Newsreel 2/11

• Rick Santorum gained momentum this week by taking three caucus states in one fell swoop. While many still take Romney as the inevitable Republican nominee, this shows that race is far from over. Especially when Gingrich, who at this point has only won one state, has promised to not drop until the bitter end. 
• In spite of the beating that Romney took earlier in the week, today it looks like he might be regaining some momentum after pulling out a win in Maine. Ron Paul, though, the only potential GOP candidate still in the race to not yet win a state, won 36% of the vote putting him just 3% behind Romney’s 39%. It seems that Paul isn’t going down without a fight.  
• On top of his win in Maine today, Romney also won the CPAC straw poll. My gut tells me, though, this has less to do with the party actually liking him, but more as a pragmatic step that the GOP is making to make sure that they actually have a fighting chance against Obama. Mitt just can’t seem to catch a break.  
• In other news, Obama has come to a compromise on the issue of the government mandate for all employers to cover contraception for their employees. This comes loud opposition by Catholics (and, later, the backing of many Evangelicals), who claimed that this trampled their religious freedoms.
• Obama also has signed an executive order for the expansion of government collaboration with faith-based organizations by building upon the Office of Faith Based and NeighborhoodPartnerships started under the Bush administration. It’s still unclear, though, whether or not he is going to keep his promise to attach strings to that money that require that any organization taking government dollars to not discriminate grounds in their hiring practices against those of a different faith or no faith at all. Bush allowed it and Obama at least claimed on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t. He’s yet to act on that promise, though.
• This last one is completely and totally off topic but there was an awesome piece for the New York Times written by a philosopher out of Notre Dame named Gary Getting entitled “How to Argue About Politics” that came out a couple weeks ago. I know on the internet if it’s more than 5 hours old it’s old news, but it’s a fantastic piece none that everyone should take to heart when discussing politics. Seriously. I’m pretty sure most of the problems we have today in this country could be solved by taking the lessons of this piece to heart. 

The Contraception Question

President Obama seems to have followed the example of the Komen Cancer Foundation (ironically) as he plans to amend a decision regarding women’s health that was met with widespread criticism. His administration’s recent health care mandate requiring private insurers to, as a part of minimum coverage, include contraception sent a number of religiously minded figures and politicians, most prominently Catholics, up and over the wall.

To keep from straying too far from the election, and geography, at hand, Republican former Senator George LeMieux, who is running in 2012 to reclaim a seat on the senate floor representing Florida, commented that he doesn’t see value in religious institutions (particularly those of his own faith, Catholic) taking government money at all. LeMieux thinks that “many of the problems of the federal government – that it’s too large and spending too much, is a moral problem at its base.” And, of course, he adds that America is becoming “too secular” and there’s a “war on Christianity”. I certainly think the last point is in error– although Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s recent Newsweek cover story brings up an interesting counterissue.

But anyway, LeMieux carries with him the general conservative response to Obama’s health care mandate, that it is restricting the liberty of religiously affiliated institutions by (until just recently) foregoing their religious exemption and forcing them to provide benefits that they see as antidoctrinal. A couple important things to note in this vein: firstly, a point my friend raised in a discussion earlier this week, to be “religiously affiliated” does not equate to having an all-religious staff. Many universities and hospitals that might qualify for a religious exemption have a number of staffers that may disagree entirely with the organization’s religious views (as if an organization can really even have religious views– maybe policies, but at any rate, that’s a issue for another time). A Methodist nurse at a Catholic hospital could easily find the contraceptive benefits useful and religiously sanctioned even if her bosses think that it’s a bad idea.

And in a way, though, I do agree with LeMieux’s initial point: why are these religiously affiliated institutions taking taxpayer money at all if they don’t want to abide by the policies dictated by our elected officials? It just seems like a strategically bad decision on their part–to expect lawmakers to run the risk of violating the Establishment Clause (in at least a spiritual sense, so to speak) to provide certain institutions with special treatment? Those accusing the President’s administration of being “anti-Catholic”, simply because they have set 21st century-level health standards that happen to conflict with a certain tradition’s beliefs and practices seem to, as the saying goes, want both to have and to eat their government-funding cake.

In 2012 election terms, I wouldn’t expect LeMieux to, if elected, devote a awful lot of time to encouraging religious institutions to disassociate themselves from the government, except in the sense of supporting privatization everywhere. His comments came as a sort of afterthought, where he was truly coloring himself an opponent of the contraception law and, as a religious minority candidate himself, wanted the government to recognize the exemption for religious institutions. I’d personally prefer to see a health care system that gives people a universal option for health care rather than this mandated stuff, and for the American government and media to work to educate people more on health issues so as to combat the opposition to contraception in the first place. Nevertheless, while 2008 seemed to be an election year of the economy and the war, 2012 seems to have replaced concern over conflict overseas with health care. And in swing states down below, in Florida as well as North Carolina, the concerns of the religious–minority or not–will almost certainly continue to take the forefront of political discourse.

