I realize Nick Kristof’s New York Times column from Saturday has touched off a broader blog discussion about how Democrats should approach religious voters, but I want to step back and look at the column itself. There’s a good point in there somewhere, but it’s shrouded in a lot of inanity.
If liberals demand that the Christian right show more tolerance for gays and lesbians, then liberals need to be more respectful of conservative Christians…. It’s always easy to point out the intolerance of others. What’s harder is to practice inclusiveness oneself. And bigotry toward people based on their faith is just as repugnant as bigotry toward people based on their sexuality.
Great. No problem here. People deserve respect and even those engaged in a serious political dialog over controversial issues should at least be treated with a modicum of dignity. Bigotry is wrong, no matter who’s behind it. But Kristof quickly veers into bizarre territory.
One of the most ferocious divides today is that between evangelical and secular America. Some conservative Christians are all too quick to sentence outsiders to hell. And liberals denounce stereotypes of Muslims but not of “Christian nuts.”
It’s encouraging that the right is less hostile to gays and lesbians than it used to be. President Bush argued in his 1994 run for governor that gay sex should be illegal, while now he feels comfortable hitting up gays for campaign contributions.
Kristof needs to leave New York a little more. The right is “less hostile to gays and lesbians than it used to be”? What planet is Kristof living on? If anything, the animosity has increased as the legal and political battles over gay marriage have progressed. Citing Bush’s desire for campaign contributions is not proof of the right’s new found respect for diversity; it’s evidence of a politician looking for donations.
Perhaps Kristof should take a moment to read some of the fundraising letters conservative groups are sending to activists nationwide. He’ll see lurid attacks accusing gays of trying to “destroy the American family” and “brainwash” children. Moreover, homosexuality has been compared to fascism (by Pat Robertson), kleptomania (by Trent Lott), and bestiality (by Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum). If the right is becoming “less hostile to gays and lesbians,” what was the right like before?
But Kristof had more equally-silly arguments to share. While he characterizes intolerant conservatives as being tolerant, Kristof singles out the left for the opposite criticism.
On the other hand, the left seems more contemptuous than ever of evangelicals. Sensitive liberals who avoid expressions like “ghetto blaster,” because that might be racially offensive, blithely dismiss conservative Christians as “Jesus freaks” or “fanatics.”
Really, who? While high-profile conservative leaders, including high-ranking, elected government officials, are condemning gays, name a comparable liberal who attacks Christians as “fanatics”?
Take Ted Turner. He has called Christianity a “religion for losers” and once ridiculed CNN employees observing Ash Wednesday as “Jesus freaks.” Later, he apologized.
That’s it? That’s the best Kristof can come up with? Ted Turner? First of all, Turner is not exactly a leader of the political left. He’s a strange figure with no real ties to the Dem party or any major liberal group. Second, in trying to prove a contemporary point, Kristof relied on fairly old quotes. Turner’s absurd “religion for losers” line was uttered seven years ago. The “Jesus freaks” insult was levied three years ago.
Kristof is trying to make a point about the left’s ongoing animosity towards Christians but the best he can do is rely on old quotes from a marginal crank. This hardly bolsters his case that the left “seems more contemptuous than ever of evangelicals.”
In fact, since Krisof couldn’t find other more recent, mainstream examples, the Turner anecdote actually undermines his argument. In other words, if this hostility were as common as he would have us believe, Kristof wouldn’t have had to rely on a peripheral oddball who said stupid things years ago.
If the point is that evangelicals deserve respect, even when we disagree with their political positions, Kristof is right. Intolerance in the name of tolerance is irreconcilable.
But Kristof is attacking an unidentified straw man. He sees unnamed liberals waging ambiguous attacks against Christianity for undetermined reasons. It’s not exactly convincing.