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Republican Bloggers Look In Wrong Direction When Warning of Theocracy

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Guest post by Ron Chusid

Personally I would prefer that mention of religion be kept out of political speeches, and would go with this approach from Arnold Vinick, the fictitious Republican candidate for president on The West Wing, regarding mixing religion and politics. Unfortunately, when many Democrats have practiced this philosophy, Republicans have twisted this to claim they were personally hostile to religion. The Obama campaign is responding to the strong advantage Republicans have had in receiving the support of religious voters by trying to appeal to them. Over the weekend I found that many conservative blogs were going ballistic over a comment in a speech by Michelle Obama which does make a reference to religion.

The hypocrisy of Republicans is just amazing. Most of the time they complain about the evils of secular liberals and claim that most liberals are hostile to religion. Therefore you would think they would be happy if a Democrat speaks of religion. Ed Morrissey claims that a theocracy is coming under Obama because Michelle Obama makes this rather vague reference to religion. Morrissey quotes Obama as saying (emphasis from Ed):

We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another — that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

Ed, along with several other conservative bloggers, takes a tremendous leap in using this statement to claim that Obama would create a theocracy. He claims that Obama is threatening to use government intervention to save his soul when no such claims of government action are ever suggested.

While I personally would prefer not to see such discussion of souls in a political speech, this hardly represents threat of a theocracy. Such a threat is particularly absurd in light of the number of times Obama has defended separation of church and state–a fundamental concept of the founding fathers which many Republicans deny. In contrast John McCain, who generally shows less signs of leaning towards theocracy than many other Republicans, has erroneously claimed that the United States was formed as a Christian nation. This could be taken as a far greater sign of danger of a politician who would use government to impose their religious views.

I had just recently quoted Obama on separation of church and state in this post at Liberal Values:

For my friends on the right, I think it would be helpful to remember the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy but also our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn’t the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn’t want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves.

It was the forbearers of Evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they didn’t want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it. Given this fact, I think that the right might worry a bit more about the dangers of sectarianism.

I’ve also quoted Obama on separation of church and state many other times, such as after the CNN/You Tube Debate:

OBAMA: I am proud of my Christian faith. And it informs what I do. And I don’t think that people of any faith background should be prohibited from debating in the public square.

OBAMA: But I am a strong believer in the separation of church and state, and I think that we’ve got to translate…

(APPLAUSE)

By the way, I support it not just for the state but also for the church, because that maintains our religious independence and that’s why we have such a thriving religious life.

But what I also think is that we are under obligation in public life to translate our religious values into moral terms that all people can share, including those who are not believers. And that is how our democracy’s functioning, will continue to function. That’s what the founding fathers intended.

When speaking about faith based programs, Obama has stated, “I am much more concerned with maintaining the line between church and state.”

This hardly sounds like someone who is threatening theocracy, while the Republicans have given many reasons to have such concerns. Conservative challenges to abortion rights, funding of stem cell research, intrusion in end of life decisions in the Terri Schiavo case, and opposition to the rights of homosexuals are the most prominent examples in recent years of Republicans basing public policy decisions on their religious views. Republicans have also attempted to set by legislation the moment when a fetus can feel pain regardless of the medical facts.

In education there have been the attempts to teach creationism (even if called intelligent design) and limit teaching of evolution. It is not only biology that faces attacks. Religious fundamentalists attack established science on cosmology when they disagree about the origins of the universe, and object to geology when they disagree over the age of the earth. Many even believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. The Bush administration has backed religious fundamentalists who object to the geological age of the Grand Canyon, preferring the view that it was created in the biblical flood. Many Republicans insist upon teaching abstinence-based sex education in place of effective sex education due to their religious views.

If conservative bloggers are really concerned about theocracy they needs to look at the actual actions of Republicans instead. Actually basing public policy on religious views, as opposed to making a comment in a speech, is the real concern.

Comments

  • starfleet_dude

    says:

    The only thing Ed Morrissey cares about is the GOP winning, so consider anything he says about politics with a truckload of road salt.

  • Homer

    says:

    I think this has more to do with the right wing pandering to the view that Obama is really a muslim, a belief that is shockingly still out there:

    Obama is religious and that religion is Islam (c’mon now, you know he is…)

    Homer

  • DragonScholar

    says:

    Man, that takes a level of hypocracy I can barely comprehend.

