A look at shifts occurring within the religious right, via National Journal. The gist: the religious right is experiencing “a generational shift from offense to defense,” from using government power to impose “family values” to seeking to carve out a sphere of “religious liberty” for religious dissenters:
The Hobby Lobby case is in many ways a model for the new strategy being pursued by the Religious Right. It represents a way to engage in politics that is less aggressive than the tactics of the previous generation of believers. Back then, the key phrase was “family values”; now, it is “religious liberty.” You see it everywhere—from contraception court cases to legislation to think-tank conferences.
This shift in rhetoric has moved the Religious Right from offense to defense in the culture wars, as Buzzfeed’s McKay Coppins put it last year. The main aim, it seems, is not to oppose contraception or gay marriage but to be left alone: to extract a promise that religious conservatives will not have to photograph a gay wedding or pay for someone else’s birth control. It is a version of the Religious Right that even the libertarian wing of the Republican Party—a historical rival for influence within the GOP—can get behind.
While some of us believe religious conservatives do, in fact, have a right to the exercise of their religion without undo state interference, others believe that allowing any such deviation is anathema.
More. Via Reason: “Libertarians are the ones who tend to both support same-sex marriage and people’s right not to be compelled to work in service of one; to want to get both our bosses and the government out of birth control decisions; and to take free speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and personal autonomy very seriously.”
Conservatives and progressives…not so much.
Furthermore. Michelangelo Signorile’s “ENDA Nightmare“—ENDA passes the House attached to another year-end bill with GOP support and becomes law. Yesterday’s must-pass legislation becomes today’s “dangerous religious exemption” because it doesn’t allow the state to regulate hiring decisions at religious organizations.
Worth repeating. Seriously? Model trains?
60 Comments for “Understanding Today’s Religious Right”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The gist: the religious right is experiencing “a generational shift from offense to defense,” from using government power to impose “family values,” to seeking to carve out a sphere of “religious liberty” for religious dissenters.
The so-called “religious liberty” laws that the religious right is determined to impose as “defense” is an exemption from laws requiring that gays and lesbians be treated equally with other citizens. To put it another way, the so-called religious liberty laws are designed to permit the conservative Christians to continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians, and only gays and lesbians, in the public marketplace.
You favor that discrimination. I do not. Nor do most Americans.
It is really just that simple.
posted by Jorge on
I read the gist of the article being a more restrained version of Pope Francis’s, “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. . . . We have to find a new balance. Otherwise, even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.” And for half of the same reason. This does not mean I trust the religious right. Well, the evangelical right, at any rate.
Where you get the point being a shift from offense to defense in an article that opens with a–a rather satisfying takedown of the whole Treyvon Martin lynch mob, to tell you the truth (and Eric Holder wonders why we’re a nation of cowards on race?)–is beyond me. Seems more like going from berserk to tilting at windmills.
You favor that discrimination. I do not. Nor do most Americans.
It is really just that simple.
Discrimination hasn’t been simple since before I was born.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Discrimination hasn’t been simple since before I was born.
True enough. I’ve dealt with religious discrimination, ethnic discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination, and I understand the complexity.
But Stephen’s support for laws “designed to permit the conservative Christians to continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians, and only gays and lesbians, in the public marketplace” is both as clear as a goat’s ass and just that simple.
Let me ask you this, taking into consideration all the months Stephen has been writing about this topic and the thousands upon thousands of words that Stephen has used in defense of the proposed laws:
(1) Has Stephen uttered a word in favor of an exemption (think “religion-neutral”) covering non-religious personal conscience objections as well as religious objections?
(2) Has Stephen uttered a word in favor of an exemption (think “issue neutral”) that extends beyond objection to same-sex marriage in any way, even within the context of objection to marriages of one sort or another?
(3) Has Stephen uttered a word in favor of an exemption (think “class-neutral”) that extends any class (e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religion) other than gays and lesbians?
He has not.
Stephen has confined his support for religious exemptions permitting conservative religionists to withhold goods and services from gays and lesbians, and gays and lesbians alone with respect to same-sex marriages.
Stephen has never broached, let alone discussed, the issue in broader terms — a personal conscience exemption to the operation of all laws of general application. Even within the small subset of laws applicable to public businesses offering goods and services with respect to marriages, Stephen has never broached, let alone discussed, the issue in terms broader than objection to same-sex marriages — he has not addressed the obvious questions of objection to remarriage after divorce or interracial marriage or celebrations of divorce.
Stephen has confined himself to discussion of a single issue — granting a narrow exemption to conservative Christians who have a religious objection to same-sex marriage. He supports that exemption. He has given no indication that he supports a broader exemption — an exemption covering non-religious personal conscience objections, for example, or an exemption covering something other than or in addition to objection to same-sex marriage, or an exemption applicable to anything class other than gays and lesbians.
Even the articles that Stephen quotes with apparent approval (e.g. ”
Perhaps I am being unfair. Stephen, after all, styles himself as a “libertarian”, and quotes a Reason article that argues that libertarians “take free speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and personal autonomy very seriously.” Maybe Stephen does support a broad freedom of personal conscience exemption from all laws of general application, as I do.
But that is not — emphatically not — what Stephen discusses. Never do we hear “Whoa, wait a minute! What about protecting non-religious conscience?” Never do we hear “Whoa, wait a minute! What about protecting photographers, bakers and florists from having to support adultery by compelling them to work to support remarriages after divorce?” Never do we hear “Whoa, wait a minute! What about protecting photographers, bakers and florists from having to support heresy by compelling them to work to support of Catholic or Mormon or Wiccan marriages?”
We hear none of it.
And, if I may go a step further, I would suggest the reason why we hear none of it.
Whatever Stephen’s personal beliefs about the nature and extent of personal conscience might be (his views might be as broad and inclusive as mine, for all I know), the focus on religious exemption with respect to same-sex marriage and that alone stems from a desire to hold the Republican coalition together in the face of defeat on same-sex marriage.
