PZ Myers. 2005 Mar 12. Sullivan. Gah.. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/sullivan_gah/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Saturday, March 12, 2005

Sullivan. Gah.

Amy Sullivan irritates the hell out of me. She had an article in Salon earlier this week, and as usual, it has just enough validity to interest me, but it was swaddled in so much Christian garbage that you want to throw it all away. The part I can agree with is that she's complaining about the ineffectuality of the religious left; and that's entirely true. The religious left has been an abysmal failure, a simpering collection of timid, ingrown ditherers that has allowed the religious right to stomp all over them. Unfortunately, Sullivan's solution to everything is to encourage the Democratic party to embrace the religious left more strongly.

That's right. The political party that has been weak and half-hearted, allowing conservative thugs to run them over repeatedly, is supposed to acquire vast new strengths by joining hands with the most feeble religious group. Right. And by fusing the properties of soggy noodles and cream of wheat, I will build a strong new material, tougher than titanium.

And Sullivan engages in the kind of historical blindness so common in arrogant Christianity.

It's nearly impossible to page through American history without coming across political causes that were driven either partly or entirely by progressive people of faith -- abolition, women's suffrage, labor reforms of the progressive era, civil rights, and any number of antiwar movements.

Jebus. Somebody get Sullivan a copy of Freethinkers, stat.

Of those struggles listed, only two impress me as having had a significant contribution from a religious perspective: the modern civil rights movement benefitted greatly from the strong and consistent efforts of black Southern churches, and a few fringe religious groups, the Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses, have also set a good example of conscientious opposition to war. We have a theistic majority, and of course religious people have been important participants, but so have non-religious people…and it seems to me that secular interests have been more consistently on the progressive side than have religious interests. For every church that fought for abolition or suffrage or civil rights, there were two that supported slavery or the oppression of women or the second-rank status of blacks, and a dozen that sat on their thumbs and did nothing. When religion is a motivating force on both sides of the equation, I'll be charitable and ignore the fact that more often than not it has sided with repression, and suggest that we cancel it out as a relevant factor.

As for the suggestion that labor reforms were driven by religious interests—that is an egregious rewriting of history. Labor has long been tarred with the slurs of Communism, Socialism, Atheism, and Anarchism in this country. I refuse to grant the hard earned credit of vociferous Reds to milksop Christians after the fact.

Unfortunately, that's not the only strange deviation from reality in the article.

Those members of the religious left that did remain politically active often seemed like caricatures of left-wing activists, agitating to save baby seals, Arctic wildlife, third-world orphans with only the faintest of biblical appeals marshaled on their behalf. While religious groups were some of the most vocal opponents of the recent war in Iraq, their unique voices got lost within a sea of peace slogans.

Wait, wait…we'd do a better job saving baby seals if the appeals were more biblical? What exactly is she suggesting here: don't waste time on baby seals? Find bible quotes to save baby seals? The religious left would do better if they shouted down those damned secularists tainting the purity of their goals?

And I'm sorry, Ms. Sullivan, but there is nothing at all unique about religious groups. This is America. We get religion with all of our news.

Here, though, is where Sullivan sinks to a new low. Take a look at this comment:

More damningly, to the extent that the religious left continued to exist, it became tied in the public's mind with secularists. "The positions of the religious left and secularists on crucial questions seem indistinguishable," says Joseph Loconte of the Heritage Foundation. "And that hurts them politically."

I don't even need to mention that this progressive Christian is quoting a fellow of the heinously conservative Heritage Foundation approvingly: look at the message. Secularists are bad. It hurts us that they share ideals with us. There is no hiding what she is trying to say, which is that the Democrats need to distance themselves from atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and freethinkers. This is the kind of divisive idea I'm sure the Heritage Foundation would love to see get wider play in the Democratic party.

Maybe, instead, she should take a look at what those secularists in her party are actually saying and doing. They are supporting civil rights, women's rights, economic fairness, fiscal responsibility, respectful partnerships with the other nations of the world…they are supporting the Democratic party platform. They share her values in the role of America's government, and only differ in that they don't go to church on Sunday, something totally irrelevant to politics. This is "damning"?

I think we secularists should try to praise poor Amy Sullivan. Despite the affliction of her religious background, she has still managed to acquire the good moral values of the majority of freethinkers. It does not hurt us to embrace even people of faith who support our ideals.

Although, I don't know, this kind of lie does test the limits of my tolerance:

The Kerry campaign ran just one television ad that mentioned its candidate's background as an altar boy: It was in Spanish, appearing only on a Spanish-language network. And when the candidate spoke about faith (which he often did, charging that Bush was a "man [who] claims to have faith, but has no deeds"), it was almost always in front of an African-American audience, fueling charges that Kerry's faith was insincere and brought out only for political purposes.

Hey, fellow atheists! Was there anyone of you who was following the political campaign who was not repeatedly informed that Kerry was a Catholic? Who did not hear it from his own mouth on multiple television appearances? In English?

This crap Sullivan is spouting is pure Republican propaganda, the same stuff they were spreading freely during the election, that Bush was the One True Christian and Kerry was a fraud. We know better. Kerry was a standard issue Christian politician, no better or worse on religious issues than most, and he was able to express his religious beliefs in a way that no atheist politician could ever hope to do.

Secular progressives voted for him anyway, with little concern about his faith. We also voted for Jimmy Carter, probably the most sincerely Christian president of recent times. If Barack Obama runs for president some day, even the most atheistical liberals (like me!) will vote for him without hesitating over his Christianity.

Can anyone imagine Sullivan voting for a secular humanist running on even an impeccably progressive platform?

