Terry Mattingly’s religion column for 8/24/05.
tmatt.net GetReligion.org
Political strategist James Carville said it, candidate Bill Clinton believed it and loyal Democrats have chanted this mantra ever since.
And all the people said: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
But what if an elite team of Democrats ventured outside the Beltway to talk to rural and red-zone voters in Arkansas, Wisconsin, Colorado and Kentucky and learned that the economic bottom line was no longer the political bottom line?
Focus-group researchers from the Democracy Corp in Washington, D.C., found that voters in Middle America are worried about Iraq and they are mad about rising health costs. That’s good for Democrats. Many of them fiercely oppose abortion on demand and gay marriage. That’s good news for Republicans. But the researchers also mapped a political fault line that cuts into the soul of Middle America.
“Regardless of voters’ attitudes on the role of religion in public life or their position on touchstone issues such as abortion and gay marriage or even their personal religious faith, they all see Republicans as a party with a clear and consistent position on cultural issues and an abiding respect for the importance of faith and traditional social norms,” said the researchers, in sobering document released earlier this month.
“Democrats’ lack of a consistent stance on cultural issues leaves a vacuum that is clearly being filled by voices on the right. Most referred to Democrats as ‘liberal’ on issues of morality, but some even go so far as to label them ‘immoral,’ ‘morally bankrupt,’ or even ‘anti-religious.’ ”
This kind of verbiage is old hat among GOP conservatives. But it’s stunning to see this language in a report produced by a trinity of Democratic campaign strategists like Stanley Greenberg, Robert Shrum and, low and behold, Carville.
The bottom line: “It’s the values, stupid.”
Democrats are getting used to hearing about a “pew gap” between the political parties. This has caused tension between moderates and liberals as Democrats focus on defending abortion rights and working with gay-marriage strategists. Party leaders must have been thinking about the “pew gap” when they rejected Naral Pro-Choice America’s blistering media campaign that said U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. — a traditional Roman Catholic — had winked at “violence against other Americans.”
Politicos on both sides can quote the numbers and then bicker over what they mean. Everyone knows that 22 percent of the 2004 voters said they yearned for “moral values,” with evangelical Protestants surging to George W. Bush. The president won 52 percent of the Catholic vote and nearly 60 percent of the total Protestant vote. Bush won a two-thirds majority among Orthodox Jews. Among Hispanics and African-Americans, the most active churchgoers began drifting to the GOP.
Looking back, Voter News Service found that 14 percent of the voters in 2000 said they attended worship services more than once a week and 14 percent said they never went at all. Among the devout, Bush won by 27 percent and, among those who avoid pews, Democrat Al Gore won by 29 percent.
According to the Democracy Corp report, Democrats are making progress with highly educated, upper-income Americans. But they have lost a key element of the old Democratic coalition — voters in rural areas and blue-collar neighborhoods, especially in Middle America. The researchers were mystified that these voters continue to act “contrary to their own economic self-interest.”
Up is down. In is out. Many upper-crust Americans are also voting contrary to their own economic self-interest and backing Democrats, even though this may mean more taxes and business regulations. Why? They support the Democratic Party’s stance on social issues such as abortion, gay rights and the role of religion in public life.
These moral issues are steering heartland voters, serving “as a proxy” for other concerns, according to the Democracy Corp report.
“With most voters expressing little understanding of the differences between Democrats and Republicans or the relative merits of their positions on economic policy, health care, retirement security, and other issues, they felt it safe to assume that if a candidate was ‘right’ on cultural issues — i.e. opposed to abortion, but most importantly opposed to gay marriage and vocal about defending the role of faith and traditional Judeo-Christian values in public life — that candidate would naturally also come closest to their views.”
Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) is senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. He writes this weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.
