Theocratic Musings-Part III-The Purpose-Driven Court

OK, let's get down to brass tacks. What the secularists are worried about isn't that we'll have a Council of Augustinian Mullahs but that the Supreme Court will reinterpret the Constitution to allow for some traditional moral values to be applied to American law, to have the Supreme Court look more like Rick Warren than Earl Warren. Yes, I can see the right side of the Peanut Gallery getting the Impeach Rick Warren stickers ready to go, for he isn't their cup of tea, either.

What we can see happening if we extrapolate a few years out to a ~60-seat Republican majority and a George Allen administration in place in 2009 is a conservative Supreme Court that would be likely to do the following.

• Allow for states to regulate abortion, overturning Roe v Wade
• Allow same-sex marriage to be banned
  
• Allow aid to go to religious schools and institutions if the money serves a broader secular purpose; if there was religion in the mix, people aren't being coerced, and the secular job was being done in the process, it's OK.
• An OK to teach Intelligent Design along side evolution; a generic intelligent First Cause might avoid the establishment clause and a evolution-only could be seen as establishment in its own right, taking sides in a theological debate.
   

You'd also see the following flowing on the legislative level

• Some school voucher programs, once the Supremes give the OK
• More abstinence-based sex ed
• Fewer domestic-partner benefit laws
• More "faith-based" private-public partnerships

Does this add up to a theocracy? I don't see agnostics getting jailed or adulterers getting capital punishment.

Does this take us back to the Civil War era? I don't hear a return to Jim Crow or talk about disenfranchising women.

What this would allow is for a old-school majority to keep basic moral norms and to allow for a more permeable wall between religious values and government. Church and state may need to keep their distance, but morality and state can mix, at least on a basic level that has broad agreement.

If it is a theocracy, it has a very generic God behind it. The God of that government isn't one that is worshiped in any house of worship that I know of. He gave the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule and got out of Dodge. That theocracy is silent on Jesus, on salvation and on most of the issues that divide Protestant from Catholics and denominations from each other.

How would this effect the secular folks who are worried about a theocracy? Not that much. Let me borrow from a Reconstructionist post from 2002.

 

I may agree with Reconstructionists in looking to ban most abortions (life-of-mom exception) and to pass laws  encouraging marriage and looking to avoid encouraging and subsidizing extra-marital sex, but stoning adulterers isn't on my agenda. Even if Kevin, Louder and I were a three-man Council of Augustinian Mullahs, R. Kelly and Andrew Sullivan could take home their sex partner of choice for the evening, but shouldn't expect our government to subsidize those relationships outside of marriage. They also shouldn't expect schools to tell kids that their behavior is just as good as a monogamous married couple's. Other than abortion, drugs, statutory rape, child porn and prostitution, conservatives aren't looking to criminalize behavior, but to avoid governmental actions that subsidies or fail to discourage immoral behavior.

 

The Handmaiden’s Tale was a popular book amongst liberals, creating a theocratic dystopia where some women were breeding slaves. Remember that it is fiction, not prophecy. If conservatives were running things, life would go on pretty much as it does today for the libertines in society, with the exception that they'll have more problems getting an abortion and would have to be more careful avoiding "jail bait." The only other downside that comes to mind would be that some reproductive-based biotech would be shelved and the biotech sector might grow a bit slower than otherwise. If that's what you're giving up by voting Republican, look at the disrespect for non-sexual liberties the liberals represent.
 

That's dated; it's been a couple of years since Louder Fenn (for blog newbies, he was a leading conservative Catholic blogger back in 2002) hung up his blog and Kevin Holtsberry's home blog's been in hibernation for a year.

The coalition that would pass those applications of traditional morality aren't going to agree on the theological details enough to start a state church. Let me come back to my Rick Warren analogy.

He's popular across the right two-thirds of the Protestant spectrum; Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and Presbyterians can all use The Purpose Driven Life because (IIRC) he says nothing about church polity, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the proper time and method for baptism, or free will/predestination. I haven't heard of any Catholic TPDL fans, but there's probably not much that would tick off a Catholic. A lot of folks in evangelical quarters don't like Warren because of just that; he doesn't go to the mat for doctrines that are peculiar to a particular denomination.

