religious right watch

Common Ground: Winning the Battle, Losing the Culture War

Chip Berlet writes in "Common Ground: Winning the Battle, Losing the Culture War,"

Obama’s Notre Dame speech seemed to reinforce the “common ground” school, which adopts Christian Right frames in the name of compromise. But a careful look at the numbers reveals that Democrats have more to gain by articulating a strong moral message—whatever the content—than by watering down the message in an effort to appease conservative Christians.
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I first became alarmed about Democratic Party backpedaling on these issues when Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic Party, came to the 2007 Daily Kos conference in Chicago. Before a crowd composed primarily of progressive or left-leaning Democrats, Dean spoke of reaching out to evangelicals mentioning just one name: the Rev. Rick Warren. While Warren may, as he appears, be a nice guy, he is certainly not a progressive. He is at best a moderate (with some baggage about gay people, especially in Africa). A buzz went around the conference typified by blogger Pam Spaulding who wrote: “I respectfully refuse to consider women’s rights and gay rights as a commodity to be traded for votes from evangelicals.”

Frank Schaeffer apologizes for contributing to Dr. Tiller's murder

Frank Schaeffer writes in "How I (and Other "Pro-Life" Leaders) Contributed to Dr. Tiller's Murder,"

The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.

I am very sorry.

Same-sex marriage has nothing to do with religion. So wise up and shut up, religious liars

Some religious leaders opposing same-sex marriage argue that it is an assault against them, and they say that churches would be forced to perform same-sex weddings. That would be miraculous indeed, since the Constitution of the United States guarantees religious freedom, and same-sex marriage is a civil contract, a government-issued contract, having nothing to do with religion. Same-sex marriage has nothing to do with religion and won't make churches, mosques, temples or synagogues do anything they don't want to; it has no effect whatsoever on any house of worship or any single worshiper's beliefs or the devotional practices they share with others on holy days or anytime.

So, "SHUT UP!" are my only words to these religious leaders. It is high time to call them to account, and to call them what they are: either ignoramuses or liars. They are either too stupid to know what Freedom of Religion means or else they understand it but spread lies anyway, hoping to scare believers into thinking that suddenly they are being threatened somehow. Give me a break!

Americans United is an organization opposing a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. We can take relevant text of their website and adapt it to same-sex marriage in general to get a clear idea of what perfidious nonsense these deceitful religious leaders are engaging in:

Arguments that...houses of worship could be forced to perform same-sex unions...are fallacious. Under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, houses of worship are free to limit marriage on whatever theological grounds they choose. Thus, a church may limit marriage to its own members, require marrying couples to promise to raise children in the faith, refuse to perform ceremonies for anyone who has been divorced or impose other types of limitations based on the group’s tenets and beliefs. The right of religious bodies to decide which couples they will marry and which they will not is already protected by the First Amendment.... [Opponents of same-sex marriage] have raised this issue as a scare tactic; it is wholly without merit.

That is what the arguments are that same-sex marriage threatens religious practice: "Wholly without merit."

Promoting the General Welfare in Iowa

The ruling of the Iowa Supreme Court that rejects, as Politico.com summarized, that "any claim that objections to same-sex marriage can be seen as 'rational,'" is a positive development in light of not only the Constitutional Principle of the Separation of Church & State, but for pragmatic governance that the extremists of right-wing and left-wing always find either unsatisfying or even alarming. I agree that the argument for same-sex marriage based upon pragmatism may not be the most compelling to most people. Yet, I think it is too seldom heard.

It's scientific fact that same-sex sexual attraction isn't a choice. Whether or not to act on it is. It's really hard not to act on sexual attraction. So, why not expand the benefits and responsibilities of civil marriage contracts to two consenting adults, especially when the societal benefits of these contracts are clear? Marriage settles-down, i.e., domesticates, a couple; domestication leads to shared financial responsibility and opportunities; this furthers everything from the tax base to the gentrification of neighborhoods; married couples are proven to be more likely to live longer, be happier at work (and thus more productive to our economy), and behave more responsibly sexually.

The benefits of marriage are clear; therefore, to not expand their availability is likely to be a pernicious exclusion.

The US Constitution calls on the purpose of this republic to be, among other things, to "promote the general welfare." Our nation's founders cared so much about this principle that they stated it twice in the Constitution. Same-sex marriage harms no one in any demonstrable way, but has clear benefits for the minority of American citizens whose lives it will improve without diminishing the lives of any person of the majority at all.

