More on "moral values"

Following up on this earlier post, I want to make two distinct points more clearly regarding exit polls' use of the phrase "moral values" to describe the motivation of some Bush supporters.

1. This notion of what constitutes "moral" issues is grotesquely stunted.

"Moral values" as a category cannot be segregated from things like jobs, taxes, the economy, health care, the environment, the war in Iraq, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, government secrecy, honesty, corporate corruption, educational opportunity and protection of civil rights. All of these are also moral issues.

As The Poor Man put it:

"Moral issues" means not putting people before profit, it means trying to help those less fortunate than yourself, and Dear Lord it means not lying for just one blessed moment, because these are, actually, moral issues.

To relocate all of these things outside the parameters of "moral" discussion is, in fact, immoral. To suggest that these subjects are not essential to "evangelical Christian" morality is, in fact, heretical.

So problem No. 1 is that the pollsters' version of morality is far too small. But that is not the only problem.

2. Some of these "moral" stances are, in fact, morally dubious.

Here let me quote from Matt Yglesias:

The right-wing view on gay marriage -- not the view of a small band of religious fanatics but that of a clear majority of the American people -- is immoral and wrongheaded. Every bit as immoral and wrongheaded as the old view that the stability of the family required bans on interracial marriage. And in the future, I am confident, it will be regarded as such. ...

Gay and lesbian Americans are simply trying to live their lives in peace -- with the same rights as the rest of us. That the Democrats paid a price for the very mild form of advocacy for this position is a cause for regret but not for apology.

That's exactly right. "Civil rights for me but not for thee," is not a morally defensible position. And much of the language directed against homosexuals this past year has simply been morally odious and despicable -- i.e., sinful.

Some political observers have responded to the electoral map and the exit polls by suggesting that if Democrats want to succeed in the scarlet states they will need to: A) accept the gelded notion of "morality" as a category primarily concerned with the condemnation of sexual minorities; and B) join in and embrace this impious form of piety to win more votes.

This is bad advice. It is also -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- immoral.

Comments

[Patrick J. Mullins]

Those people are just 'amoral' and call it 'immoral.' I'm just as 'immoral' as they say, although I can say that just because I don't care about the words anymore. I know who says them and what they mean by them; what does it matter if their use is inaccurate? if, in the end, the 'rule of the stronger is always right.' You can lie years and centuries on end, and whether or not it's the truth, the trick to getting anything done is 'can you do it?' not 'is it right?'

The worst work being done advising Democrats to pander is being done by that mealy-mouthed wimp at the Times, Nicholas Kristoff. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't get people thinking he's Gregor Samsa some days. In the worst op-ed he did,'Time to Get Religion' of this past Saturday, he made sure we knew he went to Oxford before then squatting done with the hick politicians, and saying 'don't drink Bordeau' (which he probably did not purposely misspell anyway.) Let them hear his falsetto, and no amount of pandering is going to help. All this--after preaching months on end about how it is wrong to say 'Bush lies.' I have NO IDEA how he got the job, but it can't have been casting couch.

Anyway, the Democrats have supported the Republicans' ruination of all big cities and the freezing of urban spending actually started in 1978 under Carter; getting more and more Draconian under the Republicans, who actively participated in destroying cities; and not resisted as policy at all by anyone in the Clinton administration. Read Mike Davis's DEAD CITIES if you want to know all about the abandonment of Los Angeles after the Rodney King riots; Philadelphia was especially hit hard; and it's well-known that New York has post-9/11 per capita 1/7 the amount of security that Wyoming has. So much for 9/11--it seems almost a mere ripple in what Virilio calls the 'landscape of events.'

David Brooks, so repulsive in such countless ways (he actually came as close to defending Bush's 'incompetence' after the first debate in this pitiful smarmy way), did point out something important the other day though: That Karl Rove had known how to penetrate the enclosed exurbs, which poor Brooks hadn't known how to do when he was doing book promoting. Brooks says that such venues as still exist in the 'old Establishment cities' don't exist in the exurbs. Of course he doesn't bother to mention that the exurbs are thereby rendered so arid and sterile that winning them is little more than a glorified kind of losing, because they are then encouraged to proliferate their deathlike 'life-styles' even more. But, however smug I may wish I could be, the decentralization of cities has been well under way for a long time, they are just rotting, and they are then targets not only for terrorists but for their owners as well.