Witness the Nation Review article: “It is a version of the Religious Right that even the libertarian wing of the Republican Party—a historical rival for influence within the GOP—can get behind.”
Yup. You do the hocus pocus and you turn yourself around.
That what it’s all about.
posted by Jorge on
(1) Has Stephen uttered a word in favor of an exemption (think “religion-neutral”) covering non-religious personal conscience objections as well as religious objections?
No.
(2) Has Stephen uttered a word in favor of an exemption (think “issue neutral”) that extends beyond objection to same-sex marriage in any way, even within the context of objection to marriages of one sort or another?
He just did: “Libertarians are the ones who tend to both support same-sex marriage and people’s right not to be compelled to work in service of one; to want to get both our bosses and the government out of birth control decisions; and to take free speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and personal autonomy very seriously.” Conservatives and progressives…not so much.
(3) Has Stephen uttered a word in favor of an exemption (think “class-neutral”) that extends any class (e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religion) other than gays and lesbians?
Once again, he just referenced the Hobby Lobby decision. That impacts women and only women, based on a religious objection. It also only impacts people of certain religious persuasions, based on a religious objection by another religion.
…But that is not — emphatically not — what Stephen discusses.
*Sigh.* And that’s the difference between winning an ideological battle and losing one. There are people who are creative enough with their principles that they can describe the world in such a way that their principles always lead to the sensible solution–or they explain how to deviate from their principles while still preserving them. Mr. Miller’s m/o is usually showing how different principles lead to nonsensical results.
I think there is a dispute on tone. You frame the issue as Stephen Miller “supports” this, whereas I would frame it as he “opposes” something, as something reactionary.
I’m sure Mr. Miller’s motivations are political. But you speak of the Republican coalition. To the extent that the Republican coalition includes the religious right, Mr. Miller strikes me as hostile to organized religion. Like many if not most gays, and for good reason. But I think he is sympathetic to the individual who may be an adherant of a conservative religious denomenation without necessarily being as political as their denomination.
Wait, no, that actually supports your argument. I think Mr. Miller is worried about backlash that would increase the credibility of the religious right. That’s still consistent with wanting to hold the rest of the Republican coalition together within the party’s political infighting.
posted by Lori Heine on
I think these people are charlatans, and that their view of the Christian faith is fraudulent. That having been said, I find it difficult to believe the sky is going to fall if they’re not permitted their “religious” exemptions.
They won’t be able to compete in the free market. As the whiners and crybabies in Mississippi are evidently beginning to discover. Take note: in Mississippi. The rump of the rump.
Nor are they actually concerned about freedom of religion. Hence in North Carolina, they wanted to prosecute Christians who interpret Scripture differently–for following their own consciences and celebrating same-sex unions.
The soc-cons are sad clowns in the circus of life. But if they want their pathetic little exemptions, I’m not convinced it will hurt many of us, even in the most backward parts of the country. Nor would those who might be harmed by them have no other recourse besides government.
Government force is NOT the solution to every problem.
But the mental block on this issue is tremendous. Accomplishing anything–anything at all–is automatically equated with government action. No activity can even be fathomed that doesn’t involve pushing other people around and threatening them.
Sure the Talibangelicals would go too far. But a growing number of Americans see through their fraud. Loony excesses won’t get much traction. The media trumpets every utterance, by every asshat in politics, and we’re supposed to have a coronary because it’s the end of the world. Sorry, I’m tired of being instructed how to feel, and how to think.
We’re turning into a nation of three-year-olds. And not particularly intelligent three-year-olds, at that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The soc-cons are sad clowns in the circus of life. But if they want their pathetic little exemptions, I’m not convinced it will hurt many of us, even in the most backward parts of the country. Nor would those who might be harmed by them have no other recourse besides government.
I tend to agree, but I would suggest that establishing the principle that gays and lesbians can be singled out for special discrimination is in itself harmful.
Consider this, Lori: What if a state government (e.g. Texas) decided to issue a resolution condemning homosexuality (e.g. “BE IT RESOLVED that that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of our society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. BE IT RESOLVED that homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders and shared by the majority of Texans. et al )”
The resolution would have no legal effect at all. None whatsoever. It would not even affect the rights of a small number of gays and lesbians. But it would be harmful, in my view, anyway, because it would put the state on record as singling out a class of citizens for special, irrational condemnation.
I would suggest to you that the so-called “religious freedom” exemptions are similar in intent and effect to such a resolution. While they may not affect very many gays and lesbians, singling out gays and lesbians for special discrimination, like singling out gays and lesbians for special condemnation, is in and of itself harmful.
The religious right insists that gays and lesbians are seeking to use laws to deem homosexuality an “acceptable alternative lifestyle”. To the extent that our insistence on “equal means equal” has the collateral effect of changing public opinion about gays and lesbians, there is some truth to their claim, I suppose.
But the religious right is playing the opposite game. In seeking laws that single out gays and lesbians for special discrimination applicable to no one else, the religious right is attempting to use laws to preserve the principle that gays and lesbians are different than other citizens, worthy of condemnation and discrimination, no matter what the law might say or not say in general terms.
posted by Mike in Houston on
You need only look at the rationale behind the Wheaton College case — where they assert that the mere filling out an exemption form is a violation of their religious freedom… which the conservative block on the Supreme Court seems willing to uphold.
Wheaton argues that by signing that form — a public record — then their employees would be able to go about getting the contraception that they needed (via the insurance company not the college).
Basically — they want to discriminate (vis-a-vis contraception) but also be shielded from any public scrutiny that arises from their discrimination… including their employees who might take advantage of the non-employer-paid-for contraception coverage that they object to… Sound familiar?