TPDL is thin gruel to start a theocracy around, yet it would be that kind of generic Christian thought that would plausibly command a majority. Even though TPDL has been flying off the shelves, it's not going to command a majority in favor of it.To get to a majority, you'll need some sort of "Judeo-Christian" construct that will being Catholics, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and other fans of basic Old Testament values to conjure up a majority; a generically evangelical worldview won't cut it in the political sphere.

What we're left with is a generically monotheistic worldview with basic Ten Commandments/Golden Rule morality. It agrees that there is a God and that certain things displease Him and should be discouraged, but it doesn't agree on most of the deeper details, like how to be sure you're on God's good side and how to worship Him. The God in question is the generic God of civil religion, which isn't a church at all but a social construct to allow for a generic public morality while agreeing to disagree about the mechanics of theology.

Thus, we're not going to be looking at a theocracy, even if Dubya clones hold the White House into the 2020s. What we might see is the Rick Warren Court, with a civil-religion generic morality being put back in place without going back to institutionalized segregation and misogyny.

Everyone on the left take a deep breath. Jerry Falwell's not going to become Ayatollah. "No, it'll be bin Dobson" I hear somebody quip from the left side of the Peanut Gallery.

Nice try. Crying "theocracy" is about as realistic as crying "Nazi" or "Fascist." At worst, we'll get the Rick Warren Court, which ain't that bad.

 

Comments

[Joel Thomas]

Republicans in the Oklahoma House of Representatives recently passed a bill providing that no state agency or entity may enact any law or regulation banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. That's short of theocracy, but ironically, it sounds to my ears as legislation of Satan for Satan's world.

[Peter Sean Bradley]

Joel,

See, that's entirely the kind of non sequitur that kicked off this thread. The discussion was originally about whether referring to evangelicals as being "easily lead" by "charismatic leaders" reflected a prejudice against "evangelicals". A related issue was whether America was at risk of becoming a theocracy. Mark answered affirmative to the first question and negative to the second.

But rather than take up those issues, you offer a complaint about a law passed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives that maintains some kind of status quo, the passage of which may be unconstitutional under Romer v. Colorado. (Because it may "stigmatize" homosexuals; but oddly no one saeems particularly concerned if Christians are "stigmatized" as potential theocrats by such devices as court orders to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of allegiance.)

But what does any this have to do with the subject under discussion? We don't know if the Oklahoma legislature is controlled by "fundamentalists." We might suspect that it is, and we might be right, but jumping to that conclusion without data is what the word "prejudice" means. What would happen to the argument that evangelicals are in the thrall of their "charismatic leaders" if we found that a sizeable percentage of the Oklohama legislature were Methodists and Presbyterians or some other non-fundamentalist denomination?

Further, your example hardly supports the claim that "evangelicals are easily led by one or two charismatic leaders." In fact,what you are describing looks a lot like democracy in a federal system. Or is your concern about such thing limited only to laws passed by "evangelicals", as opposed to laws "passed" by judges in other states to promote the gay agenda? And, by the way, might we hear a word of concern about discrimination against those people whose jobs will be lost because they believe that they cannot licitly participate in homosexual marriages? The silence about the constitutional rights of such people has been absolutely deafening.

You are clearly trying to hijack the discussion, but I find it interesting that in your mind you appear to lay "Satan's legislation" at the feet of evangelicals, otherwise, what was the purpose of raising that issue in this discussion?

By the way - not that I want to plug into the hijacking of the discussion, but for the sake of accuracy - the legislation appears to maintain the status quo as to "sexual preference" not "sexual orientation". It thereby seems to be an attempt to bracket the act/person distinction. I understand that gay activists argue that such a distinction is meaningless - since to be gay in their mind is to act gay - but reasonable minds might agree that reasonable minds could differ on that subject. (I'm not here tipping my hand on how I would vote on such legislation if offered the opportunity.) But that is a discussion for another time.

[Joel Thomas]

Peter Sean,

My point is that the country doesn't have to evolve to a theocracy in order to seriously undermine the dignity and civil rights of gays. Fifty-nine percent of evangelical protestant pastors said they would not knowingly accept a homosexual as a member of their church. Many of these same pastors are trying to influence elections, which is their right, but it doesn't mean that I have to consider their actions benign, which seems to me what Mark is implying.

