religious freedom."
3. New world order: In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making.
4. Culture of Death: In vitro fertilization, embryo research, the possibility of manufacturing clones and human hybrids: all this is now emerging and being promoted in today's highly disillusioned culture, which believes it has mastered every mystery.
Overall, the pope seeks to lay out a broad program of what he calls "Christian humanism," placing economics within the social and moral order generally. There's something for everyone--but pretty cold comfort for economic conservatives.
Back in the 12th century, the famous Spanish-Jewish poet and philosopher Judah Ha-Levi wrote a dialogue, the Kuzari, in which a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, and a philosopher each seek to convince the pagan King of the Khazars that he should adopt their faith. (The work is based on the historical fact of the conversion to Judaism of the Khazars, a Turkic people who briefly held imperial sway in Central Asia and the Caucasus--so naturally the Jew wins.) Well, now the latter-day Turks have come up with a new, democratized, reality-based version of the Kuzari. CNN's got the story:
The show, called "Tovbekarlar Yarisiyor," or "Penitents Compete," features a Muslim imam, a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi and a Buddhist monk attempting to persuade 10 atheists of the merits of their religion, according to CNN Turk.
If they succeed, the contestants are rewarded with a pilgrimage to one of their chosen faith's most sacred sites -- Mecca for Muslims, Jerusalem for converts to Judaism, a trip to Tibet for Buddhists and the chance to visit Ephesus and the Vatican for Christians.
The show is set to air in September, but if it does, it will be over the objections of Turkey's religious leaders. "To do such a thing for the sake of ratings, not only with Islam but with all religions is disrespectful," Hamza Aktan, the head of the country's supreme council of religious affairs, told CNN Turk. "Religion should not be the subject of this type of program."
Maybe Aktan should reread Kuzari.
You've got your Mainline Protestants, your African-Americans, your Catholics, your Jews, your Muslims, your Hindu women. But nary a representative of a mainstream white or Latino evangelical body--be it the National Association of Evangelicals or the Southern Baptist Convention or the Assemblies of God or the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. The total evangelical presence consists of dyed-in-the-wool centrist outliers Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Melissa Rogers of Wake Forest. What does that tell you? (Press release after the jump.)
Continue reading Who's for comprehensive healthcare reform?.
In an heroic effort to mount a modest defense of Sarah Palin today, fresh-baked NYT columnist Ross Douthat avers:
Now wait just a minute. As of last October, equal proportions of those without a college education and those with at least a B.A. supported Palin. (Since then, she's gained seven points with the no-college crowd.) That's nothing to hang a class-based analysis on--especially when all these numbers are in the 40s. But look at ideology, and what you find are huge numbers for her among conservative and white evangelical Republicans. Her popularity does not have as much to do with class as it does with ideology.
And as for which ideal she represents, let's not forget that the meritocratic ideal is the democratic ideal: You make your way forward on the basis not of family ties or wealth but by your natural abilities. What Palin represents is something else, call it the populist ideal. It's found in the title of the song Huey Long made his slogan: "Every Man a King." The song begins:
Oh and by the way, on the faith front, Douthat says that among the lessons to be drawn from the Palin experience for any politician sharing her background and sex is that "[y]our religion will be mocked and misrepresented." Now, Mike Huckabee may not share Palin's sex, but he came as close as any of last year's GOP presidential aspirants to sharing her religious background. And his religion was not mocked during the campaign.
Was this because Palin isn't a Baptist but a Pentecostal? Who knew, really, what her religion was? She'd switched churches, denied she belonged to any church, and declined to identify with with any but the most generic "faith in God" sentiments. Everyone, including her most fervent supporters, thought they knew where she stood. But she never made the slightest effort to define herself religiously. Maybe there's a lesson from her campaign in that.
In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.
That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin's popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal -- that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal -- that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.
Now wait just a minute. As of last October, equal proportions of those without a college education and those with at least a B.A. supported Palin. (Since then, she's gained seven points with the no-college crowd.) That's nothing to hang a class-based analysis on--especially when all these numbers are in the 40s. But look at ideology, and what you find are huge numbers for her among conservative and white evangelical Republicans. Her popularity does not have as much to do with class as it does with ideology. And as for which ideal she represents, let's not forget that the meritocratic ideal is the democratic ideal: You make your way forward on the basis not of family ties or wealth but by your natural abilities. What Palin represents is something else, call it the populist ideal. It's found in the title of the song Huey Long made his slogan: "Every Man a King." The song begins:
Why weep or slumber AmericaIt's a dream of meritless success. You go, girl!
Land of brave and true
With castles and clothing and food for all
All belongs to you
Ev'ry man a king, ev'ry man a king
For you can be a milionnaire
Oh and by the way, on the faith front, Douthat says that among the lessons to be drawn from the Palin experience for any politician sharing her background and sex is that "[y]our religion will be mocked and misrepresented." Now, Mike Huckabee may not share Palin's sex, but he came as close as any of last year's GOP presidential aspirants to sharing her religious background. And his religion was not mocked during the campaign.
Was this because Palin isn't a Baptist but a Pentecostal? Who knew, really, what her religion was? She'd switched churches, denied she belonged to any church, and declined to identify with with any but the most generic "faith in God" sentiments. Everyone, including her most fervent supporters, thought they knew where she stood. But she never made the slightest effort to define herself religiously. Maybe there's a lesson from her campaign in that.
In a post on who gets the vote of "religious conservatives," Steve Waldman writes:
The big question for GOP big shots at the moment has to be whether Mitt Romney can manage to garner enough rank-and-file evangelical support to marginalize Huckabee. So look for Romney to play a big role in fighting the Proposition 8 repeal referendum. Where has Romney just bought a new home? La Jolla, California.
Update: I don't appear to be the only one with this thought.
That leaves Huckabee. As a former Baptist minister himself, he has standing to criticize Palin without being cast as anti-Christian. Mainstream media mistakenly assume that Huckabee failed last time because his base was too limited to religious conservatives. Actually, he fared no better among Christians than McCain and Romney early on. He was distrusted by many in the party for being too liberal, not for being too conservative.This is entirely misconceived. As any examination of the exit polls from last year's GOP primaries will show you, Huckabee did fail because he had trouble drawing beyond his base of white evangelicals. They loved him. The distrust came from so-called leaders of the religious right, whose suspicion arose, at least in substantial part, because they didn't think he could win. His "liberal" moment was over after Iowa. As for faring no better among Christians than McCain and Romney, that's only if you include all Christians--Catholics and and Mainline Protestants and Mormons as well as Evangelicals. Huckabee couldn't win the former, for sure. But Catholics and Mainline Protestants do not constitute the conservative religious base of the GOP. C'mon, Steve!
The big question for GOP big shots at the moment has to be whether Mitt Romney can manage to garner enough rank-and-file evangelical support to marginalize Huckabee. So look for Romney to play a big role in fighting the Proposition 8 repeal referendum. Where has Romney just bought a new home? La Jolla, California.
Update: I don't appear to be the only one with this thought.
Speaking from the plane during his unsuccessful effort to land at the airport in Tegucigalpa yesterday, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya associated himself with a higher power:
Zelaya's religious background seems to be not untypical of his kind. From a wealthy landowning family in central Honduras, he has been a mass-going Catholic, but (according to this account in the Miami Herald) was in Miami to attend the opening of the headquarters of King Jesus Ministry (El Rey Jesús), an international evangelical movement founded by Honduran Pastor Guillermo Maldonado. Evangelicals, however, don't tend to raise crucifixes.
The most notable religious event in Zelaya's past occurred in June of 1975, when he was 22. His family's Los Horcones ranch was the scene of the massacre of 15 priests, campesinos, and students, who were involved in the church's struggle for social justice with wealthy landowners. Their bodies were later found at the bottom of a recently dynamited well and Zelaya's father, whose .22 rifle was linked to the killings, was convicted of murder, serving five years of a 20 year sentence. After the massacre, the federal government ordered all priests, monks, and nuns to leave the area for their safety.
Whatever Manuel Zelaya's own religious commitments at the moment, it is clear that he's prepared to play the religion card. In that, he's like other current caudillos of the left (or caudillo wannabes), most notably Hugo Chavez. In that part of Latin America, the Catholic church tends to be hard to push around, but you can always find evangelicals to sign up to the cause. Still, prior to the coup, there was strong opposition to Zelaya from within the evangelical as well as the Catholic community.
I am the commander of the armed forces, elected by the people, and I ask the armed forces to comply with the order to open the airport so that there is no problem in landing and embracing my people. Today I feel like I have sufficient spiritual strength, blessed with the blood of Christ, to be able to arrive there and raise the crucifix.The sounds, if not Constantinian (in hoc signo vinces), then certainly conquistadorean.
Zelaya's religious background seems to be not untypical of his kind. From a wealthy landowning family in central Honduras, he has been a mass-going Catholic, but (according to this account in the Miami Herald) was in Miami to attend the opening of the headquarters of King Jesus Ministry (El Rey Jesús), an international evangelical movement founded by Honduran Pastor Guillermo Maldonado. Evangelicals, however, don't tend to raise crucifixes.
The most notable religious event in Zelaya's past occurred in June of 1975, when he was 22. His family's Los Horcones ranch was the scene of the massacre of 15 priests, campesinos, and students, who were involved in the church's struggle for social justice with wealthy landowners. Their bodies were later found at the bottom of a recently dynamited well and Zelaya's father, whose .22 rifle was linked to the killings, was convicted of murder, serving five years of a 20 year sentence. After the massacre, the federal government ordered all priests, monks, and nuns to leave the area for their safety.