Stephen: Businesses should free to discriminate based on their religious beliefs because the market will sort it out, BUT, because if the business (cake baker, etc.) holds a particular brand of Christian beliefs, they should also be shielded from any negative approbation in the public sphere… because, Freedom.
Meh.
posted by Houndentenor on
I do see that younger Evangelicals are less anti-gay and more concerned with the environment. Every poll shows that. Unfortunately it’s going to be a few decades before these teens and 20-somethings are in charge of their churches and denominations.
posted by Mike in Houston on
The surest way to expose the farce that is “religious freedom” is to have a closely-held Muslim company assert its rights.
It’s like the whole ammosexual stuff — 2nd amendment is only for white Christian guys… if a group of semi-automatic rifle-bearing black or Muslim guys were to hold an “open carry” event, it would be wall-to-wall Fox screaming about the need for sensible gun control.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The surest way to expose the farce that is “religious freedom” is to have a closely-held Muslim company assert its rights.
Hell, Mulsims don’t even have to go that far … Faux News is all over New Jersey billboards stirring up controversy.
posted by Houndentenor on
So are they offering a compromise? I’m all ears.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The compromise is that the religious right will continue to oppose marriage equality lock stock and barrel. In exchange, all we have to do is permit them to ignore marriage equality.
posted by Lori Heine on
Ignore it how? That makes no sense.
What you mean is, force must be used to make them comply with it. In a society of free individuals, people ignore those they don’t like all the time.
I agree they want a special carve-out to discriminate. Which can be defeated by pointing out exactly the things you keep asserting.
Don’t like Wiccans? Refuse to bake them a cake and face no consequences. Don’t like members of the Masonic Lodge? Ditto? Have a big problem with blondes? Hang out a sign that says you refuse to serve blondes.
Exactly whence comes your notion that this could not be done? Granted, it’s silly and nobody would want to, but a fast-growing majority–literally ALL over the country (even in the most retrograde states)–thinks that it’s silly to refuse service to same-sex couples.
In my current job, I cross paths with Chick-Fil-A on a regular basis. I could sit back, fold my arms across my chest and refuse to do that. I do not, because to do so would be silly and childish, and because I have no particular desire to cut off my nose to spite my face. Literally millions of other Americans feel the same way, regardless of the group or the issue.
Again, we need government force to accomplish “equal needs equal”…why?
posted by Lori Heine on
Of course I meant “equal MEANS equal.”
posted by Houndentenor on
I’ll say what I’ve said many times. If you don’t want to bake my wedding cake I’m happy to take ALL my business elsewhere. That’s the least of the problem with gay marriage. Most states still don’t recognize the marriage and that’s a problem for gay couples who might have emergencies in one of those states. I’m happy to trade “we won’t make you bake a cake” for “marriage equality in all states and territories”. That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me. Is the religious right willing to agree with that? I didn’t think so.
posted by Lori Heine on
I agree with you. But surely we can have the one without the other. Whether the state recognizes our marriages is an altogether different matter than whether all businesses, of any size, are forced by law to serve everybody. Apples and oranges.
Of course the social conservatives have proved that they don’t understand the difference. We’re smarter than they are, and we can be better than they are.
posted by Jorge on
Most states still don’t recognize the marriage and that’s a problem for gay couples who might have emergencies in one of those states.
This will cause me nose bleeds.
A married couple, by definition, cannot have an emergency if their marriage is false. Fake. Not real.
And how do we measure whether what two people say is a marriage really is or can be a marriage? And how do we determine it?
Don’t I believe that whether or not a couple is married, absent any kind of criminal activity, is a between a couple and God?
What laws are on the books to say this or that married couple gets special treatment is not relevant.
Besides, marriage is also a public contract with effects on the social order. Society is within its rights to discriminate in favor or against different family arrangements.
How to determine whether or not a couple is married for the purpose of determining whether something is an emergency? An emergency being an actual harm, a present controversy (not to mention a severe one), as opposed to a more abstract social order.
I suppose you have to have a trial! >:(
All right, then. I must concede that the courts have the power and responsibility to mandate states recognize gay marriages. I couldn’t care less about some widow’s “equality”, but what if Edith Windsor was threatened with foreclosure for not being able to pay her mortgage?
posted by Houndentenor on
Jorge, I meant emergency in the most extreme and literal sense of the word. The woman who was in Florida on vacation with her family (a woman to whom she was married and children) who was denied access to the ER to be with her while she died. That’s what I mean by emergency. Marriage is “just a piece of paper” only if you’ve never been in a situation in which you had no more rights than a stranger without that license.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
——–happy to trade “we won’t make you bake a cake” for “marriage equality in all states and territories”. That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me. Is the religious right willing to agree with that? I didn’t think so.
I would agree with this sentiment.
posted by Jorge on
Jorge, I meant emergency in the most extreme and literal sense of the word.
I thought it would have been insensitive for me to ask for your example.
As long as civil unions are equal to marriages, I think things will be fine. I forgot about the civil unions. Well, but a state which has neither can’t be forced into marriage lite, can it?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Ignore it how? That makes no sense.
The religious right wants us to return to the 1950’s, when homosexuality “dared not speak its name”. What they want is more than just a special right to discriminate against gays and lesbians in their businesses — they want us out of sight, out of mind.
The religious right does not want homosexuality mentioned in the schools — witness the “Don’t Say Gay” laws they propose. The religious right do not want to see our relationships get any notice — witness today’s uproar over a Tipton, Indiana local newspaper publishing a announcement about a wedding that took place during Indiana’s “freedom week”. The religious right does not want our history including in the history books — witness the fierce opposition to including LGBT history in high school history texts. The religious right does not want us to celebrate together — witness the unfailing opposition to pride events. The religious right does not want us in their churches — witness the numerous examples of conservative churches removing the children of gays and lesbians from parochial schools, church musicians fired an so on.
And on and on. What the religious right wants is to be able to ignore us, to pretend that we don’t exist, and the religious right is more than willing to use law to make that happen.
