Conservative Hypocrisy in the U.S. Senate
As Andrew Sullivan departs the blogosphere (temporarily) to write books, he leaves us with an excellent observation.
Here’s an interesting question, posed by my friend Jon Rauch. The Senate Republicans have vowed to push their anti-gay marriage amendment, even though it won’t stand a chance of getting the necessary 67 votes. The point is political and rhetorical. They are trying to build momentum, raise money, and keep the cause of banning same-sex unions alive. So why not push an anti-abortion amendment instead? They have one such amendment on hand. Both proposed amendments are allegedly against judicial meddling. Both will fail. But one deals with a much graver issue, by the religious right’s reckoning - an immense loss of human life, rather than the grave evil of two human beings committing to one another for life. So why this priority? Surely, abortion is a more important matter than same-sex marriage - even for the religious right. Or is it?
It’s easier to bash gays in red state communities than it is to take away abortion from Christian parents who may want to use it (quietly) to save the “future”, i.e. college educated successful careers, for their frisky sons and daughters.
And what about the Balanced Budget Amendment?
I wish I could contradict your point about the kids of Christians. I’m on the board of a crisis pregnancy center. We see too many Christian kids who are looking for abortions. Very sad. Good moral behavior starts at home.
I wish the Republicans would take Sullivan up on his challenge. They won’t, of course. Having said that, he makes a logical error here. Pointing out that the Republicans have not offered an anti-abortion amendment is not an argument against a gay marriage amendment any more than arguing that, since we are not invading to aid the people who are suffering in Darfur, then we should not invade Iraq to help the suffering there. Just because one problem is not addressed does not mean that someone should not address another problem.
One can argue that the Republican Party has had it within its reach to put an anti-abortion amendment before the states for much of the past twenty-four years. As a pro-life Republican, I wish that those GOPers in Congress and at the White House would do just that. But they haven’t and I doubt that they ever will.
Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it Republicans who gave us Abortion on Demand ukase?
The answer is probably that these amendments, if they fail, would not benefit their opponents equally. People who would oppose the pro-life amendment are probably in a better position to use it to raise money and momentum for their own movement than people who oppose the anti-gay marriage amendment are to use the anti-gay marriage amendment in that way. One reason for this is that opponents of the anti-gay marriage amendment do not have as much to lose — gay marriages are not recognized in most of the country, anyway, so how big of a difference would it make that someone proposed an amendment that, for the most part, would just keep things that way (especially if everyone knew that it would not pass)? Opponents of the pro-life amendment, on the other hand, already have most of what they want, and would be able to use the amendment to energize their own side, even if it did not pass, because they would be activated by the sense that they have something to lose.
This is just my impression, but I think that if an amendment is proposed, and everyone knows it cannot be passed, the side that believes that it has the most to lose is the one that will gain the most from it, politically, unless the general public strongly supports the amendment.
Mark (#2), how would you make that argument? In the Senate, they couldn’t even override Clinton’s veto of the partial birth abortion bill, as many times as they tried, even with the support of some members who were not pro-life. Getting the 2/3 needed in both houses for an amendment to ban all abortion, or even just to leave the decision up to individual states, would have been even more difficult.
“to take away abortion from Christian parents who may want to use it (quietly) … for their frisky sons and daughters”
I disagree strongly with this statement. Although there are hypocrites on virtually every political issue, the number of pro-life parents who would actually encourage their child to have an abortion is far too small to have any policy implications. (If you took the word “Christian” out of that sentence, however, I would probably agree with it.)
Now, why push the FMA but not the right-to-life amendment? The answer is that (as I argued in this post on J.C.) an amendment is necessary to keep courts from overruling existing state laws and mandating gay marriage. And since the constitutional amendment process takes a long time, it would be a strategical mistake to wait until something like the striking down of DOMA occurs.
To make a slightly different but complementary point, we’ve been arguing over abortion for more than 30 years, but the gay marriage issue is very much current and moving rapidly.
“But one deals with a much graver issue, by the religious right’s reckoning - an immense loss of human life, rather than the grave evil of two human beings committing to one another for life.”
With this statement, Sully proves, again, that he can’t see beyond this issue. Yes, to the folks he calls “the religious right” - ie. Christians - abortion is a grave issue. But so is homosexual *marriage*. In this statement, he’s mixing his metaphors, so to speak; he’s set up a fallacy, as pointed out above by another poster. Christians - or to use his language, the religious right - Sully should know, consider homosexual acts to be against the natural law. From where, or more accurately - from Whom, is natural law derived? In the Christian’s eye, that would be God, as set forth in His Word & commandments. In light of this, Sully’s point that abortion is a graver evil than homosexuality because abortion causes the death of human lives while homosexual *marriage* is all about “2 human beings committing to one another for life” is simply untenable. It seems to speak to Sully’s inability to see that side of Christianity because of his homosexuality. For the Christian, they are both grave evils. Yes, perhaps abortion should take precedent due to the loss of life. But, based on the mandate of the last election in which homosexual *marriage* was voted down commandingly in every state but one of the 11 that had it on the ballot - & even there it lost handily - this issue seems quite imporant to the electorate at large, not just Christians. Just because the election is over does not mean the average American has changed their view on this issue; the momentum is still there, whether Sully likes it or not.
But Sully knows this. Long-time readers of his blog will remember that it’s the homosexual *marriage* issue that, in part, caused a crisis of faith in him in the last year or so. His continued rationalization of his sexuality tends to lead to a lack of rational thought in his arguements on this subject. It’s inconsistent, yes, but I’d not go so far as calling it hypocrisy, as PTB stretches to in regards to Christians. That’s a untenable as Sully’s point.
Frighteningly, I think I’d say I’m in almost total agreement with Karl here.
Building on his statement, I’d like to add that one of the worries from people on the pro-choice side of the aisle is that while most polls show Americans are still in favor of keeping some form of abortion legal, the memories of what drove the movement to legalize it in the first place have disappeared. You just don’t have that many people these days for whom a coat hanger actually has the same meaning; people have come to accept it as a normal option.
If that amendment were to be pushed, it would risk reawakening some of that spirit. Instead of trying to remind people about a distant memory, the pro-choice crowd would be able to point to a modern threat to that right. It would be quite a rallying cry, and would probably do a lot more damage.
I do have 2 questions I’d like to pose to Eric in response to his comment:
1.) Eric, you say you disagree strongly with the statement that a significant number of Christian Parents have advised their children to have abortions. Can you offer up a statistic to back this up, or is this just your personal opinion?
2.) You say that the FMA is required to prevent courts from being able to overrule existing state laws on marriage equality. How is that different from what Roe v. Wade did?
Amen, Eric.
Balta, where’s the proof to show what PTB posted is accurate? Frankly, I think it’s incumbent upon him to factually &/or statistically support his statement, since he’s the one specfying that it’s Christians who’re doing this.
And how, as PTB intimates, is the electorate using their vote in favor of the definition of marriage being between one man & one woman, “gay bashing?” He’s equating the voting process to so-called hate crimes! How is that supportable?
Moochie, you’re correct, it should be incumbent upon PTB to provide some sort of source for that - his is entirely anecdotal as well. I believe that the actual text left my mind as I scrolled through the comment thread.
Consider that a challenge to anyone who falls on any side of this post; can anyone provide any evidence, other than anecdotal “My church crowd would never do this” type evidence, which actually can say whether or not the motivation PTB cites is actually important?
Balta,
1) I plead guilty to slightly conflating “Christian” with “pro-life.” If you use a definition whereby 80% of Americans are Christian then, yes, many Christian parents advise their children to have abortions. However, I was understanding “Christian” as PTB used it to be roughly synonymous with “religious right.”
And to answer your question directly–no, I don’t have the statistics, but PTB offered no statistics either. But hasn’t the pro-choice argument against parental notification laws been predicated on the idea that conservative parents’ opposition to abortion would force their children into dangerous situations?
2) The key phrase in your question is “what Roe v. Wade did.” It’s done, and the fact that abortion has been legalized for years makes it more difficult to pass an amendment to reverse that decision. The same goes for gay marriage, but moreso because in the intervening period between court-ordered gay marriage and the time that an FMA could be passed, you’d have scores of gay couples being married, which would very much complicate efforts to “de-legalize” gay marraige.
Finally, your coat hanger reference is an old, tired canard. Illegal abortions before Roe were not done in back alleys, they were done by physicians. Bernard Nathanson (founder of NARAL, I believe) has admitted to making up illegal abortion death numbers out of whole coth.
