War of the Midgets

OK -- anyone who reads this blog even sporadically will know that I think the Christianists are the worst threat this country faces. Andrew Sullivan, while he seems to agree with me, is much too gentle with them. This post is one of his strongest, but I'm puzzled by this statement:

They certainly have developed an arsenal of arguments and a body of thought to back them up.

I have to confess, while I don't spend a lot of time reading Christianist apologetics, I do try to keep abreast of what they're saying, and frankly, I haven't seen anything I can characterize as a "body of thought."

Ponnoru's article, cited by Sullivan, is a case in point. It doesn't deal with the issues that Sullivan raises, but only nitpicks Sullivan's arguments, largely by citing Sullivan's "inconsistencies" over time regarding the role of religion in public life. The dodge here is that Ponnoru (who has never really impressed me as a thinker to begin with) says the legitimate use of "Christianist" has to be limited to Christian reconstructionists, i.e., those who think that Biblical law should become the law of the land. It's a false distinction. The Christianist arguments all revolve around the idea that there is no legitimacy to a secular state, which is what we live in. Sullivan has made the point several times that secularism is the best possible context in which to allow religious freedom, and, indeed, is the fundamental principle underlying our freedoms to begin with. The Christianist stance runs all the way from the arrant nonsense of such as Roy Moore claiming that our legal system is founded on Biblical princples, so easily refuted that I won't bother in this post, to such as Clarence Thomas asserting in his Senate hearings that he believed in a "higher law" than the U.S. Constitution. (And he was still confirmed. We should have realized right then that the Senate is a waste of time.)

Ponnoru:

If people who share Sullivan’s views (circa today) adopt "Christianist" more widely, it will become clear before too terribly long that it merely refers to Christians who support school prayer, oppose abortion, etc.

Another dodge. It's not a matter of "supporting" school prayer, etc., but of subverting the political process in order to make their religious beliefs paramount as the basis for law. Now, Ponnoru may just not get it -- in fact, I wouldn't be surprised, because, all lefty canards aside, the right-wing conservative Christians just don't seem to be able to deal with that particular reality in American life: their private beliefs are not the guiding principle in public law. American law is a matter of compromise, which is the one thing that the Christianists uniformly reject.

Hewitt's rejoinder is even weaker -- pure ad hominem from the first sentence. And just as essentially dishonest as every other "argument" I've seen from these people:

[H]e declaims about the "Christianist view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike."

Who, exactly, believes such a thing? Sullivan names no names. He mentiuons Delay and Limbaugh, but far enough removed from this description as to have deniability. When Sullivan gives us a definition of Christinism backed up by a list of say, 25 prominent Christianists and data to prove it, then he will have made an argument. Until then he's just spitting out venom.

I can't come up with 25 right off the top of my head, but we can start with Clarence Thomas, Rick Santorum, John Ashcroft, Antonin Scalia, Bill Frist, Marilyn Musgrove, Sam Brownback (to name only a few of those who hold, or who have held recently, public office), and then the list degenerates to the likes of Donald and Tim Wildmon, Lou Sheldon, Ralph Reed, Phyllis Schlafly (without forgetting, of course, those stalwarts of lunacy Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Fred Phelps), all of whom have far more influence on American public policy than they deserve. (With the exception of Phelps, but I won't pass up an opportunity to link him with his fellow travelers, much as they might hate the idea of public association.)

The point that Sullivan doesn't make (at least not in this post, and I don't know that he's ever even referred to it except possibly in passing) is that this philosophy, if we can dignify it by that term, is diametrically opposed to the fundamental principles of America. We are a secular, representative democracy, our laws are promulgated on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number (another princple that seems to have diminished in importance in the past five years), they must have a rational basis, religion is seen as a private affair which the government may neither sponsor (in particular) nor inhibit, our government is composed of three branches with the responsibility of keeping an eye on each other (which is why I favor having Congress under the control of one party and the Executive under the control of the other). It's quite obvious from the tone and phrasing of their arguments that the Christianists don't believe in this kind of society.

Topics such as abortion, same-sex marriage, stem cell research, assisted suicide are all part of public debate at this point. That doesn't mean letters to the editor. That means campaigning on the issues, voting on the issues, legislation which may or may not stand up to challenge, the resulting court cases -- these are all part of the process of American law. This is what the Christianists want to subvert.

Hewitt concludes, referring to Sulllivan:

There is no defending this poison. Only a hit and run column will do.

Yeah, well. . . . I am continually amazed at the things that wingers will say with a straight face.

One thing Sullivan says that I question:

Islam begins with far lesser appreciation for individual liberty than Christianity.

Mmmm. . . . Both are hierarchical religions based on received truths. Both have a history of intellectual inquiry (alas, not much in evidence today), and Islam, as nearly as I can recall from my admittedly sketchy acquaintance with its history, has in the past had a less authoritarian reaction to "heresy." (Not that it hasn't reacted, but I don't seem to remember a lot in the way of burnings at the stake, etc. Before now, of course.) Both are essentially authoritarian -- Christianity more so than Islam, it seems to me -- no one seems to be willing to come right out and say, "Well, you're free to ignore the Pope," even though you are. And both seem to be, in practice, essentially hypocritical, perhaps the natural result of holding frail humanity to an impossible standard.

That said, when it comes right down to it, Sullivan is a lot more persuasive than either Ponnoru or Hewitt. (I see where Hewitt gets his reputation as a brain-damaged fucktard. [Granted, he's not in the class of Michelle Malkin or John Hinderaker, but still. . . .] Excuse me, this is supposed to be an argument!?)

Of course, a lot of this is navel-gazing, but we're dealing with East Coast intellectuals here. (I doubt that anyone who wasn't a navel-gazer would consider either Ponnoru's or Hewitt's screeds as part of "a body of thought.")

If my fellow citizens want to go to hell I will help them. It's my job. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Later. . . .