Think, Laurie, think.
posted by Lori Heine on
Think? I would invite you to do the same.
I’m well aware of what the religious right wants to do. As they are not supernatural beings with magical powers, I do not care what they want to do. Everybody else knows what they want to do, too.
You seem to posit that every time people want to do something bad, force must be used to stop them. If they’re coming at us with tanks and anti-aircraft guns, perhaps you’re right. If they’re coming at us with lies and half-baked nonsense most intelligent people know better than to believe (and even many of their own children don’t believe), I say otherwise.
Beyond equal treatment under the law, we have no right to expect anything else. Some people will never like us, and a few even hate us. There is no law we can pass to change that.
Your “solution” would turn them into martyrs–thereby giving them exactly what they want. The left’s irrational overreaction has been the ICU that has kept the religious right alive for quite some time now. I say that heavy-handed statism is counterproductive.
I’ll go right on fighting them in the arena of ideas. Where they are, indeed, already being defeated–without a shot having to be fired.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Your “solution” would turn them into martyrs–thereby giving them exactly what they want. The left’s irrational overreaction has been the ICU that has kept the religious right alive for quite some time now. I say that heavy-handed statism is counterproductive.
My solution? What solution? Be cautious, Lori, about conflating “equal means equal” into “there ought to be a law”. The two are distinct.
The “solution” I propose, and the only “solution” I propose or have every proposed, is based on the simple principle that every American should be treated equally under the law, which, when applied to gays and lesbians, breaks down into two principles, broadly speaking:
(1) That existing laws of general application be applied to gays and lesbians on the same basis that the laws are applied to other Americans, without special discrimination in the case of gays and lesbians unless the government has an important and rationally-related purpose for discrimination; and
(2) That no new laws be enacted that create special discrimination in the case of gays and lesbians unless the government has an important and rationally-related purpose for discrimination.
The first principle informs my position on marriage equality, for example, and informs my position on the so-called “religious exemptions”. The second principle informs my position on the plethora of proposed laws creating special areas of discrimination — “Don’t Say Gay”, writing gays and lesbians out of high school history books, and so on.
Those two principles — “solutions”, if you will — apply to law across the board, and you will be hard pressed to find anything I’ve written on IGF or elsewhere that from those principles. The two principles are at the core of “equal means equal”.
Note something basic: Application of the principles to law is identical whatever the law, and whether or not the law is wise.
It may be, as libertarians propose, that the government overreaches its power by creating and regulating civil law marriage. “Equal means equal” is not involved in that discussion, but only addresses marriage law if and to the extent that the government does involve itself in marriage, insisting that gays and lesbians not be banned from civil law marriage. It may be, as libertarians propose, that the government engages in coercion when it enacts non-discrimination laws. “Equal means equal” is not involved in that discussion, but only addresses non-discrimination law if and to the extent that the government does enact non-discrimination laws, insisting that no special carve-out apply to gays and lesbians. And so on.
Beyond equal treatment under the law, we have no right to expect anything else. Some people will never like us, and a few even hate us. There is no law we can pass to change that.
I am aware of that, coming as I do from a minority religious/ethnic group that is despised by a significant number of Americans. The irrational hatreds that have informed the majority religion in our country have lessened since the days of Father Coughlin and the “Christ Killer” days of my youth, but continue to exist under the surface. Law can do nothing about it, nor should it try.
I have never proposed that the law should be used for that purpose, though, and I again would caution you not to conflate “equal means equal” with government overreach.
posted by Lori Heine on
This is the way they concede defeat. Even a ten-year-old’s grasp of human nature would recognize this, if the poor kid got away from the screaming long enough to think about it.
Yes, it’s a last stand. And yes, it’s defiant, full of bile and ridiculous. Yes, it makes their faith look terrible and makes them look childish. And no, it cannot succeed. But a last stand, and an attempt to save face, is what this is.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, thanks for the clarification. We do not differ in our basic views. But I would caution you about a couple of things:
“Libertarians” cannot all be automatically assumed to hold identical positions on civil marriage in general, or on gay marriage in particular. If you polled ten of us on the subject, you’d get ten different answers. The only principle we would hold in common (if we all called ourselves libertarians with an understanding of what the word means) would be that we believe gays and straights should be treated equally under the law.
My comments come from the position of someone who’s even more active in the fight for LGBT rights in the Church than in the government. I interact with all sorts of Christians all the time, and I can tell you what’s going on there. And simply repeating “equal means equal” seven thousand times a day–though you are right–is about as effective as standing in the corner and repeatedly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. You’re right, but that’s an ineffective argument against these people.
Their leaders are cynics–who’ve known better than to say the crap they’ve been saying for the last forty years, but have been saying it because they want power. I doubt many of them even have any genuine religious beliefs at all. The Church, and religious-tinged politics, are their avenue to power. Lana Turner sat at a soda fountain in a pretty sweater until she got discovered; they climb the ladder as firebrand preachers saying entertaining things (and raising lots of money).
The leaders of the religious right are trying to save their butts. They know they can’t keep on the way they have–can see the moving finger on the wall–and are scrambling. The last thing they want is to lose the millions they’re raking in. Thus they must manufacture new martyrdom and generate fresh outrage.
The second-last thing they want is for the flocks they’ve been fleecing to figure out what empty, hollow, cynical, borderline sociopaths they really are. If their minions start actually getting to know real gay people, especially (gasp!) at church, they will begin to connect the dots and figure this out. Thus must yet another arch-villainy, another looming Armageddon, be manufactured.
You know plenty about the law, Tom, and I find your insights very informative. I’ve learned a lot from you. But as to the psychology of dealing with the people still causing us trouble, you don’t have a clue. And as distasteful as it might be, it would be helpful if you (and others here) understood how to defuse that psychology instead of playing right into its designs.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’ll grant you that I don’t understand Christian psychology. I was raised outside the culture and don’t have any basis for understanding it.
