This story reports that the Obama Administration has issued a statement questioning the “judgment” of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in publishing insulting pictures of the Prophet Mohammed (discussed by Mark immediately below). The Administration — through its “porte-parole” Jay Carney – was careful to distinguish the issue of the magazine’s constitutional “right” to publish the pictures and its judgment in doing so because the Administration “know[s] that these images will be very shocking for many people,” and “might provoke violent reactions.”
The reaction of the Administration reminds me very much of the controversy over the construction of the so-called September 11 mosque in New York City. I recall distinctly that the position of some at the time was that though there was and surely should be no legal barrier to the use of particular property vaguely proximate to the site of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, it would be unwise, or evince a lack of good judgment, for the rights-holders to exercise their rights. I recall the cute statement, made somewhere by someone, that it is “not a question of rights, but a question of what is right.” I also remember that the President came out at first quite strongly in support of the mosque and cultural center (as did Mayor Michael Bloomberg), but then backed off a bit when the issue was put not in terms of rights, but of judgment: ““I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” the President said. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
How about it readers? Are the situations formally identical (with the exception that the President has commented negatively on the wisdom of publishing the cartoons, while he declined to do so with respect to the Ground Zero mosque)? If so, are there nevertheless other salient differences between them? Are there categorical differences, for example, between the wisdom of exercising a speech right and the wisdom of exercising the freedom of religion?
The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time
There are many reasons why America seems to be moving inexorably toward legalizing same-sex marriage. The Sexual Revolution that has swept American society since the 1960s is probably the main explanation. There’s plenty of evidence that Americans, especially Americans below a certain age, accept the Sexual Revolution’s basic premise that sex is a harmless pleasure without much moral content, at least when it does not involve coercion or, sometimes, adultery. Divorce, once seen as a traumatic, though perhaps necessary, last resort for very troubled marriages is no longer regarded as an exceptional event. People speak without irony of “starter marriages;” fewer and fewer people marry at all. And these cultural changes are not limited to the Secular Left. An Evangelical pundit got in trouble recently because, he said, he didn’t realize that being engaged to one woman while simultaneously being married to another was frowned upon in Christian circles.
Given their views about sexuality and marriage, SSM seems to many Americans a non-issue. But there is something else at work, too. Much of the success of the campaign for SSM has to do with supporters’ adoption of the language of civil rights. In our national discourse, the phrase “civil rights issue of our time” immediately suggests SSM; last week’s NYT editorial is a good example. As a rhetorical device – and I don’t mean to suggest that SSM advocates are being insincere – this is a brilliant strategy. In American politics, a group that can successfully appropriate the language of civil rights is bound to win.
That’s why I was struck recently when I saw that Rick Warren, perhaps the most influential Evangelical pastor in America today, has adopted this language on behalf of conservative Christians. In an interview about the ACA’s Contraception Mandate, Warren called religious liberty “the civil rights issue of the next decade.” He was echoing, among others, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has also emphasized the civil rights aspect of resistance to the mandate. This is a very shrewd rhetorical move – and, again, I don’t mean to suggest anyone is being insincere. If religious conservatives are going to prevail on issues like the Contraception Mandate, they can’t hope to persuade people on the merits of traditional sexual morality, much of which the American public now finds incomprehensible. They will have to persuade people that they represent the advance of civil rights.
→ 1 Comment
Posted in Commentary, Mark L. Movsesian
Tagged Christians, Civil Rights, Contraception Mandate, Religion and Politics, Religion in America, Same-sex Marriage