I don’t think it’s likely, but if the Republican Party is going to be saved, John Danforth will help make it happen. He’s offering his party a path back towards sanity; all they have to do now is follow it.
Danforth is not just some Rockefeller Republican from the northeast. He’s an “elder statesman” in the GOP after a career that’s included stints as Missouri’s attorney general, three terms in the U.S. Senate, and time as Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations. Perhaps more importantly, Danforth is not a secularist, anxious to separate Republicans from matters of faith — he’s an Episcopal minister. Indeed, Bush recently described Danforth as “a man of strong convictions, unquestioned integrity, and great decency. He is a man of calm and judicious temperament.”
He’s also a man disappointed by what his party has become. In March, he wrote one of the more important op-ed columns of the year, lamenting the fact that activists “have transformed our [Republican] party into the political arm of conservative Christians.”
[I]n recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.
The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future. Our current fixation on a religious agenda has turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our roots.
Apparently, Danforth has been watching the past few months as the Republicans have ignored his advice. To his credit, he returned to the New York Times op-ed page again today, arguing that the religious right’s demands — God is on the GOP’s side and only the far right knows God’s will — are a recipe for political disaster.
It’s a must-read repudiation of the entire right-wing social agenda.
[For moderate Christians], the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.
When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.
When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors’ lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.
We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.
Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.
For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.
Danforth reminds us that there are devout, Christian Republicans who have little use for the far-right agenda that dominates today’s GOP. It’s a tragedy that there aren’t more like him.
Danforth will, no doubt, come under fire for his sentiments, just as he did in March. That won’t change the fact that he’s offering advice that can rescue the Republican Party from itself.