It seems to me that there is little we can do to “defuse” the martyrdom complex that permeates conservative Christianity. I hear it all the time from the conservative Christians I know, and it is not reality-based, to put it mildly.
I think that it is an ancient part of the Christian mindset, dating back to the time when the Apocalypse of Saint John was written, and it infects the minds of modern conservative Christians, who are obsessed with “End Times” and determined against all reason, it seems, to believe that Satan is taking over the United States through his henchmen — gays, liberals, Jews, Muslims, and Catholics. I don’t even know where to start with “defusing” that kind of thinking, short of getting them all into psychoanalysis.
Whatever the case may be with respect to Christian psychology, we have a host of proposed laws to deal with, all of them aimed, in one way or another, to return the United States to a time when homosexuals were forced underground and discriminated against with the force of law.
It seems to me that we have to fight the proposed laws, lest we regress, and it seems to me that the best way to do it is upfront and openly. That’s just me, though. I learned as a boy to stand and fight, and that’s all I know how to do.
posted by Lori Heine on
You can fight the proposed laws only if you understand the mindset of those to whom they appeal. That has nothing whatsoever to do with history, because these people are almost entirely ignorant of history–even of their own.
Yes, they have a pseudo-Apocalyptic worldview. What little education they have about theology comes from trips to Disneyland-style theme parks, where Jesus rides around on mechanical dinosaurs. At least this is true of many of them. It is not, however, true of all.
People like the writers of this blog are obviously more sophisticated and better-educated than that, yet they’ve obviously bought into a lot of the religious right’s rhetoric. If we’re going to stand and fight, these are the people we need to reach.
And I know how frustrating that can be, because no matter how many comments appear here that are deserving of thoughtful and reasoned consideration, we might as well be talking to a broken computer in a sci-fi film. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps the bloggers are being paid to stay on-message.
posted by Houndentenor on
I don’t think there’s any point attempting to appeal to older Evangelicals. People who would rather kicked their own gay child out on the street where they will have to do god only knows what to survive is not someone that can be reasoned with. If someone is that heartless there is no rational or emotional appeal that can reach them. On the other hand, younger Evangelicals are less anti-gay. (I think in part because some of those kids who were kicked out of their homes by their parents were their friends from school and church.) If you look at the polling numbers, the change has already happened. It’s just going to take time for the younger Evangelicals to be old enough to be in positions of leadership. It’s going to be an ongoing problem for them in future decades because of the heinous things done and said to gays and other people by their parents’ generation. (For example, Rick Warren and others working very hard for anti-gay legislation in Africa.)
posted by Jorge on
If someone is that heartless there is no rational or emotional appeal that can reach them.
Having met a few such people in my line of work (and not in any context related to gay children), I don’t believe even the law reaches them too well, either. Then instead of being kicked out of the home their kids run away.
On the other hand, younger Evangelicals are less anti-gay.
There was this poll that came out some time ago that said something like 20% or 30% of evangelicals (or maybe it was young evangelicals) support same sex marriage. I thought it was an ungodly high number.
Most of them will instead grow up to become the kind of parents who will constantly pester their gay kids to enter ex-gay therapy. Or maybe they’ll throw their kids out once they’ve taught them how to apply for public assistance. And the monsters will find another way to be monstrous.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You can fight the proposed laws only if you understand the mindset of those to whom they appeal.
Lori, it seems to me that the way to defeat the proposed bills is to appeal to the common sense of the American people, not to try to convert the hard-core conservative Christians. That’s how we turned the American people on marriage equality, and that’s how we will turn them on the spate of laws now being proposed.
We are not going to convert people who will not be converted, and it isn’t necessary.
posted by Lori Heine on
Our task is not to convert the hard-core, but to keep them (or their huckster leaders) from fooling those who could go in either direction.
Why do we keep hearing people who are too intelligent to believe the stuff they’re hearing mindlessly parroting social conservative talking points? The people doing the mindless parroting are the ones we need to get through to, because they VOTE.
Some of the message the social cons are trying to convey is obviously appealing to these people. They aren’t hardcore; they’re merely confused. Right now, they are being bombarded with tales of woe about those dastardly gays who are bent on destroying the religious freedom of the poor, helpless little “Christians.” They can even come to a site like this and read plenty of that sort of thing.
I hear it all the time, from reasonably decent people who are by no means morons. “But they just want religious freedom,” they say. This is the indoctrination they’re getting from almost everywhere, and in countering that, these are the people we must reach.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Our task is not to convert the hard-core, but to keep them (or their huckster leaders) from fooling those who could go in either direction.
Of course. The way to do it is to continue the course we’ve been on, continuing to be actively engaged with family, friends, neighbors and co-workers to defuse Christian depictions of “the dastardly gays” and using fact and reason to counter the claims made by such Christians, pointing out what the laws do and don’t do.
We’ve been winning over the American people, little by slowly, using those tactics over the last forty years, and it will work again this time. Not without bumps in the road and setbacks, but inevitably. The American people are not dumb, and fair play is core American value.
We know the fruits of the pathology of conservative Christians, having spent so many years fighting off the lies, from Anita Bryant onward. I don’t think that we need to understand the psychology underlying the pathology, though, in order to effectively counter the fruits of the pathology. We simply need to work with the rational, the fair-minded, the sensible, making our case.
I am not a Christian. I can understand, though, how frustrating it must be to be a Christian and to have to deal with these folks, and how maddening it is to have them claim the mantle of “Christian”.
It is akin, I suspect, to my own frustration at having the “Patriot” rabble, most of whom never put on a uniform in their lives much less put their lives on the line in combat, claiming the mantle of “patriotism” for themselves while denying the patriotism of liberals/moderates who served and paid the price.
