I’m anxious and disappointed about the shallowness of our politics these days. The Senate race in Alabama is the current nexus this discontent, but merely one of many.
Issues concerning our government are complex; they involve the lives of all 325 million of us. However, we seem to be making decisions about our government based upon simplifications which don’t come close to take into consideration the complexity of our world.
The race for Senate in Alabama is illustrative of this. The choice between Roy Moore and Doug Jones has been reduced to the question of whether or not Moore was really creepy in his thirties and pursued high-school girls in a sexually predatory way. While this isn’t a trivial concern, it shouldn’t be the only consideration.
More fundamentally, Moore represents a revolution against a fundamental principle of our nation: the separation of law and religion. America was founded as an experiment in preventing religious wars by ensuring through our Constitution that law and religion would occupy different and mutually separate spheres. We all have the fundamental right to have beliefs based upon whatever religious tenets we choose, but we all agree to have our actions subject to legal ones. In the realm of belief, religion may be paramount, but in the realm of actions, only the law must be obeyed. And, they law may not impose ANY religion.
In my opinion, our experiment has been conspicuously successful. To a great extent, our county has been free from religious violence, and never has that violence occurred using the power of the government without subsequent prosecution. Given the ubiquitous religious violence experienced in Europe for hundreds of years prior to the American Revolution, this achievement is remarkable and worthy of pride. If we have a claim to ‘exceptionalism’, it is this freedom from religious violence which forms its basis.
Sickeningly, there is a faction today which actively seeks to undo this achievement, and Roy Moore is at the center of the effort. He was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court because of open attempts to establish religion in law. He directly challenged current Supreme Court rulings by erecting a monument of the Ten Commandments and refused a court order to remove it. He claims that the Ten Commandments are the basis for our Constitution. This is absurd. Only one of the Commandments is unambiguously illegal (Thou shall not steal.) The military (and, disgustingly law enforcement) provides ways around the injunction against killing. Adultery is not a crime in many states. Bearing false witness is prosecuted as perjury only in certain circumstances. Our current President’s conspicuous consumption and trophy-marriages are intended as an incitement towards covetousness. Mothers and fathers must earn their children’s respect without the law. Blue laws are sporadic, widely different and greatly limited. What is more, the first three Commandments are specifically excluded in our Constitution. We have Constitutional rights guaranteeing our freedom to express our thoughts (through words or images) and put any God or none foremost in our personal lives. Our Constitution is not about specific laws, but rather spells out a structure and a process whereby we’ll make the laws which constrain our actions. The Ten Commandments are silent on the structure of government.
Most disqualifyingly, Moore has repeatedly demonstrated a refusal of accept our society’s mechanisms for resolving conflicts, claiming the right to impose his religious doctrine in violation of Supreme Court strictures. His crusade against gay marriage is only the most recent example. The Constitution is to be obeyed and followed as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court until it is amended by the proscribed process. We don’t have to like it, but agreeing to obey it is a requirement of inclusion in our society.
It is immensely dangerous to have people in government who refuse to have their own actions be constrained by government, especially when a powerful faction of our society seeks to challenge the fundamental primacy of law in regulating actions. Yes, his morality is suspect. Yes, his ideas are odious. But his morality and his ideas are legally protected; he’s allowed to have them. However, it is his willingness to deny the law’s strictures against actions, and his actions to undermine the foundations of our society which make him especially unsuited for government office. For me, these actions are greatly more important than those which may have occurred four decades ago.
I am not currently an Alabaman, so, if elected, Roy Moore would not represent me. But, as an American who believes in the foundational ideas of our society, I deeply oppose his inclusion in my government. And, we need to be able to consider such things rather than merely whether we believe his accusers. This election should be more than just a contest about beliefs concerning the current sexual-predation allegations. That is too simple and too narrow a basis for a responsible decision. It is a grave flaw of our media and politics today that this race has been simplified to such an extent. It encourages a degradation of our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy.