TAC: Heather Mac Donald

The Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald believes that the conservative movement is alienating people like here: atheist or agnostic conservatives who are conservative not in spite of their skepticism, but because of it. She says that the conservative movement "is crippling itself by leaning too heavily on religion to the exclusion of these temperamentally compatible allies."

The presumption of religious belief -- not to mention the contradictory thinking that so often accompanies it -- does damage to conservatism by resting its claims on revealed truth. But on such truth there can be no agreement without faith. And a lot of us do not have such faith -- nor do we need it to be conservative. ... Skeptical conservatives do not look into the abyss when they make ethical choices. Their moral sense is as secure as a believer's. They do not need God or the Christian Bible to discover the golden rule and see themselves in others.

...So maybe religious conservatives should stop assuming that they alone occupy the field. Maybe they should cut back a bit on their rleigious triumphalism. Nonbelievers are good conservatives, too. As Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has advised, it should be possible for conservatives to unite on policy without agreeing on theology.