Along the lines of the “save the future” comment… There are many reputable Christian colleges where, if a girl becomes pregnant due to rape, she will be asked not to return to college so as to “avoid the appearance of evil”. All of these schools are pro-life and would be horrified to hear someone say that their policies supported abortion… But seriously, in the case above, it’s not the girl’s fault & she’s doing the right thing by carrying the baby to term. For a girl who has been severely wronged and who is already making a significant sacrifice to do the *right* thing, this sends a very confusing message… How much easier it would be to just quietly have an abortion!
“How much easier it would be to just quietly have an abortion!”
Sure, let’s right the wrong done by the college with another wrong of killing a baby! Yes, this is a narrow-minded view for the college to take, not to mention un-Christian! Now, this is a hypothetical situation; but, frankly, it wouldn’t surprise that it happens. Why? Becuase Christians are sinners &, speaking for myself, quite often do the wrong thing. Even St Paul mentions in one of his letters that he found himself doing the very things he didn’t want to do (sins) & not doing the good things he did want to do. See? Happens to the best of them. Honestly, if there truely are such schools in this day who practice such shunning, & Mayflower’s post offers no proof, they should be ashamed that they are potentially contributing to the sin of a young woman in that situation who chooses to have an abortion. But the mere fact that such practices perhaps occur lends no support to the pro-choice side of the issue.
Senate Priorities and Abortion
WHY NOT AN ANTI-ABORTION AMENDMENT? Here’s an interesting question, posed by my friend Jon Rauch. The Senate Republicans have vowed to push their anti-gay marriage amendment, even though it won’t stand a chance of getting the necessary 67 votes. The po…
Senate Priorities and Abortion
WHY NOT AN ANTI-ABORTION AMENDMENT? Here’s an interesting question, posed by my friend Jon Rauch. The Senate Republicans have vowed to push their anti-gay marriage amendment, even though it won’t stand a chance of getting the necessary 67 votes. The po…
An anti-abortion amendment would be dead from the start because it would violate Roe v. Wade, and everyone would know it, so it would be a joke. An anti-gay-marriage amendment would have no such limitation. Although both would likely fail, they would fail for different reasons.
An anti-abortion amendment would be dead from the start because it would violate Roe v. Wade, and everyone would know it, so it would be a joke.
Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure that even an activist Supreme Court can’t rule part of the Constitution unconstitutional…
No, an amendment wouldn’t violate Roe v. Wade, as the amendment would effectively override the Roe decision. There would only be a problem if that amendment conflicted with another part of the Constitution in ways that couldn’t be reconciled. And there wouldn’t be such a conflict, in my opinion.
Is abortion in fact a priority for Senate Republicans?
In the Agora mentions a post from Andrew Sullivan on the issue of gay marriage versus abortion in terms of the Republicans’ priorities. What is most interesting to me is how Sullivan points out how the Republicans have two constitutional…
Speaking of bad jokes, has anyone ever read Roe v. Wade?
I think there is a lot more productive things that the republicans could do for social conservatives if they were more demanding of results.
I write about this at my own blog, the Anti-Manicheist.
Moochie says ‘And how, as PTB intimates, is the electorate using their vote in favor of the definition of marriage being between one man & one woman, “gay bashing”?’
But that’s not what they’re doing. Virtually all of the anti-gay marriage proposals don’t leave it there. They also try to outlaw anything that would give gays the legal antecedents of civil marriage or “civil unions”. Some of them could even be read as to be going so far as to ban a gay giving power of attorney to their partner.
The truth is that conservative Christians are no better than any racist, even if the bigot nowadays is black or Hispanic. As long as the queers don’t get too uppity they can be tolerated, maybe. But if they try to get above themselves they have to be put in their place.
Jim,
I’ve certainly had my tangles with some elements of conservative Christianity, but I think your broad indictment is untrue.
Without a doubt, much of the conservative Christian community went bezerk during the initial years of the AIDS crisis. And there are those today who continue to speak in hateful language. I have stated my own opinion several times that I approve of otherwise qualified gay and lesbian clergy. However, I think there is a legitimate difference of opinion as to whether or not homosexual relations are morally acceptable.