There’s a stereotype about the moral radar of Democrats and Republicans, but it seems to be mostly true (with neither of them really adhering to their own standards very well): Democrats’ moral concerns are related mostly to finance, about ensuring that the “corporal works of mercy” are done. Republicans, on the other hand, seem more concerned with sexual morality and its role in family and societal life.
I do wonder whether much of this is a result of the fact that people don’t criticize the sins which they find themselves most frequently engaging in. Charles Keating is a perfect example of this disconnect: while very actively campaigning against pornography he managed to swindle $252 million from mostly poor and small depositors in the S&L scandal.
The amazing thing about Republicans is that they have been quite effective in almost completely dismissing any liberal claim to morality that they find themselves unable to live up to (or simply disinterested in). While the Pope’s condemnation of gay marriage was echoed loudly everywhere from World Net Daily to Concerned Women For America and FOTF, there was a deafening silence in response to his equally strident warnings on the Iraq conflict. Moral concerns about the war are labeled as “aiding and abetting the enemy” and a desire for helping those in need is “socialism”. (OK, on the flip side, moral concerns about sexual morality are seen as “prudishness” and a desire for religious freedom is labeled as “theocratic”).
Both parties have valid moral claims on various issues. However, the Democrats need to stop letting the Republicans pretend they have the corner on morality locked up and engage them with the vernacular they are using themselves.
This is when it will get really interesting.
Quote:
The amazing thing about Republicans is that they have been quite effective in almost completely dismissing any liberal claim to morality that they find themselves unable to live up to
It seems to go beyond that, even.
This piece from Andrew Sullivan, last November, considers, among other things, why the marriage rate is lower and the divorce rate higher in “conservative” Texas than in “liberal” Massachusetts or why a man in his third marriage would choose to author a “defense of marriage” act. To his credit, Sullivan goes on to say that “To ascribe all this to “hypocrisy” seems to me too crude an explanation.”
Not too sure why the divorce rate is higher in Texas, but the migration to the South might have something to do with it — younger couples, etc.
In any case, hypocrisy isn’t hard to find. But even the charge of hypocrisy still tips the hat to virtue, otherwise the charge would have no sting.
It’s not that the Republicans have a lock on virtue (they don’t), it’s that the Democrats, because of their captivity to the hard left social agenda, keep pushing conservative Democrats into the Republican camp. Then there is also the question about the Roe effect (Abortion and Political Realignment, and Quantifying the Roe Effect), where Democrats may be aborting their natural constitutency, ie: their social policies may be contributing to their numerical decline.
As for Sullivan, his criticisms serve his belief that homosexual marriage should become the law of the land. Whether his critic is a hypocrite or not , the critic in still on the right side of the question.
Marriage is such a traditionally heterosexual institution, that for homosexuals to emulate this, it almost suggests a form of self-hatred. A person who is interested in establishing an homosexual identity could do no worse than to purposefully take on heterosexual institutions and behaviors. Since the beginning of human history, marriage has carried a heterosexual function and meaning. No matter how many laws might be passed in favor of “gay marriage”, marriage will always be understood as being primarily heterosexual. For a gay person to take on this institution with another gay person of the same sex, seems more of a retreat into the closet than a real act of stepping out.
Of course, there are legal benefits to being married, and these are often bandied about as the reason behind the political rallying. However, topics such as access to healthcare, tax breaks, inheritance laws, hospital visitation rights, etc, can certainly be addressed without direct connection to marriage. For the vast majority of homosexuals who have no real interest in getting married, and for anyone else who is not married, and/or who is single, it would seem far better to approach these legal topics as unrelated to marriage. Conservatives have often suggested that government subsidies can cause more harm than good, and perhaps this is also the case with marriage.
“Not too sure why the divorce rate is higher in Texas, but the migration to the South might have something to do with it ? younger couples, etc.”
Surely you know, Father. Evangelicals can get married and divorced without the interference of their churches, if they so choose. If an Evangelical gets divorced, there is no need to even notify his/her pastor. Ask God for forgiveness, and it is granted. Just like that. On to the next marriage, and the next divorce. Evangelicals have completely destigmatized divorce. It is so common that no one in the Mega-churches even bats an eye at it any more.
