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Religious issues leave less room for debate
By Melissa Dribben and Oliver Prichard
Inquirer Staff Writers
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/living/health/10008214.htm
The syndicated columnist Miss Manners advises that it's impolite to discuss certain subjects at a party: Mention the death penalty, same-sex marriage or abortion, "and see how much polite, cordial and reasoned discourse you provoke."
This political season, the Molotov cocktail of religion and politics is disrupting more than dinner parties. Why is it so hard to agree to disagree?
This is, after all, a nation in which everyone believes that leaders should be guided by moral principles. That the president, especially, should belong to an organized religion (these days excepting Islam). And that the Constitution rightly safeguards freedom of religion.
But if government legislates according to one religion's beliefs, it's likely to trample on the rights of others whose faith embraces different ideas about right and good.
As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said, "Democracy is messy."
Psychologists say people have trouble finding common ground because moral judgments seem like unassailable truth.
"Moral issues have an objective feel to them," explains Adam Cohen, who teaches psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. "So if I think something is immoral, then I don't think it's OK for you to think it isn't immoral."
Moral judgments are not subject to compromise, says Clark McCauley, director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania.
"It's not like a divorce settlement where... this one gets the value of the house and that one gets to live in it," McCauley says.
To complicate matters, religions care about a constellation of moral judgments, not just abortion, stem-cell research and gay marriage, for example, but also euthanasia, caring for the poor, forgiveness, environmental concerns, war.
"No matter what your position is, there will always be some issue in conflict with any politician," says Edward C. Mintzer, 55, a Catholic from Berwyn. Mintzer is against abortion, and he also opposes the death penalty.
"One has to be consistent," Mintzer says. "One cannot allow the sanctity of life to be impaired, no matter if... you're talking about a zygote or a criminal."
But many religious leaders seem less concerned with consistency than with advancing their agendas.
"My belief entails that I should become a part of the political process," says the Rev. Maurice Hughes, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Germantown. "We must elect those of our same kind so that we can set the mandate that Christ has given us."
Ann McBride remembers when John F. Kennedy, as the first Catholic president, had to assure the nation that the Pope was his religious leader, not his political adviser.
In the 1970s, McBride and her family moved from their mostly Catholic neighborhood in the Philadelphia suburbs to a home near Bob Jones University in South Carolina.
"Suddenly, I was in a strongly Baptist area," McBride recalls. "I found it wasn't a very good idea to talk about politics and religion... . There was no way you could discuss anything."
McBride said she would overhear derogatory jokes about the Pope. And prejudice was not just felt by Catholics. "The mayor of Greenville, who was Jewish, was not allowed in the local country club," she recalls.
Today, living in New Jersey, McBride, 78, a lifelong Democrat, finds herself disagreeing with Catholic friends who are one-issue voters. "Our founding fathers were very wise about separating religion from politics," she says. "It gives us more freedom not to have to adhere to any particular religion."
Nearly 50 years ago, a small, irreverent act of conscience became a seminal challenge to church-state mingling.
Ellery Schempp was a junior at Abington High School in 1956 when he refused to join the compulsory Bible reading and instead read the Koran.
"It seemed to me that it violated America's basic sense of fair play," said Schempp, now 64. "Christians don't want the Koran or the Buddhist scriptures read to them, so why should Hindus or nonbelievers have to have the Bible read to them?"
Schempp's protest, which earned him a trip to the principal's office, led to the 1963 Supreme Court ban on prayer readings in public schools.
Today, the retired physicist lives outside Boston and speaks on church-state issues.
"I think it is terribly bad when patriotism and 'godliness' get mixed up... . We have seen this in theocracies like Iran, like the Taliban, like during the Catholic Inquisition, and there are elements at work here. Atheists can be good citizens and patriots - often better - questioning government policies and making them accountable, rather than just saying, 'God wants this.' "
Divisions exist not only between the faithful and nonbelievers but within religions themselves. Deborah Baer Mozes, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who lives in Merion, has friends who share her faith but not her politics.
"I feel that they've been hoodwinked. And they probably feel the same way about me," she says.
Some theorists suggest that the extremely religious, regardless of faith, have more in common politically than they do with less-observant members of their own religion.
For Terry Anderson, a former hostage in Lebanon, the point could not be more personal.
"The radical fundamentalist Shiite Muslims who held me had a great deal in common with the radical fundamentalist Jews who killed Yitzak Rabin. They sound alike."
Anderson, who is running for the state Senate in Ohio, says, "I try to live my Christian beliefs... . To be beaten and threatened and kept from your family for seven years, it's hard to forgive your enemy... . We're human, we're fallible, we do our best. That's a big enough job without trying to define sin in others."
Yet without professing to some religion, American politicians don't stand a chance. People believe religion ensures moral character.
But that's not necessarily true. Various studies have found a disconnect between moral beliefs and actual behavior. Studies have also found that strongly religious people can be more prejudiced than others.
Although nonbelievers are a minority in America, this summer the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on "hostility to religious expression in the public square."
Melissa Rogers, former director of the Pew Forum for Religion and Politics, testified. The premise, she says, was misguided.
"It's a false claim," she says. "The fact is that the Constitution says government can't promote religion. That is not an antireligious idea."
A Baptist, Rogers was taught that everyone ought to be free to make a religious commitment, or reject it. Forcing commitment, she says, "is a waste of time and a waste of conscience... . When government gets involved, it not only runs roughshod over the rights of conscience but corrupts religion by making it a creature of the state. You see it in Europe. The pews are empty where government has adopted a religion. There is no vitality, no independence... . At its best, religion is an independent source of thought."
Contact staff writer Melissa Dribben at 215-854-2590 or [email protected].