Hooray for Las Vegas and Orlando, exurb/business park producers and toilet cultures of the world! Hardly a day goes by that I don't get a call that says "Hi, this is Cindy and you've been chosen for an all-expense-paid tour for 4 days in Orlando!!' And I can't even tell Cindy to shove it because she's on electrons.

Actually, I do care about the words, but I don't believe Dowd, Krugman and a few others will ever blink. Not that I expect them to be tempted: before the police state is fully satisfying to its skilled artisans, surely there will have been more catastrophes to entertain people who sense, if they don't know, that the membrane between reality-TV and TV-reality has become rice-paper thin.

Anyway, Mike Davis's books like 'Ecology of Fear,' 'City of Quartz', 'Dead Cities' and 'The Grit Beneath the Glitter'(about Las Vegas) are the best things going now if you want to know how the cities have been systematically devalued and eroded; and how there is no possibility that this will be reversed.

[Andre]

"Moral Values" is just a catch phrase really. Pollsters used it as a code word referring to a certain set of issues they wanted information about. I find this sort of thing odious as well. We have to remember how powerful language is and how it can inform peoples opinions. So, I'd just like to say, it is really nice to hear someone like you, slacktivist, saying some really pointed and interesting things on the subject.

One of the reasons I voted against GW was that he is a born again. These people leave a bad taste in my mouth. Just so you know where I'm coming from, I was raised Anglican in the South. I've always been a pretty tolerant person but a day came when I just couldn't take it any more. I'm not kidding, we had a big roe over this after a kid in my home town was hit by a car and killed while riding his skateboard on the street. The local bible thumpers brigade acted soooo sympathethic the entire time they were telling us that he was, unfortunately, now in hell because he had never personally accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour. Pious SOBs! They give Christians a bad name IMHO. After this years election it is painfully odvious that I am in the minority (the Moral Minority that is.)

[Jake]

There isn't any actual evidence that bush is born again, when asked about it specifically he whips out this awe inspiringly vague divel about how he beleive in god and jesus christ but no one can find anything that might actually verify him being properly baptised and born again.

He's just the average joe schmo type - except he was a skull and bones man at yale.

He's an average hard working stiff - except he's the son of an ex president who later became a oil tycoon and has never wanted for anything his entire life.

He's a pious god fearing evangelical - except he has had enough substance abuse problems over the years to keep any rehab clinic running for decades, he's never officially accepted christ and he has no qualms about lying, cheating and sending people off to die for his own personal gain.

[cjmr]

I've never seen (in print or on TV) Bush himself claim that he is born again. And because "born again" means different things to different Christian denominations it would be meaningless for him to say so, anyway.

I have seen him claim that that summer during the incident at Kennebunkport that he had "rededicated his heart to Christ", which some denominations would say means he's been born again, and some would not.

But actions are the proof of faith--not words (in my belief system, at any rate--and Bush sure hasn't shown by his actions that he is a Christian...

[mecki]

On the front cover of one of the WashPost's sections a few weeks ago, there was a picture (along with an article) about an anti gay marriage protest. It showed an interracial couple protesting.

I think this picture is now in the dictionary under 'irony' I was speechless for quite some time after I saw that.

[Chris]

The most staggeringly useless part of the advice on beating the GOP by becoming them is that what actual Democrats do is essentially beside the point for the GOP smear machine. Just look at the record.
Carter was decried as the canidate of "acid, abortion, and amnesty."
Dukakis was attacked as being Che without the charisma.
Clinton was seen as Lenin and Machevelli.
Gore was attacked as a worthless elitist as was Kerry.
Kerry was seen as weak on defense.
None of these memes has the more than a tangental relationship to reality. If the next Democratic canidate were to weepingly appear before the SBC, declare his feality to fundamentalism, and personally kill twenty gay men on national TV, the GOP spin machine would still attack them for being insufficiently "Christian." And the media would shake their heads that once again the Democrats were alienating religious voters.

