According to Marc Ambinder, Huckabee's the victim in Michigan of an e-mail campaign to portray him as an anti-Catholic bigot. It's a foul piece of work. It tries to damn Huckabee, a Baptist pastor, by his association with Protestants who take a dim view (and worse) of Catholicism. It tries to make opposing Catholicism the equivalent of Holocaust denial. It trashes Huckabee for "play[ing] up anti-Mormon sentiment" in posing a question to a NYT reporter about Mormon doctrine saying Lucifer and Jesus were brothers, even though that doctrine happens to be true.
Look, if Huckabee is to be damned by Catholics for speaking at John Hagee's church, then Mitt Romney is to be damned for welcoming the endorsement of anti-Catholic fundamentalist Bob Jones III. And I certainly hope no Catholic who would withhold his vote from Huckabee voted for George W. Bush, who spoke at the fundy Bob Jones University, whose eponymous founder called the Roman Catholic Church "a satanic cult."
Back when candidate Bush spoke at BJU in 2000, his brother Jeb -- a Catholic convert -- defended him this way:
"I would, and I wouldn't feel that I was lending credence to a view by going to speak to different groups," Jeb Bush said in a rare network interview on NBC's Today. "I have spoken in places where people are not supportive of my views and I am not supportive of theirs, but as a public servant I think it's my responsibility and as a candidate I have done the same thing."
If Catholic voters think that Mitt Romney or John McCain will do more than Mike Huckabee to advocate for the kinds of social policies orthodox Catholics support, they are deluding themselves. Huckabee didn't discover he was pro-life yesterday, like Romney. Huckabee favored the Federal Marriage Amendment, like McCain, who voted against it. Unlike both McCain and Romney, Huckabee opposes killing human embryos for use in stem-cell research. He is 100 percent pro-life ... and pro-life after the unborn child arrives, too.
If you're a Catholic and wavering about Huckabee, watch this video, and ask yourself if either John McCain or Mitt Romney is as credible on life issues as this man:
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Mark in Houston
Liberal religionists are just as certain that their position is right and others wrong. Their position does not come from a belief that all religions are equally right (or wrong), but from a belief that one should maintain a certain humility and sense of proportion regarding claims about the rightness or wrongness of one's religious views, because these things generally come down to faith and cannot be conclusively proven right or wrong in this life.
And there's a related issue, arguments towards public policy based on religion. Here, on this blog, I take a position based on religious beliefs, because you people on the right presumably have somewhat close ones to me, and if I can make an argument that uses our belief as one of the premises, that works fine.
I don't make arguments like that elsewhere. If I'm on dKos trying to explain why we need a single payer health care system and not stupid penalties for people without insurance, I won't bring the Bible into it. If I'm here, however, arguing that we need a health care system that works, I would indeed use it.
Everyone has a set of basic premises that they work with. Sometimes those include the Bible, sometimes they do not. Almost always they include some sort of moral grounding, but it is not always 'the Bible' even if it is based in it.
Arguing using the Bible as a premise with those who do not include it as a premise is not only pointless, it's destructive in many ways. It is causing, right now, a backlash. Not the stupid Wars on Christmas that the yammering heads talk about, but a real concept that moral arguments don't mean anything, because so many people are making stupid ones, or, rather, very specific ones that people with generic non-Biblical moral groundings do not agree with.
So they start dismissing any argument that says 'Because we, as society, think such behavior is wrong.'. We're at the point of arguing the efficiency of torture, and anyone who says 'I don't give a damn how well it works. We do not torture because Torture. Is. Morally. Wrong.' is looked at like some nutcase, despite that fact that most people would agree with that.
But decades of the right making 'moral' arguments out of certain old testament passages that society doesn't agree with has caused them to start rejecting all moral arguments.
Not following you David. The bible is an acceptable moral code for over a billion people worldwide. And no less than Mr.Obama himself says there's a need to incorporate MORE Biblical language and premises into the Democrats political arguments.
I do agree that some people need to have moral principles presented more generally (Peace, Justice, Truth) without a call to the moral authority of the teachings of Jesus since He's not a moral authority to them. But I tend to see it as Spiritual Milk v. Spiritual Food.