I can get wild about it if provoked enough in person. But I can’t change them, and there is no point in trying. I think that those of you who are followers of Christ are in the same position when it comes to conservative Christians who would reduce Christian teaching to a few social issues, dismissing and denigrating your faith if you don’t do likewise.
My view is that it is best to ignore their pathology and stay the course, working with those are not lost in the pathology.
posted by Lori Heine on
Incidentally, as much as many progressives may dislike it, many of these people might best be reached in church.
Anybody who has ever actually read the Bible knows there’s nothing Christian whatsoever about being nasty to people and humiliating them. The only part of the social cons’ argument that is legitimate is that laws should not be passed forcing small businesses to serve people of whom they do not morally approve–however stupid and misguided may be their reason for disapproving.
I understand why a lot of the commenters here find such people distasteful and don’t want to bother dealing with them. But they are not “hardcore” simply because they are Christians. The perception that they are is based on stereotyping every bit as ignorant as that used by those who think all gays are perverts.
I am willing and able to deal with Christians who can be swayed by reason–and who understand what their faith is really all about. Standing on a street corner shouting “equal means equal” is not the way I could constructively go about doing that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I am willing and able to deal with Christians who can be swayed by reason – and who understand what their faith is really all about. Standing on a street corner shouting “equal means equal” is not the way I could constructively go about doing that.
That may be, but nobody is proposing that gays and lesbians stand on a street corner shouting “equal means equal”. Our task is much more complex and subtle — it is fleshing out “equal means equal” into reasoned, fact-based argument, countering the lies and appealing to Americans’ core values. That’s how we’ve made the gains we’ve made to date, and that is how we should (in my view) continue to proceed.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
“Not, so much” — wow. Talk about an outdated pop culture tagline from a certain TV celebrity. anywho….
This “new” religious right does not seem to have trickled down to the more culturally ‘conservative’ States and districts. At least, that has been my experience on the matter.
The challenge with crafting religious exemptions is writing rules that follow the three ‘c’s’; consistency, clarity and a bit of common sense.
The Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case failed to follow the three C’s and further litigation will probably be needed just to get an idea of its full impact. I have not seen much of the three ‘c’s’ is the proposed religious exemptions that I have seen thus far, but I am not opposed to the idea per se…nor do I say, “how high?” when the religious act ask me to jump.
For example, if Hobby Lobby had wanted to force its female employees to be on the pill, could it do so? Could it compel an employee to have an abortion? Religious freedom is not simply the freedom to believe what the “religious right” believes.
Then you have to try and see how such a legal precedent would apply to EVERY OTHER business owner who wants to exempt him or herself from any particular tax, rule, regulation, etc.
I enjoy reading “Reason” magazine. I do not always agree with its politics, but it is a good place to see what the “educated and cosmopolitan” right-libertarians think.
I did laugh when the magazine attempted to come down on the side of workers.
The idea that the libertarian movement (which in America is largely run by the “right” movement (heavily influenced by Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and the like) wants to free.
The standard right-libertarian message — prompted by the Libertarian Party — is that a boss should have every right to ban his workers from using birth control, or force them to do so.
posted by AG on
“For example, if Hobby Lobby had wanted to force its female employees to be on the pill, could it do so? Could it compel an employee to have an abortion? Religious freedom is not simply the freedom to believe what the “religious right” believes.”
Tom, only in your dreams Obama’s America has turned into Communist China. Fascists like you are wishfully thinking about the total control of the population; in the real world Hobby Lobby’s employees are still allowed to find another job, unlike in Stalin’s Soviet Union. And they or their boyfriends or husbands can always pay for any birth control they want from their paychecks. Yes, even Hobby Lobby’s paychecks.
I understand that it’s hard for commie-fascists to tolerate people exercising their freedom of conscience in unapproved ways. But what can you do? The world is not perfect.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
WOW. First, outdated pop culture references….now anyone who disagrees with a conservative….is called a communist and – oddly enough – a fascist.
As libertarian magazine tries to paint their brand of libertarianism as letting workers make up their own mind about birth control. I pointed out how inaccurate this was.
It is inaccurate, because their libertarian brand would have no objection to a business telling an employee to take or abstain from birth control or anything else. In this particular libertarian universe a business owner is a detective facto sovereign nation.
Yes, the employee may be able to quit – assuming that this libertarian universe prohibits slavery -, but that is also the standard Ayn Randian argument to why every other rule is also unconstitutional.
posted by AG on
“It is inaccurate, because their libertarian brand would have no objection to a business telling an employee to take or abstain from birth control or anything else. In this particular libertarian universe a business owner is a detective facto sovereign nation.”
I’m afraid you and I don’t speak the same language. I presume that you expect your words to have some sort of meaning, but unfortunately they don’t.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
Well, I do regret that English is not a language you are particularly comfortable with.
posted by Jorge on
Anybody who has ever actually read the Bible knows there’s nothing Christian whatsoever about being nasty to people and humiliating them.
It certainly is common, though!
Pope Benedict wrote something I’ll never forget about the temptation of those who are “at rights” with God. It is a warning I rarely hear in this country. In what most people know as the parable of the prodigal son, the obedient son protests and resents the father throwing a feast when the wasteful son comes back, revealing that he secretly wanted that “freedom,” too.
posted by Lori Heine on
We just discussed the Prodigal Son parable about a week ago in Bible study, and arrived at exactly that same conclusion.
I don’t think I’ll go back and tell the rest of the class that Pope Benedict wrote that. They’d probably rather not know…
posted by Jorge on
Now, now, it was Pope Benedict who wrote it, not Cardinal Ratzinger. Save that line for when I read “Introduction to Christianity” 😛
Being a theologian, much of what he wrote in Jesus of Nazareth is a discussion of the scholarship of other theologians. Benedict himself writes that the reason we do not read the older brother’s response to his father is because the narrative immediately shifts to the present–the intended audience Jesus is speaking to.
