W I T H G O D O N O U R S I D E
by Devilstower
Sun Dec 09, 2007
There is a war over Christmas. More accurately, there is a war over the place of religion in American life, and Christmas is a skirmish of that war. And if you believe in the separation of church and state, you won't be surprised to find that you're losing.
If you listen to the media, it was forty-seven years ago that John Kennedy gave a speech to reassure majority Protestants about his Catholic faith. That's completely untrue. Kennedy never made such a speech.
Instead, John Kennedy stepped in front of a suspicious, openly hostile audience of protestant religious leaders and delivered a speech in which he adamantly maintained that faith of any sort should not be in an issue. His speech was not an apology for being Catholic. It was a bold demand to hold fast to an "absolute separation of church and state."
In his speech Kennedy insists that he believes in an American in which "no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference." At no point does Kennedy coddle his audience by suggesting that he will allow a crack in the wall. Instead, he challenges them to put up or shut up.
"And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it."
Near the end of the speech, Kennedy makes a stirring call the removal of religious divisions in all facets of American life, for equality between those who believe and those who don't, and for church leaders to steer clear of tarring candidates over religious matters.
"Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood."
Kennedy's steadfast appeal to the Constitution drew a lot of grumbling from the men in that room -- some of whom surely came to see him prostate himself before their demands – and it also drew a prolonged standing ovation. Here was a man, and a party, not afraid to demand a separation of church and state so clear that it would cause any number of Fox News pundits to explode.
So what happened?
The right would have you believe that religion has been forced from the public square, citing -- usually in error -- cases of nativity scenes shuffled from court house lawns and greeting cards that dare to not have a glittery "Merry Christmas" across the front. By selectively defining the public square as some small town green and a vaguely located Wal-mart, conservatives sell the idea that religious matters are somehow under assault. That makes about as much sense as predicting the extinction of cows from their absence on Boston Common.
The public square is the media. The public square is the debates. The public square is campaign literature, late night talk shows, daytime talk shows, Sunday talk shows. It's call in radio shows and even Bill O'Rielly. This is the public square. So is every other blog. And the public square is awash in the discussion of religion. There is absolutely, definitively, more discussion of religion now than at any other time in the history of our nation.
In discussing the growing influence of religion in politics, many media pundits have been quick to point toward Jimmy Carter. Carter, an obscure candidate trying to reach a broader and younger audience, agreed to a famous interview with Playboy Magazine, a portion of which revolved around his faith. If it had been a cycle or two later, he might have been angling for a chance to guest host Saturday Night Live, or these days face off with Stephen Colbert. The difference is that rather than being pampered through a few minutes of laughs on television, Carter sat down and talked for five hours, during which he answered hundreds of questions.
Of course, only one of those answers is remembered, the one in which Carter confessed that he had "lusted in his heart" after women other than his wife. It's probably the most famous answer in the history of presidential interviews. But do you remember the question?
The question Carter was answering was not whether he'd been tempted to engage in the kind of activities imagined on Playboy's pages. The question was whether, as a professed evangelical Christian, Carter felt that he was better than anyone else. Carter's response was an adamant no. The media sifted his lengthy answer for that "lusted in my heart" moment because they thought it both titillating and funny. Carter's complete answer was a lot more candid and earthy.
"Christ says, don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who's loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness."
And now you know why Carter's Sunday School class is so popular.
The interview also makes clear that Carter was just as adamant as John Kennedy in placing an absolute barrier between church and state. He cites Jesus' admonition to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" as clear instruction that Christians should not insert their faith into political matters, saying that he considered the separation of church and state to be both a constitutional and a biblical mandate.
The current sad state of affairs can't be blamed on Jimmy Carter.
The fault lies in the same calculated cowardice that has dominated Democratic politics post-Carter, and especially in the last six years. John Kennedy went to stand before his opponents and refused to tell them what they wanted to hear, but since September 2001, Democrats have increasingly scrambled to find acceptance, even if that meant reversing themselves so quickly they tripped on their own tongues.
