We Just Disagree

by digby

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I think Americans are probably not destined to all come together in comity and good will to work toward the common good any time soon. And you also know that I don’t think there’s anything especially wrong with that. If politics is war by other means then that’s the way things are supposed to work.

Ezra Klein wrote a good piece on this the other day about the “president of all America” thing that I think makes an especially good point in this regard:

… the whole “President of all America” descriptor is popular these days, but a bit vague for my tastes. You’re president of all America when you win more than 270 votes in the electoral college. Not when people stop disagreeing with your agenda. There’s a tendency to downplay the degree to which America is riven by legitimate disagreements over the path forward. Those who think the occasional moment of symbolic outreach to Rick Warren will overwhelm arguments over socialized health care, or taxes, or abortion, aren’t paying respect to our essential commonalities so much as dismissing genuine arguments. Few in this country battle to see their policy preferences respected. They battle to see them enacted.

That is exactly correct. And the idea that it’s all about “respect” is falling into a conservative movement trap. They complain that they aren’t respected, and use that alleged lack of respect to hobble their opponent’s ability to make their arguments in good faith to the American people. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Warren’s agenda is a great example. Nobody says that you can’t make common cause on any issue on an ad hoc basis. If Warren and the environmentalists agree on how to deal with climate change, that’s terrific. But by Warren’s own reckoning, his primary agenda is social conservatism and it’s based on deeply held beliefs that aren’t going to be changed by liberals being told to stifle or believers being told to stay out of the public square.

Ed Kilgore writes about that in this thoughtful piece on Beliefnet about the historic differences between the Christian sects, which have retreated (I would argue perhaps only temporarily) in American life. But he notes that a far greater schism exists and it’s so fundamental that it’s almost impossible to see how we can bridge this gap:

Nowadays, in the United States at least, such ancient indicia of “belief” have largely receded into the background. And among Protestants, the old disputes have been supplanted by one big dispute: the proposition of biblical inerrancy, and with it, a host of highly political and cultural arguments over issues of gender and sexuality, from the preeminence of men in family and community life, to gay and lesbian “lifestyles,” to abortion.

This mattered to me sitting there in that Southern Baptist Church because I am a conventionally orthodox Protestant according to virtually all of the traditional measurements of “belief,” but an enemy of the faith to those who demand subscription to biblical inerrancy and the patriarchal, homophobic, anti-scientific and culturally conservative attitudes that come in inerrancy’s train. I am acutely aware that what conservative Protestants (and for somewhat different reasons, conservative Catholics) view as God’s ordinances on the limited role of women in church and society, the “unnatural” condition of homosexuality, and the righteousness of war, I view as irrelevant cultural background noise that detracts from and in many respects contradicts the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I understand the gulf that separates those who somehow find in scripture an unambiguous condemnation of abortion as homicide from those who don’t. The former quite naturally think that ending the “holocaust” of legalized abortion is far and away the preeminent moral and political duty of Christians in this day and age; the latter either don’t see it as a religious issue at all, or like me, view abortion as a decision best left to the gender that God entrusted with responsibility for child-bearing.

So: according to these very contemporary and terribly polarized definitions, am I a “believer,” or just a disguised semi-pagan who profanes the Holy Name while seeking justification for “ungodly” behavior? And if I am a “believer,” what does that say about the Christians who believe I’m not? Are we in communion?

I can’t really answer these questions, but do know they can’t be avoided or papered over by pleas that Christians just link arms and learn to get along. I can no more abandon what I consider to be the God-given rights of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters or of the majority of God’s children who happen to be female, than conservatives can abandon the rights of the millions of “unborn children” they believe God is calling them to defend.

Imagine how it seems to we unchurched and atheistic types who depend upon the constitution to protect our rights from a majority who are so vocal in their loathing that they can say things like this and still get invited to speak at the inauguration:

Warren told his congregation that someone had asked if there was any kind of president he would not vote for. “I could not vote for an atheist because an atheist says, ‘I don’t need God,’ ” Warren said. “They’re saying, ‘I’m totally self-sufficient by [myself].’ And nobody is self-sufficient to be president by themselves. It’s too big a job.”

That is, of course, his privilege. He doesn’t have to vote for anyone he doesn’t want to. But I vote for religious people every election day without giving it a second thought despite my own belief that a politician who doesn’t believe in God would not be saying that he can do the job “all by himself.” (I think it’s pretty clear that they all depend upon many, many other people to help them. ) Yet, I’m being admonished constantly for being intolerant and disrespectful of religion. (When is the last time anyone said that it was intolerant to proclaim that you could never vote for an atheist?)

As Ezra says, it’s not enough that everyone has their views “respected” in any case. I don’t even know what that means when it comes to fundamental issues of freedom, liberty, faith, duty etc. Of course I respect everyone’s right to their beliefs and I will fight the proverbial fight for them to be allowed to express them. But I don’t have to respect every view that comes down the pike and I certainly don’t have to willingly make room in my political coalition for people to enact their agenda if it goes against what I believe in. Why would anyone think I should?

The truth is that it’s disrespectful to sincere people on all sides to suggest their disagreements are so shallow that they can be dealt with by pretending that all we need to do is proclaim that we respect one another. Even if you respect someone, sometimes there’s no avoiding a fight.

Now, if we’re talking purely about civility in language, well, fine. We could theoretically all agree not to call each other names, act in good faith and be honest and transparent in our politics. (You’ll have to pardon me for waiting until Rush, Coulter and Mitch McConnell sign on the dotted line before I fall in with that — and somebody might want to ask Warren to rethink that stuff about gays being like pedophiles and women who have abortions being like Nazis, too.) But I’m perfectly willing to be more temperate in my language (I’ve always believed in acting in good faith and with transparency) if it doesn’t mean that I also have to respect the belief that Creationism is as valid as evolution or that the state should decide women’s reproductive decisions for them or that gays marrying will have some negative effect on my own marriage.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be enough for the Rick Warrens and Tony Perkins types, though. I have a sneaking suspicion that they are intent upon actually enacting their agenda and my respect for their views isn’t something they particularly care about unless I’m helping them do that. In that we are in perfect agreement. I don’t require that they respect my views either. I’m going to fight for my agenda and they can fight for theirs. We’ll see which one the country supports. The last I heard, that was what we used to call politics.

Update: A huge huzzah to Chris Hayes for saying essentially the same thing today on the CNN “after party” roundtable. (And another bug huzzah for his being able to keep his head when forced to debate the profoundly dishonest Stephen “Al Qaeda really was in cahoots with Saddam” Hayes. )

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