To confound my co-workers, I wrote this paragraph onto a picture of an eagle soaring before a rainbow: “And this betrays the fact that he too had secretly dreamed of a freedom without limits, that his obedience had made him secretly bitter, and that he has no awareness of the grace of being at home, of the true freedom he enjoys as a son.
posted by Jorge on
Okay, how many votes did the big bad ENDA get in the Senate?
Really, now. The only reason ENDA might have a prayer is because the far right is focusing its opposition on immigration reform. That can’t last. House Speaker Boehner wants immigration reform passed more than he wants a vote on ENDA.
but wouldn’t it be the nightmare scenario if it did pass, with this exemption, and then LGBT groups had to demand that President Obama veto a bill he and Democrats had heralded for months?
They are not going to demand that President Obama veto the bill and President Obama is not going to veto the bill if asked. Neither the gay community nor its skeptics are as gullible as their counterparts in the racial wars. If President Obama vetos ENDA, the gay rights movement dies as a political force. It happened to feminism, and it happened to the black civil rights movement. People realized they weren’t about civil rights but about partisan political games.
posted by Lori Heine on
The conversation has shifted from “family values” to “religious liberty” for an interesting reason–one usually overlooked by today’s left. Progressives actually got involved in the discussion about family values, insisting on making it a dialogue instead of a monologue. Then the religious right lost interest, because they couldn’t dominate it anymore, or continue twisting it for their own, self-serving purposes.
Instead of holding their noses and running away from the very concept of religious liberty, perhaps the progressives should take a page from their own playbook and insist that the discussion indeed take place–only as a dialogue, instead of a monologue. Many of the arguments of those who comment on this blog make very good sense, and could be insistently inserted into the conversation. How CAN we make sure that our laws safeguard religious liberty for everybody, instead of simply serving as a carve-out that permits the religious right to discriminate against those they dislike?
It would no longer be possible for social conservatives to scream that progressives were opposed to religious liberty. Gays and lesbians insisted on having a place at the discussion table on family values–we said “well, we have families, too, and we care about our families as much as the religious conservatives do theirs.” Why can’t progressives do the same thing concerning religious liberty?
I’m still hearing silly, foolish things about what libertarians supposedly do and do not believe. We believe that genuine liberty means liberty for all, and not merely for a privileged few. If “equal means equal” does not mean that, then it means nothing.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Instead of holding their noses and running away from the very concept of religious liberty, perhaps the progressives should take a page from their own playbook and insist that the discussion indeed take place–only as a dialogue, instead of a monologue.
I think that is beginning to happen, and will continue to develop. The religious right shape-shifted yet again, and it takes a while to catch up.
I’m still hearing silly, foolish things about what libertarians supposedly do and do not believe.
Well, as you observed in another comment in this thread, “ If you polled ten of us on the subject, you’d get ten different answers.”
I think that’s probably true of just about any concrete “subject”, based on my conversations with friends who self-describe as “libertarian”. The term has come to mean just about anything — and often internally inconsistent versions of “anything” — when it comes down to the concrete.
Take IGF. Stephen self-describes as “libertarian” and quotes “libertarians” frequently on IGF. Stephen described Hobby Lobby as “A Good Day for Liberty” in a thread of that title, and yet in this thread, he quotes a Reason article telling us that libertarians “want to get both our bosses and the government out of birth control decisions”.
How in the world does that circle square? Is it a libertarian principle that liberty demands that bosses be able to functionally control the birth control choices of minimum-wage employees who are stuck with whatever insurance coverage the boss is willing to provide, or is it a libertarian principle that bosses should provide the insurance and let the employee decide? You’ve got me.
I decided some months ago to stop using the phrase because of that problem, and have pretty much stuck to that resolve.
I slipped in this thread and characterized libertarians as believing that the government should get out of the marriage business and believing that government overreaches with public accommodations laws, with predictable results. But I’m back in “the rooms” again on the issue, so my slip won’t turn into a full-blown relapse.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, I can recommend a fine read that would provide an excellent start in untangling the mess. “Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky,” ed. by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel. If you want to know something about the intellectual underpinnings of the libertarian movement and how it was hijacked by American conservatism, that’s an excellent place to begin.
The word “libertarian” has indeed been hijacked. But if every word is given up for lost because some pack of frauds decides to hijack it, pretty soon the entire language will be lost and we’ll be gibbering at each other like cave dwellers.
Your confusion and frustration are entirely understandable. I get confused and frustrated, too.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Thanks, Lori. I’ve ordered it from the library. I’ve read a lot of Chomsky’s political writing, and I agree with much of what he has to say, particularly his historical analysis of the populist movement.
I’ll be curious to look at the question of how his thinking was hijacked by big-business magnates like the Koch brothers.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Furthermore. Michelangelo Signorile’s “ENDA Nightmare“—ENDA passes the House attached to another year-end bill with GOP support and becomes law. Yesterday’s must-pass legislation becomes today’s “dangerous religious exemption” because it doesn’t allow the state to regulate hiring decisions at religious organizations.
While I would hate to see the principle that law sanctions special discrimination against gays and lesbians gain even more traction, ENDA’s passage would not be the end of the world. Bad laws tend to be corrected over time.
Like the Rove-Bush anti-marriage strategy of the last decade, though, I suspect that this ploy will blow up in the Republican’s faces over time.
Touting the fact that the Republican Party is the party singling out gays and lesbians for special discrimination — and tout this they will have to do to justify the vote to social conservatives — will further cement the party’s well-earned anti-gay reputation and will not help Republicans win over pro-equality voters.
posted by Mike in Houston on
I’m a half a loaf kind of person when it comes to ENDA — especially since the House would have to pass the Senate version “virgo intacta” or it would have to be thrown to committee… and we’ve seen how intransigent the GOP can be when they’re on the verge of actually having to govern or pass something.
