Bush,
The New Face of the Religious Right
President George W. Bush’s evangelical Christianity
has attracted attention from numerous perspectives. Critics, supporters, and
even the indifferent have variously ridiculed, lauded, or simply been confounded
by the intense religious expression of Bush. Memorable statements come to mind
from the time when Bush declared Jesus Christ as his favorite political philosopher
to his February statement that, “I welcome faith to help solve the nation’s
deepest problems.” With each new reference to his personal faith, Americans
saw a new round of debate as to whether such behavior is appropriate for their
nation’s leader. What is often lost in these varying responses to Bush’s religiosity
is that his presidency holds an aura of the triumphant air of conquering Christendom.
Many quite justifiably wonder how this affects his role as leader of the world’s
strongest secular republic.
A survey of Bush’s friends, advisers,
and appointees to federal office raises another intriguing question: could Bush
be nominating traditionalist-minded and profoundly religious individuals precisely
because of their religious devotion? If so, a disturbing allegation surfaces:
violation of Article VI of the United States Constitution, which prohibits the
use of religion as a test for federal office. His religious bias may also play
out in his selection of anti-gay rights appointees. With only a token exception,
Bush has consistently appointed to federal posts men and women who view homosexuality
as a sin. This reinforces his lukewarm and apparently superficial overtures
to gays.
Bush counts a host of deeply religious
partisans among his friends and supporters. Bush’s allies in the Religious Right
include the likes of James Dobson, Marvin Olasky, and Jerry Falwell, all of
whom see religious nonbelief, abortion, contraception, and homosexuality as
sinful attributes to be legislated against. After the Republicans regained control
of the Senate, Bush re-nominated anti-choice zealot Priscilla Owen to a seat
on the Fifth Circuit Court, essentially inviting the Democrats to filibuster
this extremist nominee. He also nominated an unqualified judge, Charles Pickering,
to another federal post who, not coincidentally, is a stalwart southern Baptist.
Furthermore, Bush invited a Louisiana woman who supported a resolution condemning
the theory of evolution as racist to the State of the Union address as a special
guest and leader of a supposedly exemplary institution. Bush’s allies on the
Religious Right require not only outspokenness but also unwavering action on
religiously conservative issues.
Bush’s reputation as a wily Texas cowboy
is well deserved. In the foreign affairs sphere, an arena to which Americans
rarely pay attention, Bush has been eager to implement the policies that his
religious friends hold dear. For instance, he has included antiabortionist Christians--including
a former adviser to the Vatican--as part of U.S. delegations to foreign family
planning meetings and has callously withdrawn crucial funding from the United
Nations Population Fund.
Bush’s appointments to federal posts are
the crown jewels of his effort to overcome the slightest suspicion anyone may
have about his conservatism. A sample of his appointments reveals that the one
feature they clearly share is that they are very religious individuals, or at
least hold views characteristic of the Religious Right’s most fervent partisans
and are eager to bring those private influences to bear on their public office.
Two of Bush’s appointments to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals--the court
that recently reaffirmed its June 2002 decision that the “under God” phrase
in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional—are Carolyn Kuhl and Jay Bybee,
who have shown hostility to gay rights and other progressive issues throughout
their careers. W. David Hager and Daniel Lapin, an evangelical physician and
an orthodox Jewish rabbi, complete Bush’s appointments. Hager, for one, has
refused to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. Rabbi Lapin enjoys accusations
of intolerance because, as he pointed out, his religion and Christian allies
should be intolerant of “immorality” as informed and defined by the tenets of
their religious extremism.
Marcus Cicero, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, Jean-Jacques
Rosseau, and Lucius Seneca all have something in common: they were, to varying
degrees, political philosophers. This commonality seems to have eluded Bush.
When a journalist asked him to name his favorite political philosopher during
a debate between Republican presidential candidates in Iowa, Bush responded,
“Christ, because he changed my heart”. It has come to be known as the Christ
Moment.
Bush didn’t limit himself to this statement. Throughout
his presidential campaign, he expounded on Christ’s reputed life--changing power,
saying that embracing the ways and teachings of Jesus in middle age was the
determining factor behind his rehabilitation from cocaine use and his decision
to stop drinking. He says, “[Accepting Christ] was one of the defining moments
in my life. But I do so understanding that I am only a lowly sinner as well.”
He even made an appearance at a Washington, D.C. Capitol rally for a “counter-cultural”
group called True Love Waits. Other than advocating the obvious, this group
also espouses “secondary virginity,” or the notion that one can redeem oneself
after making the mistake of having premarital sex by abstaining from sex thereafter--the
devoted teens wore shirts with slogans like, “Friends don’t let friends go to
hell”. Perhaps as a result of this public display of fundamentalism, an astonishing
84 percent of evangelical Christians voted for Bush in the 2000 presidential
election.
It comes as no surprise that Bush was adept at winning
the evangelical vote. He has been doing so for most of his political life. When
his father was running for president in 1987, Bush came to Washington, D.C.
and became the “liaison” to the Religious Right. Doug Wead, who worked with
the younger Bush on communicating with the Religious Right, said that the elder
Bush had never liked dealing with religious people, but “George [Jr.] knew exactly
what to say, what to do.” Indeed, many suspected the senior Bush of being a
closet moderate; he once rejected his son’s suggestion that the Reverend Billy
Graham be the centerpiece of a campaign video.
Whether or not to attribute these statements to Bush’s
genuine religious beliefs (as many surely did) is not the question. He clearly
supports an increased presence for religion in the governmental sphere through
his support of student-led prayer, “faith-based initiatives,” and other government-endorsed
religiosity. His education secretary, Roderick Paige, said that he would prefer
to have schools teaching children the importance of a “strong faith.” Bush’s
willingness to risk what followed the Christ Moment in Iowa--the aftermath of
ridicule and scorn of his intellect--can help illustrate the lengths to which
he goes to ingratiate himself with the Religious Right.
A few statements by themselves, of course, don’t establish
the president as beholden to Christian fundamentalists. However, when one takes
into consideration that Bush followed up this well-known response by giving
a speech at the ultra-conservative and militantly anti-Catholic Bob Jones University
in South Carolina--risking the outrage of the significant Catholic voting bloc--one
begins to wonder how far Bush will go to cater to the Religious Right’s agenda.
After all, Bob Jones University is the same school that once manically declared
on its web site that the Roman Catholic Church was, among other things, a “satanic
counterfeit” of a true Christian church. Interracial dating was forbidden on
the campus until only recently. The university stands for “old-time religion
and the absolute authority of the Bible.”
