The God Vote 2008 - the influence of the irrational on the presidential campaign

I awoke on Wednesday morning this week to find an email in my in-box from Hillary Clinton thanking me for my $100 donation to her election campaign. Somewhat taken aback I then remembered that after a delightful evening with a friend, drinking wine in a Tapas bar, I had indeed rather liberally expressed my largesse on-line. Yes, I was one of the 60,000 people that went to www.HillaryClinton.com following her success in Pennsylvania and made a donation.

I am usually so parsimonious in regards to political campaign funding that I won’t even put an X in the box on my tax return for the three dollar donation to the presidential campaign. So what changed? I wondered if perhaps I had been acting out a form of gender chauvinism. In all honesty I think maybe I was. I would like to see a woman president of the United States to redress the gender injustice that plagues American politics. But, on the other hand, I would also like to see an African American in the White House as proof that we truly are moving into a post-racist age.

Barack is charming and charismatic; it is easy to see why the media treat him so sympathetically.
In contrast, Hillary is frequently portrayed by the media in an unflattering light that is not alway unmerited. Claiming to have been under sniper fire in Bosnia (she wasn’t) as proof of her superior political experience, got her the lampooning she deserved.

But I can’t but help but feel sympathy for her in the face of this media in-balance. I often feel compelled to champion the underdog. Am I justified in forgiving her for having ’misspoke’ (a delightful Washington double-talk term for lying)?
Perhaps not, but I do understand that humans are story-telling creatures, and sometimes it is hard to resist the tendency to embellish our narratives.

Shouldn’t I be basing my choice of candidate on more concrete things like political agendas and track record inside the Beltway? Of course. And that is why I won't be voting for John McCain. But how do I choose between Barack and Hillary when they seem to share very similar platforms on most issues. Their similarities outweigh their differences.


So what is it that really bothers me about Barack?
The obvious answer is that his lack of experience especially in foreign policy, his weak stance on national security and the perception of him as an elitist liberal make him unelectable for the majority of working class voters.
In addition, one aspect of Obama's campaign that I personally find problematic is his appeal to faith. Perhaps for purely pragmatic reasons he has taken to heart the message of Jim Wallis, in his book God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. Wallis argues that the Right has been allowed to hijack faith and moral values; that it is high time the Democrats got religion.
Obama devotes a whole section of his website, under the heading of 'issues', to his religious commitment. This significant amount of space includes 14 videos of himself speaking in various churches about the role of faith in politics. Yes, I got it, Obama is sincere in his religious faith, and he also believes it plays an important part in the formation of his political perspective. Although I personally think a person's religious views should have no bearing upon their suitability to hold a job, even the job of president, when those beliefs are being paraded as one of the issues that constitute their platform those views must come under scrutiny. The influence of his spiritual mentors cannot then be ignored, particularly when those mentors teach a highly inflammatory political message. Obama made his faith a part of the public debate so I don't think the media attention given to Obama's former pastor, Reverend Wright is unfair.
In this widely circulated YouTube video Reverend Wright is seen damning America (or the KKKA in his terms).

In this second video, Reverend Wright, has, in my view, clearly stepped over the line of separation of church and state by engaging in an overt act of illegal electoral activity by a tax-exempt organization.

"...all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."

(Since the original composition of this Blog, Reverend Wright has proceeded in a shocking series of racist rants in which he embraced Nation of Islam's Rev. Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitism, claimed that the government had created the AIDS virus to kill black people, suggested that the brains of whites and blacks operate differently, and stated that America had bought the 9/11 attacks upon themselves. In addition, he suggested that Obama's latest distancing tactics were purely political posturing. As a consequence Obama has been forced to make a painful and bitter public repudiation of the comments made by Reverend Wright.
One cannot help but wonder how Obama, who has listened to Rev. Wright's sermons for some 20 years, was unaware of his pastor's overt racisim.)


Obama has vigorously repudiated 'an out-of-control' supporter whose opinions were abhorrent to him. His stance is in stark contrast to that of the Republican candidate for the presidency, John McCain. In an astounding about-face, McCain is now indiscriminately pandering to the extremists of the religious right. According to Bruce Wilson of the excellent theocracy-watch web site Talk2Action:

John McCain, during the 2000 election primaries, unleashed major rhetorical blasts at evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, calling them ‘agents of intolerance’ and he excoriated George W. Bush for going to speak at Bob Jones University. McCain said if he'd been invited he'd have told Bob Jones, ‘Get out the 16th Century... What you're doing is racist and cruel.’