[carla]

I hesitate to bring this up, because it generally gets ugly, but . . . what they meant by "values" was abortion as well as gay marriage. In most of the polling stuff I saw, in pre-election articles and the like, when asked why they were voting for Bush, the people in this camp volunteered the morals part, and often volunteered two specific issues: gay marriage and abortion. (As has probably been discussed here as well, that's also why Shrub mentioned Dred Scott.) Especially with the justices and justice department and Congress in his camp, the next attack is going to be on women's freedom and ability to control their reproductive capacities. i state it that broadly, because that's the goal, but the goal is achieved by attacking what they regard as the "most extreme" abortions--you know, all of those women who supposedly sail in and abort at 7.5 months, la-di-da, because they changed their minds. the goal is achieved by eliminating all public funding for abortion and by requring "waiting periods" (which add even more to the cost for women who have to travel to find a provider)--i.e., poor women, the very women who often can't get birth control, also can't get an abortion if they want one. The goal is achieved by funding "abstinence-only" education, even though that actually increases the number of pregnancies (which are then more difficult to abort, because of the restrictions in place), rather than providing people with the information and resources they need to control conception and fight STDs. The goal is achieved by a global gag rule, which condemns women in other countries to death, and not just from back-alley abortions: the gag rule effectively reduces funding for things like condoms, which would help protect women from HIV. We don't hear about much of that, however, because everyone obediently focuses on graphic descriptions of abortions that aren't taking place outside of someone's overheated imagination, but that push reasonable people into a corner. It's the next issue, people, and I suspect that they GOP is going to try to get some kind of extreme abortion-related referendum on every damn state ballot in 2008, in order to get the poeple who voted against gay marriage to come out and vote again.

[Jake]

Pro-choice is a vastly different battle than gay-marriage, not only does it have statistical evidence to prove why it is better for people and society, both morally and practically (thinking of the actual drop in hte number of abortions during pro-choice admins, but here are many more examples), but hte imagery is much better.

I don't find two men getting it on an attractive thing to watch, and neither do those who voted against the SSM proposals (and those that do, wish they didn't), that's what the vote was really about, they didn't want the idea that there would be these sick, sinning queers doing That, and getting tax breaks at the same time, i suppose.
The counter image to that is... there isn't one really.

Any vote against abortion rights, will be a battle between two very distinct images.

On the one hand there is the partial birth fetus, bleeding and squished on the clinic floor, all helpless and at the mercy of those sinning liberal woman doctors.

On the other hand, there is the pregnant welfare mother, with 8 small children dangling from her pettycoat, sucking up the god fearing tax payers hard earned cash as she churns out sproglets by the dozen and watchs TV.

It can be a battle between middle america's selfishness and their ability to care about children IF the Democrats can be bothered enough to frame it properly.
The only way the republicans can beat that framing is by subsequently trying to get rid of benefits, which turns the attention of the argument onto the economy - a Democrat strong point.

I hope the republicans try to make abortion rights the next gay marriage.

[drieux just drieux]

volks,

why not press the matter to the heart and ask why there is no movement at present to get a constitutional ban on divorce???

If I remember the statistics, divorce is the leading cause of the disolution of marriages...

The real challenge is not a 'democrat' problem - the real problem is why is it that the GOP has decided to abandon the 'morality' issue to being merely a 'buzz phrase'???

Those who have been on active military service are modestly aware of the volume of legal paperwork that is associated with maintaining all of the appropriate 'powers of attorney' to cover the usual range of issues about 'survivorship' and 'medical authority', the stuff that a 'spouse' "gets for free" with a marriage license. So why should we be 'giving it away' to folks????

So the other side of this 'gay marriage issue' is why do we want to limit 'marriage' to only monogamists? Is this really a 'biblical principle'??? Or a cultural expediencey? At which point we, as a nation, may want to work out what we really mean when we go prancing around the problems of "Christ and Culture".

Who knows, there is much fun coming with the pending congressional hearings of the next head of the justice department as americans decide if turning down a Papal Plea for Clemency is the sort of 'christian charity' that 'true believers' will be able to support??? Or is that also a part of the frailty of the current republican co-alition politics????

So folks we can only HOPE that 'morality' really was an issue that moved some folks to take a stand.

[Josh]

Fred,

Thought you'd be interested in Ron Sider's perspective (Fred and I both once worked for Ron):

1. LIBERAL HYSTERIA VS. THE FACTS,
by Ronald J. Sider

Reading some liberal columnists’ post-election reflections would make one think that benighted, fundamentalist, theocratic hordes had just taken over the country. In the NEW YORK TIMES, Garry Wills lamented the end of the Enlightenment, tolerance and respect for evidence. The best parallel to the “fundamentalism of the American electorate,” Wills alleged, is to be found in Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Sunni loyalists. Come now, Garry.