I was laying my description at the feet of fundamentalists, not evangelicals. Anyway, I'm an evangelical Christian.

Much of the foundation of the modern Oklahoma Republican party can be traced to two individuals, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. The fact that their influence has now waned among fundamentalists doesn't change the fact that they had a profound impact on Oklahoma politics. Part of that impact was to absolutely demonize moderate Republicans such as former Oklahoma Governor and Senator Henry Bellmon. I believe there is truth in the claim that Oklahomans allowed themselves to be too easily swayed by one or two charsimatic leaders. (Republicans used to claim that people were too easily swayed by the charismatic President Kennedy. Were Republicans belittling a whole class of people in making that claim?)

Numerous Republicans have claimed that blacks are manipulated by the liberal black leadership. Is that a slam against blacks as being ignorant?

There is absolutely no difference in the terms "sexual orientation" and "sexual preference."

[Mark Congdon]

Joel,

"Fifty-nine percent of evangelical protestant pastors said they would not knowingly accept a homosexual as a member of their church."

Since more than that percentage of evangelical protestants believe that homosexuality is immoral, that doesn't surprise me. If you rephrased the question to them as "Would you accept a repentant homosexual desiring to live a celibate life into your church", I expect the percentage of Yes answers would jump to nearly 100%. But, regardless, this is a question of what evangelical protestants believe about homosexuality. To bridge the chasm between a simple belief that homosexuality is immoral, and your statement that they are undermining the "dignity" of gays, is a difficult leap, and certainly one for which you bear the burden of proof.

"Republicans used to claim that people were too easily swayed by the charismatic President Kennedy. Were Republicans belittling a whole class of people in making that claim? Numerous Republicans have claimed that blacks are manipulated by the liberal black leadership. Is that a slam against blacks as being ignorant?"

Yes, and Yes. If someone shows up here or on my blog saying such things, I'll be the first to tell them so.

"There is absolutely no difference in the terms 'sexual orientation' and 'sexual preference.'"

It strikes me that there is an obvious self-evident difference. Can you give some background to explain the lack of difference that you see? I assume you understand the difference in meaning between the words "orientation" and "preference" in the English language. Given that, I think the burden of proof is on you to show that the two concepts are equivalent in this case, that the evident difference in meaning of the words themselves somehow doesn't apply.

Mark

[Joel Thomas]

Mark C.,

Sexual orientation is one's sexual preference for members of the same sex or the opposite sex. Both terms refer to sexual inclination.

My primary example of undermining the dignity and civil rights of gays had to do with Oklahoma Republican legislators passing a bill banning state agencies from prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual preference.

Even a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention lamented the homophobia that drove some of their family out of the church when a grandchild was born with AIDS and that even with his prestigious connections, he had a difficult time finding a Baptist church that was willing to allow attendance. The AIDS wasn't even acquired through a homosexual act, but such was the stigma and fear that they weren't welcome anyway.

[Bene Diction]

How did Joel hijack the discussion?
Seems to me a city or state or country or where ever people are grouped rules or laws could tip into theocracy - generic or not.
Mark's point is that it isn't going to happen in the USA. Joel's point is that there are places on your soil that it is.

[Peter Sean Bradley]

Bene,

Joel hijacked the discussion because he engaged in a "tu quoque" argument, under which he implicitly attempted to justify the generalized antipathy held by people in non-theocratic places like California and New York by pointing out how awful evangelicals - or fundamenatlists, whatever - are in Oklahoma. However, evangelicals/fundamentalists - whatever you want to call them - might be just awful in Oklahoma and there just might be a general prejudice against evangelicals - which actually has been documented by social scientists - everywhere else. The fact that both points might be true is why the "tu quoque" argument is a fallacy.

But Joel gets to ride what seems to be his particular hobby-horse and, thereby, attempts to suck people into the rabbit-hole of discussing the Oklahoma legislation. Even though no one - neither Rick at Unspun or fundamentalist-bashers generally - ever previously indicated that their recent hysteria derived from their obsession with saving Oklahoma from theocracy! (Good Lord! Bible-belt legislation in Oklahoma! Next we'll learn that some counties in Oklahoma outlaw the consumption of alcohol because it's "unbiblical" or somesuch!) Clearly, Oklahoma is not why people like Andrew Sullivan are so excited about an impending "theocracy."