It seems to me that what the Democratic party ought to do is exactly the opposite of what Sullivan suggests. Let's embrace our inclusive secularism. We want Christians and Jews and Moslems and atheists to all participate in running this country.

Let's all make freethought a guiding principle of the party. Freethought doesn't mean anti-god-belief, although it can include it; it does imply anti-religious thought, though, in the sense of opposing organized religion. We do have a tradition of anti-authoritarianism in America that is almost as strong as the anti-intellectualism that the Republicans have tapped into so effectively—why not use it? Mobilize people by appealing to that "rugged individualism" we all like, tell 'em we don't need no stinkin' popes or preachers or church elders or Falwells or Robertsons to instruct us in how to think about god. Encourage personal religious belief. Get the televangelists out of office. Get the sanctimonious prigs off our backs.

I think there's a germ of a message in there that would draw in a good number of those rural red-staters and NASCAR fans, too.

Posted by PZ Myers on 03/12 at 11:24 AM
Godlessness • Politics • 4 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. If the religious left's being on the same side as a tiny handful of secularists is damaging to public acceptance of goals, why isn't the religious right's unity with Pharisees and evil damaging their acceptance with the public?
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  11:52 AM
  2. Amen!
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  03/12  at  11:53 AM
  3. Those members of the religious left that did remain politically active often seemed like caricatures of left-wing activists, agitating to save baby seals, Arctic wildlife, third-world orphans with only the faintest of biblical appeals marshaled on their behalf.


    This is wrong on so many different levels:
    <ul>
    <li>In a decade and a half of being in the employ of environmental groups, I've seen absolutely no involvement in "Arctic wildlife" and "baby seal" issues from the religious left... except that religious left groups sometimes use those issues to organize conferences designed to being more environmentally-concerned people into the religious left, without success.</li>
    <li>caricatured "left wing" activiists decry the baby seals focus of much of the animal protection movement - and I'm saying that as a left winger who works for a baby seal protecting group.</li>
    <li>I am unaware of any of the religious organizations who do "third world orphan" work having a particular left slant, at least in their mission statements (though certainly that kind of work is likely to attract liberal-left staff)</li>
    <li>a majority of Americans identify themselves as environmentalists, but Sullivan would have the religious left abandon that constituency - if it was theirs to abandon, which it is not - and start spouting some untested fringe doctrine in order to be more successful?</li>
    </ul>
    As for the suggestion that labor reforms were driven by religious interests—that is an egregious rewriting of history.


    I wonder if she's thinking of the (noble) work of people like Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy, and imagining that they weren't the only radical Christian organizers in the left labor movement.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/12  at  12:15 PM
  4. Forgot to close the list. sorry.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/12  at  12:16 PM
  5. Maybe because, for believers, unbelief is a virtually automatic disqualifier? Perhaps the chasm separating believers from unbelievers is different in kind from the differences among various theologies? The "religious left" may be different from the "religious right," but the common denominator is that both are believers, and maybe this trumps unbelief.
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  12:21 PM
  6. I can't help thinking that these arguments against liberal support of separation of church and state are identical to what Southern Democrats must have said in the 1950s and 60s. "Our causes have been tainted by association with the negroes; when people hear of welfare, they immediately think about how MLK supports it. Won't anyone consider the fact that MLK embodies values that are inimical to American culture?" In twenty years Americans will look at articles such as Sullivan's with the same contempt they look at rationalizations of segregation now. Either that or they won't look at these articles at all because the religious right will have instituted a totalitarian state and banned them.
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  12:23 PM
  7. There was a strange ommission in her article about the only real left wing political work officially done by religious in the past 30 years - organizing against the death squads in central America in the 80's. It's an odd ommission, since the supporters of the death squads, temporarily driven back by the Iran-Contra scandal, now control every branch of the federal government. You'd think she'd talk more about Archbishop Romero, about Desmond Tutu, instead of painting any religious democrats as ineffectual.

    Why wouldn't she discuss that elephant in the room, unless it contradicts her underlying agenda?
    #: Posted by covington  on  03/12  at  12:48 PM
  8. I've been warily watching the emergence of "christian environmentalists" over the past ten years or so.

    I was happy in the beginning with certain people FINALLY saying "God wants us to protect the Earth," -- thinking, "Hey, great, more allies," -- but also mildly disturbed that their motivation was religious rather than, um, rational.

    Just recently, though, can't remember where I saw it, there was a strong statement from a group of evangelists to the effect of protecting God's gift to us.

    And I have this sudden sinking feeling that godders are about to make a grab for the environmental movement.

    Goodbye sound reasons for protecting wildlife and wildlands, fisheries and atmosphere.

    Hello more and more and more Biblical bullshit.

    "You secular environmentalists, y'all move on out the way now, y'hear? We're gonna be setting up a revival tent over by them redwoods and we cain't have y'all carryin' them signs out here where the cameras is gonna ... Why hello, Brother Falwell, come right on in! We got a seat raht up front for y'all! We gonna have ourselves an old-time, camp meetin', fahr-and-brimstone sermon about God's fresh, pure water! And we're gonna explain to all good Americans about the environmental evils of that there homosexual marriage, and how the same people who do them abortions is destroyin' this country's god-given rivers and streams."
    #: Posted by Hank Fox  on  03/12  at  01:09 PM
  9. The point is twofold PZ: 1 There are a lot of religious voters, they're they vast majority, 2) The core values of the Democratic Party are much more consistent with the tenets of Christianity as taught by Jesus in the new testament.