Bush belatedly offered a tepid apology to Catholics
a month after his visit to Bob Jones and long after the South Carolina primary
it helped him win. But he also visited Cornerstone University, an evangelical
college in Michigan that denies admission to lesbians and gays. His appearance
there drew fire from gay-rights groups, even if it didn’t receive the same attention
from the national media. Human Rights Campaign was particularly disturbed by
the visit, pointing out among other things that the college, which prohibits
social dancing and gambling, morally equates homosexuality with transgressions
like lying and cheating. The visit wasn’t particularly surprising in view of
Bush’s opposition to gay civil unions and his stance that the military’s “don’t
ask, don’t tell” policy shouldn’t be ameliorated in any way. However, it does
shed light on the extent to which Bush is driven by his need to pander to the
Religious Right.
To his credit, Bush appointed openly homosexual men
to head the Office of National AIDS Policy and as ambassador to Romania. Such
decisions break with the practice of previous Republican administrations. Perhaps
all these years of loud progressive voices haven’t been in vain, and Bush felt
compelled to make a concession.
However, any progressive steps (even conciliatory
ones) are severely constrained as long as the Religious Right wields such power
over the president. Even the fairly modest nods toward inclusion just mentioned
have drawn vitriolic criticism from his core supporters. For instance, Robert
Knight, executive director of the Culture and Family Institute, said, “You’d
almost think they were Democrats trying to infiltrate what makes the Republican
Party distinctive. The record so far [as of mid-2001] has been pretty bad…shockingly
so, given the support Bush has received from evangelical Christians.” He has
also said, “I’m really concerned for the freedom of my children if the [Bush
administration’s] gay agenda succeeds.”
Criticism from the likes of Knight and others in the
Religious Right forced Bush to drastically reconsider his cautious overtures
to gays through the support of events. In 2001 Secretary of Commerce Donald
Evans announced that the department would stop sponsoring events celebrating
Gay and Lesbian Pride Month (in June) after six consecutive years of doing so
during the Bill Clinton administration. Clinton, for instance, paid remembrance
to the June 1969 “Stonewall Rebellion” by issuing a proclamation during Gay
and Lesbian Pride Month. Bush has decided against doing the same. The president
of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Employees of the Federal Government (Federal GLOBE),
Leonard P. Hirsch, noted that senior government officials have been reluctant
to appear supportive of gay and lesbian events during this administration. He
added that in one particular department, gay and lesbian employees have decided
against requesting that the cabinet secretary permit gay pride month observances,
stating, “There is a sufficient level of concern and fear so that people are
censoring themselves to start with.”
Bush has never made serious efforts toward real inclusion.
For instance, he nominated Robert Clark for the commander position of the Fifth
Army, the second-highest position in the army, in spite of the fact that Clark
issued no statements against anti-homosexual harassment during his time at Fort
Campbell in Kentucky. Under his command, a soldier was brutally beaten to death
with a baseball bat in 1999, ostensibly for being gay. In the months leading
up to his death the soldier was subjected to anti-gay persecution, but Clark
took no action on his behalf and has even refused to meet with the dead soldier’s
parents.
Bush hasn’t limited himself to expressing his disdain
for gay rights through his supporters and appointments to government posts.
In mid-2001 the White House was on the verge of exempting religious charities
from state and municipal gay rights laws before the media and congressional
Democrats caught wind of the plans. As ABC News reports, “According to
an internal Salvation Army memo, obtained by the Washington Post, the
Administration was ready to cut a deal. In exchange for the Army’s support for
the President’s plan, the Administration would issue a regulation exempting
the Army and other religious groups that take Federal funds from local laws
that protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.”
One way that Bush gained the Texas governorship in
the mid-1990s was by criticizing then Governor Ann Richards’ work to end “anti-sodomy”
laws. As governor of Texas, Bush worked doggedly to stop a hate crimes law that
would have provided legal recourse to gays who had been discriminated against
from passing.
Since Bush never substantively addressed the AIDS
issue at that time, he surprised many with his 2003 State of the Union address
announcement of a multibillion-dollar plan to combat AIDS in Africa. A close
look at this proposal, however, shows his promise to be largely hollow. First,
Bush had support from his conservative base because his missionary allies strongly
favor the proposal, primarily for the chance to convert Africans to Christianity.
Second, the dollars allocated for this plan can’t be used to support AIDS programs
that include family planning, which are in the majority. There’s a good possibility
that some of Bush’s promised funding will go unspent or will be spent far less
efficiently than possible.
Wendy Benjaminson of the Houston Chronicle
bluntly summed up Bush’s unchanged views when describing the then-Governor’s
attitude to gays: “He has never been that sympathetic to gay issues. He is not
sympathetic on hate crimes, gay adoption, or gay marriage.”
Bush supposedly spoke, in a possible instant of pandering
to the hard right, against gays and lesbians in a 1999 media-barred speech before
members of the exclusive Council for National Policy (CNP). The CNP is a secretive,
hard-right policy group that was founded in part by Tim LaHaye who strongly
condemns the American Humanist Association and other progressive organizations.
The CNP’s former and current members include Attorney General John Ashcroft,
prominent creationist Henry Morris, and Christian eschatologist Dave Breese.
Just after the speech, the supposedly moderate Bush was proclaimed by high-ranking
conservatives nationwide as fit to be president. The media and the Democratic
National Committee demanded that tapes from the speech be released, but the
CNP refused. So did Bush, referring to the CNP’s rules against disclosure of
its private proceedings.
Ron Suskind wrote a revealing piece for Esquire
magazine about John DiIulio, original head of the White House Office of
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and a University of Pennsylvania academic
who still calls himself a Bush supporter. Suskind highlights an interesting
exchange between DiIulio and Karl Rove, the president’s no-holds-barred chief
adviser. When Rove asked DiIulio to take a more generous stance towards evangelical
Christians at a time when DiIulio was having problems with them, DiIulio indignantly
refused. He explained that Falwell and his co-conspirators were questionable
characters--to put it in gentler words than those actually used by DiIulio.
Rove brushed off DiIulio’s rejection (anyone with less star capital than DiIulio
would get a much firmer treatment for dissenting as he did, Suskind explains)
by saying that, in any event, evangelicals aren’t particularly important to
the president. DiIulio responded, “Sure Karl. They don’t matter, but they’re
in here [the White House] all the time.” Further, Suskind says that many conservatives
hold Rove responsible for preventing Bush from tilting to the center as his
father purportedly did; it seems that Bush will stay firmly on the right.