    I have come to believe that the Republican party and its ardent supporters lead lives of constant cognitive dissonance. The only way they can deal with this is to keep making up new accusations, stories, rumors, and outright lies. If they ever at one moment slow down and attempt to articulate a coherent philosophy and worldview, it falls apart. The big money backers are exposed as plutocrats, and Ed and company are exposed as mindless servants.

  • Racer X

    says:

    Republicans do thrive on disinformation. The only way they can look themselves in the mirror is to take the news they don’t agree with and ignore it completely. The Iraq war isn’t a disaster, and besides we invaded for good reason that everyone agreed with.

    Luckily for the rest of us it’s getting pretty obvious which party could care less what the facts are. We need to remind people how dangerous the anti-knowledge party can be.

  • Dale

    says:

    Bush has punched several holes in the separation of church and state that will be hard for even the Democrats to close up. The fate of those faith-based initiatives are to me the indicator of whether we will slip further towards theocracy or move back toward separation.

  • Matt

    says:

    Just once, I’d like to have a candidate for president who doesn’t believe in the Invisible Sky Wizard. One that has no personal stake in the religion thing. Not someone who is anti-religion, but one for whom religion is a non-issue.

    Of course, for that to happen, we have to have a population that understands the divide between church and state, and which understands that even if a candidate has different beliefs (or lacks them entirely), it does not somehow invalidate their capacity to lead as President.

    Then I fall out of bed and wake up. Oh well, at least he’s not Huckabee.

  • woody, tokin librul

    says:

    It seems to me that the introduction of ‘souls’ into political debate is exactly the kind of thing that presages, if not theocracy per se, then at least its forebears, specifically in the anti-choice rhetoric.

  • EvilPoet

    says:

    IOKIYAD.

    STAY TUNED…

    We the media will decide things so you the people don’t have to.

    Max Headroom once said: “Have you any idea how successful censorship
    is on TV? Don’t know the answer? Hmm. Successful. Isn’t it?”

    It’s [insert your local time] do you know where your brain is?

  • woody, tokin librul

    says:

    Bush has punched several holes in the separation of church and state that will be hard for even the Democrats to close up. The fate of those faith-based initiatives are to me the indicator of whether we will slip further towards theocracy or move back toward separation.

    All those churches got their greedy, soul-sucking noses into the Govt. trough are NOT gonna pull back, not gonna let anybody shove ’em away, not gonna let go o’dat teat, I gay-ron-fuukin-TEE ya, chers….Nevagahapun…The shrieks of thisism and thatism and anti-godism would shake the very foundations of the Rocky Mountains.

    That’s only ONE of the myriad Bushevik attacks on the Constitution that’s NEVER gonna be repaired. (Another is Bush v. Gore, and probably Iraq, too).

  • NeilS

    says:

    I think that Huckabee’s supporters would be drawn to these statements. That just goes to show that the Repbulican alliances are breaking down bigtime.

    I don’t think there is anything wrong with bringing morals and religion into politics and geovernment. What is wrong is claiming that your opponent is somehow evil because he or she is of a different religion.

  • Steve Balboni

    says:

    This is an obvious line of attack, they are not concerned about a Christian Theocracy – they are concerned about a Muslim Theocracy. And every good Republican already knows that Obama is a Muslim, so they don’t have to say “Islamic” or “Muslim” – just “theocracy” and the base implicitly understands what they mean.

    This may be the first dog whistle allusion to Obama’s “Muslim heritage” but it certainly will not be the last. or

  • Matt

    says:

    “I don’t think there is anything wrong with bringing morals and religion into politics and government.”

    Those of us that look on Sharia law* with horror and dismay would probably disagree with you. A less extreme example would be the simple weirdness of not being able to buy sex toys in Mississippi. Search for a reasonable explanation that does not involve religion (or even a vaguely worded “morality”) and you won’t find one.

    Politicians, like anyone else, are free to believe as they like, but they should never try to mix it with work.

    *(Christianity doesn’t have much high ground either, if you get all O.T. on your criminals. Curse your parents? That’s a stonin’.)

