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April 21, 2004

Self-inflicted wounds. Allen Brill and Kevin Drum discuss one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing—a problem largely of our own making.

If you don’t believe that, try reading the comments following Kevin’s post—starting with the very first one. [11:44 AM]

Welcome to Electrolite's comments section.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

Comments on Self-inflicted wounds.:

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 12:21 PM:

Is it really one of the biggest?

I mean: Is there some kind of evidence (polling data, perhaps) indicating that religious mockery by the leftward-leaning drives significant numbers of people rightward who wouldn't be there anyway?

Secular Americans are a minority, something on the order of 10%. And I've seen secularists on the right (a lot of Randroid pseudo-libertarians for the most part). It's easy to assume that most secularists lean left, but I don't know that it's true.

And the nation is so evenly divided that a major lump of the religious majority must lean leftward.

So, is this a real worry, or is it one of those things everyone knows that turns out not to be so?

Phill ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 12:22 PM:

I think that we have to make it very clear that the left is not attacking religion, we are attacking the frauds who hide behind religions they simply do not respect.

The right make no objection when people point out that Bin Laden's interpretation of Islam is rejected by the vast majoroity of muslims. It seems fair to point out that the vast majority of Christians reject the bigotry of Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell.

Perhaps a better way to make this clear is to refer to the pseudo-christian right. Those who worship Mammon should not be confused with Christians.

What people are objecting to is the fact that a faction of pseudo-christians are attempting to impose their own bigottries and predjudices as law and are using religion as an excuse.

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 12:58 PM:

Honestly, I would have to argue that the two examples cited in the LA Times articles are pretty weak examples of leftist mockery of religion.

1. These citations are from a radio show and the radio show that isn't offending someone, somewhere, is a rare show indeed.

2. This sort of literally irreverant humor is older than all of us and is most certainly not limited to secular humanists.

The right wing has been trying to use weak anecdotes like this since before forever to make their argument that leftys hate religion and are trying to destroy our christian society. From my perspective, it has always seemed to me that progressives are far more likely to respect an individual's right to believe whatever they would like, even if that involves bloody sacrifices of livestock. As far as I can tell, which is to say that I have never seen or heard any tangible evidence to the contrary, the notion that the left has some specific anti-religious agenda is purely mythological. Even those who are strongly anti-religious, have no interest in preventing others from believing whatever they would like.

Anticorium ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 01:19 PM:

I'd like to believe you, Phill and Brent, but the very first comment on Kevin's post talks about "religious nutbags" and it only goes downhill from there. This comment is a particularly fine example. Little Green Footballs would be proud of some of the rhetoric that's being slung over at Political Animal.

That's not a compliment.

What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration? I'd really like to know, because after getting all the way through Kevin's comment page my liberal spirit is feeling very weak indeed.

(PS: I used to use the handle "MD" while commenting here and on Making Light, but today I noticed that a commenter here is already MD^2. Since they were around longer and I'm a lot less than their square root, I'm changing my name. I apologise to MD^2 and to everyone else for causing confusion.)

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 01:40 PM:

Anticorium says: "the very first comment on Kevin's post talks about "religious nutbags" and it only goes downhill from there."

Actually, if you bother to read the posts, it does not by any means only go downhill from there. The next several after that one are sensible.

And does anyone find those descriptions of jokes from Air America actually offensive? I didn't, but I'm an atheist. (They're not funny either, which may be another problem.)

Jack K. ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 01:42 PM:

...it's fine to make it clear that the attacks are being launched at "the pseudo-Christian right" who are trying to inject their interpretation of Christianity into public life, but progressives need to clearly indicate that this is really going on.

As a lefty (well, ok, a moderate lefty) and a Christian, I am at best bemused by the tone of some commentators, many fine examples of which you can find in the comment section of Kevin Drum's post. Despite any insistence to the contrary that they are merely expressing disgust for fundie righties, the attacks, insults, and slurs are frequently directed against Christianity itself with no distinction drawn between fundies and those of us who disagree with their interpretation.

Being a big boy, I ignore the comments because of the need to achieve a greater good in areas where we do agree (and besides - from a purely objective standpoint - if I'm right and the insulters are wrong, they are going to eventually have way bigger problems that whether or not they hurt some Christian's feelings). But, as one of Drum's commentators alluded, this is not the way to be trying to win the hearts and minds of moderate to left-leaning Christians...

julia ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 01:49 PM:

I don't think that's a representative group over there. People who read contrarian blogs most likely self-select for contrarianism, don't you think?

I'd be amazed to see any of that stuff here, and I think this blog is far more consistently opposed to the right.

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 02:01 PM:

I'd like to believe you, Phill and Brent, but the very first comment on Kevin's post talks about "religious nutbags" and it only goes downhill from there.

Well my argument is not that there are not a lot of liberals who disdain religion for whatever reason. It is more that first, those anti-religous attitudes cannot reasonably be thought to comprise the majority of progressive opinion and second, that they are just attitudes, not actions. To clarify, I think that even many of the people who have expressed some of the more odious commentary on Drum's log, would not advocate some sort of government stricture or state limitation on religious freedom. Pray to whomever you like. Believe whatever soothes you. The vitriol you see expressed comes more, I think, from their feeling that the extremely religious, and most especially fundamentalists, have made it plain that they have no interest in extending the same sort of courtesy (not sure if that is the right word but you get the point). Many fundamentalists actually do represent very powerful political organizations that have made it a point to change the political and social realities of those who do not share their beliefs.

The point I was making in my earlier post was that we have, on the one hand, a small but powerful movement of people whose religous beliefs directly inform their politics and who wish to apply their political power in a way that directly effects the lives of all of us. They have a powerful lobby and a great deal of influence, particularly with the current administration. On the other side, you have a couple of disc jockeys and some simple minded blog posters who want to make fun of religous belief because they think its humorous. The former group claims they are being mercilessly victimized by the latter group. Is that really a reasonable view of this situation? Do we, on the left, really want to lend credence to that idea?

Terry Karney ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 02:09 PM:

I think, looking at the posts, the one which bothers me most was the one which saw the conversation as being boolean. Either pity them, and condescend, or mock and abuse them.

The split, in public discourse, seems (though I feel like a left-wing nutjob to say it, which bothers me) to come from the controlling memes in the media.

To wit: the left of right group is composed of people who want to abolish relgion.

Those of us who are both religious (observant or not) and moderate (e.g. Slackitivist, though perhaps my thinking him a moderate says more about where I think the nation should be than where either of us actually sits) are ignored, by both sides of the vocal debate.

I guess it boils down to my aversions to black and white renditions of the world, either the Falwellion/Robertsonians, or the ones that read like this quotation from the comments at Washington Monthly..."anti-religious sentiment is now so well-entrenched in liberalism that I think it is probably impossible to eradicate. There is no way that you will ever get the editorial board of the Nation to sing the praises of old time religion. Evangelical Christianity will never be fashionable in the academy or the media. The stereotypical Democratic party activist, a 45 year-old public school teacher with frizzy sweaters and funny looking glasses, is going to be turned off by religion, and that's just the way it is. She won't want to see some preacher introduce Howard Dean. She'll feel threatened and alienated."

He may not speak for me, nor for most of my liberal/progressive friends, but that is how we (I and those liberal and progressive friends) are usually depicted (unless I am being painted as another troopie who found his faith in a foxhole... I never lost it, but Mass was more comforting in the field than it is at home).

Terry

Larry B ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 02:31 PM:

Hmmm. A good friend from Western North Carolina, a pretty religious chunk of the country, describes a culture that has its ears open for two things - the appearance of evil and sanctimony.

The first tends to create a suspicion of cultural change. But persistance pays off. Asheville has become a regional center for alternative culture without making the long-time residents flip out.

The second is more a sort of Elmer Gantry insurance policy. Not to say that everyone detects the religious demagogues and frauds, just that the culture resists them enough to keep them from taking over.

Christianity has a strong progressive streak, especially Catholicism and main-line Protestantism. I agree that we need to be attentive to not turning potential allies away at the door of the tent. We just need to learn to agree to disagree, which just might be our insurance against the right's desire to polarize every aspect of American politics.

Anticorium ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 02:40 PM:

So your answer, Brent, to the question "What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration?" is ...

... is ...

... hm. I didn't actually see an answer there.

On the other side, you have a couple of disc jockeys and some simple minded blog posters who want to make fun of religous belief because they think its humorous.

No, I think that on the other side there's an undercurrent of rationalism so rough and sharp that it risks becoming, or already is, hatred of Christianity and its adherents. And, given that hatred is a bad thing, I'd rather like to know what you think should be done when otherwise decent people start talking like that. If, hypothetically, someone were to say I think that a better analogy is that most religious belief is an illness, like schizophrenia, and should be treated as such or The only difference between belief based religions (as opposed to practice based) and other odd mental states, is the veneer of respectability that 2000 years brings*, would you think it was just a big ol' joke?

I'd like to think that there's a better answer than "yeah but Georgie and Johnny hit me first and it got me so darn mad I had to hit Suzie." Please prove me right.

Do we, on the left, really want to lend credence to that idea?

I'd say the best way to lend credence to an idea is to let evidence of it go unchallenged.

* I am of course completely fabricating these quotes, which were never once uttered anywhere on washingtonmonthly.com. Honest.

julia ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 03:23 PM:

And, given that hatred is a bad thing, I'd rather like to know what you think should be done when otherwise decent people start talking like that. If, hypothetically, someone were to say I think that a better analogy is that most religious belief is an illness, like schizophrenia, and should be treated as such or The only difference between belief based religions (as opposed to practice based) and other odd mental states, is the veneer of respectability that 2000 years brings

Well, I'd probably wouldn't assume that the people speaking were representative of something other than A Person with Access to a Computer.

Otherwise I would be suggesting that people posting comments on a not-particularly-left-leaning blog were a microcosm of all leftists, and that would be a bit reductive, don't you think?

Paul ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 03:47 PM:

"What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration?"

Depends where the "liberals" are proposing that Christians deserve no respect. On comment boards--especially those as unenlightening as KD's has become--I ignore. Among friends I'll dissent (though I'm a pretty firm agnostic). On unfunny radio shows that I can't receive anyway I, well, I won't listen. Should I be doing something I'm not?

(In fact, I'd like to distinguish between "liberalism" and "anti-clericalism." The two may have a history together, but they aren't at all synonomous. Conflating the two necessarily is just sloppy.)

Generally, I agree, though. Mocking religion isn't polite. Ostentatious anti-clericalism is just as annoying as ostentatious piety. Where religious satire is funny, it's usually funny because the mockery is directed at excessive pomposity or hypocrisy, not at, say, the Beatitudes. The chances that blackly humorous or "sick" religious satire will be funny rapidly approach zero, but isn't impossible. YMMV.

there's an undercurrent of rationalism so rough and sharp that it risks becoming, or already is, hatred of Christianity and its adherents

This isn't perfectly obvious to me, but then I live in a fairly religious part of the country. Perhaps you could elaborate?

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 03:54 PM:

So your answer, Brent, to the question "What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration?" is ...

... is ...

... hm. I didn't actually see an answer there.

Well Anticorium I will flip the question back to you. What do you think we should do about what other people (I contend a small minority of people) think? The obvious answer would seem to be that we have plenty of forums to express our own opinions and rejections of their ideas. There are plenty of people over at Political Animal who took their opportunity to do just that. Do you think there is some further more stringent approach that we should take?

No, I think that on the other side there's an undercurrent of rationalism so rough and sharp that it risks becoming, or already is, hatred of Christianity and its adherents.

My point remains, that there is no real evidence that this hatred or lack of respect extends beyonds the attitudes of a small minority. Anti-religious sentiment of the type being cited here existed before the democratic party or anything resembling our current political system. The notion that these sentiments represent a real challenge to anyone's right to believe anything they want is a more recent invention of the right. The posters on Poltical Animal or the comments by Djs on some small market radio station don't indicate a trend towards anything and more importantly have no real effect on our constitionally protected freedoms.

If, hypothetically, someone were to say I think that a better analogy is that most religious belief is an illness, like schizophrenia, and should be treated as such or The only difference between belief based religions (as opposed to practice based) and other odd mental states, is the veneer of respectability that 2000 years brings*, would you think it was just a big ol' joke?

Perhaps not a joke but I think not something to be treated as "one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing." Look, there are liberal racists, liberal sociopaths, liberal anti-semitists. These individuals do not define progressive thought in any meaningful way and we do ourselves a disservice by allowing the right to define us and the debate according to the most wrongheaded among us. Moreover, I think there is no real connective tissue between your citation regarding treating religion as an illness and the irreverent but unfunny radio jokes that are cited. While we may agree that they are both wrong, those two attitudes toward religion have nothing in common.