When any group of Americans despises such a “I-am-helped-and-you-are-not-hurt” situation only by citing tired, disproved stereotypes, misinformation, or religious texts, it is a clear indication that in some regard at least, liberty is less of a treasure to them than constriction. Our forefathers fought a revolution against just such an attitude, and the American Civil War and later the Civil Rights movement progressed the revolution into uplands of even greater abundance.

There is more to America than its history of big building projects, powerful economies, and wars won. There is a human element that is too often forgotten by citizens who also are inclined to forget that a representative democracy requires tolerance and mechanisms for adaptation.

Same-sex marriage helps some; it harms none; it promotes the general welfare. Let it flourish, so that together we can as a nation continue to move forward against great challenges and to seize opportunities that will demand that we work as a whole greater than the sum of our fragmented parts of this sect, that race, this economic group, that party, and so on.

In light of what this nation has been through--the blood and suffering of revolution, wars, depression, recessions, and social upheavals--and in light of what this nation must strive to be for the sake of its continued strength, same-sex marriage is essentially trivial and belies the excitement of religious extremists. Twenty years from now, same-sex marriages will be looked upon as inter-racial marriages are now: unusual, not harmful, still noteworthy, and with special challenges for those involved—but  many of those challenges standing largely as a result of careless and wasteful prejudice alone.

UPDATE: There is some interesting and very readable legal commentary about the ruling on the blog Law Dork, 2.0.

Is the sky falling on American evangelicalism?

Michael Spencer in his commentary in The Christian Science Monitor, "The Coming Evangelical Collapse," doesn't see much of a future role for the religious right within the diverse panoply that is American evangelicalism.

In fact, Spencer cites the long-term damage he believes was done to evangelicalism by its close association with the religious right. Indeed, evangelicalism, and conservative evangelicalism in particular, became all but synonymous over the course of the last 30 years with the partisan political movement that is the religious right.

Spencer writes:

Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake.... The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses.

Some of Spencer's observations come from a doctrinal or theological perspective. He sees Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism growing. He thinks American evangelicalism failed to provide its young people with a thorough theological foundation. (He's right.) And he expresses concerns about Pentacostalism, which continues spreading rapidly in numerous regions on the globe. From a sociological and economic perspect, The Economist examined some of these same trends, as featured on Religious Right Watch a little more than one year ago.

Spencer also predicts that a new anti-Christian era is beginning in America. Such a prediction is part and parcel of the religious right's talking points. That Spencer believes that an anti-Christian era is unfolding does not necessarily make him a member of the religious right, to be sure. He opines:

Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

But, a look at the power and scope of religion throughout American history belies Spencer's lack of faith in his faith and exposes the alarmist character of his prediction of a new anti-Christian era.

What is more, Spencer seems to lump together all those who oppose the agenda of a politicalized American evangelicalism. He sees all of them as "anti-Christian," when, in fact, many are friends of faith. Contrary to Spencer's stark vision there is an alternative one of which he is unaware or deemed not worth mentioning, one which Chip Berlet summed up on Talk to Action as follows:

[For many Americans who are challenging the Christian Right,] the issue is not secular belief versus spiritual faith; the issue is how to craft a pluralist civil society that honors the dignity of both secular philosophy and spiritual faith, while insisting that theological claims alone should never dictate public policies. That's why we say we are challenging theocracy; because that's what the Christian Right is increasingly sowing: a theocratic society.

Religious right in TX on the anti-science march again

The New York Times has an editorial on the situation. An excerpt is below:

The [Texas] State Board of Education fumbled a decision on curriculum standards last week. The struggle will be resumed in March.... The voting, a preliminary test of how the culture-war winds are blowing, concerned whether to approve or amend proposed new [science education] standards that had been carefully crafted by teams of educators and other experts.

Progressives continue to press Obama on Rick Warren issue

Frederick Clarkson rightly dubs it "rancid baloney" when people claim that Rick Warren of Saddleback Church is a moderate. Clarkson notes that:

Rick Warren has not (sic) inherent right to speak at the inaugural and Obama and his team are under no inherent obligation to pick him, or to have anyone do an invocation at all.
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Honoring Warren with his prominent position at the inaugural goes to the substance of Obama and other [Democrats' involvement] with the man and with his international empire. Its the prominent tip of an important iceberg. This has been a matter of some considerable political debate over the past few years, and may very well have a lot to do with policy in the near future.
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I believe that Obama et al are making a serious error in their alliance with Rick Warren. The justifications given do not hold water.... [F]or years [Obama has] been cultivating this powerful, Austrian school-informed builder of an international religious empire; who has big sway with governments in Africa and Asia. Some of those same governements are into the brutal represssion and perseuction of gay people. What kind of programs do you suppose Rick Warren, who some people say is "great" on combatting HIV/AIDS, can help develop when he is all about driving gay people underground in Africa? Economics? Health care? Civil Rights?