By Melissa Dribben and Oliver Prichard
Inquirer Staff Writers
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/living/health/10008214.htm
The syndicated columnist Miss Manners advises that it's impolite to discuss certain subjects at a party: Mention the death penalty, same-sex marriage or abortion, "and see how much polite, cordial and reasoned discourse you provoke."
This political season, the Molotov cocktail of religion and politics is disrupting more than dinner parties. Why is it so hard to agree to disagree?
This is, after all, a nation in which everyone believes that leaders should be guided by moral principles. That the president, especially, should belong to an organized religion (these days excepting Islam). And that the Constitution rightly safeguards freedom of religion.
But if government legislates according to one religion's beliefs, it's likely to trample on the rights of others whose faith embraces different ideas about right and good.
As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said, "Democracy is messy."
Psychologists say people have trouble finding common ground because moral judgments seem like unassailable truth.
"Moral issues have an objective feel to them," explains Adam Cohen, who teaches psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. "So if I think something is immoral, then I don't think it's OK for you to think it isn't immoral."
Moral judgments are not subject to compromise, says Clark McCauley, director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania.
"It's not like a divorce settlement where... this one gets the value of the house and that one gets to live in it," McCauley says.
To complicate matters, religions care about a constellation of moral judgments, not just abortion, stem-cell research and gay marriage, for example, but also euthanasia, caring for the poor, forgiveness, environmental concerns, war.
"No matter what your position is, there will always be some issue in conflict with any politician," says Edward C. Mintzer, 55, a Catholic from Berwyn. Mintzer is against abortion, and he also opposes the death penalty.
"One has to be consistent," Mintzer says. "One cannot allow the sanctity of life to be impaired, no matter if... you're talking about a zygote or a criminal."
But many religious leaders seem less concerned with consistency than with advancing their agendas.
"My belief entails that I should become a part of the political process," says the Rev. Maurice Hughes, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Germantown. "We must elect those of our same kind so that we can set the mandate that Christ has given us."
Ann McBride remembers when John F. Kennedy, as the first Catholic president, had to assure the nation that the Pope was his religious leader, not his political adviser.
In the 1970s, McBride and her family moved from their mostly Catholic neighborhood in the Philadelphia suburbs to a home near Bob Jones University in South Carolina.
"Suddenly, I was in a strongly Baptist area," McBride recalls. "I found it wasn't a very good idea to talk about politics and religion... . There was no way you could discuss anything."
McBride said she would overhear derogatory jokes about the Pope. And prejudice was not just felt by Catholics. "The mayor of Greenville, who was Jewish, was not allowed in the local country club," she recalls.
Today, living in New Jersey, McBride, 78, a lifelong Democrat, finds herself disagreeing with Catholic friends who are one-issue voters. "Our founding fathers were very wise about separating religion from politics," she says. "It gives us more freedom not to have to adhere to any particular religion."
Nearly 50 years ago, a small, irreverent act of conscience became a seminal challenge to church-state mingling.
Ellery Schempp was a junior at Abington High School in 1956 when he refused to join the compulsory Bible reading and instead read the Koran.
"It seemed to me that it violated America's basic sense of fair play," said Schempp, now 64. "Christians don't want the Koran or the Buddhist scriptures read to them, so why should Hindus or nonbelievers have to have the Bible read to them?"
Schempp's protest, which earned him a trip to the principal's office, led to the 1963 Supreme Court ban on prayer readings in public schools.
Today, the retired physicist lives outside Boston and speaks on church-state issues.
"I think it is terribly bad when patriotism and 'godliness' get mixed up... . We have seen this in theocracies like Iran, like the Taliban, like during the Catholic Inquisition, and there are elements at work here. Atheists can be good citizens and patriots - often better - questioning government policies and making them accountable, rather than just saying, 'God wants this.' "
Divisions exist not only between the faithful and nonbelievers but within religions themselves. Deborah Baer Mozes, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who lives in Merion, has friends who share her faith but not her politics.
"I feel that they've been hoodwinked. And they probably feel the same way about me," she says.
Some theorists suggest that the extremely religious, regardless of faith, have more in common politically than they do with less-observant members of their own religion.
For Terry Anderson, a former hostage in Lebanon, the point could not be more personal.
"The radical fundamentalist Shiite Muslims who held me had a great deal in common with the radical fundamentalist Jews who killed Yitzak Rabin. They sound alike."
Anderson, who is running for the state Senate in Ohio, says, "I try to live my Christian beliefs... . To be beaten and threatened and kept from your family for seven years, it's hard to forgive your enemy... . We're human, we're fallible, we do our best. That's a big enough job without trying to define sin in others."
Yet without professing to some religion, American politicians don't stand a chance. People believe religion ensures moral character.
But that's not necessarily true. Various studies have found a disconnect between moral beliefs and actual behavior. Studies have also found that strongly religious people can be more prejudiced than others.
Although nonbelievers are a minority in America, this summer the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on "hostility to religious expression in the public square."
Melissa Rogers, former director of the Pew Forum for Religion and Politics, testified. The premise, she says, was misguided.
"It's a false claim," she says. "The fact is that the Constitution says government can't promote religion. That is not an antireligious idea."
A Baptist, Rogers was taught that everyone ought to be free to make a religious commitment, or reject it. Forcing commitment, she says, "is a waste of time and a waste of conscience... . When government gets involved, it not only runs roughshod over the rights of conscience but corrupts religion by making it a creature of the state. You see it in Europe. The pews are empty where government has adopted a religion. There is no vitality, no independence... . At its best, religion is an independent source of thought."
Contact staff writer Melissa Dribben at 215-854-2590 or [email protected].