Whatever Manuel Zelaya's own religious commitments at the moment, it is clear that he's prepared to play the religion card. In that, he's like other current caudillos of the left (or caudillo wannabes), most notably Hugo Chavez. In that part of Latin America, the Catholic church tends to be hard to push around, but you can always find evangelicals to sign up to the cause. Still, prior to the coup, there was strong opposition to Zelaya from within the evangelical as well as the Catholic community.
HEALTH BILL LOBBYING FEATURES FAMILIAR FACES. Um, familiar enough to have been invited to your publisher's cancelled salon?
What Becky Sharp, the heroine of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, was to social climbing in Victorian England, Sarah Palin has been to political climbing in post-9/11 America. So it's only appropriate that Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair take-down has ushered in her stunning demarche from office.Is she running for president in 2012? Is Mike Huckabee? They are the two Republicans who showed a genuine ability to stir the party's social values base in 2008--first Mike, then Sarah. Both came to the role as obscure gubernatorial figures with bona fide evangelical origins. Both became celebrities, capable of making some real money on the media circuit.
What has Huckabee done since the campaign? He's been spending his time on the circuit, and using his PAC and blog to support Republican candidates for office. So far as can be told from her rambling announcement yesterday, Palin is advancing in that direction. She will be supporting "those who would protect freedom and equality...and life." She's got the book contract and will no doubt be raking in the speaking fees. Someone's got to be the candidate of the social conservative masses, and if the cards fall right, then she'll be there. If not, she'll be makin' her way in the world.
In re: the great dispute over Amy Sullivan's Big Obama Church Scoop, I'd say Amy had a pretty close version of the story, and that it might have changed a bit out from under her. Her initial report had this nut:
Now, in an unexpected move, Obama has told White House aides that instead of joining a congregation in Washington, D.C., he will follow in George W. Bush's footsteps and make his primary place of worship Evergreen Chapel, the nondenominational church at Camp David.In his chat yesterday with Catholic reporters (plus WaPo's Jacqui Salmon), the president said:
We have attended services at Camp David every weekend that we're there. I will tell you, by the way, that it is a wonderful little congregation; the members of Camp David who are up there consistently have their families there, they've got a Sunday school. The young chaplain there, Chaplain Cash, is terrific -- as good of a -- delivers as powerful a sermon as I've heard in a while. I really think he's excellent.
So we will continue to go to services there. How we handle church when we're here in D.C. is something that we're still figuring out. And I think that in the second half of the year we will have made a decision. We may choose, rather than to join just one church, to rotate and attend a number of different churches.
Obviously that takes away somewhat from the church experience of being part of a community and participating in the life of the church. But as I said, we are resigned now to the fact that we change the atmospherics wherever we go, and it may be more sensible for us to get in and out on any given Sunday and not try to create blockades around places where we attend.
Amy takes the position that this confirms her story. Jacqui's view of the matter is: "Contrary to recent media reports, President Obama said today that he hasn't chosen a home church--and may not ever choose just one during his time in the White House." I guess I'd have to say that "primary place of worship" is not quite the same thing as "home church," and if the Obamas spend more weekends at Camp David than they do at the White House, then Amy's got it right. Not that Jacqui's exactly got it wrong. But for those of us outside the sacred precincts of the Nation's Capitol, the response of the commenters on Amy's second post seems apposite. As commenter #1 put it, "For the love of criminy why should I care about this?"
Last summer, Democrats tossed a little bone to pro-lifers when they put some language on abortion reduction into their pro-choice platform plank. But despite the efforts of the pro-lifers who had a seat at the drafting table, the plank cast it as a goal to "reduce the need for abortions." And that's been the Obama administration shorthand for describing its approach to the issue. But occasionally there's been a longhand version that's less objectionable to the pro-life community, which denies that there can ever be a (legitimate) need for an abortion.
Earlier this week, Gilgoff quoted Deirdre McQuade of the Catholic bishops conference as saying:
Earlier this week, Gilgoff quoted Deirdre McQuade of the Catholic bishops conference as saying:
The phrase "reducing the need for abortion" is not a common-ground phrase. We would say that there is no need for abortion, that abortions are signs that we have not met the needs of women. There is no authentic need for abortion.Yesterday, in a meeting with Catholic journalists, Obama seemed to respond to the criticism with by summoning his abortion reduction longhand:
I would be surprised if those who believe abortion should be legal would object to language that says we should try to reduce the circumstances in which women feel compelled to obtain an abortion. If they took that position, I would disagree with them. I don't know any circumstance in which abortin is a happy circumstance or decision, and to the extent that we can help women avoid being confronted with a circumstance in which that's even a consideration, I think that's a good thing.