    All we have to do to get rid of the neo-religious right is carve off a few percentage points form them. Right now, the right does an excellent job of painting democrats as anti-God; when in fact, democrats tend to be more tolrant and more supportive of the principles of liberty that encourage religious diversity. It is a fact that Jesus in the NT preached to help the sick, the poor, and to shun welath and power. There are something like 2000 verses mandating this in the NT. There is I believe about two verses condemning homosexuality, and they're not by Jesus, and one or two mentioning abortion in a pretty casual way.

    So it's not about kissing up to religion, or changing the democratic party in anyway, it's about getting that message out to the religious voters, the message itself is true: Jesus was a raging liberal, and told everyone else they should also be a raging liberal in no uncertain terms.

    Although getting this message out, framing it and so forth, is obviously not something folks such as myself can help with much. My view is that all religion is based on mythology and kind of silly. But if we were to paly into the legend and spin of the Neo-Christian rightwing, that democrats=atheists, we'd never win a single election anywhere.
    #: Posted by DarkSyde  on  03/12  at  01:25 PM
  10. "And by fusing the properties of soggy noodles and cream of wheat, I will build a strong new material, tougher than titanium."

    Curses! You've discovered my evil plan!!"

    "What exactly is she suggesting here . . . Find bible quotes to save baby seals?"

    And my backup evil plan! Damn you, Pharyngula! Damn you to . . .um . . .Heck!!
    #: Posted by Dan S.  on  03/12  at  02:11 PM
  11. As I read 'liberal' screeds like Amy Sullivan's bit, I keep reading a sub-text of "I'm a liberal, but ..." or "I used to be a liberal, until ...". Remeber reading troll posts that start in that manner? As if progressive ideas are offensive even to liberals?

    I guess it beats working for a living.
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  02:34 PM
  12. "Of those struggles listed, only two impress me as having had a significant contribution from a religious perspective: the modern civil rights movement benefitted greatly from the strong and consistent efforts of black Southern churches, and a few fringe religious groups, the Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses, have also set a good example of conscientious opposition to war."

    I think you're seriously downplaying the contribution of religious abolitionists, particularly people like Henry Ward Beecher and some of the organizers of the New England Emigrant Aid Society. Hell, Beecher Bibles helped keep Kansas free.
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  03:25 PM
  13. Amy's ideas might not be good. I don't find her stuff worth reading. But be careful not to believe that religious people can be ignored or mocked. Voters are 90% religious in the US.
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  04:59 PM
  14. Having dealt with liberal Christians politically, I try to focus on the liberal ideals I have in common with them, rather than the religous differences. I wish Amy Sullivan would do the same.
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  06:07 PM
  15. No, I'm not downplaying their contribution at all: the thing is it was counterbalanced by the extensive use of the bible to justify slavery, and the fact that many of the abolitionists were also freethinkers who were vilified by the religious of the time.

    Mainly, my point is that religion is usually a force used to maintain the status quo. With few exceptions, it is not a force for change.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  03/12  at  06:32 PM
  16. Frankly, I think it's up to the religious left, and center, to start getting very loud in denouncing what conservative Christians (in particular) do and say. The term "Christian" has become shorthand for "extreme conservative" and that's because the left and center religious folks have let it happen. It's in their own self interest too, since they're the ones getting tarred with the mislabelling.

    And I say this because my own mother is one of these people who should be speaking up. Last year I asked her what she thought of Bush and she immediately replied "He's a horse's ass". But when I also said that people with religious beliefs like hers should speak up against the extremists who call themselves Christian and presume to speak for all Christians, she disagreed (offering no particular reason). They need to be speaking from pulpits and in newspapers, everywhere. They have a point to make in that that others cannot make, and not making it hurts them, hurts their religion, and hurts our country.
    #: Posted by  on  03/12  at  08:30 PM
  17. The unspoken assumption, QQ, is that it's not ok to speak from the left, unless you're from the religious left, as if the left is ok only if smuggled in by a Christian.

    Last week on San Francisco's AM station KGO I heard an interview with a leftist Christian by the name of Jim Wallis, whom Howard Dean has employed as a consultant. The remark that closed the interview was (paraphrasing), "the appropriate response to the right is not more secularism, but more religion," left me just as cold as Amy Sullivan leaves PZ.

    Jim Wallis has a book that's selling, here's another interview with him: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/106/54.0.html
    #: Posted by Ken Cope  on  03/12  at  09:44 PM
  18. "Mainly, my point is that religion is usually a force used to maintain the status quo. With few exceptions, it is not a force for change."

    I disagree. Religion is often a powerfully transformative force: witness the social reorganizations sparked by the Protestant reformation and the sweeping changes that came with spread of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  01:08 AM
  19. Mr. Fox, you suggested: And I have this sudden sinking feeling that godders are about to make a grab for the environmental movement.

    Well, your fears were well founded.
    #: Posted by Linkmeister  on  03/13  at  01:26 AM
  20. Increasing the visibility of the religious left might blunt the accusation that liberals are out to destroy religion, take away everybody's bibles and so forth. Unfortunately, the religious right may be so wedded to their paranoia and sense of victimhood that it would make no difference.

    It's unlikely that evangelists are going to have any more impact on environmental issues than they have had upon issues that mitigate the plight of the poor, since both involve money, the true religion of the powers that be.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  01:40 AM
  21. I've been warily watching the emergence of "christian environmentalists" over the past ten years or so.

    Christian environmentalism? What, do they support the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in order to prevent greenhouse gases from further damaging the firmament?
    #: Posted by Ben  on  03/13  at  02:33 AM
  22. I disagree. Religion is often a powerfully transformative force: witness the social reorganizations sparked by the Protestant reformation and the sweeping changes that came with spread of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries.