Needless to say, evangelicals are quite fond of Bush.
He is, after all, one of them. It is not necessarily the case that Republicans
excite the Religious Right--recall the 1996 Republican candidate, Bob Dole,
who was suspicious of the Religious Right and failed to inspire evangelical
enthusiasm. In late 2001 the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the most famous among American
fundamentalists, described Bush as a long-time and dear friend. In the same
breath, Falwell boasted that Bush was counting on him to mobilize support for
Bush’s legislative agenda and judicial appointees, and to stop liberals from
“destroying” the president. Falwell, sounding giddy, also described Bush’s effervescence
upon being informed by Falwell about his million-dollar public opinion campaign
named “Christian Call to Action.” Interestingly, the White House later denied
that Bush had such an exchange with Falwell.
Bush and Falwell have had exchanges before. In April
2001 Bush demanded that Israel remove its tanks from Palestinian areas of the
West Bank. Falwell--as many Christians who believe the creation of the Jewish
state is part of the unfolding of prophetic events described in the Bible--saw
this statement as anti-Israel and mobilized grassroots opposition to the pronouncement.
The White House was soon flooded with over 100,000 e-mails from irate evangelicals.
Even though Israel didn’t remove its tanks, Bush didn’t bother to ask again.
Falwell also infamously remarked that the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001, happened because of the divine wrath incurred
by “the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians
who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People
for the American Way, all of them who have
tried to secularize America.” Billionaire evangelist Reverend Pat Robertson
agreed with Falwell’s assertions in an interview on Robertson’s 700 Club
television program.
Pat Robertson
Robertson’s staunch support of Bush was a decisive
factor behind Bush’s South Carolina primary victory (a state where approximately
one-third of Republicans identify themselves as members of the Religious Right).
Robertson stated that the Christian Coalition would sit out the election if
John McCain were to emerge as the Republican presidential nominee. Although
a friend of Bush, Robertson’s intolerance is such that he took issue with Bush’s
political characterization of Islam as a “religion of peace.”
Another Bush ally, James C. Dobson, founder of Focus
on the Family and a highly influential evangelist and lobbyist, has described
a clash between traditional and evolving values in the United States, calling
it the “Civil War of Values.” In response to perceived pro-gay legislation,
he regularly rails against the “homosexualization” of public schools and opposes
the appointment of any homosexuals to federal posts.
Dobson also holds a deep enmity for the community
of reason. He sees his struggle against them as a war, writing, “Two sides with
vastly differing and incompatible worldviews are included in a bitter conflict
that permeates every level of society. Bloody battles are being fought on a
thousand fronts. Open any daily newspaper and you’ll find accounts of the latest
Gettysburg, Waterloo, or Stalingrad.” Dobson believes that Humanists are deeply
immoral and evil people. In describing the supposed moral rifts affecting U.S.
society, Dobson places the blame for America’s supposedly deteriorating moral
values on nonbelievers, saying, “Everything emanating from the Creator was jettisoned,
including reverence for Scripture or any of the transcendent, universal truths.”
In the mid-1990s a lesbian couple filed suit against
the government of Hawaii for having a law on its books prohibiting same-sex
marriage. The suit claimed the law was unconstitutional. In response to the
suit, a state court told Hawaii to make a compelling argument as to why gays
couldn’t marry. This touched off a firestorm across the country, and in 1996
unsympathetic members of Congress introduced the Defense of Marriage bill (DOMA).
Predictably, through his radio show, Dobson mobilized his listeners in support
of the bill. But Senator Ted Kennedy attached an amendment to the bill, the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would give gays federal protection
against discrimination in the workplace. ENDA would simply add sexual orientation
to the other classifications that can’t legally be discriminated against--such
as race. Incredibly, Dobson called on his supporters to demand that their senator
vote against DOMA if ENDA couldn’t be separated. Dobson’s drive to prevent gays
from having the same federal protections in the workplace as other minority
groups was such that he was willing to risk defeat of a marriage bill which
he staunchly supported until the amendment was added. Dobson’s view on the matter
is that “Homosexuals see the traditional family as a barrier to the social engineering
they hope to accomplish.” DOMA, however, passed without the ENDA add-on. However,
ENDA continues to be reintroduced as a separate bill every year.
Dobson, in tandem with the Reverend Donald Wildmon
of the American Family Association, also led a fight against Dial-A-Porn, which
they sought to criminalize because they feared it could reach children. The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) led the opposition to the measure and
eventually crafted a compromise to end the issue: Dial-A-Porn companies could
issue PIN numbers to their adult customers, much like banks do, and children
would thereby be unable to secure access. However, Dobson rejected the ACLU’s
compromise because he felt that it would be an implicit endorsement of pornography,
which he vehemently opposes, even if it meant that Dial-A-Porn would remain
legal.
Tonya Myles, whose Christian ministry is supported
in part by Louisiana’s Healing Place Church, is another acquaintance of Bush.
To tout his faith-based program, he mentioned in his 2003 State of the Union
address plans to give taxpayer dollars to Myles’ church. However, Myles’ religious
fundamentalism was omitted from the speech. She once testified before a committee
of the Louisiana state legislature on behalf of publicly funding a resolution
calling the theory of evolution “racist.” Healing Place Church would also be
a blow to church-state separation because its mission is to “assist those who
are struggling with addiction [to] become free through the Power of God.”
Marvin Olasky, editor of the evangelical periodical
World, is perhaps Bush’s best friend in the Religious Right and is the
brain behind “compassionate conservatism.” In fact, then-Governor Bush wrote
the foreword to Olasky’s book Compassionate Conservatism. In reference
to the separation of church and state, Olasky states, “One wall, however, would
stop compassionate conservatism in its tracks if it were part of the Constitution.
But it’s not.” In another publication, his journalism textbook Telling the
Truth: How to Revitalize Christian Journalism, Olasky explains his concept
of biblical objectivity. He writes, “Even though there is no explicit biblical
injunction to place children in Christian or home schools, the emphasis on providing
a godly education under parental supervision is clear. Biblical objectivity
means supporting the establishment and improvement of Bible-based education,
and criticizing government schools, in the understanding that turning education
over to ‘professionals’ who have no regard for God is an abdication of biblical
parental responsibility.” He further expounds, “Biblical objectivity means showing
the evil of homosexuality.”
Such are the president’s friends and advisors.