I'd say the best way to lend credence to an idea is to let evidence of it go unchallenged.

This may be the second best way to lend credence to an idea. The best way is to spend an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with.

Naomi Libicki ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:19 PM:

Brent said:

The point I was making in my earlier post was that we have, on the one hand, a small but powerful movement of people whose religous beliefs directly inform their politics and who wish to apply their political power in a way that directly effects the lives of all of us.

But, of course, that statement could equally well apply to religious left. Well, except for the "but powerful" part.

People who support welfare programs because God said they should feed the hungry, are letting their religious beliefs inform their politics just as much as people who want to forbid gay marriage because it's an abomination before the Lord.

In fact, I, as a religious person, submit to you that anyone whose religion doesn't inform their politics is someone who doesn't take their religion seriously.

Furthermore, anyone who doesn't want to apply their political power in a way that directly effects all of us is someone who doesn't take politics seriously.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:22 PM:

Brent: The best way is to spend an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with.

Yeah. A chunk of this thread reminds me of that little act Glenn Reynolds puts on every time someone to his left says anything stupid. "Oh, how am I supposed to take liberals seriously unless every single liberal blogger in the world denounces [insert outrage of the hour here]? Not that I'll actually notice the ones who do. Dance, oh dance for my pleasure, liberal bloggers!"

Sylvia Li ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:30 PM:

In my experience, the most venomous anti-religious zealots tend to be people who were raised by religious zealots and have fought themselves almost free. They aren't arguing with any religious people actually present -- they're re-fighting battles with [often quite toxic] ideas that were dinned into them as young children, before they had any critical defenses. They are still, quite justifiably, angry about having been emotionally abused.

This has nothing to do with political left and right, except that the kind of people who engage in cruelty masquerading as religion have, in the US, attached themselves very visibly to the right wing. So naturally any opposition to the political right (I won't say the left -- you don't really have much of what most other people would call a left wing) is going to attract some walking wounded for whom the single largest issue in their lives is that the "religion" that tried to warp them as children must never, ever be allowed to take over the country.

They're not able to distinguish well between the fanatics they fear, and the (I think) still very substantial numbers of genuinely good, loving, generous people for whom religion is a central part of their lives. Part of the reason for this is that the fanatics, who really are quite scary, have spent a great deal of effort for many years trying to erase any public distinction between themselves and ordinary religious folk.

This is not the fault of the Democratic Party.

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:32 PM:

I've done something that I think many people commenting on this here and on Kevin's blog haven't done--I've actually listened to Marc Moron and his Morning Sedition show.

He's being actively and intentionally offensive to religious believers, on the expressed assumption that religious believers are brainless, bigoted idiots and not anyone that liberals and progressives need to worry about. When a caller attempted to politely point out to him and his co-host that his humor was likely to be offensive to liberal religious believers, he responded by reiterating his opinion of how stupid religious believers are, and clearly stating his intention to go on being as offensive as possible to them.

As a Catholic and a liberal, I was not charmed, not amused, and not impressed. After tuning in again on a couple of subsequent occasions, and hearing more of the same, I wrote off the Moron and stopped listening.

But, folks, I'm not someone on the edge, with doubts about Bush but not yet convinced that I can trust those liberals I've always heard such bad things about. I'm going to vote a straight Democratic ticket anyway, regardless of Mr. Moron. People like me aren't enough by ourselves to give the election to Kerry, especially with Diebold in the mix. Being pointlessly offensive to large numbers of marginal voters doesn't demonstrate how smart, clever, and courageous Mr. Moron is. It demonstrates how stupid he is.

rea ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:34 PM:

"the ones that read like this quotation from the comments at Washington Monthly...'anti-religious sentiment is now so well-entrenched in liberalism that I think it is probably impossible to eradicate.'"

As something of a regular over there, i can assure you that the guy who said that is not a liberal

David W. ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:44 PM:

I imagine that Mr. Moron will get his pink slip soon enough, given who AAR's financial backers are.

I suggest that AAR look to America's Finest Newspaper for pointers on how to poke genuine fun at religion in a secular, leftist setting.

ken Houghton ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:57 PM:

rea is spot on.

If I (social liberal, non-Xian by choice) deride the not-so-right-but-Right Revs. Falwell and Robertson for their claim that NYC invited 9/11, I am disparaged as being "anti-religious."

If I (ibid.) do not immediately denounce someone who says something legitimately anti-religious, Anticorium will disparage me for not speaking up.

The latter is the TRUE "liberal" problem: the strange propagation and acceptance of the claim that--unlike conservative pundits who believe "The 11th Commandment" really is one--liberals who do not disparage immediately are somehow complicit.

If you can name five--or even three--visible conservative commentators (feel free to define "visible" very loosely, but it has to be someone who did so in print or on non-public-access television, not just some Republican friend of yours who made a passing remark) who took Anne Coulter to task for having declared in that NY Observer interview her deep regret that the NY Times wasn't destroyed on September 11th, then I'm willing to consider that liberals may have an obligation to speak out.

Until then, Drum and Brill are confusing a collateral issue with the Root Cause--the higher standard that conservatives would like to set for liberals.

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 04:57 PM:

In fact, I, as a religious person, submit to you that anyone whose religion doesn't inform their politics is someone who doesn't take their religion seriously.

Furthermore, anyone who doesn't want to apply their political power in a way that directly effects all of us is someone who doesn't take politics seriously.

This is an excellent point. Of course, you are correct. I should try and be more precise.

Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 05:05 PM:

What I want to know is why have Christians allowed the Fundamentalist nutjobs to own public perception of Christianity?

If it's OK to criticize liberals because some liberals exhibit anti-religious bigotry, why isn't it OK to criticize Christians because some Christians exhibit anti-liberal bigotry?

And when someone says "Two of the hosts gratuitously announced that they're Jewish", who exactly is being anti-religious? They were talking about Easter, right? I would think one's religion is relevant to an airing of one's views about a particular religious holiday. What's gratuitous about that?

Brian Wilder ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 05:06 PM:

Kevin Drum's piece is a misguided recommendation, based on false premises in several dimensions. Jokes are effective reinforcers of a shared point of view. Rush Limbaugh et alia ridicule "liberals" all day long on radio; its entertaining and the only people it alienates are Democrats; the same tactic, with reverse politics, can be applied to the cause of Air America.

Religiosity, and frequently religion itself, are more than faintly ridiculous, and therefore the natural target for ridicule. Ridicule the ridiculous should be an obvious prescription for a humorist, while what really alienates most moderates from the left is the very kind of earnest oversensitivity and eagerness to censor any kind of interesting commentary, which Kevin Drum demonstrates.

Easter -- named for a pagan goddess, and featuring such pagan fertility symbols as eggs and bunnies and peepers, is a strange holiday to marry to the gross-out, bloody-mindedness of Mel "Passion" Gibson and his fellow wingnuts. Silence wins few converts.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 05:14 PM:

The charge that Kevin Drum is "eager to censor" anything is, of course, grotesque.

Further above, Brent is concerned about spending "an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with." And Avram Grumer says that parts of this thread remind him of "that little act Glenn Reynolds puts on every time someone to his left says anything stupid."

Hello, who raised this issue in the first place? Are you guys really suggesting that Kevin Drum, Allen Brill, and Amy Sullivan are right-wingers?

Honestly, I'm stunned by the hostility provoked by the suggestion that progressives and liberals might want to dial down their tolerance for a certain kind of gratuitous abuse of people who are trying to be their allies. If you don't think this is a real problem, I suggest you re-read Lis Carey's post just upthread from this one. If you think Lis is someone inclined to lend aid and comfort to right-wing opportunists, you really, really don't know Lis.

Frankly, I think there are people in this thread, some of whom I've never seen here before and some of whom are old friends and acquaintances, who are behaving absolutely abominably--who would never dream of saying things anywhere near as rude if they hadn't rationalized to themselves that religion and religious people are somehow a special case in the general rules of decent social behavior.

Anticorium ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 05:43 PM:

Well Anticorium I will flip the question back to you. What do you think we should do about what other people (I contend a small minority of people) think?

Speak out. If they're a minority, prove it with words and actions. Make it clear that the anti-religious left won't get away with anti-Christian statements, because that's not what liberals really believe. There's a saying about evil's victory conditions, and I'm sure it doesn't go "Evil always fails in a comical slapstick manner because it's so self-evidently wrong that good men need never waste their time fighting it."

The best way is to spend an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with.

And yet it's not a right wing "invention" that I'm talking about here. I'm talking about what people actually said on Kevin's comment page. (Maybe they're all actually right-wing trolls sent off by Instapundit to poison the well, but I'll risk that I'd have some tough crow to eat if that truth comes out.)

If there's some sort of litmus test you'd like me to take so that I can show my True Liberal Bona Fides, some sort of cerification test I can write to demonstrate that I'm not Glenn Reynolds, please point me at it.

And in ken's post...

If you can name five--or even three--visible conservative commentators [...] who took Anne Coulter to task[...]

Wait, what? I simply can't agree with that. It's not okay to wallow in the mud like a pig! I don't care what the other pigs are doing, or how many "heh"s and "indeed"s and "objectively pro-Saddam"s they oink out. I'd like to be better than that not just because people respond to virtue (he said, perhaps naively) but because it's the right thing to do. Be honest, be compassionate, be just, and then kick some ass.

Ken Houghton ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 05:56 PM:

Patrick: "...if they hadn't rationalized to themselves that religion and religious people are somehow a special case in the general rules of decent social behavior."

Ah, if THAT is the issue that Drum and Brill are raising--Brill seemed more to be working from the premise that liberals don't want him or others like him playing in their pool, and using Shaw's bias to reinforce his own--then by all means it's a legitimate discussion, and one being carried on by liberals of all stripe (e.g. http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=7572 and http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=7373).

Jeremy Leader got it right, though, in one significant respect: the discussion is about public perception, not reality. And that has been shaped by a discourse that allows self-declared Xians to hide behind their declaration of religion--no matter how askew it is from Jim Caviezel's (or Martin Luther's; see http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4767275/) teachings--and declare liberals to be antagonistic to what they call "Xian values."

Not exactly something that could be repaired in the next six months, or six years.

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 06:08 PM:

Hello, who raised this issue in the first place? Are you guys really suggesting that Kevin Drum, Allen Brill, and Amy Sullivan are right-wingers?

Patrick (If I can feel free to call you that) wonderful site by the way.

I am not sure if you meant to direct this particular comment to me but if so, then I should clarify. I did not suggest - at least I did not intend to suggest - that Kevin or Allen or Amy were right wingers. I was not even objecting to Kevin's post (or your post) exactly. My points in my original post were in the first place, that the examples cited in the Times were weak examples of anti-religious sentiment and in the second place, should not reasonably be associated with any general idea of progressivism. As Lis Carey correctly pointed out, I have not listened to the original source material so that may have colored my opinion.

Later on I was simply defending my original post and further raising the point in that context that we have to be careful not to allow the right wing to define the debate by constantly making us defend ourselves. I guess we just simply disagree on the degree to which the sort of virulent anti-religious sentiment you discuss is something that we tolerate on the left.

Honestly, I'm stunned by the hostility...

I also apologize if any of my posts seemed hostile. To my sensibility, it seemed that we were all having an honest and reasonable debate.

Ken Houghton ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 06:20 PM:

On the cross-post, to Anticorium:

I don't thinking of it as "wallowing in mud with a pig" to not waste time posting indignantly every time someone posts something silly on the internet. Your expectation that liberals must fight any and all at all times while conservatives choose their battles (and tar with impunity) is at best dubious.

The first comment on KD's site referred to "religious nutbags." This apparently was offensive to Patrick (who is religious but not a nutbag), but I note that he decries the line here, but not there.

By your reasoning, should he not be obligated to do that as well?

For me, the most accurate and relevant statement in that exchange so far is:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_04/003740.php#150963

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 06:28 PM:

If there's some sort of litmus test you'd like me to take so that I can show my True Liberal Bona Fides, some sort of cerification test I can write to demonstrate that I'm not Glenn Reynolds, please point me at it.

I already responded to this sentiment as expressed by our moderator to some extent but I will restate here. I am not accusing you or anyone here of being a right winger. Looking over my posts I can see as how that would be unclear. Well I am not a very good writer obviously.

What I am suggesting is that "we" and I do mean myself included are often guilty of accepting a definition of progressives from the conventional wisdom. That wisdom is influenced by elements of the right wing that hammers phrases like "godless socialists" and we spend a great deal of our time defending ourselves from this characterization. My contention is that some clown on a radio show and a couple dozen blog posters don't define anything.

