Perhaps it takes a Libertarian to get through where others cannot. Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Libertarian oriented
Reason magazine who has a regular column in the Boston Globe. This diary has the title of
her column today which is well worth the read. It points at one reason for the poll decline of Bush and some in the Republican leadership - there are many who have voted Republican who are more than uncomfortable with some elements of the religious right (are you listening John McCain?).
I will, below the fold, offer some snippets to give you a sense of the piece. I do urge you to go and read. I believe free registration is required for access (but one cookie will not destroy your diet).
Let me begin with Young's second paragraph:
Once, conservatives used to deplore the left's cult of victimhood and ridicule the obsession with real or imagined slights toward women, minorities, and other historically oppressed groups. Now, the right is embracing a victimhood cult obsessed with slights toward a group that makes up 85 percent of the American population.
Of Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt comparing himself to Afghan convert Abdur Rahman and claiming they were both being persecuted, Young notes
His persecution consisted of being disciplined by a commander for saying sectarian prayers at a sailor's memorial service.
Young offers an obligatory paragraph about how some secularists go way to far in attempting to suppress expressions of faith. But those remarks are largely in passing, and immediately followed with:
Such bizarre secularist excesses should be condemned. But the complainers go much further. They cry persecution when religious conservatives are denied the ability to impose their beliefs on everyone -- for instance, to ban abortion or gay unions. In fact, much of the hostility they encounter is directed at this political agenda, not at religion as such: People who bash the religious right seldom object when faith is invoked to protest war, poverty, or racism. This is a double standard, to be sure, but it's just as hypocritical for religious conservatives to suggest that Christians who don't subscribe to their brand of values aren't ''real" Christians.
She ridicules the idea that churches that accept gay men and women are somehow part of an anti-Christian war. She notes that even some bible-believing churches reject such an idea because it is not loving.
Her final three paragraphs deserve to be quoted in full. Let me do so, then offer a very few remarks of my own:
Attempts to portray Christians as a beleaguered minority are particularly ludicrous since, outside a few elite enclaves, prejudice against the nonreligious remains widely accepted in America. Half of Americans agree that belief in God is necessary to having good moral values, and more than two-thirds say they would not even consider voting for a nonbeliever for political office. Georgia state legislator Ron Foster ruffled no feathers a few years ago when he noted, in defense of posting of the Ten Commandments in government buildings, that judges or public officials who don't believe in God are ''more likely to be corrupt."
This soft bigotry has consequences, and not just for godless politicians. In the May issue of New York University Law Review, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh documents discrimination against nonreligious parents in child custody disputes, based on the assumption that raising your children in a religious faith makes you a better parent.
To be sure, there are atheists who are militantly hostile to all religion, and reinforce negative stereotypes of nonbelievers. But there are also believers who give the faithful a bad name -- like the whiners and zealots who wring their hands about a mythical ''war on Christians."
I do not wish to refight a battle that has far too often occurred on this blog between those who view the importance of not being hostile to all people of faith and those who believe that any expression of faith in the public square represents a serious breach in Jefferson's wall of separation that cannot be tolerated. I note that at least on the surface the United States is among the world's most religious countries, and of those of nominally Christian outlook it is bar none the most religious, both in terms of weekly church attendance and in terms of expressions of faith and belief. Extremes such as those expressed at the conference (at which Delay and others spoke) have the potential to alienate many people of faith, provided there is an alternative that they do not perceive as hostile to them because of their faith.
I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state, and this summer will attend a 4-week NEH seminar on that subject because I want to be sure that I am fully prepared to explore the topic with my students. At the same time I can respect those who are motivated to participate in public discourse, to attempt to change public policy because of how they live their faith. I can respect them so long as they attempt to persuade and do not cross the line where they attempt to impose.
Coming as I do from Eastgern European Jewish background, with many relatives lost in the liquidation of the Jewish community of Bialystok, I think I have some sense of what it means to be a victim. I lived through and participated in the Civil Rights movement, first by watching on TV in the 1950's, and then beginning in 1963 with my own participation in sit-ins, demonstrations, and the like. There is something psychologically comforting in assuming that one is a victim, because then it is not one's fault. There is also something debilitating about assuming such a role because then one is less motivated ot take positive action to change the situation.
I would hope that those who are not personally oriented towards the influence of God and religion in the lives of others recognize that we can firmly oppose intolerance without being hostile to those of faith who are generous. And if we are to succeed in changing the leadership of this nation and the direction of our policies, we must, because there are so many of faith who respond negatively to what they perceive as hostility to them because of their faith. They will not offer paranoid claims of victimhood, of wars on Christians. They will simply withdraw from engagement with those expressing such hostility.
Politics is the art of the possible. It inevitably requires elements of compromise. I ask no one to compromise on what are core beliefs for them. Here I would point at what Markos and Jerome describe as the progressive success in Colorado, where two parallel funds were set up so that the various constituency groups did not have to feel they were violating core beliefs and yet still could find ways of cooperating.
I accept that some who read this will reject both Young's presentation and my points. I ask that if you do so, you attempt to maintain some level of comity in the discussion. One things that often turns people off is unnecessary invective. State clearly and firmly what you believe. Be impassioned. And recognize that if you begin to demonize others, you become like those in the conference to which Young reacts - your words and actions, not intended to persuade those against whom they are directed, have the unfortunate effect of driving away observers who support you will need in order to change the direction of this country. Delay and company have given us a gift, however unintentionally. We should take full advantage.