I think my sensitivity to this issue comes from the fact that I actually represent all kinds of protected classes and I cannot tolerate the idea that some protected classes are more protected than others. Prejudice - which is imputing particular attitudes or attributes to individuals based on their association with a group identity - is noxious no matter what it's based on.

For example, I'm suspicious about the ascription of the foundation of the Republican Party in OK to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who apparently represent "fundamentalism", and not "evangelicalism" (and by the way Rick at Unspun hooted and called me names saying that you Protestant-types make that very distinction.) The reason I'm dubious about that proposition is that Frank Keating held the OK governorship until 2002 and was noteworthy for being Catholic in a state where less than 5% of the population is Catholic. It seems like there are an awful lot of broadminded fundamentalists down there. Again, I don't have the data on Oklahoma, but until I see reputable sourcing, I don't think anyone here does.

But that's the point about prejudice: it fills the gap between the facts and what the individal wants to see.

Also, what happened to my point about discrimination against believers because of the gay rights agenda? If gay marriage becomes California law, I would be disqualified from ever being a judge because my obedience to my faith would preclude me from officiating over such marriages. Is that a trivial result? Does the reduction to second class status of people like me not count simply because we find ourselves on the losing side of a judicial coup de'tat? (Note, that this gambit is a reverse hijacking of the discussion thread because then we'll be riding my hobby-horse.)

Finally, Joel, the difference between "sexual orientation" and "sexual preference" actually represents the shift in the argument for the homosexual agenda during the 1980s. Prior to 1980, gay activists sought to claim a legal privilege for homosexuality as a form of expression, but by the end of that decade as more "discrete and insular minorities" obtained legal protection on the basis of their "unchanging characteristics" the argument for the gay agenda sought to make gays a kind of racial group.

There was actually no change in any science about the cause of homosexuality. The changed strategy simply tracks overall legal developments in the area of employment, public accommodation and housing discrimination.

Which view is ontologically correct? Who knows, and generally that ignorence should make it a matter for democratic process, albeit see my earlier point about Romer v. Colorado. If I was a betting man, I'd bet that a state law based on that distinction would not survive judicial scrutiny under the current pro-homosexual legal regime. (By the way, if you are inclined to challenge those last 5 words, I will be happy take you on a tour of disability discrimation law, which carved out a unique status for asymptomatic aids, but for no other "symptomless" disability.)

[Joel Thomas]

Peter Sean,

Since you are opposed to divorce, wouldn't your faith also require you as a judge to go against your faith by recognizing divorces or by performing wedding ceremonies for the divorced? I'm against the death penalty. If I were a judge in Oklahoma I'd have to be willing to defy my faith in order to serve in such a position.

Despite all your meandering, you have not convinced me that you oppose employment discrimination against gays, particularly practicing gays.

By allowing gays to serve openly in the military, how does that protect them over and above other classes? To me, it just gives them the same protection.

[Mark Congdon]

Joel,

Back to your response to my post a little while back...

"Sexual orientation is one's sexual preference for members of the same sex or the opposite sex. Both terms refer to sexual inclination."

Orientation implies biological or genetic condition. Preference implies social or personal choice. Preference would be an obvious result of orientation, as I think you are saying... but preference does not require orientation. That is at least how the words are generally used and understood in society, I believe.

"My primary example of undermining the dignity and civil rights of gays had to do with Oklahoma Republican legislators passing a bill banning state agencies from prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual preference."

I'm glad to hear it. The post where you mentioned the dignity and civil rights phrase directly connected it to churches not accepting gay members. If you are disavowing that connection, then I will drop my objection as well.

"Even a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention lamented the homophobia . . ."

An example does not a rule make... nor a theocracy. I grieve for that man and his family, and I do not doubt his story. There are certainly homophobic Christians and homophobic churches. However, not every church (probably not even most churches) that consider homosexuality to be immoral and would require their members to hold the same view are therefore homophobic.

Mark C.