The international arena also shows the stamp of Bush’s
religion. Indeed, his administration has implemented its religiously driven
agenda on abortion even more willingly abroad because it won’t attract as much
media attention. Also, the voting public, which generally supports choice, will
therefore be much less cognizant of it. Right after taking office, Bush reinstated
the Reagan-era Mexico City policy, an effective gag rule on language since it
bans funding to foreign nonprofit groups that offer or advise abortion as a
family planning option. He has also given antiabortion groups like the Family
Research Council and the International Life League newfound influence at the
United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization, actually including them as
part of U.S. delegations to these organizations’ meetings on reproductive health
policy.
Then there was Bush’s decision to abruptly cancel thirty-four
million dollars in vital funding to the UN Population Fund. Moreover, he proceeded
with the cancellation in spite of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s opposition
and the angry but levelheaded objections of Peter Purdy, president of the U.S.
committee of the Population Fund. Purdy pleaded with Bush, saying that opponents
of the Fund were using “scurrilous lies” to defrock it. Purdy further pointed
out that although there were undoubtedly human rights abuses in China, an independent
commission visited the Chinese county that had allegedly been privy to rights
abuses under the Fund’s oversight and determined the charges had no merit. A
team of British parliamentarians who also visited the county arrived at the
same conclusion. Still the funds remained frozen.
In December 2002 the Bush administration’s delegation
to the UN’s population conference in Thailand made an attempt to stymie a measure
to endorse condom use. The administration’s representatives also objected to
phrases in an agreement (previously reached in 1994) that stated population
growth could best be brought under control by respecting women’s rights. The
phrases U.S. officials questioned were “reproductive health services” and “reproductive
rights.” One member of the U.S. delegation, John Klink, served in a separate
capacity as an adviser to the Vatican. European and Asian diplomats at the conference
said that the United States was virtually alone in its stand.
Fortunately, the U.S. government’s efforts failed.
But its opposition to such sensible endorsements was considered quaint and plainly
embarrassing. It appears that a fundamentalist Christian worldview informs the
aforementioned actions by the Bush administration. Particularly emphasized is
the belief that any form of contraception is counter to the plans of God for
humanity as articulated in the Book of Genesis, in which God instructed Noah
and his sons to populate the world after the Flood wiped out the rest of humanity.
As Rosemary Neill of the Australian newspaper
says:
“When it comes to family planning and abortion in the
developing world, the Bush regime is adopting the fundamentalism of the Islamic
terrorists it is pursuing: In restricting abortions for poverty-stricken women
living thousands of kilometers away, the former good-time boy can score brownie
points with moral conservatives at home who have backed him politically and
financially. In this light, he looks more like a cowardly than a compassionate
conservative.”
Indeed, the Bush administration’s extremist antiabortion
stand puts the United States in the same league with such religiously fundamentalist
countries as the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and even the Vatican.
Another way the Bush administration is working to endear
itself with the Religious Right is through its attacks on science. An example
of Bush’s fundamentalist contempt for science can be seen in its demotion of
the post of science advisor from a cabinet-level position. Rove, who some suggested
influenced the previous decision, also suggested a bill to ban all forms of
cloning. While Bush allowed funding for existing stem cell lines in 2001, access
to the lines has been limited, and he cancelled government funding for new lines.
Moreover, Bush has stated that he is hesitant to sign any related legislation
that doesn’t ban all forms of human cloning. This even includes prohibiting the extraction of stem cells
from an embryo for therapeutic medical research, because it destroys the embryo
and thus a potential human life, and is therefore immoral.
The Raelian cult created the necessary political climate
for such a bill when it fraudulently announced that it had cloned the world’s
first human. Some House conservatives seized the opportunity to publicly bolster
their religious credentials. They followed through on the administration’s idea
and introduced a bill that seeks to ban all human cloning. As the London Guardian
says, it is no surprise that anti-evolutionists have renewed their attacks
under such an auspicious climate. Indeed, Bush has said, despite all evidence
to the contrary, that he is still unsure of the validity of evolutionary theory.
Bush’s continual use of religiously charged language,
such as when he said in Nashville “We’re meeting those challenges because of
our faith,” heightens suspicions regarding his commitment to the separation
of religion and government and compounds concerns over his administration’s
policies. In fact, Howard Fineman of Newsweek magazine reports insiders
saying that the “atmosphere inside the White House is suffused with an aura
of prayerfulness.”
His unsettling propensity to cast complex policy issues
in stark contrasts of black and white ought to raise some alarm. Since the September
11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., Bush has frequently referred
to the “evildoers” who envy our incomparable freedom and abundance. He doesn’t
hesitate to discuss the military might of the impoverished members of the “axis
of evil” and how they are a constant threat to prevailing world peace (even
though he is the one acting on the threats). As Brian Flemming of the Halifax,
Nova Scotia Daily News puts it, to say, as Bush has, that “countries
will henceforth be judged by whether they are ‘for’ or ‘against’ America is
to adopt the extremist mindset of bin Laden’s fanatics.” In a chronicle of his
time in the White House, former Bush speechwriter David Frum writes that chief
speechwriter Michael Gerson--a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College in Illinois--edited
Frum’s original term “axis of hatred” to “axis of evil” because he wanted to
“use the theological language that Bush had made his own since September 11.”
Indeed, the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward says, “The President was casting
his mission and that of his country in the grand vision of God’s master plan.”
Evidence may not matter when religion is involved, and a red flag ought to be
raised if Bush truly believes that his presidential mission is divinely inspired.
His inaugural address, for starters, was laden with
religious overtones. The Reverend Billy Graham gave an invocation, which in
its lack of deference to the United States’ abundant religious diversity, went
so far as to pray “in the name of the Father, and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the Holy Spirit.” Also, Bush said that his faith in the power and guidance
of a higher being gave him unwavering confidence in the prospect of America
becoming a more just society. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention--the
same organization that launched a boycott of Disney products because of that
company’s pro-gay public relations policies--called Bush’s speech the “most
overtly religious” in recent U.S. history.
In January 2003 Bush gave a speech about his faith-based
initiatives in Tennessee. He said that the families of the astronauts who recently
died aboard the Columbia space shuttle were finding comfort because of “Almighty
God.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank calls the speech “strikingly
religious,” even for Bush, who long ago accustomed the country to such talk.
Bush’s extensive use of faith rhetoric and his expansive
connections to the Religious Right can’t credibly be dismissed as mere happenstance.