Walker Bristol grew up in southeastern North Carolina, in a town somewhat known for being the principal filming location of Dawson’s Creek (his parents, and reality, insist that his brother Dawson was born and named prior to the show’s pilot). He escaped to Boston when he was 17, and now serves Italian food and studies religion and linguistics at Tufts University. He wrestled in high school, but now mostly ballroom dances and jams on the piano with the rest of the Tufts Freethought Society. For the first decade of his life, Walker believed “incorrectly” that he was living in the Star Wars universe. Having never been to space, he remains agnostic on that question.

Newsreel 01/28

• This week’s South Carolina Primary saw New Gingrich emerge in a landslide victory over Mitt Romney and the rest of the runners in the race-to-race-against-Obama. Pew Forum released an exit report on the religious breakdown of the voters, noting that Gingrich took both the evangelical vote and that of those who consider it important that a candidate shares their religious views (curious, as Gingrich is a former-evangelical now-Catholic).
• Writing on the South Carolina primary, president of the Secular Coalition for America Dr. Herb Silverman contributed a piece to the HuffPo citizens coverage of the 2012 race on Stephen Colbert’s endorsement of Herman Cain.
• Mitt released his tax returns this week, revealing that he gives $20 million dollars annually to the Mormon church. WaPo columnist Lisa Miller points to this and a number of (ahem…biased) sources to suggest that religious people are, on the whole, more generous. Barring a simple correlation-causation mistake, I think it’s beyond silly to say, as she does, that someone might be “nicer” simply because they ascribe to specific faith tradition. Do you think she’s onto something?
• On the topic of the Romulan family, a piece in Gawker looks at the conversion of Mitt’s father-in-law from “staunch atheism” to Mormonism.
• In the 18,431,235th Republican presidential debate of this election cycle, GOP candidates discussed how their religious beliefs will or should affect their roles as president.
• Turning our attention briefly away from the fiery-topic GOP race, the Obama administration, in addition to delivering this year’s State of the Union address, upheld a health care mandate requiring almost all employers’ insurance plans– including many Catholic organizations, which met criticism– to provide contraceptive services to women at no cost. Analysts worry that this might pose an obstacle to the Catholic votership as the incumbent president seeks reelection. Small price for women’s reproductive freedom, if you ask me.
• And finally, a bit off-topic: Seemingly in an effort to garner support for the forthcoming Florida primary, Newt Gingrich, in all his scientific credibility, revived a Bush II promise that, if elected, he’d annex a new state by the end of 2020: on the moon. Without increasing NASA’s budget. In a time of financial austerity. A number of astrophysicists weighed in on the economic near-impossibility of the idea, but here’s everyone’s favorite, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who notes that, if possible, “the world” ought to have a moon base, to “push civilization as a whole forward in a way we never imagined before.”

The Palmetto Candidate

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” So it would seem, from Matthew 18:20, that Jesus was on Saturday walking among the polls of South Carolina, where Republican voters in one of America’s most evangelical Protestant states made their contributions to the selection of the 2012 Republican nominee.

But the January 21st primary shed surprise across faces of voters nationwide, as Newt Gingrich pulled a 13-point victory over everyone’s (reluctantly) expected victor, Mitt Romney. And now, officially, Mitt– who for so long seemed definitively to succeed John McCain as the GOP’s challenge to Barack Obama– has thus far only won one of three state primaries.

Quick aside: That is, in places where Obama makes it onto the ballot. Yep, some folks, most recently in Atlanta, have yet to cede that someone with a foreign dictator’s middle name could possibly have been born in this country. Even in Hawaii, with the highest percentage of multicultural-Americans in the country.

At any rate, the evidently-undoubtedly-American Newt Gingrich has now found himself locked in a duel with Mitt Romney for the red-ink place on the presidential ballot. It seems this mysterious landslide came from Gingrich’s staunch Catholicism, which he frames not as a Kennedy-esque pluralistic faith but rather as a position against the “secularization” of America by the “cultural elite” (who exactly is he referring to here, anyway? The “elite” in our culture, looking for instance at Cee Lo Green’s New Year’s Eve rewriting of Lennon, certainly seem to have no interest in driving religious sentiment, albeit perhaps pluralistic,  anywhere but back into public life).