[Peter Sean Bradley]

Jeepers, Joel, apparently you've perfected mind-reading and have ascertained that I favor discrimination against gays in employment. Because nothing I've written would provide that kind of conclusion.

Your inference will come as quite the shock to the various clients I've represented in anti-gay discrimination cases. They thought that I wanted to win their cases when in fact I did win their cases.

That's the problem with prejudice; it allows the person with the bias to "fill in the gap" between facts and fantasy. However, it must be convenient to be able launch an ad hominem attack on anyone who offers a different legal or philosophical position by insinuating that they are a "homophobic bigot."

Also, nice tu quoque on the divorce issue but a couple of ideas suggest themselves -

First, why don't you actually take the effort to "know the enemy." You could then actually make a point that is something more than a straw man argument. For example, as I've written previously, canon law and Catholic doctrine permit the separation of married couples under various circumstances. "Divorce" may be countenanced for reasons of property and children. You could if you had the desire to know the truth even look it up and see that I'm not making this up. [Also see para 2383. ] But "The spouses do not cease to be husband and wife before God and so are not free to contract a new union." (Id. at 1649) So, I reckon I could find a way to reconcile being a judge to my faith's position on divorce.

Second, assume you're right about my position on divorce: why should the fact that society amended its laws in the 1970s to experiment with divorce - which has not led to the happy utopia as its proponents claimed - cause me to concede that we should engage in a similar experiment for gay marriage today? In other words, assume that a person believes that both divorce and gay marriage are immoral, how does allowing one immoral policy make the other one right?

It doesn't. That's why it's called the "tu quoque fallacy."

But you know what is interesting? You appear to be impervious to any sense of justice for anyone other than gays. Not once have you offered any expression of concern for the rights of non-gays who may lose their jobs or for the rights of free, adult and sovereign citizens to engage in self-government. For example, just this week Nebraskans were told that they didn't have the power, capacity or liberty to maintain a definition of marriage that has has been in effect to two millenia. Is it really the case that you view the rights, beliefs and feelings of these people as something entirely trivial?

Perhaps, some people could be excused for believing that the threat to liberty in this country doesn't come from evangelicals in Oklahoma.

Sorry for meandering, but I find that spurious non sequiturs generally require more effort to respond to than to make. (For example, I have to, once again, provide authority for my propositions, wherease you get to simply trot out the "conventional wisdom" and engage in mind-reading and ad hominem attacks.)

[Joel Thomas]

Peter Sean,

So you do support laws banning employment discrimination against gays? You do support gays in the military? (I provided evidence that Ratzinger supports excluding gays from the military but you didn't respond to that.) You do support the right of gays to be school teachers, school principals, guidance counselors and coaches?

I have not expressed any support for the Nebraska decision. Nor have I expressed any support for any court decision granting the right of gay marriage. I have, however, supported legal rulings that laws prohibiting the banning of employment discrimination are unconstitutional.

The point about re-marriage is that as a judge you might be called on to issue marriage licenses to divorced Catholics. I'm aware that the church makes exceptions for divorce, but it doesn't make exceptions for re-marriage except in case of annulment. You would be called on to recognize marriages where no annulment has been granted. Such re-marriage goes against church teaching.

Again, my church teaches that the death penalty is wrong. We make no exception. For me to be a criminal judge I would have to ignore church teaching. Again, what's the difference?

Most of my civil rights and justice efforts have been directed in favor of Blacks, Hispanics, prison ministry, migrant farm workers, and against the "School of the Assassins." Only in the last two years have I shifted a good deal of my focus to gay issues. I did that after local pastors said that gay were not welcome in their churches and radical anti-gay groups kept mailing me pictures of half-naked men kissing.

I have also focused a lot of time on opposing predatory lending practices, finding shelter for the homeless, supporting programs for the mentally ill, etc.

None of my non-gay friends or family members have ever complained to me that they were the victims of discrimination for being straight. If they were to make such a valid complaint, I would certainly support them.

I have not implied that you are a homophobe and I quite expect that you have close gay friends. In fact, I've made it clear that I think that Catholics and the Catholic Church are much more welcoming toward gays than most Protestant Churches. I have stated that I believe the rhetoric used by Pope Benedict (as Ratzinger) has not been helpful to a climate of reconciliation between gays and straights.