As a recent Newsweek article points out, his persistent post-September
11 labeling of world affairs as a fight between “good and evil” harks to the
titanic clashes between Satan and Jesus in the Bible. When he was governor of
Texas, he reportedly told a colleague that he believed God wanted him to run
for president. Indeed, not only do such statements illustrate his devotion to
his Christian beliefs but they also indicate that Bush is making presidential
decisions based on his interpretation of divine will. When taken in tandem with
his now-infamous characterization of the war on terrorism as a “crusade,” radical
Islamists have been able to frame the fight between the United States and Muslim
terrorists as a revival of the ancient struggle between Islam and Christendom.
As Deborah Caldwell of Beliefnet.com says:
“We are witnessing a shift in Bush’s theology--from talking
mostly about a Wesleyan theology of ‘personal transformation’ to describing
a Calvinist ‘divine plan’ laid out by a sovereign God for the country and himself.
This shift has the potential to affect Bush’s approach to terrorism, Iraq, and
his presidency.”
Many on the right have accused Democrats and liberals
of setting litmus tests for conservative federal appointees and being especially
hostile to very religious individuals. However, a survey of Bush’s political
appointees reveals a disquieting consistency. In this administration, there
is a troublingly high proportion of unyielding women and men who hold deep,
uncompromising Christian beliefs. An easier case can be made that Bush has set
a religious litmus test.
This is no trivial matter. Article VI of the U.S.
Constitution states:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the
Members of the several State Legislatures, and all the executive and judicial
Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound
by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test
shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under
the United States.”
From this standpoint, Bush may be in violation of
federal law.
The most concrete evidence of this breach came from
the lips of Bush himself. After the Ninth Circuit Court ruled against the inclusion
of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, Bush made himself quite
clear in his unconstitutional intentions: “I believe that it points up the fact
that we need common sense judges who understand that our rights are derived
from God. Those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench.”
The most visible of Bush’s appointments has been Attorney
General John Ashcroft, the senatorial incumbent from Missouri who was defeated
by an opponent who died during the 2000 election. Ashcroft was raised in a Pentecostal
family with a tradition for producing ministers, and his religious beliefs have
deeply influenced his professional life. Franklin Zimring, a former law school
classmate, said, “You’d learn a heck of a lot more about John Ashcroft researching
his church than you would turning [his alma mater] the University of Chicago
Law School upside down. What’s problematic about his career as attorney general
is not his technical legal training. It’s his values.”
In a memorable instance, Ashcroft asked his father
to anoint him with oil after he was nominated for attorney general. He holds
daily Bible studies and prayer sessions in his Washington, D.C., office before
the workday begins. His fundamentalist faith prohibits him from swearing, dancing,
and gambling. In fact, he once declined to buy a raffle ticket for a Rush Limbaugh
book at a conservative fundraising event because he felt it violated his denomination’s
prohibition on gambling. He holds an honorary degree from fundamentalist Bob
Jones University in South Carolina, the same college where Bush spoke, igniting
a controversy during the campaign trail by failing to condemn the university’s
bigoted policies.
Though Ashcroft clearly promotes his extreme interpretation
of a Christian lifestyle, as senator he opposed openly gay nominees, hypocritically
citing his problems with their lifestyle. For instance, he said that gay Clinton
nominee John Hormel couldn’t make a good diplomat because he had been a “leader
in promoting a lifestyle” and that would misrepresent the United States and
offend people he would work with in his capacity as ambassador. Moreover, after
Republican Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi uttered a homophobic remark in
1998, Ashcroft went on Face the Nation to set the record straight, saying
that:
“I believe that the Bible calls [homosexuality] a sin, and
so, that’s what defines sin for me. The sin question is a church question, a
religious question; the public policy question is should there be special rights
for homosexuals in our culture and in our society, and I don’t believe they
should be accorded special rights.”
Perhaps Ashcroft defines “special rights” as life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for even before he uttered those remarks
he is on the record as saying that schools shouldn’t be allowed to hire openly
homosexual people. After all, Bush’s original consideration for attorney general,
Montana governor Marc Racicot, was scrapped because he had come out in favor
of including homosexuals in Montana’s hate crime law.
One position that surely stems from Ashcroft’s faith
is his diehard opposition to abortion. A report that appeared in the January
8, 2001, issue of Salon magazine revealed the real reason behind then-Senator
Ashcroft’s vehement opposition to the nomination of Ronnie White to a federal
judgeship during the Clinton administration. It was Ashcroft’s fervent opposition
to abortion, rather than his stated reason that White was soft on crime. Salon
journalist Eric Boehlert explains that Ashcroft couldn’t publicly disclose
that White’s pro-choice position was behind his zealous opposition because of
the Senate’s unwritten rule that views on abortion not be used to block nominees.
Ashcroft based his soft-on-crime accusation on a single dissent in which White
criticized a death penalty verdict. In the time White served as a justice on
the Missouri Supreme Court, he voted in forty-one separate cases to affirm capital
punishment while voting just eighteen times to reverse it. Ken Warren, a political
scientist at St. Louis University, remarked at the time that members of both
parties couldn’t fathom why Ashcroft was opposing White’s nomination, calling
it “perplexing.”
The stand against White, who is an African American,
cost Ashcroft dearly. Many suspected that Ashcroft had racist leanings--he opposed
desegregation of St. Louis schools and once gave an interview with Southern
Partisan magazine where he commended the neo-Confederate periodical’s position
that the Confederacy was a noble cause. The White episode infuriated black voters.
Black turnout reached all-time highs at the voting booth, causing Ashcroft to
lose the 2000 Senate race by eighty-thousand votes.
Ashcroft continued his divinely inspired agenda as
attorney general. One of his more infamous actions was an effort to set aside
the normal conservative deference to state’s rights in an attempt to squash
Oregon’s common sense death-with-dignity law--a law that Oregon voters had twice
affirmed. Furthermore, the standards for qualifying for a physician-assisted
suicide in Oregon are very high; one of the requirements is that two separate
doctors confirm that the patient is terminally ill and mentally competent to
make the decision. Oregonians affirmed their support for this law in 1994 and
then in 1996 after the state legislature decided to challenge it--they again
approved it, this time by an overwhelming margin of sixty to forty percent.
In another oddity, the Justice Department announced
in June 2002 that it had completed a year-long investigation of a Louisiana
brothel, and twelve prostitutes had been arrested, which--as Slate journalist
Chris Suellentrop says--is ordinarily a local matter. It is difficult to imagine
that such unusual federal intrusions are motivated by anything other than extreme
religious views.
