Some Thoughts on Public Morality and the Place of Religious Belief in the Political Process

Sounds pretty impressive, doesn't it?

Andrew Sullivan points us to this post by Kathryn Jean Lopez. I know, I can't believe I'm linking to KLo, but there are some interesting points here. One nut is this juxtaposition:

But politics can never be wholly divorced from religion. Our religious morality necessarily informs our political judgments.

The thing about abortion is, it’s not just any other issue — as serious as so many others are. Abortion is not open to debate.

I certainly agree with the idea that morality informs political judgments, but I'm not so sure about the "religious" part (although in practice, I'll take that as a given): there is such a thing as a secular morality, even a public morality that comes not from religious beliefs per se, but from our ideas of what a society is for. To be very honest, I'm not sure that commentators such as Lopez or Megan McArdle even think in those terms. I do. (After all, the first point after the title of this blog is "First causes." What did anyone think that meant?)

On the second point, Sullivan comments:

It is indeed not open to debate whether Catholics believe abortion is wrong. It does strike me as open to debate how best to prudentially reduce and end it, as this blogger explains. And it is open to debate whether a Catholic can vote for a pro-choice candidate, when the broader spectrum of issues is taken into account, as even Lopez concedes. But to my mind, it does make a difference whether a particular position is about other citizens committing a moral evil or whether it's about the political leader himself committing a moral evil.

It's at this point where I part ways with doctrinaire Christian advocates, and I agree with Sullivan in essence, but (as usual) I don't think he goes far enough into the question. Taking the issue away from one of Catholics voting (or members of the hierarchy using their position to threaten candidates, which as far as I'm concerned is an absolute no-no -- and like the Catholic position on abortion, that's not negotiable), let's focus on the idea of taking a position on other citizens committing a moral evil.

This really is the whole focus of the Christianist movement, which Sullivan abhors as much as I do: dictating the private morals of others. There are certain things we can agree on as a matter of public, secular morality: it's not acceptable to kill the neighbors or steal their property, for example. (And as far as I know, those are the only two of the Ten Commandments to appear in the law, so let's drop the "nation founded on Biblical principles" bullshit.) Homosexuality, the great bugbear of the Dobson Gang, is a personal matter in which the government has no right to interfere, which the courts have come to recognize. Abortion is an iffy sort of thing, and the sort of thing in which we're going to arrive at a compromise, eventually: there's no alternative to that. I think we can all pretty much agree that abortion is not desirable, but public policy after Roe vs Wade has been a matter of refinement, or would have been if all the players were honest.

Sullivan goes on to consider the Catholic reaction to torture, pre-emptive war, and the like, the many sins of which the Bush administration is guilty, but there's no real point in highlighting the hypocrisy of the Christianist position: it's there, it's obvious, and it destroys their credibility as far as I'm concerned. I don't see, for example, how anyone can look at Dobson's reaction to the new movement among evangelicals for refocusing their efforts and continue to believe that the man is anything other than a cheap politician. I'm afraid I have the same attitude toward the pope: if he weren't a politician, he wouldn't be pope, and his condemnations are both selective and unhinged.

At any rate, back to the private morals issue: I see these as those basic concepts -- call them "values" -- that shape our behavior toward others and the world around us. They quite often spring from religious beliefs, but not always. (Yes, Virginia, atheists have morals, too.) We live in a secular nation, in which I have to take it that our overarching public morality is laid out in our Constitution. The idea that anyone would attempt to override that document to enforce their own concept of morality on the rest of us leads me to believe that they really do seek the destruction of America: that is, after all, the basic plan of our society, and in spite of those who think it needs to be redone at present, I think it's served us very well, if not always very smoothly. And I think it's implicit in the Bill of Rights that the government may not be used in that way, as the enforcer for private agendas. (Lopez, let it be known, doesn't bother herself the the ramifications of Church teachings on the sanctity of life -- and frankly, in the quote she uses from Benedict, I detect an inherent self-contradiction -- but merely reiterates the party line.)

It's a complex topic, and I need to think about it some more. Maybe I'll get back to it soon, or maybe not until later. Your thoughts are welcome.

Update:

Terrance DC has a good post on this topic. Read it.