Now in need of the support of America's evangelicals, McCain has publicly courted and accepted the endorsement of hatemonger Pastor John Hagee, infamous for his claims that Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans. Apparently there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came. He has also blasted the Pope for being the Anti-Christ, and has described the Roman Catholic Church as a great whore.
Less well known is Hagee’s Christian Apocalyptic Premillennial Dispensationalist eschatology. He believes that by sending money to help resettle Jews in Israel he will be helping fulfill biblical prophesy in which most Jews will be killed, presumably by the Muslims, in the Tribulation, Apocalypse, and battle of Armageddon. Jews and Judaism as such will vanish from the face of the earth and the few Jews that remain will become super-Christians who will convert the rest of the non-Christian world to Christianity. I kid you not!



Having accepted Hagee's endorsement McCain is now indebted to the extremists of the religious right. Should we really vote for someone who lacks the discernment not to make political deals with such a dangerous wing-nut? McCain has been successfully co-opted by the evangelicals into being a second George Bush.

As a believer in the importance of separation of church and state (see my post: Against the Rise of Theocracy in America) I find McCain's alliances with the evangelical fundamentalists, and Obama's thoughts on the role of faith in politics to be questionable.

In addition there are other aspects of Obama's campaign that I find problematic, examples of which can be found by looking at his web site: http://www.barackobama.com/


His web site banner has a quasi-religious messianic quality. Bathed in a halo of supernatural white light, he entreats us with the slogan "I’m asking you to believe."

He uses overtly religious language and rhetoric in his speeches, sounding more often like a preacher than a politician:

"We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
Obama, Super Tuesday 2008

"... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama" - Obama, Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008

The distinctly religious revival flavor of his rallies has caused one blogger to note:

His appeal to voters is an archetype of religious conversion: instead of being asked for support, Americans are exhorted to ’join the movement’.
In Georgia, he directly equated his supporters with God's people: ’God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city… and when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.’
Later in the speech, he asked the congregation to ’walk with me, march with me… and if enough of our voices join together, we can bring those walls tumbling down.’

Is Barack cynically using techniques typically associated with the manipulation of religious fervor in his attempt to win the presidency, or is this a cultural-racial misunderstanding on my part? After all, Dr Martin Luther King used these techniques to great effect in the building of the civil liberties movement of the 1960's. Dr. King was the religious leader of a movement seeking social justice; Obama is a political leader, and therein lies a critical difference. Unleashing the powerful forces that religion can exert on the human mind and which can lead to the suspension of reason is an anathema to the Enlightenment principles upon which the political structures of the United States were built.



Does he really believe in the myth he has so skillfully created with the media of himself as a Christ-like figure who can lead Americans to the promised land? We have already endured one theocratic president who believes he was divinely chosen by God to recreate America as a Christian nation.


And now to Hillary and the question as to why I donated to her election campaign. Clinton’s web site lacks the slick quasi-religious visuals and the Obaman religious rhetoric. She consistently appeals to rationality; she is committed to the advancement of science and technology, to the need to reverse the Bush administration’s irresponsible war on science, and she supports the restoration of scientific integrity in government decision making. In addition she commits herself, in her 10-point plan to reform government, to the elimination of the pervasive faith-based cronyism that has defined the Bush administration. These are significant reasons for my support.
But is she really the principled classical liberal candidate who has avoided playing the religion card in her political campaign? Not quite. I'm worried about her. She portrays herself as a moderate Methodist but is in fact a member of a cell of the shadowy but highly influential fundamentalist group known as The Fellowship, or Family. She describes Fellowship head Doug Coe in her autobiography as

"a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

Doug Coe’s influence reaches deep into the Washington political machine, shaping both national and international policy. He has been exposed in a recent NBC story for celebrating such bizarre phenomena as parental decapitation by Maoist zealots, and the covenant made between Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler.



For additional information see Harpers Magazine article by Jefferey Sharlet, whose book "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" is due to be published this month. Hillary’s relationship to a religious pyramid scheme with strong dominionist aspirations and whose avowed purpose is to influence global politics with a far from liberal agenda may deserve rather more critical appraisal than the supposedly non-political relationship Obama claims to have with Reverend Wright. She openly approved of initiatives such as the Charitable Choice provisions, supportive of the long range goals of The Family: unmaking the government social programs of Roosevelt's New Deal. What if, as president, she were to appoint judges that were not supportive of reproductive rights, women's rights or gay rights? Could she, would she? For more on the amalgam of Hillary's religion and politics see the following article in Mother Jones. I fear she might be more like her Republican counterpart than I would like to believe.

And so where does that leave me in my choice of candidate? Am I now ethically obligated to give Obama an equal donation? If he wins the nomination I will of course support him, but I won't be proclaiming him to be the Messiah anytime soon!