  • Joey (bjobotts)

    says:

    Michelle’s comment had nothing to do with the religious soul but then these critics have never been very good at symbolism. Obama is proud of his Christian faith (I imagine at this point he’s really glad he’s not really a Muslim).
    These same critics are against abortions but are also against sex education which ends up helping to prevent unwanted pregnancies. For instance hjow many teenagers know that the male leaks sperm throughout intercourse not just when he ‘comes’, or that prophylactics leak or that diseases can be spread with anal and oral sex too. I can remember when only a couple of states had legal abortions and victims of rape and incest would have to fly to California to get a timely abortion. But only for those who could afford to.

    Separation of Church and State shows up most often in the courts and our current administration has done everything they could think of to infiltrate the benches with conservatives. That is the whole reason the Pat Robinson’s medical er I mean..law school was created for to infiltrate the government and especially the judiciary. They ignore the separation at every opportunity and are working diligently toward a theocracy which is why they have been predominantly republican. No matter how they get there republicans want a one party rule which will put the nation’s wealth into the hands of about 500 families and make the rest of us servants.(to God or to them it is all the same in their minds since they speak for god).

    To Michelle Obama, Justice is the way to heal the soul of the nation. Justice and accountability in order to restore the pride of our democracy. Stop the (symbolic) sinning of the republican party that has brought about our current disaster. If Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitch. etc were all jailed you would see a nation cheering and see the healing begin. I pray Obama’s idea of healing is not just to forget the past and forsake Justice and accountability. If there are no consequences for lawbreaking then it will happen again and again. Justice is the road to healing the soul of the nation.

  • libra

    says:

    Much Ado About Nothing, just like the “claws come out” and “periodically” (the earlier thread).

    I’m an *atheist* and I use the word “soul” in both my languages (Polish and English) because it’s a word which has become a part of the daily idiom. For me, it’s, pretty much, a synonym for “spirit”. When I say someone is “soul-less”, I don’t mean it literally (as in, it’s an animal since, presumably, all humans have souls). When I say that someone “gave up the ghost”, I don’t mean I saw a little puffy cloud escape his mouth. When I say “my soul was on my shoulder (ready to flee)”, it’s just a (Polish) phrase meaning I was very scared.

    “Saving” a soul — which is the context Michelle Obama had used it in — makes me a little less comfortable, maybe, but it’s still long way down on my “theocrat” radar.

    Oh, and BTW.. If the wingnuts are trying to suggest that it means that Obama is going to push for *Muslim* theocracy… They ought to be reminded that the business of mortifying one’s body to save one’s soul is a strictly *Christian* practice. Muslims are much less concerned about souls than Christians are. Vide their vision of paradise: not a long (sexless) dress and a harp, but 40 virgins and long nights.

  • pattonbt

    says:

    The R’s are not worried about theocracy, they are worried about theocracy thats not ‘theirs’. At some core the R’s know that their comingling of the ‘religious right’ into their tent was a cycnical way to take up easy votes. Pander enough to the hardcore leaders of conservative theocratic leaders and you had a great podium to shout down from and a great curtain to hide horrible decisions behind.

    I also believe that most R’s (and when I use that term I mean the establishment old school R’s) are fully aware that Mr Jesus Christ probably would be a left leaning hippy today and that the D’s policies would be more congruous with his teachings than the R’s. The R’s are deathly scared of the religious rights and moderates minds changing from abortion and gays to the environment and poverty. If the narrative shifts, the R’s lose.

    So the R’s do what they do best. Scream and shout cynically from on high about the dangers of the threat to their establishment, even if it means blatant hypocrisy.

  • Hannah

    says:

    You’ve all forgotten the R’s modus operandi: Accuse the other side of something of which you are guilty. Yet another example here by Mr. Morrissey.

  • blogingRfun

    says:

    I have seen evidence that there appear to be forces at work in the universe, that throughout history, by default is called God(s). It’s like what Al Gore has described as the collective conscious of all living things, that work in concert [to communicate, direct & judge]. But it’s a subtle and delicate force that can sometimes be easily over-powered by human passions and ambitions. I am not anti-faith. I’m just making an arguement against gameing for economic, political or cultural supremacy, under the banner of any religion.

  • Pauli Ojala

    says:

    Regarding the “sun orbits the Earth” 18%, we should recall that at least 10% of the people always take the polls as an avenue for jokes.

    But the 68% poll-toll that man saw dinosaurs is well established. You see, in some countries it is still possible for the media to show the evidence. Have you ever seen “dinoglyf” figures:
    http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Dinoglyfs.htm
    ?
    Pauli Ojala
    Biochemist, Finland