I've been watching (and sometimes participating) in the meltdown at Echidne's site regarding Mitt Romney's Faith in America speech. I call it a meltdown because Echidne produced no less than five separate posts on the subject. Essentially, every aspect of the speech deserved a separate post.
--One post discusses the awfulness (according to her) of linking freedom and religion.
--One post works up into a lather because Mitt Romney--a man, by all accounts--dares to use the male pronouns when referring to generalized man.
--One post practically licks to death this David Brooks column because it agrees with her previous opinions.
--One post complains that in a speech directed at religiously oriented people, Mitt Romney actually used Biblically-centered language. *gasp!*
--One post complained about two conservative columnists who liked Romney's speech because they liked it too much.
Everybody is entitled to obsess about whatever their heart desires. For instance,
this link in a post about paranoid meltdowns is sure to send Jeromy Brown out to defend himself, even when there's nothing there to defend.
In this case, however, both Echidne and her usual commenters let the mask slip and expose their own anti-religious bigotry. Why do I say that? Because in both the posts and the comments, an inordinate amount of time is spent discussing Mormonism and what is wrong with it (a few asides just bash Christians in general, as well). The reasons for this discussion are obvious: like the religious conservatives to whom the speech was directed, they are bigoted against religious people, particularly if religion actually influences the behavior of those people. Here is an excerpt, emphasis mine:
If my reading is correct, Mitt argues that secular freedom (where? only in the marketplace?) should be combined with some kind of a religious authoritarianism. The latter would actually not be freedom at all, but a set of rules which limits the freedom people are actually allowed to have. Now, given the misogynistic nature of most of the older religions, this could well mean that men can have freedom and a religious blessing for it, while women can have freedom only if the religious rules allow them to have it. Which would be rather seldom.
Echidne is referring to a portion of Romney's speech where he discusses John Adams' statement that "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." The problem with her "religious authoritarianism" take is that it completely distorts Adams' words. The idea that "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people" isn't referring to persons associated with an organized religion. He's referring to the idea of a people who are conscientious and moral.
This interpretation of Adams' quotation makes sense when one examines the views of other Founding Fathers with regards to government and religion.
"The great pillars of all government...[are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible." -- Patrick Henry
"The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth." -- George Mason
"[W]hile just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support." -- George Washington
" The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God." -- John Adams
And another John Adams quote: "[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty."
"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." -- James Madison
This isn't to say the Founding Fathers wanted an intertwining of religion and government or that they recommended a religious test for holding office. Rather, it suggests that what the Founding Fathers recognized was the positive effects religion has on public life.
Sadly, what I noticed most about the discussions at Echidne's site was the considerable Mormon-bashing or Christianity-bashing that took place (this was aside from the pearl clutching because Romney used masculine pronouns). My understanding of liberalism (at least, as it used to be practiced) was that religion should be neither an enhancement to one's political resume nor a detriment to it. That one's religion helps shape one's judgment (which should be scrutinized) may be correct; but bashing religion isn't constructive when discussing political candidates or their speeches.
UPDATE: Not to pile on Echidne, here's the hysteria at Pandagon because a speech on faith in America doesn't discuss the faithless, complete with the usual "there's no religious test in the Constitution so don't admit that your faith actually influences the way you live" meme.
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