We've reached the sorry state where the Republican Party officially and vocally support everything that John Kennedy stood up against in his 1960 speech. The Democratic Party has adopted a strategy on this and many other issues, in which they either stand aside or lend half-hearted support to Republicans. They do this in the hopes that when Republicans push too far, Democrats can pick up the pieces without having offended anyone. That's the strategy of hyenas. The strategy of vultures.
It's a strategy that wins elections by not losing. But it's also a strategy that advances rarely any cause. After all, when the lions have had their fill, the vultures settle to eat, but the vultures never capture territory from the lions.
In between their efforts to bestow sainthood on a bumbling liar, Ronald Reagan, Republicans have recently been trying to remove all evidence of Kennedy's progressive positions so they can claim him as their own. And maybe they deserve him. If George W. Bush can brush the Constitution aside to create his "faith-based initiative," and see it pass the Senate 95-5, how can there be any pretense that the party of John Kennedy still exists? It's worth noting that, previous to the 2002 election, Democrats blocked the passage of this bill in the Senate (even though it had passed the House with the help of 15 Democratic congressmen). If if you're looking for the moment when Democrats officially surrendered the idea of separation between church and state, 2002 is as good a date as any. Sent fluttering by their losses that November, the vultures settled down beside the lions to gnaw away the Constitution.
Forgotten in all this are the issues that Kennedy wanted to address in that long ago speech. The issues that Kennedy called the "real issues" of the campaign. Issues like poverty.
the hungry children I saw in West Virginia
Health care.
the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills
Inequality and education.
an America with too many slums, with too few schools
And the loss of respect the nation was suffering in international affairs.
the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power
Any and all of those issues might have been the centerpiece of a Democratic speech today, because those issues remain unsolved. And oddly enough, many of these issues were also on the mind of the man who two thousand years ago stood up in his family church and announced that "I come bringing good news for the poor."
When you're too busy trying not to lose, you may win elections now and then, but you rarely advance those causes you're supposed to care about. We've reached the point where Republican voters can claim the philosophy of absolute greed.
"I make a great deal of money through my own hard work. I don't want to pay for someone else's child to eat breakfast at school anymore."
Get that? She makes not just enough money, but a "great deal of money." How dare anyone take it away for something so frivolous as feeding a poor child? And yet Republicans, through their actions in blurring the lines between church and state, have become the "party of faith." Because they say so. Because they are bold in their actions and snarling in their defense.
We need to be just as adamant. We need to not hide behind any abstraction or evasion. We need to be unafraid to address this voter and say "I am going to take some of your money, and give it to that poor kid, because it's more important -- both to the child and to society -- that he eat, rather than that you have an extra week in Cabo."
Note that we should not pretend that "a program will take your money." Or "the government will take your money." This is a democracy, and we are the government. I will take your money. I will. Some of that money you worked hard for and want to keep. I will give it to a kid who is hungry. If your concern is that poverty should be addressed by individuals, then there's a simple solution: feed him. If there are no poor children needing food, I won't have to take anything for them. If your position is that people would be more generous if only the government would stay out of it, then sorry. I'm not willing to put this child at risk to as part of your experiment. Besides, if that were true, then why were their more hungry kids before we started these programs to give them a little breakfast? If your position is that your being able to keep all your money is more important than a child being fed, then I simply think you're wrong. And sick. You want to keep that money? You better beat me at the polls.
The strategy of vultures gives us both a party and a nation that would embarrass John Kennedy. The erosion of that barrier between the interest of the state and that of the church gives us a church that Jesus would not recognize. As an American and a Christian, I find both results terrifying.
Those ministers in 1960 might have hated what Kennedy had to say, but they applauded him for having the courage to say it. What candidate today will have the guts to step forward, in the face of a conservative onslaught, and take the steps needed to redeem both state and church?
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