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.