A Rare Voice In The Wilderness

Patrick Hynes and Jeremy Lott had an editorial in USA Today's blog section that relates well to some of the pieces I’ve written lately. I highly recommend giving it a read. One of the more interesting aspects of the editorial was the framing of how the religious right portion of the Right has been assaulted in an attempt to hamstring their arguments. To actually argue from a point they might be willing to argue is seen as incomprehensible to figures on the Left. They explain:

In a recent monograph, former senator and Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart claimed to know exactly what "today's religious right has in mind." They want to "return America to a pre-Enlightenment age, an age in which the church, in this case in the form of one wing of evangelical Protestantism, dictates terms to the political process and sets the boundaries of what can and cannot be legislated and regulated by the state."

This sort of suspicion and insinuation makes it all the more difficult for the pious to participate in politics. Worse, critics such as Dartmouth College's Lucas Swaine, an assistant professor of government, have demanded that Christians not frame their arguments with reference to the Bible, a book that millions of Americans believe to be the inspired word of God, because that wouldn't square with "public reason." And any pronouncements on "values" are treated with scorn, at best.

Both men also argue that religious conservatives are “demonized”, if you’ll pardon the pun and charged with all sorts of nefarious motives while the religious left is embraced and celebrated. This despite the religious left doing exactly what the religious right is often accused of, trying to frame election issues in religious terms.
Consider, for example, the “What Would Jesus Drive” campaign or their noting of Alabama Governor Bob Riley’s attempts to create a large progressive tax system on the wealthy in his state to help fund “projects for the poor” and his enlistment of the religious left to help sell it.

It is easily demonstrable that anytime you have elements of the (admittedly small) religious left propose a policy issue or endorse a certain left-leaning issue, they are vaulted to the forefront of that debate and cited as an unassailable authority. The same can never be said of how the religious right is treated. It has been abused, bruised, battered, ridiculed and ignored.

I would ask the same people that argued in favor of Reverend Jim Wallis’ strong suggestion that national and state taxation should follow “God’s vision of a good society” and soak the rich (usually including the middle class) to fund government programs to serve the poor if they favor equal time or support to the religious right (at least to be heard) in their attempt to retain religious morality in government and schools. The answer would likely be no, but then when has hypocrisy been out of bounds for the Left?

I’m not advocating that the religious left has anything less to offer to the national debate than the religious right. I would just like to see that in action, and I doubt I ever will. Fundamentally, it comes down to this. The Left and the large bloc of media they control will use any argument to flavor their cause célèbre and the religious left provides a decidedly juicy vehicle to deliver that argument. I’m not saying that the Right doesn’t do the same. I’m just saying they’re not treated fairly and it would help when you see such an argument if you consider that. It’s all a smoke and mirrors game anyway. I say bring a fan and a sledgehammer and you might see things a tad more clearly.