Indeed, a Pew Forum survey determined that Gingrich scored best among South Carolina’s staple evangelical crowd, receiving 44% of their vote. He also won out in voters described as Catholic, although not quite as decisively as he did with evangelicals (he and Romney split the Catholic vote 37% and 29%). Growing up in southeastern North Carolina, I’d chalk this up to a feeling of slightly more progressive Catholicism among Southern voters. That demographic shares a number with the significant Hispanic minority in the Carolinas, who might be sympathetic to Romney’s tendency to emphasize his support for legal immigration even when advocating for border security and criticizing amnesty. Incidentally, Gingrich and Romney experienced a clash over immigration earlier today, as Gingrich turns his focus towards winning the Latino vote in the general election.

"Pull my finger, Frenchie, or pull the ad calling me a serial hypocrite. Your choice."

And yet, I’m not expecting Gingrich to go too much further. Looking primarily on the religious front, as we do under this domain name, neither candidate at this point offers a traditionally Protestant worldview to the GOP votership. Republicans are left with a choice: between a former-baptist whose conversion to Catholicism has come alongside a string of divorces and questionable family values (despite his cat-like ability to dodge questions in the realm), and a Mormon who has gone to great lengths to draw common ground between his faith and that of the non-Mainline voters who dominate the party.

On the 31st, Florida will hold its Republican primary, and then we’ll have a hiatus of Southern primaries until March 6th with Georgia, Tennessee, and Virgina (yes, they count as Southern, at least according to my arbitrary scale based on prevalence of sweet tea). Now the race has been (realistically) diminished to a duo of GOP prospies, both of whom count themselves among minority religious groups. And both will likely find that they have to pander to the Deep South’s characteristic evangelical crowd if they want to emerge first, as it’s seemed to work for Gingrich in SC.

Walker Bristol grew up in southeastern North Carolina, in a town somewhat known for being the principal filming location of Dawson’s Creek (his parents, and reality, insist that his brother Dawson was born and named prior to the show’s pilot). He escaped to Boston when he was 17, and now serves Italian food and studies religion and linguistics at Tufts University. He wrestled in high school, but now mostly ballroom dances and jams on the piano with the rest of the Tufts Freethought Society. For the first decade of his life, Walker believed “incorrectly” that he was living in the Star Wars universe. Having never been to space, he remains agnostic on that question.

The R/evolution Will Be Televised…on YouTube.

An incredible video went up on YouTube yesterday, in which a man named Jacob Kramer asks Representative Joe Walsh, who is running for re-election in Kramer’s district, the following simple question: “How will you represent your atheist voters?”

I watched all five minutes and thirty-eight seconds of this video, which was filmed at a town hall event that Rep. Walsh offered for his constituents, with my jaw firmly planted on the floor – but not for any of the reasons I usually drop my jaw. In this video, there is no yelling. There is no name-calling. There is no whining. There is no condescension. There is no wild-eyed terror. There is no weeping or gnashing of teeth. This video flows with milk and honey and dignity and respect and competence and maturity and reasonable, constructive dialogue.

That’s it. I’m officially converted – I’ve witnessed a bona fide miracle.

Jacob Kramer serves as the Vice President of Outreach for the newly formed National Atheist Party. (This happens to be the exact position that I hold on the board of the equally influential Harvard Secular Society. Coincidence? I think not!) The NAP, founded last March by Troy Boyle, stands for a firm separation of church and state.

And, contrary to what the Pope would have you believe about “radical secularists,” the NAP truly doesn’t want the government to favor any religious viewpoint – including non-religious ones. “We don’t want government to impose a religion,” Boyle explained in an interview, “and we don’t want government to impose no religion.”

Some, like Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist blog, have been skeptical of the NAP’s usefulness. In addition to the unfortunately somnolent acronym, Mehta mentions the NAP’s positions on a whole host of non-theological issues – from gay marriage to gun control – as a downside. Not the positions themselves, that is, but the simple fact that the NAP has taken positions on issues other than the existence of god(s). Although Mehta happens to agree with all of NAP’s declared positions on these issues, he explains, “it’s crazy to imply that all atheists feel the same way. Or that we should feel the same way.” Even support for church-state separation, Mehta suggests, might be an unwarranted extrapolation from the simple belief in a godless universe.