Hillary remains my candidate of choice; but I when I think critically I have serious doubts and concerns. The final reason for my support is, as I originally suspected, influenced by my irrational emotional feminist chauvinism. I want a woman to be president, and I support her because she is fighting against the odds.

Against the rise of theocracy in America

Blog Against Theocracy 2008

Refuting The Fake History of the Religious Right

The religious right in all its ever changing and evolving organizations has developed tremendous political influence in America. The Republican party since the Reagan era and now under the leadership of George W Bush has become, for the first time in American history, a religious political party with a theocratic agenda. Contrary to the intentions of the Founding Fathers, religious-cultural wars are becoming a ubiquitous part of the political landscape. Many of these issues are well known to us: discrimination against gay marriage, efforts to ban abortion, limitations on reproductive choices, the teaching of creationism as science, coercive prayer in our schools and government funding of faith-initiatives without congressional approval.

Perhaps not so well known is the influence of Christian eschatology on the country’s foreign policy: the desire to bring about the End-Times and the second coming of Christ by promoting strife in the Middle East. (For more see my Blog on The End Timers.)

To support their theocratic agenda it has become necessary for the religious right to revise history and claim that America was founded as a ’Christian Nation.’

America was not founded as a Christian Nation.

Its founding premise was not Christianity and it was not secularism, it was religious freedom.

Both sides of the culture wars have distorted the realities of the history of how we ended up with religious freedom in America, and the beliefs of the Founding Fathers.

Common Misconceptions include:

1. America was settled as a bastion of religious freedom.
2. The US was founded as a Christian Nation
3. The Founding Fathers wanted religious freedom because they were themselves devout Christians

1. America was not settled as a bastion of religious freedom

The early 17th C settlers of America were predominantly Protestants opposed to Roman Catholicism, and had come to America because they wanted to establish their particular denomination or approach to religion, free from the persecution they had experienced in Europe.

Massachussetts became home to the Puritans; Pennsylvania, a safe haven for Quakers, Mennonites and other minorities; Maryland, an interesting exception to the rule of Protestant colonization, was for a while refuge to persecuted English Roman Catholics, until it too succumbed to a Protestant majority.

Ironically, the European practice of enforced uniformity of religion, which had driven many minority groups to seek safety in America, became a prevailing practice of many of the individual colonies.

The Puritans vigorously supported the very Old World theory of the need for conformity of religion that had oppressed them. Once in control of New England they proclaimed the need to break “the very neck of Schism and vile opinions.“ They declared that they were not champions of “toleration, but were professed enemies of it.“ They were to viciously persecute and expel dissenters and even to execute the Quakers within their midst.

Virginia, although originally founded for purely commercial motives, saw its populace (European and native American alike) converted to Anglicanism at the point of Governor Sir Thomas Dale’s sword. The Virginia Assembly then went on to further institutionalize religious intolerance by passing anti-Quaker laws.

Religion, marked as it was by a brutal and pervasive pattern of intolerance and persecution, continued to flourish in America well into the 18th C. Toleration, as such, was for Protestants sects only. Jews, Catholics and Atheists were forbidden to hold public office, denied the right to vote and had other rights withheld.

Assertions about America’s Judeo-Christian heritage are false; America’s heritage is Protestant, and following the first major religious revival of the mid 18th C. known as the Great Awakening, it became almost exclusively evangelical; Puritans, Anglicans, Quakers and Congregationalists were to be eclipsed by Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists.

2. America was not founded as a Christian Nation

America was originally settled by Christians wanting to found a new Christian country on American soil. But when the key Founding Fathers came to establish the principles upon which a new nation would be built they looked back on the previous 150 years of religious violence and intolerance and decided to turn to another model. They deliberately sought to create a constitution that was not Christian. Up until this point many of the documents produced by the Continental Congress had contained overtly Christian language. For example, the Articles of Confederation concludes with the observation that it “hath pleased the Great Governor of the World.” Numerous proclamations referred to a Supreme Judge and Ruler of the Universe, and many State constitutions declared Christianity as the true religion. The American Constitution was stripped bare of all such religious rhetoric and language, and was consequently criticized. It is clear then that this was a conscious, radical and not accidental strategy of the framers of the Constitution.

The Constitution guaranteed separation of Church and State at the level of National Government in the Article Six which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." This allowed people of all or no religious beliefs to hold public office, and was a bulwark against the institutionalization of any single religious authority within the government.

However, it is also a fact that it did not disallow separation of Church and State at the State level. Article six only pertained at the federal level, which is to say that most institutions, as regulated by the colonies or states, were exempt. At the time the Constitution was passed some States still banned Jews and Catholics from public office; blasphemy was a crime and other religious penalties were imposable.