Evangelicalism does a horrible job at keeping families together, precisely because it applies no sanction, no emphasis to marriage other than the rhetorical. Even preachers that divorce are immediately forgiven, as if nothing had happened. Most even retain their pulpits. Even though my grandfather (a charismatic preacher in the South) left my grandmother for a TEENAGER, he was able to continue ‘preaching the Gospel’ and pastor multiple churches. Could such a thing even be imagined where an Orthodox priest is concerned? (This happened 10 years before I was born, and my grandfather died in my early childhood, so this little family trajedy had little impact on me. It almost killed my dad, though.)
In the Orthodox Church or the Roman Catholic Church, marriage is rigidly controlled by the Church. Improperly entering into marriage, or dissolving one, impairs my ability to receive communion and other sacraments. It puts me outside the Body of Christ. This is serious business. The lighthearted manner of the Evangelicals does nothing to hold families together, but the very real sanction of ex-communication can help focus the mind.
I know that you hold many Evangelicals in high esteem. Some do good things. But surely you see that the very real limitations of Evangelicalism harm society in numerous ways, not the least being the quick and easy attitude towards divorce and remarriage? (One the the Orthodox Church is not doing enough to resist, but is uniquely positioned to do so.)
Of course. I’ve written elsewhere that the whole notion of gay marriage could not have arisen in society without the undermining of traditional marriage first. Cultural deconstruction, like cultural progress, happens in stages. And, yes, Evangelicalsm has a problem with marriage (Baptist divorce rates are higher than the national average, for example). I’m not sure though you can argue that divorce rates are higher in Texas than Massachussetts because it has more Baptists, which is what you seem to be saying. Maybe that is so, but again maybe it’s not. We don’t really know.
In any case, this point was only peripheral to the major point of that original post which argued that the differing divorce rates undermined any stand against gay marriage. I don’t believe it does.
Note 4. Stephen, the sanctioning of gay marriage has the cultural effect of undermining marriage in general. See: The End of Marriage in Scandinavia: The “conservative case” for same-sex marriage collapses.
Now that gay marriage was struck down in many states, I was thinking that the same Americans’ who so fervently desired to protect marriage would now push for a revamping of divorce laws, maybe at least limiting it to a reasonable three per lifetime?
(Crickets chirping)
Father Hans, I don’t sense that most openly gay people are really interested in gay marriage. It doesn’t seem to make much sense for someone to express their homosexuality through heterosexual customs and behaviors. No matter what government sanctioning may take place, marriage will always be a characteristically heterosexual institution.
I am more inclined to believe that the downfall of marriage is more the result of other factors. The marriage industry is huge business. Government subsidization also makes it advantageous to be married. Marriage is sold in our culture as both a glamorized product which will bring about happiness and personal fulfillment, and also as a basic human right. In these portrayals, the notion of marriage as a form of religious martydom is lost. The religious definition of marriage has been replaced with ones perhaps more capitalist and/or socialist in orientation. Though “gay marriage” may be the result and symptom of that secularization, it doesn’t seem to be its cause.
Note9 Cricket Speaks
I believe Kentucky passed a law creating ‘covenant marriages.’ The distinctive feature of covenant marriage is its narrowly defined standard for divorce (as opposed to current ‘no fault’ divorce standard). This is an option chosen by couples at the time of their marriage. It hasn’t been around long enough to be evaluated.
On a semi-related note, it appears that the Vatican is indeed going ahead with a plan on an outright ban of gay priests.
Now, after all this claptrap about people not being defined by their “orientation” (most often used to prevent job/housing discrimination laws from being written to protect gay folk), it appears the Vatican is suggesting that they in fact can be defined as a separate species.
