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You Can't Fight Right Wing By Avoiding Values
My first reaction, upon hearing this announcement, was: Amen. It's high time liberal clergy unite to counter groups like the Christian Coalition, Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition. For decades now, these and similar groups have been busily shaping how Americans think about such issues as school prayer, lesbian and gay civil rights, sex education, and even the war on terrorism. They've injected a right-wing Christian perspective into myriad public debates and have done so in increasingly sophisticated ways, rarely using overtly religious language but nonetheless expressing religious beliefs that are not universally held. I wonder: Does \"flashy talk\" apply to discussions of sex education at a time when right-wing activists for abstinence are placing teenagers at risk by not giving them information about safer sex? And what about \"flashy talk\" about women's rights, just as the [George W. Bush] administration's ban on so-called partial-birth abortions begins to whittle away at the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy? \"Flashy talk\" indeed. Yet many so-called liberals seem to operate under the strange illusion that these issues are relevant only to \"special interests.\" In this, the Clergy Leadership Network is unfortunately not alone. Recently, while driving to work, I heard affable Democratic strategist James Carville repeat the same mantra: In order to take back the White House, Democrats need to shed the perception that they're beholden to \"special-interest groups\" (read: supporters of abortion, gay rights, affirmative action and so forth).
Newspaper Article
Struggling to Have Faith In the Faith-Based Plan
I didn't think much about it again until a few days later, when I learned that President George W. Bush is pushing through his faith- based charity program, which promises to aid religious groups - even if they discriminate in their hiring practices on religious and moral grounds. Even Bush's own denomination - the United Methodist Church - opposes the faith-based plan. But these mainline Protestants don't comprise the base of the Republican Party. Conservative evangelicals do. They're the fastest growing religious constituency in the country, and Bush's plan is likely to channel a lot more money - and power - into their coffers. The president is pushing for faith- based social services at a time when the nation seems to be gearing up for war. Under fire in some circles for threatening unilateral action against Iraq, Bush and his advisers are seeking the moral high ground. But will talk of religious compassion make the president appear less bellicose, or is he killing us with kindness?
Newspaper Article
Shrinking World Means Bigger Back Yards
Some worry that liberal strongholds like San Francisco and Vermont have a kind of domino effect upon other parts of the country. Oregon, where I live, has been wracked by a series of divisive ballot measure campaigns that have sought to outlaw civil-rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation. Much of the antigay sentiment comes from rural sections of the state, where there are few out gay people and fewer still who are publicly demanding civil-rights protections. Since Portland and San Francisco have fallen, conservatives surmise, small-town Oregon might be next. It's not altogether different from French efforts to prevent Hollywood films from obliterating what is distinctive about their culture. Some Americans, particularly religious traditionalists, imagine that they are under siege by secular, urban values. It should come as no surprise, then, that on the eve of the sex- change benefits vote, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors was flooded by e-mail messages from faraway places. Many of these messages came from religious conservatives who peppered their messages with biblical quotes after being mobilized by such groups as the Family Research Council. The sophisticated Web site of this conservative, Washington-based lobby is dedicated to stamping out homosexuality in the schools, opposing hate-crimes legislation and abolishing the marriage tax, and it knows no geographic boundaries.
Newspaper Article
The Culture Wars Now Have a Global Scope
The domestic culture wars trumpeted by folks like Pat Robertson and the Family Policy Network have morphed into a global culture war, a \"clash of civilizations\" that pits God-fearing Euro-American Christians (and the conservative Jews who love them) against godless Muslims, homosexuals, feminists and their ilk. Stumbling to try to make sense of the post-Sept. 11 world in light of Christian right ideology, the Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed the terrorist attacks in part on lesbians and gay men, prompting MAD Magazine to name him the \"dumbest person of 2001.\" Even sometime allies like President George W. Bush disapproved. But that hasn't stopped the right from playing fast and loose with its new fusion of anti-Islamic and anti-liberal rhetoric. Joseph Farah - a Rush Limbaugh crony and editor of a daily right- wing Web magazine who made his name trashing Bill Clinton - today spends much of his time and virtual ink lambasting Muslims and \"secular humanist\" supporters of gender and sexual equality. In his world view, the Islamic threat joins a panoply of devils that includes uppity women, promiscuous gays and even union members.
Newspaper Article