It’s impossible to analyze all of Bush’s hundreds
of appointees, but a look at those in one government body is revealing. Earlier
this year, the appointment of Jerry Thacker--who graduated from Bob Jones University--to
the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS (PACHA) drew tremendous criticism
from congressional Democrats and gays. Thacker had in previous years given speeches
at his alma mater in which he denounced the “sin of homosexuality.” He spoke
of his extreme concern that people might presume that his contraction of AIDS
stemmed from homosexual behavior, when he was, in fact, infected by his wife
who had been infected by the virus during a blood transfusion. A summary of
one of his speeches at Bob Jones University, which was posted on the school’s
website but subsequently removed after the controversy over the appointment
erupted, stated that Thacker and his wife “didn’t want anyone to think they
were homosexual because they knew what the Bible said about homosexuality.”
Thacker had also described AIDS as the “gay plague.” He has advocated “reparative”
therapy to “cure” homosexuals of their “aberrant” behavior, which he has also
called a “disease” and a “deathstyle.” The outrage that erupted after his views
became widely publicized forced Thacker to withdraw his name from consideration.
That an evangelical Christian who thinks homosexuals
aren’t only destined for hell but are the purveyors of a “plague” was appointed
to a presidential advisory board on AIDS policy was such an egregious incongruence
that the mainstream press couldn’t ignore it. Even though Thacker was exposed
by media coverage, how many more Bush appointees who share similar views go
about their work in important federal posts unnoticed? Although Thacker resigned
from the panel, Bush has stacked the advisory board with other evangelicals
who haven’t attracted as much media attention.
Former Oklahoma representative Tom Coburn is one such
appointee who now serves on PACHA. In 2000 then-Representative Coburn asked
for a report that would say condoms are unsafe. Although some of the report’s
authors contemplated delaying its release, they were bombarded by pressure from
conservative interest groups and instead released the report as soon as they
finished their research. When the report was released in 2001, it said there
was insufficient evidence to conclude condoms were completely effective in preventing
sexually transmitted diseases. Coburn, a proponent of abstinence until marriage,
jumped on the report’s statements, saying that the government had spent a fortune
on the “unsubstantiated claim that promiscuity can be safe. We all now know
for a fact that that is a lie.” Like Thacker, he also believes homosexuality
is immoral, has coercively advocated mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women,
and would like to require the disclosure of a child’s HIV status to prospective
adopters.
Another abstinence-only proponent who Bush appointed
to PACHA is Dr. Joe McIlhaney, director of the Medical Institute for Sexual
Health. The Institute admits “the data are quite clear that contraceptive techniques
can reduce, but not eliminate, the risk of pregnancy and some STDs.” However,
it goes on to unequivocally state its agenda. “The only 100 percent effective
way to avoid nonmarital pregnancy and STD infection is to avoid sexual activity
outside the mutually faithful lifelong relationship.” McIlhaney has also coauthored
a book with Dobson called The Myth of Safe Sex.
Other dubious appointments to PACHA include John
F. Galbraith of the Catholic Medical Mission Board—he opposes condom use—and
abstinence-only proponent Patricia Funderburk Ware who was appointed the council’s
executive director.
As Asia Russell of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
said, “It’s as if [Bush] declared [people with AIDS] public enemy No. 1, so
assiduous has he been in undermining the human rights of people with HIV.”
Bush has also appointed an evangelical Christian to
membership in the Food and Drug Administration’s Reproductive Drugs Health Advisory
Committee. W. David Hager is a part-time University of Kentucky professor. Needless
to say, there is tremendous potential for trouble when a person who doesn’t
accept the full scope of reproductive rights is appointed to a committee whose
primary concern is “reproductive health” and which endorsed RU-486. Hager co-edited
a book called The Reproductive Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality,
Reproductive Technologies, and the Family and co-authored books, which are
now out of print, including As Jesus Cared for Women. As a practicing
physician, he has literally prescribed prayer and readings from the Bible to
combat ailments like premenstrual syndrome and headaches. Even more shocking
is that in his private practice Hager refuses to allow single women to use contraceptives,
being an ardent supporter of abstinence-only educational programs. Karen Tumulty
of Time magazine has described him as a “scantily credentialed doctor.”
She reveals that a federal official with personal ties to the Bush family was
responsible for Hager’s appointment, which occurred at the expense of a former
medical school dean and a departmental director at the world-class Massachusetts
General Hospital.
Such an appointment as Hager is not surprising, considering
the Bush administration’s religious opposition to reproductive health and its
inflexibility on appointing qualified candidates with different religious perspectives.
Remember, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was pressured to remove the
findings of a study from its website that contradicts the fundamentalist myth
that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. Further, the NIH and Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention have also removed fact sheets on condoms
and a sex education curriculum called “Programs that Work” from their websites,
replacing them with information on condom failure rates.
When Powell suggested a career civil servant be appointed
director of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration,
Bush instead chose John Klink, an individual who has represented the Vatican
and was an adviser to the Holy See before being suggested for the new post.
Intense criticism from refugee advocates, however, forced Klink to withdraw
from nomination. In asking Klink, Bush suggested an individual, who was virtually
unknown in political circles and represented the temporal kingdom of Roman Catholicism,
over one of his own officials who was sufficiently qualified and loyal enough
to gain a post in the administration.
This slight reportedly infuriated Powell and for good
reason. Not only did he take issue with Klink’s fiercely antiabortion credentials,
but Powell was also forced to give his pick for the Bureau director a lower-ranking
position, that of “acting” assistant secretary of state. Kathleen Newland, codirector
of the Migration Policy Institute, stated at the time that having to act in
such a capacity undermined the authority of Powell’s former nominee for director,
Alan Kreczko. Powell’s nomination for the position of director in place of Kreczko
was Arthur Eugene Dewey--now the assistant secretary of state for Population,
Refugees, and Migration--who was described by friends as being a devout evangelical
and having “strong faith-based roots.”
Priscilla Owen is the nominee to the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals. She is perhaps the one Bush judicial nominee who has attracted
the most scrutiny after Miguel Estrada.
What bothers her detractors is her willingness to apply
her personal diehard antiabortion opinion to her legal rulings. In a criticism
that has since become infamous, current White House counsel and then-Texas Supreme
Court justice Al Gonzalez denounced the legal position of his fellow justice
Owen in an abortion case as “an unconscionable act of judicial activism.”