So if someone, liberal or conservative says to me, what do you have to say about Joe Blow, an avowed liberal, who says that all religous people suck, I say, "Joe Blow's opinions have nothing to do with his politics. The idea that they do is a conservative myth." What I don't say is, "well I don't agree with Joe Blow. He is just ignorant. And besides, most liberals don't really think that." Perhaps I should, but to my way of thinking, I have no obligation to defend myself from the opinions of Joe Blow because he really has nothing to do with me or my politics.

Arthur D. Hlavaty ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 06:33 PM:

What an awesome diversity of narrow-minded hatred Kevin called up.

Clark E Myers ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 07:27 PM:

For some reason I am reminded of moving into married student housing at the University of Chicago (many years ago). I know I was surrounded by liberals of the time - they celebrated, in my view indecently, the fall of Saigon a few years later. They all displayed proper urban manners and passed by with eyes averted as I hustled boxes from the U-Haul upstairs.

With the one exception of a Southern Baptist type who grabbed a box and followed me.

Reminds me (quoting) there is no cause too noble to attract [undesirable adherents] and just because you are on their side doesn't mean they are on your side.

bellatrys ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 07:48 PM:

[Delurk (or decloak)]

Unfortunately, we have let the Xtian Wrong define the debate and the terms thereof. I say "we" because although only relatively recently in my life (about the last 3 years) have I admitted openly to myself and others that I am, yes, that dreaded and loathed entity, a Liberal Feminist (though with a couple of nonstandard tenets) as well as a Catholic, part of that admission was the realization that I have, on many levels, been one in denial all my life. (I come from the orthodox (but not Greek) academic conversado branch, which is a tiny sub-splinter of those whom Teresa has said, truly, "You are for them but they are not for you" in re our relation to the conservative political establishment.

The realization process was a long one, starting pretty much with the Anita Hill and Tailhook hearings and a simultaneous course of Bib Theo and Early Church history, and I won't bore you with the details of it all, but eventually I realized that there wasn't really any place for those of us who were for civil rights and social justice and the environment and small business and science and so on, in the Conservative Christian sphere, and I had to stop pretending to myself that a) I fit and b) there was any room for me to even belong.

Why would I have struggled so long? Because Liberal and Feminist are the dirtiest words in the English language, the way I was brought up on Wanderer and Register and Crisis versions of religion. It wasn't until I got out into the real world, and met real live liberals and/or feminists (and even athiests and pagans)and realized that I'd been fed lies about what those categories consisted of for the most part, and equally that evil was "not all bottled up in the dragons" but that all the things I had been raised to loathe were present in "us", the conservative Christian side, and that *I couldn't pretend they were just abberations* (all men are sinful, Christianity doesn't pretend otherwise, you know the drill) but inherent to the spiritual pride of the movement and the linkage with the secular status quo.

Yes, there is a problem that a lot of liberal writers and so on are unaware that liberal Christians are not chimeras, and that there is any other kind of Christian than anti-intellectual, "Fearing Believer" types out to muzzle dissent and impose a version of 50s whitebread Americana masquerading as the Gospels on everyone.

But the problems are dual:

Firstly, Christianity, and the words "tradition" and "faithful" have been co-opted by the noisy Mammon-worshipers and wishthinkful revenge-fantasists, the Left Behind fans and Pat Robertsons, the "blame-the-problems-of-the-world" on everyone but us, and pretend they're new, and if you just let us roll it back to Ye Goode Olde Dayes, we will make everything happy and shiny and new... (and axes will be sharp ObPratchettRef)

The other problem is that we haven't shouted back. We've *let* them assert that *we* are wishy-washy stand-for-nothings, "the lukewarm that will be spat out of the mouth of God," who only want clown masses and Kumbaya and don't know history and don't care about culture and have a naive belief that everyone can just get along if everyone is nice...

This Lent has been hell on me for a lot of factors, and in it a moment of blinding personal clarity connected with facing all the bizarre and sexist and masochistic spirituality that I came out of (my background is a lot more moderate than Gibson's, but I definitely know where he's coming from, and we know people in common as a matter of fact - handshake away etc) and the revelation was this: I am a *proud* post-Vatican II Catholic. Not some hangdog watered down leftover, but heir to a vibrant and reconfiguring Early Church that got lost under the trappings of princely power.

I'm a Bible-Thumping Liberal: Woe to the complacent! Remember you were once immigrants too! Protect, don't mock, the handicapped! Put those safety railings up! Don't let the rich and powerful eat up the widows and orphans and workers! Woe to you violent and stone-hearted military-industrialists...

That's the message *I* get out of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the whole rest of it, the important part - not four dubious lines that probably refer to idolatry via fertility cults, at least.

So how do we convince the world to think of *us* first, and not Mel Gibson or Pat Robertson or the vast mass of cranks who teach say, hexameronical literalism, and who have co-opted Christianity? If we have let the latter be the Fruits of Christianity, how can we complain that passers-by conclude the Cross is a upas tree?

(No, I don't have a good solution. I'm best at defining problems myself. Sorry...)

julia ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 08:30 PM:

hrm.

I think true religion (that which is of the soul and not the ballot box) is a good thing. I think it's a good thing because any time you raise your eyes, you see past yourself, and far too few of us do that.

I think that whenever someone realizes that there is more that we have in common than there are differences between us, something has been gained.

I agree that there are people who have gotten sucked into a reflexive and unconsidered position of Is this what The Religious Are? Well, then, I'm agin 'em.

I also think that people who comment on a blog which recently suggested that the fifth amendment is overrated might be a trifle extreme in their views.

Anticorium ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 08:50 PM:

Your expectation that liberals must fight any and all at all times while conservatives choose their battles (and tar with impunity) is at best dubious.

Given that I've never said that liberals must fight "any and all at all times", I haven't said a word about conservatives "choos[ing] their battles", and I think nobody should be allowed to "tar with impunity", I'm quite interested to find out who this horrible person is you're arguing with. Their body, being made entirely out of straw, poses many fascinating questions in the field of biology.

(I, on the other hand, would be quite pleased if liberals started "dialing down their tolerance", as PNH puts it, for Christian-bashing; think that mending fences with the evangelical left would help greatly in taking the initiative away from the right; and feel that you can go ahead and tar all you want, as long as you're repairing some of the sad, sad highways into the city I used to live in. Skip the impunity, though -- bad road repairs are almost worse than none at all.)

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 09:09 PM:

I'm a bit tired of having liberalism called to account for every comment left on a popular blog. The urge to contradict being what it is, I would think it very likely that the first comment after an article saying "we should not criticize X" will be one that harshly criticizes X.

After all, the people most highly motivated to respond are not those in agreement, but those who want to call attention to their views (or themselves) by disagreement. With enough people reading the blog, the chances of finding people to disagree with any issue go up.

Is it really necessary for me, as a liberal, to dutifully respond to each of these predictable outbursts and assure everyone that no, liberals really don't believe that? I'm sure that conservatives would like nothing better than that we spend our time policing ourselves in this way.

Mary Kay ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 09:33 PM:

What I'm really tired of, is just how insane my country is on the subject of religion, either pro or con. I am reminded of walking into a panel at Octocon (Ireland) a year and a half ago to hear someone state, and the rest of the room marvel, that some huge percentage of Americans believe in God. They don't necessarily belong to a church or attend service, but they believe. So it's possible that some of us non-believers are indulging in a bunker mentality. Not that this excuses rudeness, esp. to people we want on our side. And the Europeans in the room found this very remarkable.

I wonder sometimes why this country is so crazed on sex and religion. They're obviously connected, at least obviously to Americans, but why? The UK and the rest of Europe, our cultural cousins, are much more relaxed and laissez faire about all this. Why is the US so obsessed? Sometimes I really do wish I lived somewhere else. Given my husband's job though, not bloody likely.

MKK

Mark ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 09:34 PM:

Well, if these idiots are hosts on the new highly-publicized new liberal radio network, it's not like we can claim that they're just some isolated wackos who don't speak for/on behalf of liberals. If they don't speak for us, why are they on Air America? I don't think that we have to apologize for every idiot in a comment section, no. But that's not where this discussion started.

Step back for a second. Forget about the issue of who represents liberals or whether there's a double standard between left and right, or any of that. Two radio hosts went out of their way to attack religion and Christianity on _Good Friday_. Isn't that worthy of at least some negative comment, just for grounds of general rudeness and bigotry? Put it another way: is _this_ what we want Air America to be like?

Varia ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 10:12 PM:

Sylvia, I think you're very right about some of the averse reactions to blatant religiosity--and I also had a thought after reading Kevin's original post. He commented that it's rude to mock unless you're a member of the group, but I don't think mainstream Christianity is so foreign to most of us (and by "us", I should clarify, I mean some value of stereotypical white vaguely middlish-class American whose parents loosely attended a Christianish church, not "liberals") that we would treat it as most would, say, Taoism or Shintoism or something "exotic" like that.

Speaking for myself; I wouldn't mock anyone of a "different" religion...but I feel like I know enough about, oh, different varieties of paganism to give my roommates crap about artsy-fartsy New-Ageyness. Likewise with Christianity; it's not foreign. Which means it doesn't get any instinctive politeness.

Also, speaking as a vaguely stereotypical white vaguely middle-classish liberal, I think some of my reflexive yarking at Christianity is because I'm still trying to distance myself from the Christianishness of my youth. It wasn't traumatic or scarring and I'm not violently opposed, or even bitter & angry; but I do feel uncomfortable with strongly Christian settings. I wonder if there aren't more people like that than Pentecostals in revolt.

I suppose I could edit this for readability and post it over at PA, but the comments section at that site is icky. Thanks, everyone at Light Enterprises, for maintaining a fantastic comments section :).

Arlen ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 10:14 PM:

"What I want to know is why have Christians allowed the Fundamentalist nutjobs to own public perception of Christianity?"

We haven't. You have. We're out here, doing what we think is right (as in correct, not wing). You have a choice who to believe. If you choose to leap around howling about extremists (sorry, I'll not misuse "fundamentalists" in the way every one else on this thread has been doing) that's your choice.

You could also take a cue from what happened to me recently over on Teresa's blog, where a simple comment about belief which I made has been mischaracterized and misapplied into a mockery of what it originally said. It never fails to amaze me what people can read into words, and then denounce you for saying what you never said in the first place.

I once had to endure a campaign to toss me off a discussion list, simply because I wouldn't change my .sig line (which simply read "In God We Trust, All Others Must Supply Data"). That was my only offense.

There's a strong bias against Christianity in particular among the media, but it also goes against anyone who is sincerely trying to do what is right. It's understandable; it's wrong that sells newspapers, after all, not right.

So folks like me just move on, because we know there's no point in trying to outshout the human howler monkeys. People will believe what they want to about us, regardless of what we do or say. So why waste the effort?

Lenny Bailes ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 10:30 PM:

I share the belief that mockery of religion by pro-Democrat political activists is likely to lose more votes than it gains.

I think that I do understand this practice, without endorsing it -- in the same way I understand the belligerent tone of most reader response on Atrios' website.

A good number of atheists (and leftists) feel oppressed by, and resentful of perceived majority opinions. Letting off steam about it seems to provide a sense of emotional relief. I habitually listen to KPFA's "humanist-political-folk" programming on Sunday mornings. I noticed (not being at Minicon this year), that their Easter Sunday song selection was full of bitter anti-Christian stuff that I'd never heard before -- ratcheted up from the Utah Phillips/Phil Ochs level to beyond Paul Krassner intensity. I'm not a Christian; but I switched it off as not what I was looking for on a Sunday morning.

Whether expression of that kind of anger is justified or therapeutic is two other discussion topics. It's not a useful vote-getting tool for Air America or other Kerry campaigners.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 11:15 PM:

Arlen, secularists make up at best about 10% of the American population. How the heck can our beliefs constitute “public perception of Christianity”?

Patrick, I’m not suggesting that Kevin Drum is a right-winger. I’m suggesting that perhaps he, and the chain of people he’s linking to before I get to that LA Times article by David Shaw, are being over-sensitive, and taking one person’s vague description of offensiveness and blowing it up into “The Progressive Penchant for Self-Destruction”.

I could be wrong here. But I’ve seen enough of these this-is-offensive-no-it-isn’t arguments (remember the Brooklyn Museum’s Sensation show?) that I don’t trust summaries and descriptions.

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 21, 2004, 11:42 PM:

Avram, I'm not taking anyone's vague description of anything. I'm talking about what I heard with my very own ears on several different occasions of listening to Morning Sedition. Marc Moron was very, very clear about his intentions. There was no ambiguity. He thinks I'm a blithering idiot, and probably a dangerous one, but hopefully more dangerous to myself than to him, based solely on the fact that I'm religious. He cannot even begin to wrap his mind around the fact that religious believers might be politically liberal, nor not believe the world is flat, and he means to be as offensive as possible.