And I do agree that the politics of both the Republican and Democratic platforms is morally inconsistent and trying to wrap a cloak of morality around an act that is inherently immoral won't work. Torture/Abortion, But if your saying that people are generalizing from one instance or one series of arguments to the rejection of all moral arguments? After you just made a call to the moral argument against torture. Doesn't hold.
Maybe you're saying a series of incorrect/false faith-based/Christian arguments is causing the rejection of all Christian arguments?
In that case I'd say People ought not confuse Christianity with Republican politics. They aren't moral equivalents. Not even close to close in some instances.
Could it be that folks have just learned that moral arguments are hokum?
The best way, they have learned, to deal with a moral argument is to say, "You say that as though morality somehow matters," and then go off and do what they were going to do anyway.
I don't think too much of Huck hanging out with that gawdawful John Hagee. But all Republicans usually end up kissing up to fundy nutjobs like Hagee and Bob Jones. Except Ron Paul of course, who kisses up to no one and that's why he's like the kid who came to the party and peed in the lemonade.
Which brings me to my real Huck problem. Whether or not you support him, Ron Paul is a candidate for the Republican nomination and says nothing that wasn't said in the past by Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Robert Taft, or a number of other libertarian-leaning conservative luminaries. And for this, whenever he talks, the other candidates laugh, cackle, and smirk like a bunch of ill-mannered frat boys. Including Rod's boy Huck.
If they can't respect the opinions of someone who differs from them and treat him with some dignity and respect, how can we expect them to treat the American people with dignity and respect? Foreign leaders? Opposition leaders in Congress?
I just can't respect people who behave in this fashion. If they are laughing at Ron Paul, they are laughing at me, because I agree with many of his ideas. And they would expect me to support them in the general election? To hell with that!!! I will either write in Ron Paul, vote 3rd party or stay home.
You know, you can watch the Democratic debates and they are not behaving like a bunch of middle schoolers towards each other. Nor does Paul ever laugh at the other Republicans.
It is too much to expect presidential candidates to comport themselves as ladies (well, lady) and gentlemen? They need to grow up!
Sheilagh
Not following you David. The bible is an acceptable moral code for over a billion people worldwide.
No, vague precepts they think are from the bible are their moral code.
Maybe you're saying a series of incorrect/false faith-based/Christian arguments is causing the rejection of all Christian arguments?
I'm not going to say the arguments are incorrect. I'm just saying people don't believe them.
They do not believe the Biblical arguments being made about homosexuality, because, frankly, it sounds like a lot of hate to them, and it sounds more moral just to leave them alone. They do not believe moral arguments being made about abortion, because most of them don't think an eight month-old embryo is a person.
Whether or not those are valid arguments, or even if they are correct, is utterly irrelevant. They don't believe those arguments, and they tune out when they hear them, because they hear them over and over.
I do agree that some people need to have moral principles presented more generally (Peace, Justice, Truth) without a call to the moral authority of the teachings of Jesus since He's not a moral authority to them. But I tend to see it as Spiritual Milk v. Spiritual Food.
Sadly, the way people are ignoring moral arguments is to dismiss all moral arguments. The Republicans have taken 'morality' in politics and spent it on policies people do not care about or actively dislike, thus rendering it extremely difficult to make arguments on moral grounds they would agree with.
There are a lot of Christians out there that think like I do, although I've, basically, come full circle in thought whereas they haven't thought about it at all: They think people should just basically 'act nice' and not hurt other people and try to follow some basic rules they think they understand and help other people. The rest of it is just a bunch of old rules.
You go pointing stuff in the Bible that says to, for an absurd example, kill witches, and you're going to push away a lot of people. Maybe they do need to learn that stuff...in church.
But when you put it in politics, when you say 'The Bible says X is immoral', and they don't agree that X is immoral, you're hurting any future moral arguments and attacking their faith. (Giving single Biblical verses without any sort of context or attempting to explain them is not helpful to any believer.)
And, although this is getting somewhat off-topic, that is why youth in the church are vanishing. They're getting their 'religious knowledge' from Republicans who say a bunch of crap that the kids don't believe. It. Doesn't. Matter. if they're right or not, politics isn't the place to debate finer points of Christian thought.
Charles Cosimano
Could it be that folks have just learned that moral arguments are hokum?
Yes, that is what they have learned. (Of course, learning something does not imply that thing is true.)
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.