Gonzalez’s criticism stemmed from a law the Texas
legislature passed in 1999. The law said that pregnant teens under the age of
eighteen who needed an abortion but couldn’t tell their parents would have to
appear before a court of law to gain permission, which is known as a “judicial
bypass.” To gain a judicial bypass, a young woman had to show that she was “sufficiently
well-informed” to make the decision to abort her fetus and that she had a palpable
claim of fearing retaliation from her parents. In one instance, the local court
denied the request, and the girl appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Owen
wrote that the girl hadn’t been told enough about alternatives to abortion--this
line rings familiar. Gonzalez reprimanded Owen, saying that the Texas legislature
had never intended for the judicial bypass to be as difficult to obtain as Owen
was trying to make it. She acted similarly in the next nine judicial bypass
cases that appeared before the Texas Supreme Court, prompting Kae McLaughlin,
executive director of the Texas Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League,
to say, “She would make it almost impossible to meet the statutory requirements
for a judicial bypass.”
Owen's extremism isn’t limited to just anti-abortion
rulings. She has numerous credentials in this department. Perhaps the most shocking
of her rulings came on behalf of the Enron Corporation, one of the biggest contributors
to her election campaign to the Texas Supreme Court. In one particular instance,
Enron beseeched the Court to overturn a previous unfavorable ruling in a tax
case. Owen ended up personally writing the new majority opinion that saved
Enron from having to pay property taxes.
The former solicitor general of Colorado, Timothy Tymkovich,
is a new judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals (appointments to appellate
courts are for life). He argued and personally endorsed the state of Colorado’s
suit to pass Amendment Two, which declared that laws couldn’t keep municipalities
and local businesses from discriminating against gays and lesbians. The amendment
was later struck down by an appeals court. In Romer v. Evans,
the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s rulings. The majority argued
that the amendment violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, Tymkovich wrote a scathing article
in the University of Colorado Law Review, indicating that his feelings
on Amendment Two went far beyond his capacity as Colorado’s solicitor general.
He compared homosexuality to a host of other “aberrant” behaviors, writing:
“Our society prohibits, and all human societies have
prohibited, certain activities not because they harm others but because they
are considered, in the traditional phrase, ‘contra bonos mores,’ i.e., immoral.
In American society, such prohibitions have included, for example, sadomasochism,
cockfighting, bestiality, suicide, drug use, prostitution, and sodomy.”
He also coauthored an editorial piece with yet another
religiously conservative Bush appointee, the Secretary of Interior Gale Norton
who has publicly extolled the Confederacy. They wrote in the Wall Street
Journal, “Advocates of gay rights laws want to wield government power to
impose laws that prevent individuals, businesses, property owners, and even
religious institutions in some instances, from making their own decisions about
homosexuality.” The National Organization for Women adds that Tymkovich has
testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and argued that states
that receive Medicaid funding shouldn’t have to pay for abortion services even
in the case of rape and incest, as federal law currently requires.
Bush nominated Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn
Kuhl to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals--the same court that deemed the
inclusion of the “under God” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.
She was recently confirmed. As noted earlier, Bush said, “I believe that it
points to the fact that we need common sense judges who understand that our
rights are derived from God. Those are the kind of judges that I intend to put
on the bench.” The president is clearly taking advantage of the opportunity
that arose when the Republicans won a majority in the Senate after the 2002
mid-term elections. While a friendly Senate is in place, Bush is seizing the
opportunity to follow through with the aforementioned promise by nominating
Kuhl to the Ninth Circuit.
And it appears that Kuhl has the religious
qualifications Bush seeks. One particularly grievous qualification was earned
when she was a Justice Department lawyer during the Reagan administration; she
supported restoring the tax-exempt status of fundamentalist Bob Jones University
at a time when it still banned interracial dating. Further, she has also been
a signatory to legal briefs calling for the annulment of the Roe v.
Wade decision.
A Brigham Young University graduate, Jay Bybee also
apparently adheres to the well-worn Christian belief that homosexuality is sinful.
He is the newly confirmed judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and previously
served as assistant attorney general--the direct subordinate to Ashcroft.
Like Tymkovich, Bybee has come out against
the Supreme Court’s ruling in Romer v. Evans. In 1997 he wrote
a law review article which argued that gay civil rights laws amounted to inappropriate
“favorable treatment based on sexual orientation.” He wrote that antigay prejudice
is the equivalent of the type of discrimination that tall, short, bald, and
fat people receive. Further, he represented the Defense Department in a suit
filed by gay and lesbian contractors who alleged that the Defense Department
was subjecting them to more scrutiny than normal; Bybee claimed that “homosexuals
may be emotionally unstable” as one rationale for the department’s policy.
Like Kuhl, he has opposed the Internal
Revenue Service’s revocation of Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status. Equally
troubling is his declared belief that State lawmakers and not the voting public
should elect U.S. senators.
Charles Pickering was raised in a stronghold of biblical
fundamentalism in Laurel, Mississippi, which is said to have strongly resisted
the secularization that has grown in various parts of the Bible Belt. During
his stint as president of the Southern Baptists, he was allied with the “inerrantists,”
a fundamentalist movement that interprets the Bible literally and holds that
its stories are historically accurate--for example, the Flood isn’t a parable
but an actual historical occurrence. What a person chooses to believe isn’t
the business of the government; nonetheless, it is difficult to state with certainty
that Pickering’s traditionalist religion won’t color his judicial decisions,
and it’s easy to assume it would if an abortion or creationist case comes before
a federal court on which he sits.
Pickering worries about infringement on states’ rights--especially
the “intrusion” he felt he encountered from the judicial branch when abortion
became legal after the Roe v. Wade ruling. Bush nominated Pickering
to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which will likely be hearing cases on
whether abortion should be more difficult to obtain in the coming year. Women’s
rights groups across the United States are skeptical that he will be able to
faithfully uphold judicial precedent.
Indeed, there is already evidence that in his rulings
Pickering has injected his worldview over legal precedent. He opined that one
of three men convicted of cross burning should get a lighter sentence because
a harsher one might have upset the precarious racial balance in the community.
As Wade Henderson of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights said in the Memphis
Commercial Appeal, he demonstrated the reasoning of “someone whose views,
while not in any way deeply hostile from a racial perspective, nonetheless can
skew and affect the outcome and thereby diminish the quality and effectiveness
of the justice he dispenses.”