I'm rather struck by the fact that the only two people who appear to have noticed that I've said this--that unlike many of the people insisting that it's all just hypersensitivity, based on comments about comments, I've actually listened to the show--are Patrick and Brent. This is intentional offensiveness on Mr. Moron's part, and he says it's intentional offensiveness.

And if you can't take the word of a religious believer that this is not good for what I presume is our shared liberal/Democratic goal in this election, consider believing Lenny Bailes, who is, at least, safely non-Christian.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 12:11 AM:

Lis, maybe I’ll try listening to the show. I’ve had my radio tuned to that station all week, and I’ve been catching bits of it in between snoozes, but haven’t tried for anything longer because it’s sounded really annoying and obnoxious and unfunny (just like every other zany comedy radio morning show I’ve ever heard).

But it’ll take more than a morning show asshole to get me to believe in a “Progressive Penchant for Self-Destruction”.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 12:13 AM:

A lot of the thread has been about comments because the original post said "If you don’t believe that, try reading the comments following Kevin’s post—starting with the very first one."

Mark asks "If they [the radio Djs] don't speak for us, why are they on Air America?" I was unaware that I had voted for Marc Moron to be my official liberal representative. I thought that he was, you know, an entertainer hired by a private company. And what exactly am I supposed to do about this? Denounce him? Isn't that kind of a bad joke in a world where the Bush Administration is killing hundreds of Iraqis a week?

MD² ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 12:17 AM:

Anticorium: sorry for the name choice trouble.

All right spent evening talking about this with people from the french INALCO, and it seems that to most of the students, whatever country they were from, the image of the US righ wing being mildly to deeply religious, and its left wing in majority ranging from agnostic to atheist seems deeply rooted.
I think there IS a deep rooted image problem to fight off.

As for humour at the expense of religion, I'd say as long as it's not done in order to harm I'm all for it. I'd like to properly quote Pierre Desproges on the subject, but I'm not good enough for a good english translation, so I'll leave it in french for now and try to deliver an english version later:

"Peut-on rire de tout ? Peut-on rire avec tout le monde ?
A la première question, je répondrai oui sans hésiter. S’il est vrai que l’humour est la politesse du désespoir, s’il est vrai que le rire sacrilège blasphématoire que les bigots de toutes les chapelles taxent de vulgarité et de mauvais goût, s’il est vrai que ce rire-là peut parfois désacraliser la bêtise, exorciser les chagrins véritables et fustiger les angoisses mortelles, alors oui, on peut rire de tout, on doit rire de tout. [...]
A la deuxième question, peut-on rire avec tout le monde ? Je répondrai : c’est dur."

Looking at the situation, from both countries and perspective, I notice a disquieting increase in the pattern of community compartmentalization, or at least that's the way I perceive it.

Talking about proselitism: isn't anti-religious humour a twisted form of non-religious proselitism itself ? At its lowest point.
Maybe not everytime.

Sometimes I fear there's a kind of distrust, even contempt, ingrained in environmental non-religiosity. As if religion was felt a barbarous thing of the past best left forgotten.
I shared with a friend the address to Making Light. He enjoyed and respected the place until he read the Things I believe thread, at which point he told me he hadn't realized Ms Hayden was a religious person. It was not that much the comtempt in his voice as much as the realization I had had analogous, if far less violent, feelings that hurt me.

Mr Ripley ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 12:25 AM:

It's an old, old argument, which I remember first having seen in the Nation's lettercol about twenty years ago (guess which columnist was being denounced for his gratuitous potshots against religion --hint: he's not on the Left any longer). And the anti-religious vitriol gets really intense over at Atrios and Political Animal --not that their comment threads are ever paragons of civility. But blogovians should know better, what with Fred Clark, Jeanne D'Arc, Donald Johnson, et al to remind us that there's a vocal Christian Left out there. As one of Kevin Drum's commentors hinted, notwithstanding the number of powerful Jewish rightniks, you rarely see Lefties denouncing Jews and Judaism --it's always either Christians or religion in general. Not only should the rest of us want to avoid alienating our Christian allies and recognize the power of Christian rhetoric and values for progressive causes, we could stand to be a little humbler when confronting smart and compassionate people whom we disagree with on theological issues: heaven knows what planks we're unaware of in our own eyes.

Lenny, I'm really reluctant to put Phil Ochs in the even mildly "bitter anti-
Christian" category: I think he makes it clear in "Cannons of Christianity" and "Chaplain of the War" exactly what category of Christians he's talking about and to what ends they put their religion, and they ain't Dorothy Day or MLK (The greatest living interpreters of Phil Ochs songs, Kim and Reggie Harris, are very active in the Catholic Church --I'll ask them what they think when I next get the chance).

Terry Karney ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 01:57 AM:

Brent:My point remains, that there is no real evidence that this hatred or lack of respect extends beyonds the attitudes of a small minority.

This is interesting, because that argument, that group A (let's say fundamentalist Christians, of the American stripe) represent a small portion of the Group Uber-A to which they belong, is often made (It can be seen in the argument that the Republican strategy doesn't pander to rascists, it just happens they benefit from the effects).

In the case of the Fundamentalist Christians, that groups seems to have taken the public's mind as the defining persons of the Uber-group. Which is why so many find Slacktivist, and The Right Christians so refreshing, and amazing.

The risk is that the sub-group, of religion haters, will (as they are presented by the Fundamentalists) become seen as the Uber-group.

Terry

Debbie Notkin ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 02:09 AM:

Okay, here's my problem with this discussion and the one on Washington Monthly. I'm seeing a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not it's okay to mock "religion" (which is being used as code for "Christianity"). I'm seeing discussion about whether the choice is to mock or to pander. I'm seeing questions of what is most useful, or least damaging to the left, and who is calling who names.

I just searched the whole thread for the word "respect" and basically never found it used in a positive fashion. I see "lack of respect;" I see "views we don't respect;" I see "respectability."

Speaking as more of a secular humanist than anything else, I have a deep respect for the religious beliefs of the people I know: Christian, Jewish, Islamic, pagan, roll-your-own. I've been known to envy them ...

I also have a deep and abiding belief (you could call it a religious belief, I suppose) that no one ever benefits from a conversation in which they are not approached with respect. Want to change someone's mind? Don't approach them with that want on the table. Approach them to find out, from a position of respect, what drives the way they feel. Offer them your position as a gift, or a specimen for them to examine. Let them look at it from all sides. Do the same thing with their position with open mind, value for how they got where they are, and (yes) respect.

Maybe they'll change your mind. Maybe you'll change yours. Most likely you'll both stay right where you've been. But you'll feel better about the other position and a tiny bit of common ground will have been reached.

It's not only not about mockery, it's not about pandering either. If God doesn't speak to me (and he doesn't), how could I possibly know whether or not he speaks to you?


Smitty ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 02:58 AM:

"Honestly, I'm stunned by the hostility provoked by the suggestion that progressives and liberals might want to dial down their tolerance for a certain kind of gratuitous abuse of people who are trying to be their allies."

Allies? You really don't see that they are NOT allies of liberals? They ARE liberals.

Allies sounds like a code phrase for useful idiots.

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 04:24 AM:

In the case of the Fundamentalist Christians, that groups seems to have taken the public's mind as the defining persons of the Uber-group. Which is why so many find Slacktivist, and The Right Christians so refreshing, and amazing.

I agree with Arlen that many of us are misusing the term "fundamentalist" here, but I think this post and Arlen's are directly on point. That is to say, in one way or another, we are arguing from a set of assumptions concerning the larger public perception of various Uber-groups -- to use your term. My issues are 1) are those negative assessments really the public perceptions of liberalism or of religious belief and 2) to the extent that they are, how much does anyone help themselves by spending their energies trying to prove to others what they are not?

I am not saying I know the answer to either of those questions for sure, just that I really don't believe the general assumptions are foregone conclusions. There are a lot of liberals in the world. Does the public, of which we form a large opinion block, really accept the image of god-hating hippies? Similarly, as Avram has pointed out a couple of times, far more people are religious than not. So how can we really say with any certainty that the prevailing assumptions concerning people of Faith are particularly negative? Indeed this is similar to Avram's point in the very first post on this topic.

Of course, I have no doubt of the need for any group to combat its negatives in the public. I just wonder, and I really am asking, if associating ourselves with the rantings of some purposefully offensive radio entertainer in order to refute him, is the best battle we can pick.

Anna in Cairo ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 04:24 AM:

As a practicing Muslim and a moderator of a few progressive Muslim discussion lists as well as an extremely liberal/left Democrat (who voted Nader in 2000 and will vote ABB in 2004) I am finding this discussion very interesting and timely.

I tend not to feel personally slighted by the anger that a lot of progressive/liberal people feel against religion per se that they express in comments. This is because I automatically assume that they are, as someone upthread eloquently described, sort of going through a 7-stage process after having been indoctrinated by some form of extreme religion and are still in "anger" or "blame".

Also if I heard a radio person referring to religious wackos or something like that I would not automatically assume that they are referring to religion (e.g., mine) or the religious (e.g., me) per se; but that they were referring to the people that I also find scary (like Falwell, or Osama Bin Laden, etc).

That said, I think a lot of religious people are a lot more sensitive than me (for their own reasons and based on their own experiences) and that their sensitivities deserve consideration.

The solution, as I see it, is that it would be ideal if all of us, the religious and the non-religious, would try to practice actually listening / hearing / understanding the other person rather than starting out on the attack based on our assumptions, which may very well be wrong.

Iain J Coleman ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 06:55 AM:

Thinking of religious people as allies of liberals, or as being able to be liberal despite their religious beliefs, is a rather arse-over-tit viewpoint. In "An Intelligent Person's Guide to Liberalism" (which I strongly recommend to absolutely everybody), Conrad Russell explains how the liberal tradition is founded in religious thought. In particular, the liberal championing of diversity, tolerance and freedom of expression began with the struggle of minority religions against persecution by offically-sanctioned religion, and the liberal concern for fair treatment of the disadvantaged has obvious religious roots.

I'm an atheist, whose secular liberal beliefs come from J. S. Mill, not Jesus Christ. But many of my fellow Liberal Democrats are deeply religious people, active and committed lay members of their various churches, for whom political work is another aspect of loving their neighbours. Their liberalism is not second-rate, neither is their faith a matter for derision. If anything, an atheist like myself is the interloper, coming via secular philosophy into a much older tradition.

It's true that, particularly in the US, the authoritarian fundamentalists are the most obvious religious figures. These are exactly the kinds of people that religious liberals have always fought against, and against whom liberalism was founded. Religious liberals, in my experience, generally don't feel the same need to tell you about how holy they are, and so their religious faith can often go unremarked.

Mark ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 07:17 AM:

Rich, whether or not any of us voted for Marc Moron or any of the rest of them, they're on Air America, which is certainly being billed as "our" radio network. You think people _don't_ associate the people on Air America with the American Left? I thought that was the whole point?

That Iraq is currently going to hell in a handbasket doesn't mean that other things aren't also worthy of at least some attention and comment. I don't think tunnel vision is helpful here.

Melanie ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 08:09 AM:

Patrick,

Had you read Allen Brill a little more carefully, you would have found that this particular thread originated with me, I passed it to Allen and then Kevin picked it up. This is a theme on which Allen and I comment often. We are both pointedly ignored by the secular left as a result.

Iain, I'm grateful for your eloquent reminder of what we all have in common.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 08:31 AM:

Very good comments from Debbie Notkin and Iain Coleman. (Good comments from others, too, but those two stuck in my brain.)

There's been a fair bit of comment to the effect that some people are sick-and-tired of demands for liberals to police their ranks. Rich Puchalsky's remarks seem representative:

"I was unaware that I had voted for Marc Moron to be my official liberal representative. I thought that he was, you know, an entertainer hired by a private company. And what exactly am I supposed to do about this? Denounce him?"
It's an understandable sentiment, but I'm not sure what on earth I said to bring it on. I and a few others have pointed out that there's some persistent friction on this issue, and that often left-leaning people who are also religious feel disrespected or unwelcome in leftish circles. When even friends of mine respond to this with (1) suggestions that this is akin to Glenn Reynolds demanding that left-wingers police themselves according to his script, and (2) insistent claims that oh no this isn't a problem, I really have to wonder if maybe I've been absent-mindedly speaking Chinese. Fortunately, from their very different perspectives, Lis Carey's and Debbie Notkin's posts reassure me that I haven't.

In another post, Smitty demands:

Allies? You really don't see that they are NOT allies of liberals? They ARE liberals.
Allies sounds like a code phrase for useful idiots.
No, I don't think religious people are "useful idiots." Perish forbid that anybody should ever credit me with having written something sloppily.

