If there’s one thing I’ve noticed in all the years I’ve followed the religious right, it’s that this is a movement that loves to feel sorry for itself.
Last year, for example, when Roy Moore wasn’t allowed to use the power of the state to promote his religious beliefs, religious right leaders like James Dobson appeared in Alabama and compared Moore’s plight to that Rosa Parks.
“We’re in a great moral struggle of our own,” Dobson said. He added, “It can be said that people of faith are being sent to the back of the bus, and we’re not going to go there.”
Sure, there was some irony in using Rosa Parks’ heroism before a crowd of neo-confederate southerners, but Dobson’s comments reflected another trend common in his movement: self pity.
Dobson and others like him actually believe evangelical Christians are suffering the same way African Americans were under Jim Crow laws. While it’s true that anyone who believes such lunacy is probably mentally unbalanced, it’s also true that a movement that relies so heavily on victimization finds it necessary to abandon reason to stay alive.
The New Republic’s Peter Beinart has a great new piece on this topic, exploring the religious right’s sense of victimhood, even in light of its recent political success. With the movement’s friends literally running every level of the government, the right is having a little trouble explaining how evangelicals are victims, but they’re trying anyway. Their message is simple: if you oppose us, you hate Christians.
One of the things that galled the right during the “political correctness” wars was the way leftists casually threw around terms like “racist” and “bigot.” For conservatives, some of whom knew firsthand how much harm those accusations could cause, it became axiomatic that such pejoratives should be reserved for only the most egregious, clear-cut examples of racial or ethnic animus.
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That’s how it seemed, anyhow. In recent weeks, prominent conservatives have been anything but scrupulous in charging Democrats with bigotry against people of faith. Just before the election, Christian Right leader James Dobson called Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy a “God’s people hater.” On November 8, talk-show host Joe Scarborough condemned “Democrats who take solace in their bigoted anti-Christian screeds.” Right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin recently blurbed a book titled Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity, noting that “Persecution exposes the hypocrisy and bigotry of the secular, anti-Christian Left.” And, last Sunday, Mary Matalin chimed in on “Meet the Press,” claiming that “people of faith, in the election process, they have been demonized and they have been treated with disdain and contempt.”
Indeed, Beinart missed a few examples. Jerry Falwell was on C-SPAN a week ago telling a national audience that Bush’s critics “hate him because he’s a follower of Jesus Christ.” Bob Jones III wrote a letter to Bush insisting that Democrats are “pagans” and arguing that the president shouldn’t compromise with “liberals” because “they despise your Christ.”
The right’s whines are more than bizarre; they’re incoherent. One might expect such sentiments from unmedicated patients who wander subways systems wearing tinfoil hats, but instead these comments are common in mainstream news outlets from close allies — and former employees — of the president of the United States.
Why, exactly, does the right believe such lunacy is necessary? I suspect there are two reasons. The first is practical concerns. Now that far-right Republicans are dominating American government, the right needs its supporters to continue to feel like victims or complacency might set in. It’s also hard on the religious right’s fundraising. (What’s the more effective fundraising pitch for Falwell: “Send money and I might get to go to another White House dinner!” or “Send money because Christian-hating liberals are trying to force us to the back of the bus!” See what I mean?)
The second, as Beinart argues, is an attempt at intimidation.
[W]hat conservatives call anti-evangelical bigotry is simply harsh criticism of the Christian Right’s agenda. Scarborough seized on a recent column by Maureen Dowd, which accused President Bush of “replacing science with religion, and facts with faith,” leading America into “another dark age.” The Weekly Standard recently pilloried Thomas Friedman for criticizing “Christian fundamentalists” who “promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad,” and Howell Raines, for saying the Christian Right wants to enact “theologically based cultural norms.” This isn’t bigotry.
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Identity politics is a powerful thing — a way of short-circuiting debate by claiming that your views aren’t merely views; they are an integral part of who you are. And who you are must be respected. But harsh criticism is not disrespect — and to claim it is undermines democratic debate by denying opponents the right to aggressively, even impolitely, disagree. That is what conservatives are doing when they accuse liberals of religious bigotry merely for demanding that the Christian Right defend their viewpoints with facts, not faith. Once upon a time, conservatives knew better. I hope some still do.
If the government promotes evangelical Christianity, the right considers it justice. If the government remains neutral on religion, the right considers it persecution. If you embrace an evangelical agenda, you’re a good American. If you oppose that agenda, you’re not only wrong, you’re an anti-Christian bigot.
It all fits in perfectly well in Bush’s with-us-or-against-us America, doesn’t it?