Religion hijacked for political gain
Are Dem candidates ready to end politics of division?
I've been thinking about Barack Obama's speech on religion in Hartford on Saturday and also the recent forum where the three leading Democrats discussed their own theologies -- Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ, Hillary Clinton is a strict Methodist and John Edwards was raised as a Southern Baptist but joined the Methodist Church while in college.
This is the first time in recent memory that Democratic candidates on the campaign trail have been so candid about their religious affiliations and beliefs; religion and the sanctity of belief are subjects that have been "hijacked" -- to borrow Obama's word -- by the far-right in the past few decades and used to transform the Supreme Court and reject legislation that was deemed in conflict with the beliefs of conservative Christians.
This is troubling, but religion in the United States has always been a messy issue.
When the founders wrote the Constitution, it was during a rare period of secularism. Reading the Greeks and Romans was important. So was studying Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire, Hume and Rousseau. And that shaped the outlook of the Declaration of Independence and the focus on individual rights.
Despite this brief moment of secularism, over the past 400 years Americans have grown more intense in their religious beliefs -- one of the few peoples of a western democracy to do so. Sometimes this has clashed with the public good.
John F. Kennedy recognized this could be a problem when he said he would be an American president, rather than a Catholic one. But 40 percent of those who voted for President Bush identified themselves as evangelicals. Another 20 percent were Mormons and traditional Catholics, and they expect a president who hews his laws to their beliefs.
Josef Braml, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, grievously told the Economist magazine that religious attitudes in America "have more of an influence on political choices than any other western democracy."
Here in the United States religious attitudes have smothered laws to broaden federal support for embryonic stem cell research -- a science that has shown promise for the treatment of Parkinson's and other chronic illnesses.
The incremental erosion of abortion rights and the specter of Roe vs. Wade being overturned haunts those who uphold the notion of a woman's right to choose. The appointments of conservative-minded John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court concerns those who worry about the separation of church and state. "As Alito wrote in an application for a Justice Department promotion in 1985, his work on abortion and race cases, among other Reagan Administration priorities, had given him the chance 'to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly,'" noted Jeffery Toobin in a recent issue of the New Yorker.
Obama rightly noted in his speech on Saturday that "doing the Lord's work is a thread that's run through our politics since the very beginning." But for the past decade it has been used as a lever to divide. Obama didn't name names but it has been evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell who appropriated the national debate and used their influence to guide legislation coming from the Oval Office and Congress. So that issues such as abortion, gay marriage and Creationism get heightened way beyond their daily importance to most Americans.
The Democrats are right when they say taking care of the poor, eradicating racism, providing health care and ending the war in Iraq are paramount and indeed the most moral of moral issues Americans need to address. These are things Americans should be fighting for; they are what define our country as a haven and once made it the shining City on the Hill.