Elsewhere, here's what seems to me a rather smart post about all of this, from a blog I've never read before.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 08:33 AM:

Melanie, sorry I missed that. I'm still getting the hang of Brill's new site.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 08:36 AM:

Nugget for discussion: Neal Stephenson in his recent Salon interview.

"The fundamentalist churches nowadays do a much better job of promulgating their views and are much more vocal and outspoken, and if you're a secular person who doesn't have much interaction with organized religion, then the only time you ever see a Christian, it's someone saying that evolution is a lie and the world is only 6,000 years old. It's very easy to miss the fact that the Catholic Church and all the mainline Protestant denominations long ago accepted evolution and have no problem with it at all. I frequently run into militantly secular types who think that all Christians, for example, deny the theory of evolution. That accounts for a certain amount of the militancy of secular types in public discourse. They just can't believe people believe this stuff. It seems patently idiotic to them."

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 08:55 AM:

Here's what I just posted in Kevin Drum's thread:

This is stupid. Would you rather have Bush and his cronies out of the White House, or would you rather hang on to your habit of spouting weary cliches about religion?

And believe me, 90% of remarks I hear are weary, and they are cliches. If religion is an important subject, good or bad, it deserves more thought than it's generally being given. Some new sentences would be nice.

If religion isn't an important subject, then absentmindedly slagging it off is a trivial habit you can well afford to lose, given how much it costs you in political support.

Not all the posts over there are stupid by any means, but there have been moments of abyssal idiocy.

Nancy Lebovitz ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 09:09 AM:

Debbie, thanks for mentioning respect. I've noticed for a long time that a lot of liberals use conservative and Republican as terms of abuse, and I've wondered how they expect to recruit people they're insulting. (Yes, I've noticed the same is true in reverse on the right.)

Eimear Ní Mhéalóid ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 09:41 AM:

Mary Kay, in re that Octocon panel:

Probably something near the same percentage of people in Ireland believe in God, although fewer would pray regularly or go to Mass. That statistic about US religious observance is usually trotted out to counterpoint the popular culture image of the USA as largely secular and hedonistic.

The members of Octocon would be less religiously inclined than non-fans and more likely to be among the group of Irish people scornful about religion. We've had our own version of the cruelty masquerading as religion that Sylvia talks about.

There's a debate at the moment as to whether there should be a reference to God in the preamble to the proposed EU constitution.

Arlen ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 09:49 AM:

"Arlen, secularists make up at best about 10% of the American population. How the heck can our beliefs constitute “public perception of Christianity”?"

My apologies, Avram, for the vagueness of the "you" in my comment. The referent for "you" was the "public" in "public perception." I wasn't singling out non-believers with that. I was just pointing out that the public at large will believe the worst. It's human nature, and I understand it (though my understanding is rooted in my religion, so I'm sure others out there won't agree with the reasoning, I think the preponderance of the evidence will support the effect). It seems that something analogous to Gresham's Law operates in humanity's views of Those Different From Me; bad impressions drive out good.

My main point was that since we can't control the impression other people have of us, many (perhaps even most) have decided that trying to do so simply drains energy away from What Really Matters, so we don't bother.

"Similarly, as Avram has pointed out a couple of times, far more people are religious than not. So how can we really say with any certainty that the prevailing assumptions concerning people of Faith are particularly negative? Indeed this is similar to Avram's point in the very first post on this topic. "

I understand Avram's point, and there's some benefit to asking the question. I guess it depends upon the circles you move in. My answer may be laden with religion (how can it not be?) so if that bothers any of you, stop reading now.

Jesus said that the well don't need a doctor, that a doctor should spend his time among the sick. In the context, that means that Christians should spend at the least the majority of their time among non-Christians.

The effect of that upon those who follow the principle, is that they spend all or most of their time interacting with people who don't feel that Christianity is worth believing in. A side effect of that is that many Christians develop a bit of a persecution complex. Maintaining one's beliefs while surrounded by those who do not share them can produce a sort of "me against the world" attitude in us that can appear as arrogance to others (and I won't candy-coat this, in some of us it flat-out does turn into arrogance).

This is why nearly every Christian will tell you they feel the world is biased against them. That is our perception, based upon our own experiences. We go among the non-believers, and we spread our Good News, as is our duty. Those who do not share this belief naturally enough are often irritated, but to stop doing it would be tantamount to giving up our religion, a point which seems to escape the Freedom From Religion folks.

Avram's question is valid, though, because our perception may not be accurate, given the skewed sample we're basing it upon. We get the backlash from the community of non-Christians that we travel within; others of other beliefs will get the same, though, so perhaps that may be why we all feel biased against?

As long as freedom endures, non-Christians will have to put up with me using opportune moments to share what God has done for me with them, and I will have to put up with the proselytizing efforts of other religions, including atheism.

Do I wish sometimes that folks both in my own group and in other groups would sometimes be a bit more reticent? Of course. But I also realize that the world would be a boring place indeed if everyone behaved the same way. Just looking around supplies proof enough for me that God values diversity; who am I to disagree with Him?

John Farrell ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 10:03 AM:

Apropos Mary Kay's point about Europeans being more relaxed about sex and religion than Americans.

A few years back, my wife and I were having lunch in a small Florence restaurant--and we got to chatting with a middle-aged couple on the bench next to us. The husband didn't speak English, so his wife acted as interpreter: "My husband is curious about two things," she said. "1. Why do sex scenes in American movies always take place near a window, and 2. What is it with ice? Americans always like their drinks with ice...."

So...while I'm persuaded by the observation that Europeans are indeed more relaxed about sex and religion than we are...it seems there's at least one European who thinks Americans are obsessed with...cold drinks and good lighting.

I know I am.

David W. ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 10:46 AM:

There's a debate at the moment as to whether there should be a reference to God in the preamble to the proposed EU constitution.

Which is no small thing, given how Europe was once synonomous with Christendom.

Ken Houghton ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 12:02 PM:

Patrick again: "left-leaning people who are also religious feel disrespected or unwelcome in leftish circles"

Most of us don't travel in such circles, and are therefore noting that we're being tarred by Brill (and Melanie, who declares herself "pointedly ignored by the secular left ") in a manner that they or you would rightly find offensive if we lumped you in with the "Xian right."

Why, to be blunt about it, should we spend our most valuable resource (time) dealing with people who declare loudly and publicly that we don't want them?

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 12:28 PM:

This is stupid. Would you rather have Bush and his cronies out of the White House, or would you rather hang on to your habit of spouting weary cliches about religion?

Speaking only for myself, I would rather people be honest, whatever it is they believe. I think that what makes it so difficult to foster a real public debate on any of the important issues of the day is that so few parties intend to approach the debtate honestly. Of course, I would much rather people be respectful of other's beliefs, but not if it just pretend. That would really seem to be more like pandering or condescension.

Fortunately, at least to my way of thinking, we are not really faced with that choice. When voters are faced with a choice, they would be hard pressed to find a progressive candidate that doesn't respect a wide range of belief systems, whatever their faith. Lets keep in mind that for all of the talk of the schism or tensions between liberalism and religion, it is still essentially impossible in this society for a viable liberal candidate to be anything other than deeply religious. I don't want to downplay the influence of blogs like Political Animal or of Air America but in perspective, and especially on an issue like this, I really think that we are overestimating their influence and relevance to the larger public debate.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 12:42 PM:

Patrick Neilsen Hayden quotes me as being reprepresentative, and then writes:
"It's an understandable sentiment, but I'm not sure what on earth I said to bring it on."

Well, here's what brought it on. I've added emphasis:

"Self-inflicted wounds. Allen Brill and Kevin Drum discuss one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing—a problem largely of our own making."

Why are all of us suddenly responsible for Marc Moron? I've never dissed religious people as a group, and neither have most of the liberals I know. Why was this directed to all of us rather than to the specific subset of us, or to the individuals, who are responsible? Why are we supposed to believe that this is a problem that affects all of us because someone chose to write something in Kevin Drum's comments?

The answer, according to some commenters here, appears to be that it is a problem for all of us because those of us who do not diss religion are supposed to police those who do. Sorry, but I have better things to do than to call on people to change what they say so that a group of people who they do not speak for will look good. It is futile, because you can't control everyone and it only needs a few contrarians to exist anywhere in the U.S. to provide examples that the right wing will seize on.

Anticorium ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 02:11 PM:

Sorry, but I have better things to do than to call on people to change what they say so that a group of people who they do not speak for will look good.

Cancer won't cure itself, after all. (Actually, I'm curious, what do you have to do that will go undone if you actually say "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" when someone says that all Christians are schizophrenic fascists?)

But if you want to consider this as some sort of election strategy or police action instead of respect for some of your fellow human beings, fine. The funny thing about not bothering to correct Christian-bashers is that it's a horrible election strategy too! I see a lot of harm done to liberalism when a right-winger says "I can honestly say that when Marc Moron said all Christians are brain-damaged schizophrenics, nobody on the left disagreed. I want you to remember that in November, my fellow parishoners." To my admittedly-amateur eye, it might even help tilt a close election or something.

If the right wing is going to "seize" on "examples", I'd rather not stand aside while people who are putatively my allies hand them shiny, flawless examples on a silver platter, and count on the decency and intellecutal rigor of your average conservative commentator compelling them to preface their remarks with "Now, I can only assume there is a large silent majority of liberals who disagree but anyway."

bellatrys ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 02:32 PM:

The effect of that upon those who follow the principle, is that they spend all or most of their time interacting with people who don't feel that Christianity is worth believing in. A side effect of that is that many Christians develop a bit of a persecution complex. Maintaining one's beliefs while surrounded by those who do not share them can produce a sort of "me against the world" attitude in us that can appear as arrogance to others (and I won't candy-coat this, in some of us it flat-out does turn into arrogance).

This is why nearly every Christian will tell you they feel the world is biased against them. That is our perception, based upon our own experiences. We go among the non-believers, and we spread our Good News, as is our duty.

Arlen, this is also true of those of us who never interact with outsiders at all, and who have no personal experience of non-Christians (or real live liberals) other than those mediated by Christian Right media. Those of us who only attended Christian schools, (or were homeschooled) including college, watched no TV, or only approved family friendly shows, no secular books, or very few, and go on to work at Christian companies or in ministry. This is the world I (mostly) grew up in, and the perception of persecution, and that the liberals were going to take away our (or us) kids, ban prayer, mandate sterilzation for Christians and force euthansia upon the elderly, along with mandatory homosexuality, as a way to eradicate humanity and give the planet back to nature, was stronger there than among those who actually interacted with the secular world on a regular and free basis.

I see this on the web, too. I also see a lot of Christians "evangelizing" by telling people they're wrong, wrong, wrong, and appealing to authority to prove why - authorities which those they are trying to convert don't recognize, which is the problem - and not being able to understand why this doesn't work. Then giving up with a patronizing "I'll pray for you to change your mind and be saved," and not seeing why this doesn't go over well either.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 04:37 PM:

Antocorium responds: "Cancer won't cure itself, after all. (Actually, I'm curious, what do you have to do that will go undone if you actually say "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" when someone says that all Christians are schizophrenic fascists?)"

What better do I have to do? Just about anything. I guess I'm just not the kind of person who enjoys snapping "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" off whenever any one of a nationwide group of other liberals writes or says something crazy. I assure you that if anyone prioritized this activity above a few others, they could easily find themselves engaging in full-time unpaid employment as a public scold. And the worst kind of public scold; one who is most offended by deviations from purity by those on their own side.

Antocorium adds:
"But if you want to consider this as some sort of election strategy or police action instead of respect for some of your fellow human beings, fine."

I was unaware that I showed respect for other human beings by looking out for people expressing opinions in order to say "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" even when the person in question made no claim to speak for me.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 04:53 PM:

Ken Houghton demands:

"Why, to be blunt about it, should we spend our most valuable resource (time) dealing with people who declare loudly and publicly that we don't want them?"
I dunno, Ken. Let's take a look at the post in which someone made such a terrible, bullying, oppressive demand on your personal and moral resources. Oh, wait. There was no such post. Say, have you stopped beating your wife?