I do have to wonder, though: how will they define a “homosexual” applicant? One who had a fling fifteen years ago? One who perhaps has never had a homosexual experience but perhaps finds themselves unattracted to the opposite sex? I hope they can figure out how to implement this because I’m at a bit of a loss.
Separate “species”?
No doubt this new policy is a response to the priest molestation scandals.
Note 12: It’s a proposterous solution. Trappist monks barely see the light of day, let alone children. You’re telling me that even a celibate homosexual should not be permitted to join? But the question wasn’t really answered. What’s a “homosexual” from the Vatican’s pov? One who’s committed certain acts or one who has certain “inclinations” but perhaps has never even acted on them?
It goes without saying that if you have no intent on remaining celibate, the priesthood is not for you. Howvever, if you have remained celibate up to the point of ordination, what difference does it make what your inclinations are? Frankly, this is an insult to the many good priests who have thus far fulfilled their vocations honorably. Why not just weed out pedophiles of any variety? This isn’t cut and dried, you know. Many pedophiles who prey on little girls (and boys) are married men.
Nope. I don’t see this is as an equitable solution for a supposedly Christian Church. It’s an outright denial of Christ’s salvific power and His grace.
The problem in the RC Church was not pedophilia, but homosexuality (most victims were teenage boys). In the sixties the RC Church opened the doors to homosexuals reasoning that ‘orientation’ didn’t matter as long as the vow of celibacy was maintained. Well, it didn’t work out that way.
Why would be an insult to good priests? My hunch is that you will find the good priests relieved that finally the bishops are acting on the problem. Imagine what it’s like when everyone privately wonders if you are really a child molester.
Nor is it denial of Christ’s salvific power. Why would this power be denied just because a man cannot become a priest?
Unfortunately, pretty much all of the clergy abuse cases involved an older priest coercing a younger person into things they would not normally have done, often with threats to them and their families if they spoke about it. I don’t consider these to be “consensual” in any sense, even when the victims were between 13-16 (and obviously when they were younger as well). In the same way, we do not consider the adult male abuse of girls to be some sort of extension of heterosexuality. It’s not. I don’t know what it is, but it’s certainly not that. I’m not a psychiatrist, but isn’t it about domination and control?
This ruling is an affront to the core of Christian theology. It says that even those who are “winning the war” against their own inclinations, so to speak, are so beyond redemption that despite an impeccable past of resisting temptation they are unworthy of being considered for the priesthood, even if their ministry doesn’t involve children and when they are not drawn towards younger kids. It also says that temptation, ANY temptation, is acceptable … but not this one. Has the Vatican ruled out people with a tendency towards alcohol or drugs or has a roving eye towards their women congregants who have also shown to be capable of resisting? Hardly. The insult is towards the gay clergy who have maintained their vows.
So my question is how far are we going to take this train of thought? We’ve gone from the opposition of gay marriage to opposing their care of children, then to opposing them being allowed protections in even secular jobs, followed by criminalizing their conduct (even in private) to their being pretty much beyond hope. Really, where do we go from here?
Where does the idea come from that prohibiting homosexuals from entering the priesthood somehow indicates that they are “beyond redemption”? This is a political, not theological, assertion.
Further, every church has the authority to set the standards for ordination. No church is under the obligation to ordain homosexuals just to prove, what? — that they don’t discriminate? The fact is that many churches discriminate all the time, and for good cause. Not everyone who wants to enter ordained ministry is qualified for a multitude of reasons, personality, temperament, immaturity, addictions, etc. They should not enter the ministry and many of them do not.
An assumption in your objection is that homosexual orientation does not differ from heterosexual orientation except for the object of the attraction. You assume that both are psychologically and emotionally equivalent, hence the assertion that there ought to be no discrimination against homosexual clergy. But the assumption is not accurate. Homosexual orientation has a different psychological starting point and thus a different pathology.
Read about the psychological foundations of homosexual desire on the Narth website.