Pickering’s career has been marked by more than the
occasional questionable action (although some critics’ charges of racism have
been a bit outlandish). For instance, he has asked lawyers who have appeared
before him in court to write letters of recommendation for his nomination, considered
an ethical lapse in legal circles. In the aforementioned cross burning case,
Pickering lobbied the Justice Department to ameliorate one of the man’s sentences—considered
a serious ethical breach on his part. As the St. Petersburg Times’ editors
say, “He has inappropriately used his written opinions to ruminate on controversial
issues--in some cases questioning the value of civil rights laws.”
Finally, the question of his credentials for the court
has also been raised. Critics and even some sympathetic to him have said that
he has led a largely undistinguished career. Perhaps Bush sees his commitment
to faith to be an attribute that outweighs any of these concerns.
Kay Coles James is a very conservative Republican and
the current director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. However, what
may be more important to Bush is her deep religious faith.
Her conservatism on social issues--she has given talks
as part of a Christian speakers’ bureau--has led her to leadership positions
in such organizations as the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council.
These organizations have been among the most outspoken supporters of unconstitutional
school prayer. Before accepting the nomination from Bush, James was the dean
of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University in Virginia, whose
chancellor is televangelist Pat Robertson. Jon Glass of the Virginian-Pilot
says her strident opposition to abortion has “gained a national reputation in
Republican Party circles.”
Like James, Daniel Lapin is deeply religious. However,
Lapin is a Jewish rabbi and was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation
of America’s Heritage Abroad. He is also the president and cofounder of Toward
Tradition and a member of the Alliance for Marriage board of advisors. The Alliance
for Marriage promotes a federal marriage amendment that would define marriage
as a union exclusively between a man and a woman. Rabbi Lapin clearly states
his view on homosexuality in his book America’s Real War: “For over three
thousand years Jewish tradition and Jewish law have been unambiguous about homosexuality:
it is a sin.”
Like many Bush appointees, Lapin hasn’t limited himself
to condemning gays and lesbians. Nonbelievers and Muslims have also experienced
the ire of Lapin’s inflammatory language. He has said, “I intend making my priority
rolling back the epidemic of secularism that was unleashed on this country.”
Lapin goes so far as to put the onus of the September 11, 2001, attacks on U.S.
secularists in a January 2001 advertisement that Toward Tradition placed in
the New York Times. Lapin and Toward Tradition express their view on
Arabs in a pamphlet:
“Biblical tradition has very specific things to say
about the role of the Arab people in world history. They are represented symbolically
by the Biblical personality of Ishmael. . . . The book of Genesis speaks of
Ishmael as a force for globe-spanning aggression and chaos: ‘He shall be a wild-ass
of a man: his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him.’
Finally, Lapin has said that the word tolerance
has been misused by liberals, seemingly reveling in his critics’ accusations
of his intolerance. He once called such critics “moral cowards,” and said that
Toward Tradition is unabashedly intolerant--it derives its worldview from Scripture,
which, as Lapin said, is quite intolerant in its sharp demarcations between
right and wrong, good and evil.
Fundamentalist Christians were overjoyed
with the election of a fellow believer to the presidency. Apparently their joy
was justified, as Bush has largely confirmed their hopes during his short time
in office. Yet the presence of an overtly religious man, who sometimes puts
faith over law from the Oval Office, raises serious questions. No one is suggesting
that religious men or women can’t hold office--most of the nation’s presidents
have been people of faith tempered by reason within the secular sphere of government.
What is being suggested is that the U.S. presidency hasn’t before been occupied
by a person whose faith holds as much professional meaning as does Bush’s, and
this can have grave consequences. Although anyone can speculate as to the president’s
heartfelt motives when he appoints and hosts religious right figures like Thacker
and Dobson, one thing is certain: the perception of impropriety is beginning
to become apparent.
Bush and his friends, advisers, and appointees
hold extreme notions of right and wrong, particularly in their view of gays
and lesbians, women’s rights, and their view of life itself. The implications
of increased religious activism in government shouldn’t, therefore, be taken
lightly.
History’s lessons are quickly forgotten.
When Thomas Jefferson argued that the Constitution had in effect erected a wall
of separation between church and state, he was drawing on his extensive learning,
which told him that religious zealots wielding political authority caused harm
to humanity. The brand of religion that Bush’s appointments and advisers have
displayed harks back to an intolerance of other viewpoints and a belief in the
near infallibility of one’s own worldview. In addition, turning to religious
advisors to inform secular policy is reminiscent of ancient kingdoms where the
chief priest set policy and rulers imbued with divine rights.
The pervasive use of speech laden with
religious allusions and metaphors highlights the importance supernatural faith
holds in Bush’s life. The problem begins when Bush appears to literally believe
the biblically inspired things he says; his speech has exceeded simple political
rhetoric and seems to be inching toward theological instruction. As the Columbia
University academic Randall Balmer said, Bush’s faith is deeply rooted in the
authoritarian black-and-white rules of the Old Testament. Thus, when presidential
pronouncements implying that “God is on our side” are taken in concert with
Bush’s stark view of right and wrong, one wonders if the president may be trying
to cast himself as (or believes himself to be) one of the glorious few on earth
doing the bidding of the Almighty--namely, combating “evil.”
Bush showed the country his boldness with his selection
of a religious political extremist as attorney general of the United States--the
appointee who is in charge of enforcing the very laws he personally opposes.
Incredible as his selection of Ashcroft was, it seems that Bush is working much
harder to stack less noticeable federal positions with women and men who view
the world through the prism of religious fundamentalism.
This should trouble not only Humanists
and nonreligious people. There are indications that Bush is in violation of
Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which clearly states that an individual’s
religious belief--or perhaps in Bush’s case, the depth of his devotion--can
never be used as a criterion for federal office. Indeed, this is cause for alarm
for any American who values the Constitution. It was never
intended as a temporary document. We can’t let it be violated because some people
feel they are doing God’s work.
The problem with those who
believe they are doing God’s work is that it is, as human history has repeatedly
demonstrated, open to interpretation. People drunk on the notion that they have
divine sanction tend to do rash things; the crusaders thought they were taking
on “infidels,” and the Nazis arrived at the same conclusion about Jews, gays,
and others. Suffice it to say that dogmatic faith has a proven pitfall. Unfortunately,
Bush seems to think he possesses such a divine right. He has shown this through
his language, his appointments, and his foreign policy.
We all have cause to be concerned
for the future of our nation and of the time-tested wall of separation between
religion and government that is so essential to religious liberty. With the
wall at risk, so are our rights and liberties. The first step in tempering that
risk is letting more people know that it exists.
Works
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