Rich Puchalsky says, in a similar vein:

Patrick Nielsen Hayden quotes me as being representative, and then writes:
"It's an understandable sentiment, but I'm not sure what on earth I said to bring it on."
Well, here's what brought it on. I've added emphasis:
"Self-inflicted wounds. Allen Brill and Kevin Drum discuss one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing--a problem largely of our own making."
Why are all of us suddenly responsible for Marc Moron? I've never dissed religious people as a group, and neither have most of the liberals I know. Why was this directed to all of us rather than to the specific subset of us, or to the individuals, who are responsible? Why are we supposed to believe that this is a problem that affects all of us because someone chose to write something in Kevin Drum's comments?
The answer, according to some commenters here, appears to be that it is a problem for all of us because those of us who do not diss religion are supposed to police those who do. Sorry, but I have better things to do than to call on people to change what they say so that a group of people who they do not speak for will look good. It is futile, because you can't control everyone and it only needs a few contrarians to exist anywhere in the U.S. to provide examples that the right wing will seize on.
Oh please. I could have used the headline "Self-Inflicted Wounds" on a post about the deficiencies of arts education in American public schools. In such a post I might well have referred to the resulting ignorance as "a problem of our own making." How many of you people taking offense at this discussion would have gone to equal trouble to vent about how you're not responsible for the problems of our educational system, you've done your part, how dare I make such a generalization? And repeatedly slapped me with the charge that I'm demanding that somebody "police" somebody else?

It's very true that the hard-right 40% of America will despise us whether or not secular progressives are polite about religion or not. Blaming ourselves for the most of the hatred being pumped out of that end of our screwed-up political discourse would be a real mistake. My reasons for thinking that this is a real problem and worth addressing have to do with our mental health, not with what the committed head cases of Linmbaughland are going to think of us.

I made a general observation about a problem of American left/progressive subculture--a subculture in which I grew up and of which I consider myself part. I'm not, last time I checked, a right-wing provocateur trying to play gotcha games. Nor do I think the existence of a problem obliges everyone to devote their lives to it. What I really want to know is when "Fuck you, not my problem, I've got mine, Jack" became a reasonable response to mildly-phrased criticism of left/liberal/progressive culture and behavior by people inside that culture. If you think this amounts to a demand that anyone "police" anyone, I suggest that you might want to take a step back and ask whether this remarkably nasty charge is really appropriate.

The fact that a bunch of formerly lefty hacks have made a comfortable living in recent years proclaiming their apostasy and retailing themselves as diagnosticians of What's Wrong With The Left does not, last time I looked, excuse us from occasionally taking a critical look at ourselves. Or maybe it does. Maybe we're perfect, and we treat one another and our fellow Americans just fine, and anybody who says otherwise is advocating "policing." After all, I'm fine. I didn't create the problem. As a matter of fact, there aren't any problems. So screw the critics! Hey, this is fun.

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 05:33 PM:

The fact that a bunch of formerly lefty hacks have made a comfortable living in recent years proclaiming their apostasy and retailing themselves as diagnosticians of What's Wrong With The Left does not, last time I looked, excuse us from occasionally taking a critical look at ourselves.

I don't read anyone's comment on this thread as really disagreeing with this. I think the disagreement is really over how widespread or serious this problem really is. I mean is it really "the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing." The fact is, I am all for debating this issue. Disrespect and intolerance are always matters of serious concern. I am merely unconvinced, at least not by the evidence cited, that the left as a movement is fomenting anti-religious sentiment in some significant way or even that the swing voters who count really believe that we are.

Look, if there was some sort of democratic sponsored anti-religion legislation or a significant anti-religion lobbying group out there that made a point of attacking people of faith, maybe this would be a different discussion. If some major political figure or 527 organization were out there advocating disdain for the devout, then maybe. But some jackass on the radio? This signifies nothing to me except what I already know which is that there are idiots of all political persuasion. Should we confront these people? We should and we do... all the time. Should we take responsibility for these people as indicative of some larger scale problem in our political ranks? In my opinion at least, the jury is still out on that question.

Niall ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 06:56 PM:

PNH wrote:

'What I really want to know is when "Fuck you, not my problem, I've got mine, Jack" became a reasonable response to mildly-phrased criticism of left/liberal/progressive culture and behavior by people inside that culture.'

It wasn't particularly mildly phrased. You called it "one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern Right Wing", which makes it sound like a pretty big fucking deal.

Is there any evidence that anyone actually votes against their interests or principles because someone else on that platform is rude about religion?

It certainly doesn't seem to work that way on the right, where right-wing atheists who think the Republicans will limit government and taxation wink at their candidates pandering to the lowest common religious denominator.

Or is it only religious people who are incapable of joining a coalition where their beliefs get less than 100% respect?

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 09:09 PM:

Patrick: I and a few others have pointed out that there's some persistent friction on this issue, and that often left-leaning people who are also religious feel disrespected or unwelcome in leftish circles.

Yeah, persistent friction, I can sign on with that. I’ve seen it, hell, I’ve been it. But I don’t buy that it’s “one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing” or a sign of a “progressive penchant for self-destruction” (as if the right doesn’t have its own share of assholes and lunatics).

David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 09:11 PM:

I’m as secular a secular humanist as the next guy, but I have to wonder: What is it about the charge of religion-bashing, levied against the Left in general, that’s making so many people so defensive?

And what is the defense that’s being offered — that it’s not happening? Or that even if it is happening, there’s nothing wrong with it?

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 09:17 PM:

Arlen: The effect of that upon those who follow the principle, is that they spend all or most of their time interacting with people who don't feel that Christianity is worth believing in. A side effect of that is that many Christians develop a bit of a persecution complex.

This is the part that drives me nuts. The US is something like 80-85% Christian. How could most American Christians possibly be spending most of their time among non-Christians? Are you all journeying abroad? Hanging out with the Lubavitchers? What causes this widespread persecution complex?

I know part of the answer. I noticed a bunch of my college friends called themselves “Christians” with an odd sort of tone to their voice, as if there was an implicit “real” in front of the word. It’s pretty obvious that some number of Christians out there consider most Christians to be closet secularists (or, in the extreme cases, accidental devil-worshippers). What I don’t understand is how this belief can survive contact with the world.

Stefanie Murray ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 10:17 PM:

This is stupid. Would you rather have Bush and his cronies out of the White House, or would you rather hang on to your habit of spouting weary cliches about religion?

At the risk of lobbing a grenade into an already frought discussion, people on the Green side of the Neverending Nader debate have made the same plea for tolerance of their (also liberal) viewpoint on this site and others, and been (often) dismissed. Certainly I have dismissed them in person, when speaking with friends who pulled the fatal 'Green' lever in 2000.

I think now I should have been more respectful. I can be equally dismissive of religion and religious people, though generally just among people who, like me, are not religious. I tend to avoid the subject altogether with people who are, and I hope I am respectful though I'll think about how to be more so.

The hard thing for me in reading this discussion, though, is that it's so unclear what "religion" means in this context. Certainly, as Sylvia, Anna and others have mentioned, "religion" can be almost a personal-language word for "the people who abused me and the reason they did so." In this discussion, I think there are also ways in which "religion" is being used as shorthand not just for "Christianity" but for "mainstream culture." This is of course ironic because many, many Christians feel opposed to (not to mention oppressed by) mainstream culture.

To speak for myself, I am neither Christian nor religious in any other modality. And I experience religion, and Christianity, in my (American, Minnesotan) culture as a gentle-but-constant abrasion. We get lots of missionaries in my neighborhood, especially at this time of year, and I always say 'no thank you' and yet the minor annoyance of it mounts up in the same way that the annoyance of telemarketing does, or spam. And the same goes for the way that Biblical movies appear on the History channel (whereas "Clash of the Titans" does not). Or that liquor stores are closed on Sundays. Etc. There is a way in which Christians who decry the material nature of Christmas, Easter, et al. as they are manifested by public holidays miss the fact that to those on other sides of the debate the entrenched nature of certain beliefs is what's significant, not the accuracy of the portrayal.

Here's another issue. "Religion" is also used to describe "the force that gets legislatures to pull shit like this." It is very difficult for me to grok that people who successfully enact stuff like this, that allows doctors *not to treat gay people*, are oppressed in any meaningful sense of the word. Hence, again, in such a context remarks that dismiss or deride religion can seem to me to be the remarks of the less-powerful speaking against the more-powerful.

I was fortunate enough to live a month in a Fransican convent, and the sisters there have come to define energy, commitment, and compassion for me...on many levels. But the same commitment that gave them the strength to serve so admirably made them adamantly opposed to reproductive rights, feminism, and any sort of equality for queers like me.

An acquaintance in High School lost most of a year to leukemia. Her strong faith helped her through her battle, which was successful. That same faith led her to say to me (while still in treatment herself) that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality.

For me, that's the dilemma. But I think I've been using entirely the wrong language to get at it, and have maybe given offense where it was not meant, or criticized the wrong things.

You have given me a lot to think about, as always... thank you.

Fritz ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 11:14 PM:

Might it not be better for those Christians of a progressive nature to hector the people at Air America for representation rather than fume here? The main problem seems to be the fact that everyone knows who Jerry Falwell is and many, many fewer know who Martin Marty is.

AAR should be fertile ground for getting a different type of Christian speaking to a wider audience about our society.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 11:37 PM:

Well, Fritz, the speck of dust around which this particular ball of wax crystallized was a review of Air America in the LA Times. And Lis mentioned someone calling the station to complain, so it’s getting done.

(Wax is crystalline, isn’t it? Huh? It isn’t? Damn.)

Kevin J. Maroney ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2004, 11:41 PM:

Incidentially, I note that Lis Carey, who is rightly insistent upon the spelling of her own name, has indulged in the exceptionally sophisticated rhetorical technique of referring to Marc Maron as "Marc Moron".

I cannot imagine why I might be slightly sensitive on this matter, but this tactic undermines my willingness to pay heed to her points on this subject, no matter how valid they might be. Strange, that.

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 12:56 AM:

Incidentially, I note that Lis Carey, who is rightly insistent upon the spelling of her own name, has indulged in the exceptionally sophisticated rhetorical technique of referring to Marc Maron as "Marc Moron".

My two defenses, feeble as they are, are that a)I was being intentionally insult toward someone who has gone out of his way to make it clear that he's being intentionally insulting, and b)I expected to be called on it immediately. I've been watching in wonder and amazement as my rather childish misspelling has been repeated by others. Repeatedly. With no apparent suspicion that I'd made even an innocent mistake, much less that I might have been intentionally insulting.

It has strengthened my impression that most people commenting on this are completely unaware of the very nasty remarks that sparked this discussion originally, and that consequently they're finding it much easier to believe that it's just those Christians being oversensitive, or passive-aggressive, again.

But Kevin Maroney's right; it was childish and inappropriate of me. I shouldn't have given in to the temptation originally, and I really, really shouldn't have given in to the temptation to quietly continue it when I saw it being innocently copied by others.

(I don't know whether to advise people, "Listen to Morning Sedition, see for yourself what the guy's like," or "Don't listen, spare yourself the heartburn." Either way, Al Franken comes on at noon Eastern time, and everyone should listen to him.)

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 09:02 AM:

There seem to be two parts to this argument, which are related, but not particularly well integrated or identified. One part has to do with the radio show (which I haven't listened to, and have no real intention of listening to), the other with commenters on Atrios and Political Animal and other places.

I can't really comment on the radio show, but it seems to me that a lot of the stuff about wingnut commenters is a result of the same sort of echo chamber dynamic that resulted in tedious right-wing blogger triumphalism back in the day.These are people spouting off on the Internet, and while they may be the main thing that those of us who also spend a lot of time spouting off on the Internet see, it's a mistake to assume that they're representative of, well, anything.

Yes, if you read the comments to Kevin Drum's post, you'll quickly come to the conclusion that there are lots of God-hating liberals out there, who think all religious people are idiots (whether this comes before or after the conclusion that half his comments are generated by monkeys with typewriters is a matter of individual taste). It would be a mistake, though, to assume that these are somehow representative of "The Left" in general, or really, of anything other than the sort of people who have computers and choose to post comments to threads dealing with attitudes toward religion.

It's the reverse of the same mistake made by one of Drum's wingnut commenters when he claimed, repeatedly, that the religious right "doesn't have any real power." If what you know of right-wing politics in America is what you read on Instapundit and similarly aligned sites, you might very well come to the conclusion that conservatives really are a bunch of fairly secular, freedom-loving, libertarian types. The lack of hard-core fundamentalists in the right-wing blogosphere has been noted on many occasions, but this does not reflect a lack of those same people in positions of authority.

So, yeah, people reading blog comment threads and some liberal blogs could easily come to the conclusion that the Left hates God. But it's a mistake to think that this really translates to convincing the average, non-blog-reading voter that the Left hates God. They don't read blogs, after all-- what they see of the Democratic party is the candidates who run for office, who mouth the same religious pieties as most of their Republican colleagues.

To the degree that the average voter thinks liberals are anti-religion, it's because right-wing commentators selectively promote whatever examples they can find that "show" that liberals hate religion. For that reason, the radio shows mentioned here are more troubling, in that they provide easy pickings for those setting up smear campaigns.