This was a great disappointment to the radical pluralist, James Madison, the author of the Constitution, who was forced to compromise the original document and adopt deliberately ambiguous language to ensure its ratification by all the States. He went on to write the Bill of Rights, the first of a series of Amendments to the Constitution, hoping to create a more effective set of checks and balances to limit the powers of special interest groups, applicable at both federal and state levels. He was forced again to accept a series of compromises for the Bill of Rights to become law.

The first of the ten amendments states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The first element of this amendment has become widely known as Establishment Clause.

A mechanism was created that prohibited Congress from favoring one religion over another religion through law, and protected the right to free exercise of religion, but again, only at the level of national government. Despite the limitations of its scope of application, Thomas Jefferson was to proclaim Madison’s achievements as the establishment of a wall of separation between Church and State.

It was only after the Civil War when President Lincoln and General Grant reorganized the basic pact on religious freedom and engineered the 14^th Amendment that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were applied at both State and Federal levels.

3. Although the Founding Fathers did advocate religious freedom they were not themselves devout Christians.

Many of the Founding Fathers of America were profoundly influenced by Enlightenment-era ideals. Revolutions in scientific thinking had inspired the wider belief that rational enquiry could be applied to all areas of human activity including politics. Religion and the domination of society by hereditary aristocracies were singled out for attack by the European Philosophes. They believed these agents of superstition, tyranny, and ignorance could be replaced with the "light" of truth.

The central ideas of the Enlightenment were: progress, deism and tolerance.

The concept of progress embraced the notion that humanity would improve through developing an understanding of the natural world; overcoming the ignorance bred by superstition and religion; overcoming human cruelty and violence through social improvements and government structures.

Deism emphasized morality and reason; it rejected miracles and the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ.

Finally, religious tolerance for Christians and non-Christians alike, was viewed as essential to avoiding the crimes committed in the name of God and religion.

James Madison had skillfully articulated these fundamental Enlightenment values into the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, translating them into a radically new form of democratic and republican government.

George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson; John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, the main proponents of religious freedom, were not orthodox Christians. All had serious misgivings with church hierarchy and dogma.

Jefferson and Franklin did not accept the Bible as a literal document; nor did they accept Jesus as divine. Jefferson, was not secular however. He claimed to perceive the presence of the divine in his observations of nature and the universe. In this respect he could be regarded as a pantheist by modern standards.

Washington, although attending church once a month refused to participate in Communion. He did not see Jesus as a personal savior. He never said anything overtly Christian, although he often used religious rhetoric to refer to an omnipotent and constantly intervening God guiding the nation.

Needing to create alliances with French Canadians and also with Catholic France he recognized an additional pragmatic reason for religious tolerance. He eradicated the anti-catholic bias in the military, and persuaded the Continental Congress to stop passing anti-catholic resolutions. Realizing that he needed the support of these two French Catholic groups he knew that portraying religious tolerance as an American virtue would be an asset in winning their support.

The unlikely supporters of the Founding Fathers campaign to effect a separation of Church and State were the products of the religious revival, the Great Awakening. Not only was Madison influenced by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, he was also very close to the Baptist evangelicals who strongly believed that a separation of Church and State was essential for the vitality and growth of religious faith in America.This runs contrary to the currently held belief of evangelicals who believe in the need for less separation of church and state so that they can use the instruments of government to promulgate and impose their Christian vision on America. To help achieve their theocratic agenda some evangelical groups are trying to revise history and present the view that separation of church and state was in fact a myth. This could not be further from the truth. Not only that, it was the Baptist evangelicals of the 18^th C that were more responsible than any other religious group in promoting the separation of church and state.

Links:

For a detailed analysis of the Establishment clause see the Center for Inquiry Position Paper

The Enemies of Reason

Part One
We live in dangerous times when superstition is gaining ground and science is under attack. The current epidemic of irrational superstitious thinking impoverishes our culture and throws up New Age Gurus that exhort us to run away from reality. I agree with Richard Dawkins when he says in this documentary that our indulgence of irrationality isn't harmless; it profoundly undermines civilization. Reason and respect for evidence are the source of our progress and our safeguard against fundamentalists and those who profit from obscuring the truth.




Part Two
Dawkins takes on the enemies of reason in the Complementary Alternative Medicine field. Best of all, Deepak Chopra is bought to his knees when Dawkins forces him to admit that his use of the word 'quantum' is only intended metaphorically. METAPHORICALLY! There is no such thing as quantum healing. Yes, Deepak is revealed to be full of ****!