I would be surprised if McQuade would deny that "reducing the circumstances in which women feel compelled" is a common-ground phrase (not, of course, that she would go along with Obama's support for contraception as a means by which the circumstances can be reduced). But can you write it on a bumper sticker?
As noted in this space a few days ago, the red states have higher rates of divorce, teen birth, and subscriptions to online porn than the blue states. But what about that all-important Moral Value of our time...weight? How do the states stack up on that one?Well, according to the latest Obesity Report Card from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the partisan divide is pretty clear. Separating the states (plus D.C.) into red and blue according to their vote in last year's presidential election, nine of the fattest 11 states (there was a tie for 10th) voted for McCain, while eight of the 10 leanest went for Obama. Dividing the states down the middle, of the 26 states with the highest obesity rates, 18 voted for McCain; while of the 25 with the lowest, 20 voted for Obama. Overall, 18 of the 23 states won by McCain were in the more obese group, while 20 or the 28 states won by Obama were in the less obese.
Put in regional terms (according to our Religion by Region definitions), the Southern Crossroads (TX, OK, MO, AR, LA) and the South win the obesity sweepstakes, with average state rankings of 10.2 and 11.5 respectively. New England is least obese with a ranking of 44.5, with the Pacific (CA, NV, HI) next in line at 40. Naturally, the Southern Crossroads and South are the country's reddest regions, while New England and the Pacific are the bluest. By the way, the former are the country's most evangelical regions, the latter the most Catholic.
Make of this what you will.
Among religious conservatives, no organization is more demonized than the American Civil Liberties Union. And indeed, when it comes to standing up for church-state separation (cf. the Establishment Clause), the ACLU earns the ire. But as the professionals on the right know full well, the ACLU is usually there for them when it comes to religious liberty (cf. the Free Exercise Clause).
That's the case in the odd lobbying investigation recently launched against the Catholic Church in Connecticut by the state ethics board. It relates to a protest mounted by Bridgeport's Bishop Lori against a bill that would have changed the state's rules on who controls the church's finances. As reported in today's Hartford Courant, AG Richard Blumenthal has now advised the ethics board to drop the investigation because it likely violates the church's freedom of religion. The story notes that the ACLU has filed its own brief in the case, attacking the investigation on free speech grounds.
Cut to the Catholic League. Pooh-bah Bill Donohue loves to beat up on the ACLU. (Stick "ACLU" in its search engine and you'll see what I mean.) So how about it, Bill? Credit where credit is due?
Update: Nope, Bill just didn't have it in him. Surprised?
That's the case in the odd lobbying investigation recently launched against the Catholic Church in Connecticut by the state ethics board. It relates to a protest mounted by Bridgeport's Bishop Lori against a bill that would have changed the state's rules on who controls the church's finances. As reported in today's Hartford Courant, AG Richard Blumenthal has now advised the ethics board to drop the investigation because it likely violates the church's freedom of religion. The story notes that the ACLU has filed its own brief in the case, attacking the investigation on free speech grounds.
Cut to the Catholic League. Pooh-bah Bill Donohue loves to beat up on the ACLU. (Stick "ACLU" in its search engine and you'll see what I mean.) So how about it, Bill? Credit where credit is due?
Update: Nope, Bill just didn't have it in him. Surprised?
The latest thing on the religious right is called the Freedom Federation. Rolled out at the National Press Club yesterday, it's being greeted on the left with ridicule and incredulity. In WaPo, Dana Milbank yuks it up with an extended Star Wars treatment. Meanwhile, People For's Right Wing Watch has the membership list (just about every organization on the Watch's watchlist) and manifesto (a Declaration of American Values) interspersed with snark. The Values are pretty much what you'd expect--the social conservative agenda up front with the economic one trailing behind plus a tip of the hat to a strong military and no foreign entanglements. No abortions! No progressive income tax!
So what's the raison d'etre?
Other than helping the gang look busy (hey, we held a press conference!), the Federation seems to be distinguished mostly by a desire to prove that this is not your father's old white religious right. The young! The Black! The Hispanic! But with no money, staff, or website of its own, it looks mostly like a one-day wonder.
So what's the raison d'etre?
The Freedom Federation is a new and unique federation of some of the largest multi-ethnic and transgenerational faith-based organizations in the country committed to plan, strategize, and work together on common interests within the Judeo-Christian tradition to mobilize their grassroots constituencies and to communicate faith and values to the religious, social, cultural, and policymaking institutions.
Other than helping the gang look busy (hey, we held a press conference!), the Federation seems to be distinguished mostly by a desire to prove that this is not your father's old white religious right. The young! The Black! The Hispanic! But with no money, staff, or website of its own, it looks mostly like a one-day wonder.
