Today during my usual brunch/MSNBC catch-up routine, something stuck out at me more than my happiness that Rachel Maddow is back on her show. It was this interview with Mike Huckabee, out on his book tour, which I can't get to embed so here's a link.
The part in question starts at about 8 minutes in. Rachel was asking about what Huck thinks about people in the GOP that think that the religious right is holding them back. Huck goes into a blah blah, who's gonna phonebank, we'll end up like the Whigs defense, and then proceeds to accidentally demonstrate how clueless the religious right really is, and how if they would just REALIZE that, we could probably all get along. Follow me through the jump for transcript and explanation.
Transcript wasn't up on MSNBC.com yet, so I did my best to type the part up:
Maddow: Governor, I don't think the argument is that people who are religious should not be part of the party or shouldn't even be activists, I think the reaction is in part to some of what you've articulated, about how to explain your values. You, um, got a lot of heat and got a lot of controversy for having said you hoped that the constitution could be altered to make it more like the word of God. And that the Constitution was more easily alterable than the word of God, so that's the one we should want to change. Making an overt religious argument for how the country should be governed, I think is what some of the reaction is against. Not that you HAVE your heartfelt, faith-based beliefs, but that you would expect that Americans should want to make the country more like your theological vision.
Huckabee: Well I don't have any intention, and I don't know anyone who does, that we would force people to pray, or force them to go to church, or tithe their income, that's not a government function.
:record-scratching noise: Whoa, let's stop right there. I know we have folks on here from evangelical to super-atheist and everything in between. Tell me: have you EVER heard anyone (who was not spouting hyperbole in a stand-up routine or trolling comment on YouTube, both for equal comedic effect) state that they think the religious right is going to force us to pray or give money to the church? Anyone?
This is such a typical escape maneuver. Making up crap to refute when you can't refute the real accusations. If Bush 43 didn't have us knock down the Lincoln Memorial for a giant statue of Jesus giving Allah the finger and make us pray at gunpoint, I doubt anyone ever will. But that's not even the point. The point, which Huckabee and those jackasses that got Prop 8 passed, those dipshits in South Dakota that want a zygote to be considered a person, and all their ilk seem to miss, is that people do not want religion mixed up in their government - or exactly what Rachel was actually talking about before Huck went on his detour onto the Crazy Excuse Turnpike. But let's keep listening for a bit.
What I DO think people want, is to know that there IS a connection between the ECONOMY of our nation and the MORALITY of our nation. Now let me give an example. Why is Wall Street melting down? Is it just because we have some really bad decisions? It's because greed, and avarice, and unbridled attention to profit at the top, without any regard to how it's gonna affect workers at the bottom, has driven a lot of the market. We really don't have a market that's based on investing and products and services, We've got people investing in what the products and services MIGHT be worth, in other words they're basically just gambling, Wall Street has become Las Vegas East, but the difference is, when you lose in Vegas, you pay your own debt or you get your own legs broken. On Wall Street, you don't pay your debt, you just ask the taxpayers to stand in line, and bail you out with a nice big ol' tax burden, that's gonna be passed on to your grandkids. I think that's what makes Americans crazy, has nothing to do with faith, but people of faith oughta still be responsible, and they oughta show that they have issues that they care about, but they're gonna deal with them in a way that doesn't threaten people, and make people feel like they're gonna have to join somebody's church in order to be affected by the positive outcomes.
Now, setting aside the obvious "most of those greedy Wall Street people are probably Christian already" point, I think most people even here probably agree on the bolded part, the point that these CEOs and whatnot being greedy shitheads who don't care about their employees is a big part of the problem. I don't even think that the statement "Americans need to to be more moral" is that controversial, if by "moral" you simply mean to be kinder to our fellow man.
But that's not what they mean. And that is where the problem lies.
Now, granted, according to surveys an overwhelming amount of Americans say they are Christian. In a 2001 study by the American Religious Identification Survey, 76% said they were Christian. But 3 points here that are important:
- This number is apparently down 10 points since 1991, which means that Christians are actually gradually DECREASING in America.
- Even when you say "Christian," that can mean an awful lot of different things. That 76% includes Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Mormons, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses... Maybe these people can agree that Jesus was a cool dude, but I doubt you're going to get much more of a consensus there.
- In the survey, 14.1% said "no religion," with .5% saying they were agnostic. I would suggest that a much larger percentage of our country would fall under "agnostic" than anything else. I am pretty much agnostic, sometimes when I reeeeeeeeeally want something to happen I will clasp my hands and mutter "pleasegodpleasegodplease" out of habit (I also sometimes chant "namu amida butsu," but that's another story). I celebrate Christmas with the tree and stuff, and back home my family always did the ham dinner & egg-hiding for Easter, but we never went to church unless someone was getting married. I think there are a lot of families like this today, and I think a lot of them would write down "Christian" on a survey like this.
Therefore, even throwing aside the already thrown WAY too far to the wayside point that our nation is SUPPOSED to have a separation of church & state, it is ridiculous to try and tie in Christian doctrine with the Constitution. Who gets to decide on that? My deeply religious ex-boyfriend who wants to ban abortion? Or my even more deeply religious ex-boyfriend whose father came out as gay and would likely be thrilled if he and his "stepdad" could get married after being together so long? Do the Mormons get to ban caffeine and legalize polygamy? Do the Amish get to write in an amendment banning ankle-showing? Which interpretation of the Bible gets to shove its way in on our constitution? And what about the voices of the agnostics, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Muslims, etc? That's the beauty of a secular government - not having to worry about any of this.
This reminds me of just why I love Joe Biden, even though I'm still mad at him over DMCA. He's a Catholic, he has publicly said that he thinks life begins at conception...but he does not want to overturn Roe v. Wade. He's gotten a lot of shit for this from Catholic priests, even forbidden Communion, but he hasn't changed his political position. Check out the beginning of this clip with Katie Couric (which I'm sure we've all seen before, but I want to bring it back up):
Couric: Why do you think Roe v. Wade was a good decision?
Biden: Because I think it's as close to a consensus that can exist in a society that's as heterogeneous as ours. What does it say? It says that in the first 3 months, the decision should be left to the woman. Then the second three months, where Roe v Wade says that the state, the government has a roll, along with the woman's health, they have a right to have some impact on that. In the third three months, they say the weight of the government's input is on the fetus being carried. And so that sort of has reflected about as close as anyone's ever gonna get in this heterogeneous, this multi-cultural society of religious people, as to some sort of...not consensus, but about as close as it gets.
He may say some crazy shit sometimes about FDR on TV, but he is right on the money here. When it comes to an adult murdering another adult, no one is going to say "hey, that should be legal!" regardless of faith. Most basic moral judgements are universal - I don't know a lot of atheists who disagree with the "golden rule," for example. That's just common sense. But these sort of delicate issues, where there are many different viewpoints, have no easy consensus. And with a wonderfully diverse country like the United States (I live abroad and miss it SO MUCH sometimes), the best you can do is get as close to a consensus as possible.
I have nothing against religion, or Christians. My favorite movie director is Christian, my favorite singer, my favorite professional wrestler, etc etc etc. That's fine. Believe whatever you want. But just don't legislate it. Joe Biden understands that just because he is religious, doesn't mean it should affect his politics. If only Mike Huckabee and others understood that too.