    If by "social reorganization" you mean "mass murder," you're right. Both Muhammad and Martin Luther were ruthless murderers, who in two different ways provided the seeds of fascism - Muhammad by promising paradise to everyone who died in the name of Jihad, and Martin Luther by almost single-handedly creating nationalism, especially German nationalism, which continued unchanged from his time into the early 1940s, with deadly consequences.

    But be careful not to believe that religious people can be ignored or mocked. Voters are 90% religious in the US.

    First, the actual figure is about 50%, the percentage of church attenders in the US. The rest are not or nominally religious. A baseball player who thanks God for succeeding to bat over the fence is not in the same category as a devout Protestant who goes to church every Sunday.

    Second, the Democrats never have mocked and don't mock religious voters. When they say they support separation of church and state, they mean that they think everyone should choose his own brand of Christianity, with Judaism and lately Islam thrown in for good measure. If they cared about atheists they wouldn't vote to condemn the Pledge decision virtually unanimously. They don't and people like Jim Wallis and Amy Goodman know that.

    Third, I suspect you wouldn't use the same political considerations when talking about any other group's civil rights. The only people nowadays who say it was a bad idea for the Democrats to embrace the civil rights movement because it hurt them in the South are veiled white supremacists. The people who chided first-wave feminism for trying to achieve the radical goal of votes for women are now perceived as extreme rationalizers. Those who support playing politics with equal rights for gays and/or atheists, however, are praised for their pragmatism. That's a textbook case of double standard.

    The point is twofold PZ: 1 There are a lot of religious voters, they're they vast majority, 2) The core values of the Democratic Party are much more consistent with the tenets of Christianity as taught by Jesus in the new testament.

    You can't discuss truth and politics at the same time. You can discuss politics, i.e. why it's good politics to embrace left-wing fundamentalists (who are in a different category from liberals who happen to be religious; Wallis and Goodman are both firmly in the former category). In that case, it doesn't matter what Jesus really said; what matters is how liberalism can be marketed to religious voters using religious language. Alternatively, you can discuss the truth, i.e. why Christianity fits comfortably within liberalism. But you can't combine the two and then draw conclusions from each while looking for the other as support. PR and strategy don't mix with reality, except for the fact that in some cases, reality is obvious enough that ignoring it is bad strategy.

    In terms of reality, you're dead wrong: fundamentalism and liberalism don't mix. Martin Luther King represents a minority of liberals who helped people using Christianity as their primary motivation; a more typical case is William Jennings Bryan, who helped screw science education in the United States by taking a strong anti-evolutionist stance in the Scopes trial. Religious democrats like MLK are rare, with the more common type of religious leftists being totalitarians who fight poverty, as opposed to religious rightists, totalitarians who don't care about poverty.

    In particular, look at gay rights. The staple of the religious left, black churches, has been as much against gay marriage as the Christian Coalition. Furthermore, because of their minority status, blacks get away with a lot more than whites can ever hope to, so black preachers can call homosexuality sinful with no qualifications without needing to fear that political correctness will rein them. Ann Coulter once made the observation that if only blacks stopped voting their pocketbooks, they'd become an entire race of Ann Coulters.

    An even more sweeping example is separation of church and state, which is both a civil right and a civil liberty. The only people who support it in more than empty promises, opposition to the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance being the litmus test, are atheists and a handful of religious fellow travelers like Barry Lynn. The mainstream left, in contrast, was apoplectic after the 9th Circuit Court's decision, and raced the religious right to condemn the decision in a rush that surpass even segregationists' opposition to Brown vs. Board of Education.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  05:34 AM
  23. If Pat Robertson declared global warming to be a threat that the U.S., as the chief producer of CO2, had to address and that we should sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, I'd be shocked (and a bit suspicious), but I'd also be pleased to hear it.

    The only way that the environmental movement can be taken away by any faction is if they're allowed to.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  07:45 AM
  24. To clarify one thing, I think it would be wonderful to have the religious left more actively involved in progressive causes, and helping to stomp down the religious right. What I resent is the implicit attitude in Sullivan's article that secularism is wrong, that what we should do is replace an incipient fundamentalist theocracy with a liberal Christian theocracy, and the dismissive attitude towards the contributions of freethinkers in American history.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  03/13  at  08:58 AM
  25. "The only way that the environmental movement can be taken away by any faction is if they're allowed to."

    Yes and no.

    Yes: I worry that a possible transition will be so gradual that other greens will sit and let it happen, realizing too late what they've allowed in. Like the moderate Republicans woke up too late to notice who was suddenly in charge.

    No: If godders get lots of press for "Jesus wants us to save the Earth" and if eventually they're the ONLY ones who can get press -- thanks to an exclusive lock on Christian TV and radio (as well as Thank-you-Jesus fellow-traveler musicians, politicians, sports figures, newspaper publishers, etc.) -- then they'll be driving the environmental movement, with or without the traditional core of supporters.
    #: Posted by Hank Fox  on  03/13  at  11:01 AM
  26. Increasing the visibility of the religious left might blunt the accusation that liberals are out to destroy religion, take away everybody's bibles and so forth.
    I think you underestimate the extent to which the Fundamentalist Christian "Right" is driven by anger at liberal Christianity. The current split between fundamentalist and mainline Protestant churches in the political sphere actually arises from a nasty schism in the various Protestant sects in the first decades of the 20th century, based almost entirely on doctrinal matters. The FCR didn't even get involved in temporal politics for something like 50 years after that schism.