But I'm not at all sure that the best solution is really to fall into the traditional circular firing squad in an attempt to expunge (or at least muzzle) whatever element of American liberalism really does hate religion, as opposed to fighting back on the spin front. Get more religious liberals to actually step forward, not to denounce idiot radio hosts, but to promote an affirmative vision of liberalism founded in religion. And do more to highlight the poisonous and twisted nature of the fundamentalist wing of the Republican party-- there ought to be a brilliant attack ad in the many America-hating statements of Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson, but I've never seen it. Fight to take back the church, not the radio-- if you let idiot radio hosts (and blog commenters) become the issue, you've already lost.

David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 09:37 AM:

Chad —

From what I can see Air America’s problem is mainly that the jokes weren’t funny. There’s plenty of funny people on the left who are as capable of firing up the progressive base as Rush et al. are of firing up the barbarian base — this, as I understand it, being Air America’s editorial charter — and some of them are involved with the network, so I’m sure it’ll find its feet sooner or later. But I do think they have to be careful not to narrow their appeal too much.

Maybe I’m on the fringe of this particular discussion, but it’s not really Air America or the blogosphere that’s making this resonate with me. My personal referent for it is the strong current of embarrassingly militant atheism you run into in the science fiction community, where a certain number of people in every generation seem to think that the entire history of religion can be summed up by Church v. Galileo and State v. Scopes.

Maybe I should just stop being too polite to tell them, “Dude, you’re crazier than Tim la Haye.”

Fritz ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 09:39 AM:

"Get more religious liberals to actually step forward, not to denounce idiot radio hosts, but to promote an affirmative vision of liberalism founded in religion."

This is what I meant by hectoring AAR, not just registering complaints about Mr. Maron (a long-time stand-up if I'm not mistaken). Push the hosts and management to get religious liberals on the air specifically to counteract the constant drumbeats of the Falwells and Bauers and Dobsons. Present it as an opportunity for AAR to capture a "market" not just to avoid offending people by not mentioning religion anymore.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 09:43 AM:

Patrick Nielsen Hayden: "What I really want to know is when "Fuck you, not my problem, I've got mine, Jack" became a reasonable response to mildly-phrased criticism of left/liberal/progressive culture and behavior by people inside that culture."

What I really want to know is how an objection that I've never engaged in the behavior under criticism and aren't responsible for those who do became "Fuck you, not my problem, I've got mine, Jack". Am I supposed to be walking away from helpless victims who can't defend themselves, or something?

"If you think this amounts to a demand that anyone "police" anyone, I suggest that you might want to take a step back and ask whether this remarkably nasty charge is really appropriate."

Yes, I think it is completely appropriate. I previously wrote that "some commenters" in this thread wanted us to police people. If you look back just a few comments, you'll see Anticorium suggesting that "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" is a good response that I should be using whenever I encounter anti-religious liberal statements. For instance, I presumably should have posted that in response to the Kevin Drum comments, should have sent that off to the DJ, and said it every time I heard something that I disagreed with, in an attempt to publicly shame and discredit those holding that opinion. If that isn't policing opinion, what is?

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 10:47 AM:

OK, since Lis Carey proved that she couldn't pass of the details of this incident reliably, I went back to check the original Air America review that seems to have been the source of the complaints. In addition to some mild anti-Christian humor, I saw the following complaint:

"Two of the hosts gratuitously announced that they're Jewish"

Lis Carey writes "It has strengthened my impression that most people commenting on this are completely unaware of the very nasty remarks that sparked this discussion originally, and that consequently they're finding it much easier to believe that it's just those Christians being oversensitive, or passive-aggressive, again."

There's a lot more going on here than Christian passive-aggressive behavior. *No one* seemed to find it at all odd that this reviewer thought that Jews should stay hidden. Lis Carey didn't. I'm really, really pissed off at the hypocrites who I trusted to represent this incident adequately and who, it turns out, really were just oversensitive Christian partisans after all.

adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 11:16 AM:

I hear about putting the right kind of Christian on Air America. What about the right kind of secular humanist? Where is the place for secular liberals to explain our beliefs, and why we don't find religion useful for us when it comes to political decision-making? Are we supposed to shut up until we're in the voting booth? Or do we get to discuss our beliefs, as the religious do?

Lydia Nickerson ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 11:22 AM:

I'm very much afraid that I'm about to add a whole lot of heat and not much light to the discussion. What I think I see is a conflict between two persecution complexes. Christians tend to feel as if their religious views are not welcome in the public sphere. Even fairly liberal Christians often feel that if they talk about where their values originate, that they will be mocked and rejected. Non-Christians feel overburdened by the weight of mainstream opinion, and fail to see any reason why a Christian might want to mention where his beliefs come from. Of course they come from Christian principles. Where else could they have come from? *sigh* Everybody is a Christian.

Neither world view is particular accurate. The world does not look particularly secular to those of us who are not Christian. Everywhere we turn, there are reminders. The assumption we make about every one we meet is that they are some brand of Christian. It's rude to assume otherwise. The Pledge of Allegiance has God tucked in there, the money has God written on it, the President is sworn in on the Bible, and so it goes. Christianity is culturally ubiquitous. Not surprising, really, given that our culture largely developed from the cultures of Christendom.

The Christians tend to feel embarrassed about their faith. When they talk about it, other people -- even other believers -- don't want to discuss it. Religion is one of the three things that one doesn't discuss in the work place. Religion is so shockingly touchy. A simple statement, like "I think that Jesus wanted us to take care of the poor," can escalate into a full-scale theological dispute in three seconds flat. So the thing that forms the foundation of their life and beliefs is off-limits for discussion. It also means that they have a hard time defending themselves when the secularists, who are feeling beaten down for their own reasons, attack them. If they respond, then the war ensues. If they don't, then they feel cut off from the portion of the political/cultural community with which they have the greatest affinity.

I've been guilty of the kind of aggressive humor that Air America is being criticized for. After so many years of having people make incorrect assumptions, and being subjected to various forms of Christian iconography and rhetoric, the chance to hit back was irresistable.

I do think, though, that people aren't paying attention to the fact that Air America is supposed to be the liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh. I don't think that the Democratic party or any of the candidates should follow suit. Perhaps they should make condemnatory comments, I don't know. But it's well within Air America's brief to make fun of Christians, and I wish them well. Perhaps we'll find out that such bigoted, aggressive humor really doesn't work for liberals. I could wish we weren't trying such an experiment in such a critical election year, but everything is happening so fast, and maybe it will help.

What I'm sure about is that I'm scared.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 11:33 AM:

Rich: OK, since Lis Carey proved that she couldn't pass of the details of this incident reliably

Er, what?

Look, it'd be nice if Lis had typed up a handy transcript of the show she listened to, but that's a bit much to ask for a blog comment. You're talking like it's some kind of personal failing on her part.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 11:42 AM:

Adamsj: I hear about putting the right kind of Christian on Air America. What about the right kind of secular humanist?

Do we really need another verse of the more-oppressed-than-thou song? Look, the Celebrity Atheists List (C'mon, you knew there hadda be one!) lists Janeane Garofalo as an atheist, and she co-hosts their evening show. There are probably more. Happy?

Arlen ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 11:46 AM:

I wasn't going to return to this, but Avram had a factual question that I could answer:

"This is the part that drives me nuts. The US is something like 80-85% Christian. "

Don't know where you're facts are coming from, Avram, but they're seriously out of date:

ARIS 2001 says 75.6% claim to be Christian. (and in a wonderfully ironic bit, the same study says 75% of the total population is either "religious" or "somewhat religious")
USA/Today Gallup 2002 says 50% of the US population claims to be religious
ABC/Beliefnet claims 83% Christian, but since Islam alone claims to have the same number as all non-Christian religions are given in this poll, I have my doubts about it

Interesting that Zogby claims the trend is toward religious belief in the US, while nearly all the polling data I've seen shows a decline, running 1-2% per year. (It's also interesting that they make that claim on the very same page with a table that shows a slight drop in religious numbers, although I'll grant the drop is less on their table than on any other poll I've seen.)

It's really not been all that hard for me to spend time among non-Christians, Avram. (BTW, if, as you seem to imply, you're running into many Christians, the combination of numbers and the intent to spend time among the non-believers could easily explain it.)

(An interesting bit of trivia from polls in the aftermath of 9/11: belief in the existence of God was fairly level during that time, but the numbers who believed in the existence of Satan nearly tripled.)

As for some of the other posted comments, all I can say is while I'm willing to defend Christianity (but not on this thread, it's way off-topic, which is why I hadn't intended to post again) I don't intend to defend the actions of all those claiming to be Christian. We (and I include myself in this) screw up far too often.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 12:07 PM:

Arlen, 75% is still a pretty healthy majority. Enough that I don't see how any intelligent Christian could possibly maintain a belief that Christians are an oppressed minority.

I don't doubt that you can spend time among non-Christians. What I doubt is that most American Christians could spend most of their time among non-Christians.

MD² ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 12:28 PM:

Rich Puchalsky -I had noticed that also but thought of it as some reference to a previous evenement left unexplained... You're right, the question should have been raised though, to clear any and all misunderstanding on the situation. But shouldn't we leave people the benefice of doubt till they have explained themselves ?

My attempt at translating the Pierre Desproges quote I had made:
"Can we laugh of anything ? Can we laugh with anyone ?
To the first question I'll answer yes without hesitation. If it's true that humor is the courtesy of despair, if it's true that the sacrilege blasphemous laughter the prejudiced of all confessions charge with vulgarity and bad taste, if it's true that this one laughter can sometime deconsecrate stupidity, exorcise true grief and cast away mortal anghish, then yes we can laugh of anything, we must laugh of anything.[...]
To the second question, can we laugh with anyone ? I'll answer: it's hard."

A definition of religion ? A set of beliefs and rules backed up by a more or less elaborate set of rituals, aiming at transcendence and enabling the sublimation of the particular into the collective.
I know that definition is somewhat lacking, and could accept as "religion" lots of things that aren't necessarily considered so. But I do think even with some of these it would still work. I do think the french Third Republic was as much a religious system as it was a political one, if it helps get things clearer.

One thing that keeps me thinking: why is it that there is no form of humour offensive to secularism the way there is to other religious positions ?

MD² ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 12:40 PM:

Religious polls are always interesting in that they give strange mind boggling numbers. Without going as far as Japan, in wich the population more than doubles if you add together all the declarations of faith, I think you can assume without that much risks a good part of the population isn't exactly monotheistic... (or that it follows various creeds for the one same god).
Furthermore I doubts the way those polls are made: I remember one of those whose questions were asked to the familly as a whole, but the numbers were labelled as if individuals had been answering.

Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 12:53 PM:

I think Kevin Drumm's general point is valid, but I also think he argued it badly. (I made my specific criticisms over there.)

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 12:56 PM:

md^2: One thing that keeps me thinking: why is it that there is no form of humour offensive to secularism the way there is to other religious positions ?

It's 'cause of the amazing superiority of our giant throbbing Slan-brains that can instantly levitate us above the level of emotional attachment. Also, we can tell you how many trisected angles can fit on the head of a pin, and turn gold into lead with the power of our thoughts!

Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 01:40 PM:

MD^2, without disputing your actual point, I'd like to point out that AFAIK only Christianity, Judaism, and Islam insist that adherents have only one religion. Most of the population of Japan is Shinto or Buddhist - or both. (Yes, Christians really are a minority there.)

Thus if you say there are 700 Shintos and 700 Buddhists, that doesn't mean there are a total 1400 people. It can mean anything from 700 to 1400.

(Christianity hasn't always been free of the "mix-and-match" practice, either, nor is it today. It's traditionally dealt with the worship of other gods by proclaiming them saints, and allowing a certain amount of dulia as long as there's no latria, a distinction I daresay may be lost on the participants in a Santeria toque. In my own Pagan community, there are a number of people who are what we call "dual-path," the "paths" being Christianity and Paganism. I don't usually ask how they reconcile the Christian part (First Commandment, some other stuff), because I'm afraid it might be considered rude.)

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 01:55 PM:

Rich, some of your confusion about my remarks may be due to the fact that I'm not going by the hearsay of having read about Marc Maron's comments in the first two blogs to blog about it. My reaction to Marc Maron is based on having actually listened to his show on several occasions. It's not one or more hosts on AAR mentioning that they're Jewish that offended me. It's Marc Maron's repeatedly expressed opinion that religious believers--all religious believers, presumably including the Jewish ones and the Buddhist ones and the Wiccan ones--are delusional, stupid, and dangerous, and that he intends to be as offensive to them (us, me) as possible. It's the "Morning Devotions" segment of his show, which is a regular feature devoted to highlighting things that Mr. Maron believes proves his opinion to be incontestable fact.