On January 20, turn your back on Rick Warren's extremism. And tell the President-elect that such extremism is not "change we can believe in;" it is instead, unfortunately, less like change and more like what we've had for the last eight years.

Will the not-so-moderate "New Evangelicals" (Neo-Religious Right) out-maneuver religious progressives in the Democratic Party?

"Who is Joel Hunter, and Why is Obama Praying with Him?" asked Time magazine two days after the November 4th General Election.

The answer is that he's "a bona fide megapastor in Orlando, Fla., and a longtime mover in the Evangelical world," as Time aptly sums up. He prayed with Barack Obama by phone on Election Day, along with "Otis Moss II, the retired pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland."

But he's also one exemplar of what is often termed a New Evangelical, a leader of the religious "value voters" who are often deemed politically moderate--relatively speaking. But who deemed them such? The answer, according to Sarah Posner in her article, "Battling For the Soul of the Democratic Party," is a "constellation of organizations and initiatives"--dubbed the "Religious-Industrial Complex" by Dan Schultz of Street Prophets--that has "cropped up inside the Beltway" in the last few years. They might also be termed the Neo-Religious Right

This constellation is "cultivating the public personae of a new generation of religious leaders," a public personae of a "values voter" who is "no longer shackled to a 'narrow agenda' of abortion and gay marriage, and [is] voting on a 'broader agenda,' including poverty, the environment, and global HIV/AIDS." The constellation is also claiming that Democrats need New Evangelicals in order to win elections.

But the New "moderate" Evangelicals are ultimately...conservative. They still oppose reproductive choice. They still oppose full civil rights for gay Americans. Consider, alongside Joel Hunter, two other leaders of the "broader agenda," New Evangelical, conservative Christianity. Rick Warren of Seattle's Saddleback church denies the simple scientific fact of evolution, and Jim Wallis of Sojourners, as Schultz points out, has actively combated the idea of an organized religious left.

The only thing new about New Evangelicalism is how it's a conservative Christian movement that's made inroads into the Democratic Party.

This is shaking up genuine religious progressives, who like the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, an associate minister at Middle Collegiate Church, do not see the "prophetic tradition of social justice" alive in New Evangelicalism.

Recently, several religious progressive wrote about that prophetic tradition in a new book, Dispatches From the Religious Left. As Bill Berkowitz pointed out in "RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?" Dispatches represents an attempt by religious progressives to enhance their a place at the table. Not only do they have to contend with the attention-getting narrative of the so-called moderate Evangelicals, but, also with what Frederick Clarkson, Dispatches' editor, sees as a movement

about marginalizing the role and voice of religious progressives, which is to say those who in past decades played decisive roles in stopping the war in Vietnam, pushing for African American and women's rights, and much more.

False, scape-goating, homophobic ad by Becket Fund in NYTimes

Via the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) comes one small way you can fight back against the pernicious "No Mob Veto" ad in The New York Times. The ad, funded by the Becket Fund, is homophobic and a classic example of the culture of manufactured outrage and the tactic of "blame the victim" that are hallmarks of America's religious and cultural rightwing.

Via HRC's action center, you can write a letter to The New York Times and the Becket Fund. Provided are several statements of reaction by progressive religious leaders. These statements can provide inspiration or ideas for your letter's content.

Liberals call to cave in to the religious right

Rather alarmingly, there are commentators calling for Senator Obama, once he becomes President, to not reverse President Bush's executive orders that limited reproductive choice. Frederick Clarkson of Talk To Action has called these commentators to account in his piece, "When Liberals Become the Religous Right."

From the article,

"E.J. Dionne...joined other Washington Insiders in arguing that the best way for Obama to find common ground on abortion is to capitulate to the demands of Religious Right anti-abortion activists.... In other words, the president should betray his pro-choice supporters and continue policies that are not based on science but on religious right ideology. He says, Obama should govern as the "cultural moderate he promised to be. He should not lose his chance to make cultural warfare a quaint relic of the past."

As Clarkson points out, the religious right shows absolutely no sign of working to make the culture wars a "quaint relic of the past," and he outlines some recent events as evidence.