    Liberal Christians speaking out might have some effect on the perception of the less-religious nominal moderates (the mythical swing voter) in the country about the monopoly position of the FCR. I doubt it will have any effect on the views of anyone in the FCR.
    #: Posted by paperwight  on  03/13  at  11:09 AM
  27. No: If godders get lots of press for "Jesus wants us to save the Earth" and if eventually they're the ONLY ones who can get press -- thanks to an exclusive lock on Christian TV and radio (as well as Thank-you-Jesus fellow-traveler musicians, politicians, sports figures, newspaper publishers, etc.) -- then they'll be driving the environmental movement, with or without the traditional core of supporters.


    As it happens, I have a dog in this fight.

    I respect Hank's concerns in this area, but I'm not as worried as he is. For one thing, fringe elements have made forays into environmentalism for some time, without success. (Neonazis in Idaho even spoke out a decade or so ago in favor of wolf conservation!) If godders decide to move toward an environmental concern, that drives a wedge between them and their pro-corporate backers (c.f. Thomas Frank). This will be a good thing.

    The other thing is that environmentalists hardly have unfiltered access to the mainstream media as it is now constituted. It's only recently that articles on (for example) climate change have started not to include Fred Singer face time. We in Da Movement have an intrnal media, which for decades has been pretty much the only way (other than in peer-reviewed journals) that non-watered-down environmental news has gotten out.

    Which isn't to say that enviro house organs never publish distorted or fallacious items, as witness even my own publication's former focus on stupidities like chemtrails and EMFs. But it would take more than just Christian control of he mainstream media to shut us down: it would take a general clamping down on First Amendment rights, which could happen in the absence of a theocracy as well.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/13  at  11:17 AM
  28. The unspoken assumption, QQ, is that it's not ok to speak from the left, unless you're from the religious left, as if the left is ok only if smuggled in by a Christian.


    Not in what I said. I'm saying that there's a need to take back the mantle of "Christanity" from rightwing extremists and that this can't be done by atheists or agnostics; it can only be done by Christians. Others can counter the ideas and demands, the loony bin tactics and "I'm a victim" complaints of both the religious and non-religious rightwing, but the problem of their having appropriated the symbols of Christianity and religiousity (just as the right appropriated the flag) cannot be done by anyone other Christian and other religious people. So what Amy Sullivan is doing is the wrong path -- it's not up to the rest of the left to bring her and hers in, because in fact that can't be done. They've let themselves be excluded from the debate (such as it is) by sitting on their butts far too often and being far too quiet while rightwing extremists roped them, hogtied them, and called them their own. They have to get back into the debate themselves, and all they have to do is keep saying, very loudly, the equivalent of "what you mean me, kimo sabe". We can't do it for them, as Sullivan seems to think; they can only do it themselves. And they'd better, for their own sakes as much as ours. All we can do for them is encourage them and keep the door unlocked and a light in the window.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  12:23 PM
  29. Sorry, not my intention to imply that it was, QQ, just a basic whinge on my part.

    There are theists from the left who don't dismiss freethinkers and secularists. Bernie Ward http://tinyurl.com/6vvup even spends time on his Sunday morning "Godtalk" program explaining how ID is not only not science, but bad theology. A former priest, Ward understands the distinctions between science and religion and constitutional issues threatened by would be theocrats better than the self-proclaimed unbelievers from "the center" on the same station. They try to outdo O'Reilly on how the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are Grinching Christmas and must be stopped.

    You have to turn to blogs to encounter similar exceptions to the secular bashing norm; it's notable when such a voice has 50K watts, even when they originate in San Francisco.
    #: Posted by Ken Cope  on  03/13  at  01:08 PM
  30. Alon -

    I didn't say religion was necessarily a positive force for change. I was responding more to Professor Myers' suggestion that it's almost always a reactionary institution. In particular, look at some of the ramifications of the first 100+ Islamic expansion:
    1. Checked European influence in the Middle East and North Africa, upsetting a sphere of influence that had existed for over 600 years. Europe would not regain substantial influence in this region for more than a thousand years.
    2. Toppled the Sassanian Empire, a regional power that had been in existence for 400 years. This paved the way for the decline of Zoroastrianism, a major social force in the Nile to Oxus area.
    3. Conquered the Iberian peninsula, creating a European nexus for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish culture that played an important role in the Renaissance.

    It goes a little beyond sowing the seeds of fascism.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  03:22 PM
  31. I don't think that there is a religion extant that a woman should do other than piss on. They're all about a small group of clever men (always men)controlling other men and all women. All women. Always.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  04:18 PM
  32. First, I think that a large majority of Americans are conditioned to automatically respond favorably to anyone claiming to be defending "Christianity" or "Christian values" and negatively to anything that is portrayed as an attack on the same. I suspect, therefore, that PZ's suggested "freethought" message would, unfortunately, tend to drive away more voters than it attracts.

    Second, I think that one of the key tasks we Democrats have is countering the way that the GOP has managed to parlay a certain unease with the current state of popular culture into support for GOP candidates. Given #1 above, I tend to think that a genuine "religious left" person (e.g. Barack Obama) is inherently better placed to do this than a more secular person.

    Third, we aren't really trying to win over the right-wing Christians (at least not many of them). We do want to win over people who are NOT right-wing Christians and who are potentially receptive to our economic policies but are uneasy about what they perceive as our attitude towards religion. How to win these people over is as much a question of strategy than ideology.

    (Just to clarify, I do NOT think Sullivan has the right strategy for this.)