However, Mehta is quick to (rightly) point out that simply showing the atheists of America that they’re not alone is “a big freaking deal,” and he commends the NAP for at least partly uniting an often fragmented group. He also remarks – playfully highlighting a painfully real problem – that perhaps the best thing the NAP can do to create a more atheist-friendly country is to publicly endorse an atheist-unfriendly candidate (Mehta suggests Rick Santorum), thereby ending that unlucky person’s political career by branding them with the unelectable scarlet A.

But I think the NAP can do more than ironically humiliate evangelical politicians and remind people that atheists exist. The video of Jacob Kramer and Joe Walsh demonstrates the power that we can have if we organize. Free Inquiry editor Tom Flynn demanded years ago that atheists “start punching our weight.” But, as this video reveals, our true power lies not in our fists, but in what we can accomplish when we unclench them.

I obviously disagree strongly with the majority of Rep. Walsh’s response to Kramer’s question, but I’m incredibly impressed with the tone of this conversation, on both sides. Rep. Walsh may be a poor constitutional interpreter, but he should be commended for his sincere attempt to honestly and fairly engage all of his constituents in reasonable discussion. And Kramer clearly deserves props for bringing these issues up publicly, and for doing so in a manner that encourages constructive dialogue instead of starting yet another futile shouting match.

These are the types of conversations we need to be having with all our elected officials, because these are the conversations that will actually get us somewhere. If all the NAP did was record and publicize five-minute discussions like this one with every congressperson, they would immediately advance the public discourse on religion and government far more than any other party has in years.

As for the NAP’s actual platform, I’m not sure it’s as much of an extrapolation as Mehta argues. Inasmuch as a whole lot of hot political issues stem from people’s religious beliefs, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that certain positions on such issues could follow from non-religious beliefs as well. Although I agree that the NAP might be straying into unorthodox territory with some of their policies (I’m unclear on what godlessness tells us about the economy, for example), and while I’m well aware that there are always exceptions to the rules (my friend Kelly, who held my Harvard Secular Society board position before me, is pro-life), I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find an atheist who wants the state to apply different marriage rules to different couples based on their gender composition. Of course atheists will differ on whether to provide equal marriage rights or abolish marriage altogether as a government institution and stick with civil unions, but that’s the same kind of diversity you will see within any political party. The take-home message here is that the NAP isn’t necessarily overstepping its bounds by taking positions on religiously-influenced political issues.

Finally, I think the NAP possesses significant potential in another realm that has not yet been recognized by either the media or the NAP itself. Although they may be the strangest of bedfellows, the NAP could be the next great ally of the interfaith movement. Of course this is where the ostensibly extraneous parts of their platform could get in the way, but if the NAP is serious about sticking to its core purpose of firmly separating church from state, its goals and methods should significantly overlap with those of interfaith organizations like the Interfaith Youth Core. And the respectful conversation between Kramer and Rep. Walsh is like an interfaith organizer’s wet dream. I’m skeptical that this cooperative potential will be harnessed, but stranger things have happened.

Small parties like the NAP frequently pop up for a few years and then die out, much like the vast majority of organisms in the history of Earth. But I believe the NAP has the potential to truly “evolve our politics,” just as they promise.

Chelsea Link is a senior at Harvard University, studying History and Science with a focus in the history of medicine. She is a panelist for NonProphet Status, and is documenting her attempt to read the Bible in a year at Blogging Biblically. She is also the Vice President of Outreach of the Harvard Secular Society, the former President of the Harvard College Interfaith Council, and a Volunteer Ambassador for the Be the Match bone marrow donor registry. She likes to cook while pretending she’s on Top Chef (hasty breakfast? more like Quickfire Challenge!), adores word games of all kinds (and was once the President of the illustrious Harvard College Crossword Society), and tends to kill the mood at parties by unnecessarily reciting Shakespeare. Last summer, she interned at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. You can ask her what she’s doing after graduation, but she’ll give you a different answer every time.

Newsreel 01/22

• And then there were four. This week, both Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry withdrew from the Republican primary. This leaves us in the very interesting position of, barring a miracle victory by Ron Paul, ending up with either a Catholic or a Mormon as the Republican presidential candidate for 2012.
• In case you missed it last week, the Pew Forum has a good breakdown of how the vote broke down by religion in New Hampshire, and compares this year’s results with the 2008 stats.
• Mitt Romney’s religion actually matters less now than it did in 2008, according to Serge F. Kovaleski of the New York Times.
• Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches criticizes Newt Gingrich’s “hyper-religiosity” as empty and hollow, noting his failure to invoke religion when speaking about race and justice to a black church on the day before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.
• According to Mitt[ens] himself, a person of any faith can be the president of Americans of all faiths. Hear, hear!
• This article isn’t directly related to the primary per se, but speaks to a major theme in the political rhetoric of the religious right: “majority victimhood.” Candace Chellew-Hodge of Religion Dispatches eloquently discusses the phenomenon of those who claim to be victims of religious discrimination when called out on their discrimination against queer folks.
• The Pope recently issued the latest repetitive and hypocritical warning about how “radical secularism” is undermining religious freedom in the United States by preventing religious people and institutions from…um…undermining religious freedom. I’m shaking in my pluralistic boots.
• A couple of weeks ago, we saw the formation of the first-ever National Atheist Party! I’ll bring the Christian baby blood if you bring the communion wafers for desecrating! Because that’s what atheists do at parties, right?