For myself, I think the revelation of God is first and foremost in Jesus Christ. Scripture is primarily, but not exclusively, how we come to know that revelation. I believe that the highest Christian ideals are love and community, and on the issue of homosexuality, I think conservative Christianity offers unworkable answers to those ideals.
Joel, it’s not that they use hateful language. Not all of them do. They just do hateful things. They twist the facts and the language. They call the rights that gays want “special rights” instead of civil rights. They insist that in spite of the honest testimony of gays and the studies that tend to agree with them that there is no biological determinism involved, only a choice to be sinful. And none of that affects my point that every Christian picks and chooses from the Bible.
“Joel, it’s not that they use hateful language. Not all of them do. They just do hateful things.”
As do homosexuals, Jim. One could say that about folks on both sides. Homosexual activists have been “hateful” toward Christians, in their use of language & actions, for years. A Catholic church in Brazil was tagged with anti-Christian slogans by homosexual participants of a “gay pride” march; homosexual activists from Act Up desecrate the Eucharist in St Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC; homosexuals dress as priests & bare-breasted nuns & perform (barely) simulated sex acts on floats in various gay pride parades for the entertainment of their fellow homosexuals. This is the way to get respect? To make a socio-political statement? To gain pride? Isn’t it safe to say, Jim, that there have been hateful attitudes on both sides? I find that very unfortunate, putting it mildly. In fact, it angers me to no end when folks like James Dobson do things like “out” SpongeBob. I find such rhetoric ludicrous. Ludicrous & devisive. Not to mention non-productive. But, as a Christian, I can not imagine how a member of Act Up would honestly believe he or she is making a point - social, political, or otherwise - by desecrating the sacrament Catholics consider the holiest of their faith. I’d rather they spit in my face.
For the record . . . I don’t see activist homosexuals dressing up as an imam or Mohammed & performing simulated sex acts on gay pride floats. And Muslims tend to be far more anti the homosexual lifestyle than most Christians. Please, there’d be fatwas all over the place.
Some gay activists are hateful; not most that I have encountered.
You make my point, Joel. The same can be said of Christians. And not all Muslims want to turn airliners into bombs. There are other examples. But the mistake comes when the rest of us neglect to denounce the unacceptable behavior of the few. That’s when we get generalized statements re: Christians picking & choosing aspects of their faith.
Moochie -
I certainly was not saying that having an abortion is the right choice for the young woman to make, but rather that the college’s position would have discouraged her from making the right choice. No, the college would not have been responsible if she murdered her baby. But their actions were certainly not supportive of her carrying the baby to term, either.
How much better for the college to say, We support what you’re doing & we’ll stand behind you in this. We have counselling services available to you, free of charge, if you need to work through the emotional issues surrounding the rape. We understand you’ll need to take some time off mid-semester & we’ll ask our profs to tape lectures & arrange tutoring sessions to help you catch up. We will do whatever we can to assist you at this time (perhaps free use of the school clinic, asking the counselling dept to assist with contacting adoption agencies, etc). They could even make the option available for faculty & students to make monetary donations to help the student in this time of need. Now *that* would truly be a pro-life reaction!!!
Obviously schools do not put this in their admission packets - BTW, better hope your kid doesn’t get raped here, ’cause if she does we’ll kick her out! But I know of at least one school that did indeed do this - quietly, of course, which was helped by the fact that the young woman was embarrassed enough by the whole thing already. They asked her to leave quietly, and she did.
What I’m suggesting is that all of us take a good, hard look at our policies & evaluate how they encourage young women - towards abortion, or towards life. My Dad, for instance, always made a big deal that if I got pregnant he was kicking me out. Well, I waited for marriage so it was never an issue - but I wonder if he ever considered that, had my boyfriend & I committed fornication, it might have occurred to me that if I had an abortion he’d never know, and the cash would keep on flowing? Obviously I would still have been responsible to God for my sin, not my father… But if we claim to be pro-life, we should take a hard look at how what we’re doing influences the young women around us.
I do agree with you, Mayflower & I realized that you were speaking from the college’s POV in the statement I quoted. I didn’t mean to malign your point but to show how such an attitude & others like it are detremental to the pro-life case. At best, it’s inconsistent; at worst, it’s hypocritical. Christ’s ministry was directed primarily toward sinners, we as His followers should imitate Him. That’s why I brough up St Paul in my comment on your post.