    Fourth, the emergence of environmentalism among fundamentalists is a GOOD thing. Partly because the sorts of environmental policies that the fundamentalist environmentalists support are often good things. Partly because anything that adds strains to the plutocrat-theocrat alliance that is the modern GOP is a good thing for those of us who are neither plutocrats nor theocrats. We're never going to win over the "Christian right" to any large extent, but every one of them that we wedge away from the GOP helps a little.
    #: Posted by  on  03/13  at  05:03 PM
  33. I don't think that there is a religion extant that a woman should do other than piss on. They're all about a small group of clever men (always men)controlling other men and all women. All women. Always.


    Wicca's not bad, as far as I understand it. Some variants of Buddhism would be fine as well. Maybe even some flavors of Vodun. It's really the proselytizng monotheists who seem to create the biggest problems. (Though Hinduism does seem to have its share of problems.)
    #: Posted by paperwight  on  03/13  at  05:15 PM
  34. Chris, you're certainly a great deal more knowledgeable than me in the field itself, but I think I might have to disagree on this one nevertheless. I don't think you're thinking evil enough. <grin>

    Godders could be storefront environmentalists and corporate buddy-buddies at the same time ... eventually.

    It's that eventuality that I was really thinking about: Say they get initial masses of press coverage while being greener than David Brower, just until they can hijack public support over to their camp (which would appear to be the same camp, of course), they then work tirelessly to marginalize, extremize or irrelevant-ize every true environmental voice, and finally they have a clear field to betray every idea and principle of the movement -- on the sly, just out of mainstream press coverage -- at their leisure.

    By parallel, the extreme right wing of the Republican Party is probably a minority, but they control the core of the party. And they got a rather inept, deceitful, pliant fool of a president elected. Twice.

    Could they do this with the environmental movement in the U.S.? Probably easier than they got Bush elected. They have a road-tested organizational machine, they have the money, the media, and the support of millions of slack-jawed suckers churchgoers.

    They also have a total lack of visible opposition -- who's going to say "Hey, no, we don't want YOU helping win this fight against the use of Navy sonar"? -- AND friends in government who could give them a series of highly visible wins in a short period of time:

    "Christian Greens Force Navy To Give Up Super-powered Sonar!! Dolphins and Whales Saved!!"

    "Christian Greens and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Announce Massive Everglades Reclamation Project!!"

    "Christian Greens Win Shutdown of Army Bombing Range in Central Nevada!!"

    They also have a vital core of absolute ruthlessness; nothing is beyond them.

    All they need is the initial desire, and time.
    #: Posted by Hank Fox  on  03/13  at  06:36 PM
  35. Well, Hank, it's not as if a bunch of storefront enviros aren't already corporate buddies.

    Partially redeeming the good name of Sullivan in this matter, my pal Ron Sullivan has a pithy take on all this:

    It's kinda pitiful, if you look at it sociologically, that the various religions keep pointing to an ever-shrinking part of the unknown world and saying, "See? See??!! We're still in the vanguard! We're almost as smart as those other guys so we should still be in charge!"

    Similarly... they point to areas of human behavior and various efforts toward freedom and justice, once they've followed actual radicals into some polite version of struggling, and say, "See? See??!! We're noticing this! So we should be in charge because we're moral!" I'm seeing this in the enviro movement lately, of course.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/13  at  10:42 PM
  36. Two comments:

    1) While I'm not going to quarrel with the assessment that the extreme right now controls the GOP, I'd contend that it's the plutocrat version of extreme right, not the theocrat version. The theocrats are loyal GOP footsoldiers, but they're definitely junior partners when it comes to setting party priorities.

    2) Do NOT underestimate our opponents. Bush is deceitful and he is inept at dealing with reality. But he's no fool when it comes to politics. And he's the most skilled political infighter since I've been seriously following politics. Which is nearly three decades, now.
    #: Posted by  on  03/14  at  05:52 AM
  37. am a believer and a Baptist. As I have gotten older I have come to realize how little the republican party and I agree on. As a matter of fact I have come to realize that there are many tenets of my religion that I don't agree with and others that are outright stupid.

    I think my grandmother said it best 'I am not religious but I am a Christian'. In that spirit so am I, I try to be forgiving, loving, caring, giving , etc. The sad thing is I find more in common with many atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers, than many who claim my faith.

    I agree with DS, Jesus would have been a raging liberal and sad as it may seem actively opposed by those who often claim to support him. He didn't have an agenda past kindness. I run on the simple proposition that truth is truth and any God should respect that, which is why evolution is likely correct, creationism is silly and so on.

    The truth of the matter is the word 'Christian' has become a political buzzword in a naton that likes to pretend itself religious when in reality it is only marginally so.

    Call me a freethinking Christian.grin
    #: Posted by  on  03/14  at  09:51 AM
  38. You know, it seems like I'm seeing a lot of weird attempts to "redefine" the Democratic Party using GOP yardsticks. Over at digby's (Hullabaloo) there's a clear tendency among a number of his commenters to favor aggressive heterosexist machismo as a way to rebut Republican aggression. At Drum's, he worries incessantly about how liberal bloggers don't do some things as well as conservative ones, while failing to act on his own observations. His co-blogger Amy Sullivan thinks the way to prevail over Republicans is to out-God them.

    What I am seeing virtually none of is an effort to defend and consolidate aspects of the left that are _different_ from the right. The counter to GOP machismo isn't more machismo -- it's feminism. The counter to overbearing religiousity isn't more religion -- it's secularism. The counter to corporate malfeasance isn't more corporatism -- it's regulation. The counter to secretive, top-down government isn't more secrecy and more aggressive campaigning -- it's grassroots and more transparency.

