As I've written previously, I think there's really no good empirical basis (as opposed to a poorly-worded question in an inaccurate exit poll) for the notion that this election turned on "moral values" more than any other (especially 2000). Nevertheless, the buzz on that front hasn't subsided much since election night. And while my initial inclination has been to chalk it up to lazy journalists and the right-wing noise machine, it's been picked up on to a far greater degree by a far wider audience for that to be an adequate explanation. From the blogosphere to the editorial pages, everyone and his brother is offering some variation on "the left needs to (re-)claim the language of religion and morality."
What if this meme is sticking in part because it speaks to something deeper than exit polls and message strategy? There's an obvious kernel of truth in the religious right's diagnosis -- that our nation really is on the wrong moral path, suffering from a degraded culture and an eroded value system, particularly in the way we treat the most vulnerable members of society.
I'd like to humbly suggest that some of what's going on here is a case of projection. Perhaps it's not just that lefties know the religious right is hurting our side on Election Day (hell, they've been doing that for a quarter-century), but that we sense that America really does need an authentic, radical religious renewal and the hope and prophecy that comes with it. That we need to reach to something beyond ourselves to fully articulate a political vision that will not only lead us to victory, but speak to the times in which we live.
Brian Derdowski, a former Republican elected official (and a personal mentor), just had a great op-ed published in the Seattle Times on the internal challenges faced by the Republican Party:
The last thing corporate backers of the GOP want is a profound change in the nation's moral climate and values, or a power shift to the states that a strict-constructionist judiciary would create.After all, Norman Rockwell's virtuous society doesn't spend a lot of money on fancy cars, vacations to exotic places and other luxuries. Global corporate oligarchies don't appreciate red-state notions of local economic power and states' rights. There are historic and obvious conflicts between religious and family values and our consumer society of excess.
The Republican Party may claim to be America's moral compass, but it is financed by interests with a very different agenda. When the corporate elite isn't figuring out how to mislead investors or scam the marketplace, it is peddling its bare-midriff teenybopper fashions and one-idea-fits-all media monopolies.
I went to the march this weekend, and while I should've been writing papers instead, it was pretty incredible. While I'm not quite buying the largest-march-in-American-history line, it was truly massive, and should give pause to anyone writing obituaries for the feminist movement.
And while I'm perfectly willing to march for legal access to abortion (and even more willing to march for a broader agenda of access to reproductive choice and health care), I continue to be deeply morally conflicted about abortion, as many of you know. And the dynamics with the counter-protesters really made me squeamish. Sure, there were the crazy contigent, preaching into megaphones and brandishing side-by-side photos of aborted fetuses and Holocaust victims. The usual shouting matches ensued.
But there was also a large contigent of (mostly) young women, silently holding simple signs reading "Women Deserve Better Than Abortion", "I Regret My Abortion," and so forth. What's the right answer to these folks? Do we really want to glorify abortion? Ignore the obvious reality that women frequently are forced into having abortions they don't really want, whether because of poverty, family pressure, or other factors?
I heard a lot of snickering as we marched by, but not a lot of answers. One particularly opportunistic pro-choicer found a man a few blocks down, holding the same sign, and set up shop next to him with her own reading "77% of anti-abortion leaders are men" -- talk about an unfair cheap shot.
Searching through Sojourners archives (try running a search for "abortion" -- there's some interesting stuff), I found something with Naomi Wolf referencing an article she wrote for The New Republic in 1995. I looked it up, and found it to be about the most challenging and moving thing I've ever read on the issue:
It was when I was four months pregnant, sick as a dog, and in the middle of an argument, that I realized I could no longer tolerate the fetus-is-nothing paradigm of the pro-choice movement. I was being interrogated by a conservative, and the subject of abortion rights came up. "You're four months pregnant," he said. "Are you going to tell me that's not a baby you're carrying?"The accepted pro-choice response at such a moment in the conversation is to evade: to move as swiftly as possible to a discussion of "privacy" and "difficult personal decisions" and "choice." Had I not been so nauseated and so cranky and so weighed down with the physical gravity of what was going on inside me, I might not have told what is the truth for me. "Of course it's a baby," I snapped. And went rashly on: "And if I found myself in circumstances in which I had to make the terrible decision to end this life, then that would be between myself and God."
Startlingly to me, two things happened: the conservative was quiet; I had said something that actually made sense to him. And I felt the great relief that is the grace of long-delayed honesty.
Worth considering.