A few facts - “respect for evidence” to use Wills’ term - might lower the rampaging anxiety and apocalyptic rhetoric. (For the detailed statistics, see John C. Green’s polling data at the Bliss Institute website.) Yes, white evangelical Protestants make up 26.3% of the American population (22% are Catholics and 16% Mainline Protestants). But almost half of all evangelicals (44%) are either Democrats (27%) or Independents (17%). Only 56% are Republicans.

Less than half of all white evangelicals are what might be called the Religious Right (12.6% of the total population). More than half are “centrist or modernist” evangelicals (13.7% of the population).

Nor are the views of this large block of evangelical voters threatening to banish reason, tolerance and freedom.

It is true that evangelicals overwhelmingly oppose “gay marriage” - believing that it is better for our society to agree with millennia of human civilization that marriage is between a man and a woman. But more evangelicals agree than disagree with the statement that “homosexuals should have the same rights as other Americans” (45% vs. 40%).

And, yes, evangelicals are strongly pro-life: 24% think abortion should always be illegal. But far more evangelicals (45%) think it should be legal in a few circumstances and 31% think it should be legal in many circumstances!

52% of all evangelicals support “strict rules to protect the environment” even if that costs jobs or raises prices (only 31% disagree). 43% of all evangelicals want the government to spend more fighting poverty even if that means higher taxes on the middle class (40% disagree). And almost two-thirds of all evangelicals (65%) believe that the way to world peace is not unilateral U.S. military action, but “primarily [to] cooperate with international organizations.” After global security and peace, evangelicals think the top foreign policy goal for the U.S. should be human rights (47%), economic development (24%), and promoting democracy (29%).

In October, the National Association of Evangelicals (the largest association of American evangelicals, representing 30 million people) unanimously approved “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” as its guiding framework for political engagement. Any frantic liberal fearful that evangelical voters are about to vote in the dark ages will discover as she reads this document that the evangelical mainstream cares passionately about tolerance and freedom for all. What we want is a renewed evangelical political engagement “that aims to protect the vulnerable and poor, to guard the sanctity of human life, to further racial reconciliation and justice, to renew the family, to care for creation, and to promote justice, freedom and peace for all.”

Liberal friends need not fear being trampled by barbarian hordes.

(Ronald J. Sider is president of Evangelicals for Social Action - ronsider@esa-online.org.)

The Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility is here:
http://www.nae.net/images/civic_responsibility.pdf

[Josh]

I forgot to say that Fred still writes for Ron Sider's less hysterical magazine Prism.

[Patrick J. Mullins]

"I don't find two men getting it on an attractive thing to watch, and neither do those who voted against the SSM proposals"--posted by Jake.

No one cares what you like to watch, but wonders why you have. And where you have--online? Nor does anyone find your getting it on with whomever an attractive thing to watch.

[skybox]

if we want to win national elections we must learn this.
1.we must vote down gay marriage 100-0 it will never happen anyway and letting the gop beat us up with this till time stands still is retarded.
2.I live in Alabama,and 40 stories about Abu Gharib KILLED US.They loved that in the south.They all have guns and they would ave done far worse than put socks on these scummy terrorists heads.
3.ALSO protest wars debate them WHATEVER.
WHEN THEY START they must be supported.once the boys are in the field,war PROTESTS kill the troops and tie their hands PERIOD.
And statements like we hate this war we hate the commander and chief but WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS,doesnt fly in the red states.it is obvious to them our side worries more about terrorists than our troops.We will marginalized beyond belief if we dont learn.Tough medicine BUT TRUE.

[Jon H]

"I don't find two men getting it on an attractive thing to watch, and neither do those who voted against the SSM proposals"

Er, I don't find two septuagenarians getting it on an attractive thing to watch.

But George H. W. Bush and Barb are still allowed to be married.

[Matt Pickens]

Not picking on a fellow Alabamian, it's just that skybox's is the latest in a series of similar statements that have finally congealed for me. The conventional wisdom right now, right, seems to be that in order to reclaim the support of some of those people casting their votes on "moral issues", we liberals first have to abandon morality.

The scary thing is, that makes perfect sense in context of the American electorate. Is Nietszche the saint of the twenty-first century?

