Last Thoughts Before the Election

There really isn't much left anyone can say about this election that hasn't already be said. Signs look very positive for an Obama victory, and we just need to pray they hold up. I'll leave you with an unpublished piece I wrote several years ago, ranting about the unholy alliance between religion and the Right. Let's hope this is the year that alliance breaks down:

There seems to be a lot of talk in the news lately of a culture war. There is increased polarization in America between religious conservatives and secularist liberals. The Democratic Party, it is said, is out of touch with the values of middle America, and that is why it has trouble winning in the south and Midwest. They say the Democratic Party is made up of godless, amoral, liberal elitists from the northeast, who cannot connect with the simple churchgoer of Kansas or Alabama. As someone whose religious views constitute fundamentalism by most definitions you will find, but who is also a political liberal, I don’t think there needs be such a divide. Religion does not necessarily imply conservatism, and fundamentalism and moderation do not have to be inimical to each other.

I must confess, whenever I hear the expression, “good southern values,” the same few images always come to my mind. The first is of southern slave-owning plantation owners of the 1850’s, who I am certain attended church regularly, and feel themselves the bearers of these good southern values. The second is George Wallace on the steps of the Alabama statehouse, preaching his good southern values, like “segregation forever.” The last image that comes to my mind is Jesse Helms talking about representing good Christian values as he fought against civil rights in the 1960’s. These images, while they may not represent precisely what conservatives today mean by values, do a good deal to discount the importance of the term, seeing the kinds of things it has been used for in the past.

Furthermore, far from being “godless” and “amoral,” the causes championed by liberals throughout the years have often been deeply moral and very religiously significant. What could be a more moral cause that civil rights? As a religious individual, what could be more important than fighting for the basic equality of all human beings? After all, are we not all created in the image of G-d, and all equal in His eyes. Religious leaders championed this cause. Martin Luther King Jr. was a protestant minister, and standing just to his right in the great civil rights march in Alabama, was Jewish leader Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. What could be a more moral or religious cause than fighting poverty and hunger, making sure all of G-d’s children are protected from harm? What could be a more moral or religious cause than protecting the environment, so that this earth should remain the way G-d intended it to be? Adam, the Bible tells us, was put in the Garden in Eden in order to protect it (Genesis 2:15). Conservatives, when they forsake the poor and neglect the earth in order to give big tax breaks to the rich, are the ones who deserve the title of “godless and amoral.” The Left really is where religious people belong politically, not the Right.

The Religious Right, in its great fervor to force its individual religious worldviews on those who do not agree with them, is all too quick to forget about the more universal aspect of religion; the causes, like those I have already discussed, that religious people ought to be championing, which are beneficial to everybody. I do not mean to say the individual aspect of religion is unimportant. Quite the contrary, I have many very strong convictions in this arena, and wouldn’t give them up for the world. However, it is important to recognize that the federal government is not my own personal religious outreach organization. I would be happy to argue with people and try to convince them that my particular religious views are the correct ones, but I would never think that my particular religious views ought to be legislated as federal policy in a secular government, and forced on people who disagree with me.

I personally find abortion to be an abhorrent practice, and in most cases immoral (though not murder), yet I was willing to attend a massive pro-choice rally in Washington two years ago for the purpose of keeping abortion legal. I did this because it is the principle of the separation of church and state that has made America such a great country and given so many people here opportunities that would not be available to them elsewhere. As a member of a minority religion, particularly as an observant member of a minority religion, this is something that must not be forgotten. It is because of liberals that Jews have such freedom to practice their religion in America today, not because of Christian conservatives. And let us be clear about one thing. There are no such things as Judeo-Christian values. There are Jewish values, and there are Christian Values. Now and then they overlap, but once the precedent is set of allowing Christian values to be legislated, they will eventually be legislated in ways where it is not in line with Jewish values. Having Christian values as the law of the land has been tried previously in history. It was known as the Spanish Inquisition. If we want to remain free to practice our religion as we see fit, we need to fight for the rights of other people to practice their religions as they see fit, even if it might sometimes involve doing things we find abhorrent and disgusting.

It may well be true that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the values of mainstream America, but that is only because they are so far ahead. It really gets me that southern traitors, many of whom still proudly display the sign of their treason, the confederate flag, think they can tell northern liberals who fought and died to keep America together, that their views today mean they hate America. And yes, call it elitist, patronizing, or condescending, but I do think the people in the north are generally more moral than that the people in the south. (By this I mean even northern conservatives, who due to lack of exposure often forget just how liberal they really are when compared with the south.) Middle America will catch up eventually. The so-called culture war will end. Eventually, religious folk will realize the common ground they have with liberalism. They always do, just as they did with slavery, and then with civil rights. For now, though, what people consider to be “mainstream American values,” are not values good people of religion ought to have.


Almost all of what I wrote, I still feel is true. My only caveat is that, judging by some of the polling numbers, Obama just may be that transformational figure who's able to make enough religious folk realize they have more in common with the Left that the Right. We won't know for sure until tomorrow, when we see if he can win in any of the traditional Republican strongholds, but the culture war may be ending and Middle America may be moving on just as I predicted they eventually would.