Words are Important or; Why Everyone you Disagree With isn’t a Terrorist

While my next couple posts will focus on the different ways that Muslims have been actively involved in politics both at the state and national level, this week I wanted to comment on a controversial claim that Rick Perry made during the GOP primary debate on Monday night in South Carolina. During the section on foreign policy, Perry was asked the following question:

“Since the Islamist-oriented party took over in Turkey, the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 percent there. Press freedom has declined to the level of Russia. The prime minister of Turkey has embraced Hamas and Turkey has threatened military force against both Israel and Cypress. Given Turkey’s turn, do you believe Turkey still belongs in NATO?”

Perry responded by saying:

“Well, obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by, what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then yes. Not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it.”

Turkey is run by “Islamic terrorists”, eh? To quote a childhood hero of mine:

To claim even indirectly (which he does here by using the infamous “some would say” card which allows you to place a controversial view out there, use it as a premise in an argument and all the while not explicitly endorse it) that Islamic terrorists rule Turkey is simply baseless and irresponsible. But after you take a step back and pay careful attention of how he words his response what’s going on becomes clearer. This is the key part:

“…what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists…” (emphasis added)

We can’t contest the fact that Perry and others look at, say, the ruling party of Turkey and see “Islamic terrorists” in the same way that we can’t deny the fact that many who look at atheists and see nothing but amoral, potential sociopaths who are one Richard Dawkins book away from seeking a legal ban all religion. They’re, of course wrong, but that does not change the fact that that’s what they see when they look out at the world. This is, of course, in and of itself the issue. When we can no longer tell the difference between the rulers of secular country with a democratically elected government and people who trick children into becoming suicide bombers, we have a problem.

It all comes back to a fundamental truth that politicians on both sides of the aisle should internalize: words are important. Just like when you call someone a “Nazi” or a “fascist”, when say somebody is a “terrorist”, that’s supposed to mean something. These words that describes the darkest parts of civilization are not and should not be used as catchall terms for everything we don’t like. It’s through semantic abuse that terms like terrorist become useless and nothing more than a wide brush used to paint political targets with negative connotations in order to discredit and dehumanize without debate. From what I can tell, this is exactly what Governor Perry was attempting to do here. Riding the high tides of Islamophobia, he wanted to make it look as if he was taking a stand against a common enemy. Either that or he really does believe that terrorists run Turkey. I can’t tell which option is better.

Here’s the worst part of all of this: when it comes to Turkey, there are plenty of things to criticize. There is plenty to take issue with. Turkey’s recent rash of journalist arrests, their use of terrorism laws as a means to squash political protest, and whether or not the government is doing enough to stem the tide of honor killings (warning: pdf) that have been on the rise in the past 10 years are all important issues that need to be addressed. But instead of having a conversation about some worrying recent political and social trends in what is a close ally, we get this…from a man who was at one point seen to be a viable candidate for President of the United States. Hopefully with Perry suspending his presidential campaign today, some of the hyperbolic Islamophobic rhetoric, pandering to the far fringes of the American political spectrum and poor reasoning that has dogged this political cycle will leave with him.

But who am I kidding? It’s only January. We’ll be lucky if we get to next week without something equally as absurd being said. ‘Tis the season after all.

Adam Garner is a senior at the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign studying philosophy and religion with a focus on epistemology, applied ethics, and British Empiricism. He is the Vice-President of Campus Outreach for the UIUC group Interfaith in Action, a Better Together Coach for the Interfaith Youth Core’s 2012 Better Together Campaign, and is the head of the Education Committee for the Illinois Interfaith Service Challenge. Raised Mormon, Adam is now an atheist that has one goal in life: to leave the world a little bit better than he found it through the power of rational discourse and interfaith cooperation. When not interfaithing or philosophizing, he enjoys watching cat videos on the internet, finding new Sci-fi shows to become addicted to, and teaching other people how to do handstands