Politically, they damned either way.
posted by Houndentenor on
ENDA in any form would not affect the hiring of religious institutions. If it could, the Catholic Church would have been forced to hire women priests decades ago. This is a lie. A flat out lie, told by liars so that bigots can feel less bigoted.
What it should not allow is someone to use their professed religion to discriminate in hiring. I’ll repeat again that the hypocrisy of 99% of the people making these claims is laughable.
Also, I also have to laugh at being told about the religious right. I live in Texas. I grew up in East Texas. I was raised Southern Baptist and most of my family still attends Baptist churches. On occasion I still go to a service with some of them (usually when my Episcopalian relatives aren’t around to give me an alternative) and of course socialize, work otherwise associate with Evangelicals. The only people who seem naive about what Evangelicals actually say and do are the gay Republicans who are either ignorant or willfully naive about what such people say when they don’t know any gay person is in the room.
posted by Mike in Houston on
I’m still trying to find the end-point of what Stephen proposes as our ‘reasonable accommodation’ of certain religions to discriminate.
Stephen says is should be okay (at least legally) for a cake baker to not bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple if that conflicts with their sincerely held certain-sect Christian political beliefs. (And I’m still trying to wrap my head around how what started as a Roman pagan tradition symbolizing the deflowering of the bride is central to one’s religious balance.)
Fine. We’ll let that go so everyone (except the wedding couple) is happy.
What about an anniversary cake? A birthday cake for the child of a same-sex couple? Family portraits?
It’s all part and parcel of the same toxic bundle.
posted by Houndentenor on
Since the only reason ever given for anti-gay discrimination IS the religious one, the religious exemption negates the law. Why bother? Also, a federal law like this might negate the state and local laws and ordinances. No thank you. Besides, (for the millionth time) there’s no way this bill in any form will even come up for a vote in the House so why bother?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As a side note, Florida’s Monroe County Chief Circuit Judge Luis Garcia ruled in favor of marriage equality today.
The case is one of three pending in Florida, two in state court and one in federal court.
Don’s case, which is the other Florida state court case, was heard in Miami-Dade county court recently and a decision by Judge Sarah Zabel is expected shortly.
Don, my best to you and Jorge, as well as the others in the lawsuit. I’m hoping for a favorable decision.
posted by Jorge on
The conversation has shifted from “family values” to “religious liberty” for an interesting reason–one usually overlooked by today’s left. Progressives actually got involved in the discussion about family values, insisting on making it a dialogue instead of a monologue.
This is much of the reason why I’m a moderate instead of a conservative. Progressive centrism has been one of the better forces in American politics.
Instead of holding their noses and running away from the very concept of religious liberty, perhaps the progressives should take a page from their own playbook and insist that the discussion indeed take place–only as a dialogue, instead of a monologue…. How CAN we make sure that our laws safeguard religious liberty for everybody, instead of simply serving as a carve-out that permits the religious right to discriminate against those they dislike?
I would be very interested to watch such a conversation.
If it could, the Catholic Church would have been forced to hire women priests decades ago.
You set the bar too low. What about the law that allows the Catholic Church to fire single mothers and gay husbands?
Don, my best to you and Jorge, as well as the others in the lawsuit. I’m hoping for a favorable decision.
I don’t support the gay marriage lawsuits, Tom. I can grudgingly accept the wisdom in concluding that states must be forced to recognize same sex marriages, but that is as far as I go. I don’t live in Florida, either.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Tom: “Don, my best to you and Jorge, as well as the others in the lawsuit. I’m hoping for a favorable decision.”
Jorge from IGF: “I don’t support the gay marriage lawsuits, Tom. I can grudgingly accept the wisdom in concluding that states must be forced to recognize same sex marriages, but that is as far as I go. I don’t live in Florida, either.”
The Jorge I was referring to is Don’s partner and hopefully soon-to-be husband, Jorge Diaz. You should be so lucky.
posted by Jorge on
Okay. Never mind then.
I’m afraid it’s my fate so far to be an unaffiliated priest.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Well, the confusion is understandable, since you are the only Jorge commenting on IGF, but Jorge is a relatively common name in the United States (ranking 99th), about as common as Tom (ranking 96th). Lots of us around.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
I think I made it clear that I was talking about the libertarian right, which is different then the libertarian left.
Reason magazine – cited as a libertarian publication – is largely in bed with the libertarian right. Frankly, 90% of the libertarian movement in America is run by the libertarian right, which has close ties to the Ayn Rand movement, big business interests and good old fashion snake oil salesmen. Norm Chomsky is not part of the libertarian right.
One of the ideas of the libertarian right is that a private business should never be regulated by the government. Some even go as far as to oppose all taxation.
So, when a libertarian right magazine claims to be seeking freedom for workers, it is the height of absurdity and lying. The entire idea of any labor, health or safety standards or equal opportunity in the workplace is something that the libertarian right opposes.
If we woke up in a libertarian party nation, any employer could impose pretty much any rules or regulations on his employees. The boss would become a king or queen.
posted by Houndentenor on
And that would be only slightly different from the employment world we have now. Most people put up with whatever they have to in order to hang on to their job because they most likely would not find another one before they were wiped out financially. We have labor laws but virtually no enforcement of those. Yes, you can sue but you’d better win because no one is going to hire someone who sued their last employer. And don’t count on the EEOC. If you don’t have a union, you are screwed (and even then you’d better have a good one and be a state where there is still some respect for employees). And whatever you do, never agree to arbitration because that almost never goes well for the worker.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Yes, the laws are not perfect, but I would argue that they are better then nothing at all.
Typically, what seems to happen is a high profile civil right
lawsuit comes along, now and again, which seems to — briefly — convince business owners to — at least — pretend to follow the civil right laws.
I knew a woman who was routinely sexually harassed by her boss. She needed the job, and not only was her boss the son of the owner, but the entire family was somewhat prominent in the region.
On the other hand, I know people who have been helped by civil right lawsuits.