"No one cares what you like to watch, but wonders why you have. And where you have--online? Nor does anyone find your getting it on with whomever an attractive thing to watch." - posted by patrick j. mullins

point. should've phrased that better really, trying to give an example of the image that anti-ssm campaigners are using to push the anti-SSM issue, people who are taught that that image is "Wrong" with a capital double-u are presented with that image as something to vote against, while the Democrats (and the "Liberal Elitists" they represent) are presented as being for that image and trying to push that image on society as a norm in society, when it is really about civil rights and the rights of two people who love each other to have the same rights as any other loving couple. Was trying to make a point about framing, and missed obviously.

By "I don't find two men getting it on an attractive thing to watch, and neither do those who voted against the SSM proposals", I meant that I don't find it a personal 'turn on', no offense intended to anyone.

[jake]

^-- was me, obviously

[Dave Lartigue]

The right wants to lump gay marriage in with abortion for good reason: they are vastly different, and they're using the strength of one to cover the weakness of the other.

Abortion is a true quandary. For those that see it as murder, there can be no compromise. A living person is killed for reasons that itself is innocent of. You can't meet that halfway. You can't say that genocide is okay if it's only semi-genocide.

Gay marriage, on the other hand, is vastly different, because there is no innocent person in danger. It is simply a case of "I don't approve of what you're doing, even though it doesn't harm anyone, and so therefore you should not be allowed to do it." You can't tell people who believe that abortion is murder that murder is none of their business and to quit whining; you come off like a monster in that case, which is exactly what's been going on. On the other hand, you can cheerfully say that about gay marriage.

Hence, the linking of the two. Throw them both in with "morals" and they get to use one argument against both of them, and it weakens arguments for them.

Unfortunately I feel that attacking the "morals" of the right, no matter how hypocritical they may be, plays into this strategy. We need to hack away at these different things separately and weaken them one by one. Destroy the arguments against gay couples in and of themselves. Attack the anti-stem cell argument on its own. Hell, if you want to lump them in with something, lump them in with nuttier evangelical causes like banning the teaching of evolution.

By attacking their "morals" as hogwash, we fall into the trap of supposedly having no morals. We need to expose them separately, and then eventually get to what's REALLY at the heart of all this: the problem of abortion.

[Scott]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805431365

That's it - I'm becoming a Druid in protest. The Amazon.com description:

We are at war! This declaration should come as no surprise to anyone within earshot of today’s news media, but our war as Christians is much more intense and of a grander scale than any news report will ever show. There is a cosmic war between God’s army and the princes of evil, and all are enlisted. What is needed in today’s church are warrior leaders to lead charges into battle.

You, the Warrior Leader will develop Christians called to leadership roles into victorious spiritual war fighters who can form a multiplying army to fulfill the Great Commission—the mission to which God’s army has been called. Christians will be able to expand their force in a unified, focused, mobilized, intentional, and effective offensive campaign that will succeed at winning and discipling the world locally, nationally, and internationally.

[Josh]

Fred,

You're going to write about this right?

http://www.nae.net/images/civic_responsibility.pdf

Josh

[carla]

As Jon Stewart put it, though, the problem with the SSM marriage issue is that everyone thinks of two GUYS getting it on--if the "poster children" were two hot women getting it on, perhaps the issue would get a little more traction . . .

[cjmr]

Josh-

Wow! There is a lot in that document. I could write several essays on that (especially the proof-texts) and I'm sure Fred can, too!

Hope he does, I'd sure like to hear his impressions on it...

[AngryElephant]

The solution to the Democrats' "morality gap" isn't to capitulate to things which go against everything they stand for, but rather to take the Fred Clarks of the world and give them a much higher profile.

"Tough medicine BUT TRUE." Not all red states are the Deep South. If I were a Democrat, I'd be a heck of a lot more concerned about the erosion of support in the Upper Midwest than I would about struggling in a state where an initiative to repeal segregation laws can't get passed.

[drieux just drieux]

This Gay Marriage angst is silly. It's OK for this nation to send gays into combat, but they are afraid of letting them get married, what's up with that?

For those of you who do not know that there are gays in the military, it is clearly time you stop making the morning coffee with last night's bong water. They have been in the military since the first military. Our giggle has always been the folks who show up for the retirement party, and then learn that so-and-so was 'gay' - they do a quick double take, collect themselves and note that he never 'hit on them' and life goes on....

So maybe the folks hiding under their blankies because of terrorist might want to regroup their poop and support the troops.