    And on and on and on. I'm so tired of such people trying to offer liberals (or more accurately, the Democrats) keys to "success" that are, at base, a rejection of the essence of liberalism.

    And then they bemoan the public's perception of the Dems as lacking principles. Well, duh. It's pretty clear, judging by these ass-vice givers' suggestions, that they do. Or that if they do have principles, they're willing to sell them out to be popular.

    It's all about the votes and looking "cool" with these people -- not about having principles and defending them.

    The thing is -- while they worry incessantly about whether or not the "cool kids" will like them, they are in the process of alienating their long-time friends. Hell, they seem to believe that they don't _have_ any friends, or that those friends don't "count." Way to show faith in the cause, guys!

    I loathe the current GOP. But these Dem apologists are turning me against the Dems as well. How can I trust them to stand up for my values, when they can't even stand up for their own?
    #: Posted by Rana  on  03/14  at  12:57 PM
  39. Rana -

    I agree with most of what you're saying there (actually, I've said much of it myself, repeatedly, at volume and in text), but I'm curious about one thing:
    Over at digby's (Hullabaloo) there's a clear tendency among a number of his commenters to favor aggressive heterosexist machismo as a way to rebut Republican aggression.
    I'm not sure I agree with this. More to the point, I'm not sure what the 'this' is.

    If you're saying that it's not the right choice to play smashmouth, stand-up-and-fight politics, I think we disagree fairly strenuously. Whether you and I like it or not, a lot of the political discourse is about style, and when your style is too polite or too consensus-driven, a significant portion of the electorate (most of whom are, like me, unreconstructed barbarians), who might agree with you on the issues if they understood then, assume you don't stand for anything because you're not playing smashmouth politics for what you do stand for. I don't think this undermines grassroots campaigning and calls for transparency. In fact, I think it encourages those kinds of behaviors, because the grassroots know what they're fighting for.

    If you're saying ... well, I'm having a hard time knowing what to make of the alternative given the rest of your comment, in which you and I are definitely of a mind.
    #: Posted by paperwight  on  03/14  at  01:22 PM
  40. And on and on and on. I'm so tired of such people trying to offer liberals (or more accurately, the Democrats) keys to "success" that are, at base, a rejection of the essence of liberalism.


    Especially since it's becoming increasingly clear that conceding on any point to the right is taken by the right as a sign of weakness, with subsequent attack.

    Example 1: Kerry underplayed his opposition to the war out of fear that his incongruous voting record would become an issue. It did anyway, and he got attacked on his military record as well - only possible because he played up his "war hero" image rather than his "anti-war hero" image..

    Example 2 (Borrowed from Janeane and Sam): AARP caved on Medicare, lost beaucoup cred, and then was viciously attacked on Social Security.

    Other examples abound. Take home message: Losers lose.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/14  at  01:29 PM
  41. Ah, sorry. I forget sometimes that the stuff in my head isn't in other peoples' too! What I was referring to, paperwight, is the conflation of strong assertive behavior (standing up for ones' principles, refusing to be bullied, being willing to punch someone in the rhetorical nose when justified) with sexist name-calling and macho posturing. There's been waaaaaay too much talk lately about the Democrats "needing balls," worrying about being "girly," needing to counter Republican machismo by calling them "pussies," the importance of running impeccably "manly" candidates, and so on.

    Aside from feeling personally insulted by this, I find this to be -- perhaps only an unconscious level, but it's there just the same -- a pretty clear indication that many "liberals" don't really believe in the values they mouth. Take a look at some of the comments there (or any of the ones that spring up in the classic liberal male bloggers wondering about women flamewars) and the defensiveness is obvious. There's clearly a desire to _be_ just as unthinkingly sexist as the right wing among a number of these so-called liberals, and they get all cranky when you point this out. (It's not like there aren't alternatives -- you can call someone a coward or a liar, or an immature child, and achieve much the same thing as likening them to female genitalia.)

    I see this with regards to religion, too. Call someone like Amy Sullivan on her anti-secularism, and the reaction is always something along the lines of "well, that's how they play the game, so we must too." There's little or no interest in changing the rules or starting another game entirely.

    Basically, what I see is Republican-lite behavior being justified as part of an anti-Republican strategy. It makes no sense to me, at least if these anti-Republicans are truly liberals (who I define as believing in things like feminism, civil rights, intelligent discourse, education, the value of reason and science, etc.).

    I'm coming to doubt that they are, at least as I understand the term.
    #: Posted by Rana  on  03/14  at  01:39 PM
  42. Rana, I have to say "mea culpa" with regard to the occasional use of the word "pussy" as a synonym for "coward." I don't like to catch myself doing so. Any suggestions for a similar synonym that's as derogatory toward the coward, but not as derogatory toward pussies?

    And should we have the whole discussion about calling people "dicks" as well?
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/14  at  02:03 PM
  43. Wimp or wuss? Or gutless wimp. Mewling coward? Big baby? Whiner? Pathetic loser?

    (You're right -- it's hard to find an exact equivalent for that degree of condescending disdain that the p word conveys -- but I think it's important to try.)

    As for "dick" -- I feel that "asshole" conveys the identical sentiment, and it's gender-neutral!
    #: Posted by Rana  on  03/14  at  02:09 PM
  44. Oh, no. Asshole is far from gender-neutral. It denotes a "receiver" of wrath, the loser in the dominance hierarchy struggle between males, i.e., someone who deserves to be taken from behind by the macho "dominant".
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  03/14  at  02:23 PM
  45. I feel that "asshole" conveys the identical sentiment, and it's gender-neutral!
    Alright, that's the last straw.

    I'm not going to just stand here and allow you [Rana] to lull my fellow Pharyngulans into believing that it is perfectly okay to insult not just one, but both sexes, all with one conveniently "neutral" word.

    How can you honestly tell yourself that you're "protecting" women's rights when you are so blatantly cavalier about denouncing the vital role of her anus, as well as that of her similarly endowed male counterpart?
    #: Posted by  on  03/14  at  02:27 PM
  46. It denotes a "receiver" of wrath, the loser in the dominance hierarchy struggle between males, i.e., someone who deserves to be taken from behind by the macho "dominant".


    On the other hand, it also denotes an outputter of significant volumes of shit.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/14  at  02:36 PM
  47. I don't think you can use 'wuss', as it's a hybrid of 'wimp' and 'pussy'. So that ain't a gender neutral insult.
    #: Posted by paperwight  on  03/14  at  02:46 PM
  48. Ah, see, Jeebus, I have no problems with being insulting. It's being insulting in a way that defines "undesirable" as "member of only one sex," or, more precisely, as "female." (I don't see women being called "dicks" very much, for example.)

    I don't think you can use 'wuss', as it's a hybrid of 'wimp' and 'pussy'. So that ain't a gender neutral insult.

    Really? Hrmph, I'm just batting a thousand here.

    Oh, no! A sports metaphor! *flees*

    *parting shot thrown over shoulder* I've never thought of the insult "asshole" as denoting a passive person -- to the contrary. Chris' point about producing excrement is more in line with my thinking.

    *wonders how the hell I became The Expert on derogatory linguistics all of a sudden*
    #: Posted by Rana  on  03/14  at  03:11 PM
  49. (Yup, it's a slow day at work...)
    #: Posted by  on  03/14  at  03:13 PM
  50. wonders how the hell I became The Expert on derogatory linguistics all of a sudden


    I have no idea.
    #: Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/14  at  03:20 PM
  51. Aw, thank you for the link. But do note that I didn't actually use any cuss words in that/those posts, except for "shat" and "bastards". That's what I was getting at.

    I can be fierce and cutting without 'em. smile
    #: Posted by Rana  on  03/14  at  03:55 PM
  52. One thing to keep in mind is the distinction between political principles and political strategy. I definitely don't want the Democrats to adopt the GOP's political principles, or even move substantially in that direction. Looking for things in the GOP's strategic playbook that can be adopted for our purposes is an entirely different matter.
    #: Posted by  on  03/14  at  05:57 PM
  53. *parting shot thrown over shoulder* I've never thought of the insult "asshole" as denoting a passive person -- to the contrary. Chris' point about producing excrement is more in line with my thinking.

    I've never thought of insults as having real meaning anyway. Otherwise I'd have to be a complete Puritan to use "fuck you" and "fucker" as cusses. Similarly, I say "Star Wars sucks" even though it can't literally do that.
    #: Posted by  on  03/14  at  06:48 PM
  54. Pardon the misfire above!

    I agree with the posters above who advocate trying to appeal to the reachable religious, electorally and ideologically.

    It seems to me a mistake to say that the religious left has not helped progressive causes save in two instances. First, those are two pretty big instances. It isn't likely the Civil Rights movement of the 60's would have gained much steam without the leadership and grass-roots of people motivated by religious ideals. Their successes should not be dismissed blithely. Against the backdrop of hundreds of years of religious apathy or active hostility to civil rights for blacks, the religious left won the debate on race decisively. Now, the "fringe" faiths are likely to be defined by their racist views. Even the likes of Jerry Falwell or Roy Moore today would never want to be seen as openly anti-black; would that have been likely of them 50 years ago?

    And saying that we should shrug off religious appeals because for every one religious person the Left convinces there are two whom we have failed to convince strikes me as looking at the thing in an outcome-determinative way. If the left started with 0 religious people for our cause and 3 people against it, and ended in a 1/2 split, how is that an argument against religious appeals? The playing field of religious debate does not go away if we ignore it; even when the Left doesn't win the day as decisively as in the Civil Rights era, even carving out some turf from the reactionary is worthwhile. And you never know until you try - the movement the religious left mounts tomorrow could be the next big one. Probably not. But how does it hurt us to invest some resources crafting appealing religious messages for the 90% of the population who admit to being moved by religious messages?
    #: Posted by  on  03/14  at  06:57 PM
  55. I'm not the least bit in favor of cozying up to godders. Wallow in unreason so we can count the unreasonable as allies? Something wrong with the very core of the idea.

    And yet ... I've occasionally thought it would be fun to walk up to those people marching around with posters of aborted fetuses and say "Praise Jesus, brothers and sisters, do you mind if I join your holy work?" And then start shouting at passersby insane stuff like "Etch-a-Sketch is an abomination before the Lord! The child who drinks fluoridated water shall be cast into the flames! John Galt is innocent! His holy work must go on!"

    On a side note: Since the 2004 election, I've been hearing people say the Dems need to "reach out to the faithful," in order to win votes. Why bother having two parties? In fact, honestly, I think a MUCH more workable strategy would be for everybody to JOIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Seriously. The Republicans would shit if the Dems just dissolved their party and moved to the GOP. I'd bet there are a lot of moderate Republicans who'd find they had things in common with the new members, and the power of the extremists in the party would be diluted down by the influx of new members. The party would move back to center.
    #: Posted by Hank Fox  on  03/14  at  08:37 PM