I haven't commented on the content of the original AAR review that touched this off because I haven't read it; I found the discussion of it and of AAR already ongoing on Political Animal, and then here. I chimed in here with my comments about the actual show, which I have heard, and to some degree about the comments here and on Political Animal, which I have read.

But you're quite right about one thing--I am utterly unable to provide you with transcripts of the segments that offended me, because I didn't record them and type up transcripts afterwards. Sorry, but I've got better things to do, such as listening to Al Franken and the O'Franken Factor.

David W. ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 02:14 PM:

Lenny Bruce would have made a good host on Air America Radio:

Catholicism

The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is "what should be." Now, if you're taught to live up to a "what should be" that never existed-only an occult superstition, no proof of this "should be"-then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!

Jesus Christ

A lot of people say to me, "Why did you kill Christ?""I dunno … it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.""We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him."

Liberals

The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them.

Satire

Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 02:48 PM:

It appears that a late-night post of mine didn't post last night. It was very short. I thanked Lis Carey, and Kevin Maroney, and David Moles, and Bellatrys.

Onward.

A remark, not to all, but to many:

Is there another class of people whose rationally-expressed concerns you'd dismiss, if they told you that the way you refer to them alienates them and hurts their feelings? Are there others whom you'd then lecture about how they have it coming?

Would you think it was appropriate to justify this on the grounds that you object to the behavior of a relatively small number of people who fall within the broadest definitions of that class, and that the language and attitudes with which you react to that small minority of persons is therefore appropriate to apply to everyone in that class?

You are not obliged to believe in, or counterfeit a belief in, any religion at all. That is not at issue. You're grownups. No one's going to impose any kind of theism on you. No one's trying, either. I acknowledge that most of you have had the dignity to notice that.

The issue raised by Allen Brill, and Kevin Drum, and Patrick, and the guy who does Everything's Ruined, is that you are citizens of the Republic, and you share that condition with a great many fellow-citizens who are observants of one or another religion. In matters of politics, many of them are your natural allies.

Let me add that in matters of politeness, some of them are your friends.

Statistics saying that 75% of Americans are Christians of one sort or another don't mean much to me. I don't know who did the polling, how they ran the poll, what questions they asked, or how they interpreted their results. *

Here's something I do know: that there are people who'll hang out for months or years in the same conversations with me, or Lis Carey, or Claude Muncey, or Jim Macdonald; and then when the subject comes up will have no hesitation about tossing off a series of mindless, dismissive cliches about religionists.

It's the thoughtlessness that gets to you. Don't kid yourself that it doesn't hurt. And please don't anyone tell me that I need to lighten up and have more of a sense of humor about religion, because if you do I'll have to conclude that one or the other of us doesn't actually speak English,.

Electrolite went down late last night because Patrick shut it down. He had earlier posted a fairly temperate cri de coeur. Some anonymous troll responded to it with a crude jibe. Patrick muttered the standard remarks one makes when that happens, and went to delete the message. It was only when he brought it up in Movable Type's "Edit Comment" window, which also displays the sender's real address, that he realized the troll was someone he's known personally for decades.

After a while, you just get heartsick. That's the only way I can describe it. You can believe me or not when I say that, just like you can believe or ignore what Lis Carey says about her own experience.

When Patrick got so grieved that he shut down Electrolite, I was in no position to argue with him. The day before, I'd killed a 2,000-word essay intended for Making Light because it happened to be about a different set of issues involving religion and politics, and I couldn't bear to put it up.

This is painful. I don't think I'd say even this much, if I were saying it for its own sake. But I've seen too many assertions that such language must not have any harmful consequences because the speaker hasn't seen any evidence of it. What they've failed to grasp is that they don't hear about it because the people who are affected by it stop talking.

________________________
* I do know what happens when you try to research the religious backgrounds of the Founding Fathers, which is that you run into a mass of agenda-heavy attempts to prove that they were all believing Christians who intended America to be a Christian rather than a secular nation. (Pure hogwash, of course.) Since the argument that this is a Christian nation also extends to collecting data about the present-day incidence of religious beliefs, I'm cautious about any statistics I see cited. People who would just as soon not have the idea that this is a Christian nation become the default would do well to be similarly cautious.

James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 02:59 PM:

QUOTE:

At the Left Hand of God
By Anna Quindlen
Newsweek

Recently, a man who was enraged by my column sent an e-mail with an exultant sign-off line. He said that in closing he was not only going to mention God, he was going to capitalize the G because he knew it made liberals like me crazy.


Five of the seven sacraments (they won't give me holy orders, and I'm not ready for last rites), 10 years with the nuns, a church wedding, three baptized babies, endless fights as they grew over why they had to go to mass on Sunday and a fair amount of prayer, and it's all wiped out in a single assumption about the nexus between left-leaning politics and atheism. A widespread assumption, too, and one that has come to color, even poison, American political discourse. It was inevitable that the opposite of the religious right would become the irreligious left. It just doesn't happen to be accurate.

...


Whence the opinion that those who take the parables of the Widow's Mite and the Good Samaritan to heart, who don't pray in the street, who turn the other cheek ... why is it no one thinks we could possibly be interested in liberty, equality, social justice?

Varia ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 03:26 PM:

Teresa:

Good lord, I'm sorry that happened. I know single voices can't counteract the statistical nastiness. But I'd still like to share something...maybe it'll help, maybe it won't.

My last year in college, I went on a spring break retreat sponsored by our Chaplain's office, to spend a week in Washington State meditating on religion, spirituality, and what we wanted to do with our lives. Sixteen students, two chaplains, and the people who ran the retreat center. I think the religions represented were mostly Christian, two Jewish students, two atheists, a UU-Christian, and me as a pagan.

I've always known that my spirituality is more or less identical to what I do with my life, the ways I live my life, and the things I'm working toward. What was amazing was to hear so many other people say the same things. It's so obvious, and yet so completely fails to occur to so many people--if you believe that strongly, it's not just a "part" of your life, it is inseparable from your life. It was incredibly beautiful, faith-affirming, wonderful, to interact with fifteen other students who felt the same way.

The chaplain from my school is who keeps coming to mind when people decry so idiotically that there are no true Christians on the left--or no place for Christians *in* the left. She's an incredible woman; was a fire-and-brimstone Southern Baptist in her youth, and through some (mostly unexplained) life experiences has become a still-passionate, but also compassionate, loving, open-hearted liberal campaigner. That woman is an inspiration to anyone who takes the time to get to know her.

Anyone who wants what I want, has a place at the table. Anyone who fights the same fights I fight, has a place at the table. I don't care if your passion comes from spirituality or from some inspirational speech by Harry Houdini. If it's there, it's there, and we are working out of the same book, and towards the same goal, and I have more in common with some passionate Christians I have met in my life than with half of the "liberal" students I went to college with.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 03:35 PM:

Thank you. That helps. And such a good formulation of it:

Anyone who wants what I want has a place at the table. Anyone who fights the same fights I fight has a place at the table.

Debbie Notkin ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 03:43 PM:

Teresa: Is there another class of people whose rationally-expressed concerns you'd dismiss, if they told you that the way you refer to them alienates them and hurts their feelings? Are there others whom you'd then lecture about how they have it coming?

To name three off the top of my head: fat people, people who do/don't want children talking to people who don't/do, and anyone with a chronic disease, illness or condition.

Rch Pchlsk ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 04:04 PM:

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James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 04:30 PM:

No one even asked the writer of the Air America review to explain themself.

I thought he explained himself admirably. If you want to win converts to your side by being entertaining, the first thing you need to do is be entertaining.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 04:47 PM:

TNH: Statistics saying that 75% of Americans are Christians of one sort or another don't mean much to me. I don't know who did the polling, how they ran the poll, what questions they asked, or how they interpreted their results.

I hunted around, and found a page with questions and results from a bunch of polls on religion within the past couple of years. Lots of stuff on attitudes about Islam, and on the Catholic Church and child abuse, but also some more general stuff. From the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Dec. 9-10, 2002:

"How important would you say religion is in your own life: very important, fairly important, or not very important?"

The Dec. 2002 answers were:
Very Important: 61%
Fairly Important: 27%
Not Very Important: 11%
No Opinion: 1%
...giving us 89% for whom religion is important.

"What is your religious preference: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, or an Orthodox religion, such as the Greek or Russian Orthodox Church?"

The Protestant (53%), Catholic (26%), Mormon (3%), and Orthodox (1%) categories totaled 83%.

The poll was of 1009 adults nationwide, with a reported margin-of-error of +/-3%. How they ran it, how they processed their results, I can't help you with.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 05:05 PM:

Now, that's data. Thank you, Avram.

Mr. Puchalsky, please feel free -- encouraged, even -- to try that one again with different word choices.

Debbie: Fat, absolutely.

The deplorable language I've heard used on people who don't have children can range from insensitive to dismissive, but what's made the biggest impression on me in the childless/childed debate has been the startlingly violent language I've heard from some childless-by-choice types.

Chronic disease, illness or condition -- it depends on the speaker and the perceived condition. Would you believe I actually got someone in one of my threads the other day who was arguing that AIDS research shouldn't receive public funds because "they brought it on themselves"? I hadn't heard that one in a long time. Hadn't missed it, either.

Bruce Baugh ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 05:12 PM:

The statistics about how much of the population is or isn't Christian fail to impress me much, simply because I don't trust a lot of self-reporting. I'd be much more interested in questions about what charitable giving people do because of their convictions, and most especially in what they do or refrain from doing because of their convictions that distinguishes them from others with similar demographics.

In polls of books people cite as influences, after all, Atlas Shrugged consistently ranks very highly among Americans, and yet there simply is no general groundswell of Objectivist thought or action. (Someone may point out that there are selfish bastards a-plenty, and that's true, but what Rand actually wrote up is rather more complex and demanding than that, as demonstrated by the writings of people like Arthur Silber.) What's true in one case can be - is, I think - true in others as well.

Someone who genuinely takes any version of Christianity seriously and seeks to live by its precepts, the hard ones as well as the convenient ones, finds themselves surrounded by a lot of lip service and a lot less actual action. This may possibly be a familiar experience in other contexts to others. Likewise the experience of having someone take something you regard as very important and loudly proclaim ghastly objectionable rotten wrong consequences of it, justifying just the sort of thing you wish to avoid as the true and inevitable meaning of the thing itself, and having everyone else assume that they must be right because they're so noisy, or something.

A useful criticism of the sort of theocratic radical politics that often commandeers the name of "Christian" would include the idea of its being bad theology as well as bad politics.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 05:36 PM:

Bruce -- Good points, and they match up with some things I've been chewing over in my head, but one thing needs to be made clear: The set of people who take their Christianity seriously, and the set of Christians who feel oppressed by a secular society, are probably overlapping sets, but not the same. And that's without even getting into the matter of the people who think they're taking their Christianity seriously (and whether or not they're right, and how you or I tell, and what gives you or me the right to draw that distinction anyway, etc).

Brent ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 05:53 PM:

Teresa: Is there another class of people whose rationally-expressed concerns you'd dismiss, if they told you that the way you refer to them alienates them and hurts their feelings? Are there others whom you'd then lecture about how they have it coming?

I admit that I have not parsed everyone's comment on this board but I have to say that I don't really read that sort of sentiment in what is being argued here. I don't - and I think the people here don't - want to dismiss the problem of disrespect towards others or to suggest that people so disrespected "have it coming" to them. I don't know if you meant to direct any of these comments to me exactly but if you did, well then now you have hurt my feelings.

The way I see it, the argument is really over how much this type of disrespect is endemic to progressive politics specifically. After all, the idea that started all of this was that we all have a problem that we have inflicted upon ourselves and which may cause us significant problems politically. My point was that the evidence that we have such a problem is really pretty thin. I raised several counter-arguments and I won't recapitulate all of them here. But none of them suggested that we should all feel free to tolerate hatred or disrespect. What I believe, even if I have no proof exactly, is that the vast majority of liberals are either religious or appropriately respectful of religion. I could most certianly be wrong, but the fact that some particularly outspoken liberals are notdoes not falsify this belief.

You raised the issue of your longtime friends who, when faced with your faith, felt no hesitation to belittle and insult you. I can sympathize with how hurtful these situations were for you. My question is, and in essence the only question I have really raised here, does this really tell a story of the relationship between religion and liberal politics? I take it that the friends of which you speak are liberals but couldn't they just as easily been Republicans or Independents or Reagan Democrats? I don't know the answer to this for sure but to my way of thinking, saying that Marc Maron's views on religion are not indicative of a problem with liberalism is not the same as saying that they are not a problem at all. I hope you won't take it that way.

Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 06:05 PM:

You know, I've been exposed to a similar phenomenon, Teresa. The Pagan community is largely made up of people who were raised in other religions; in America, that mostly means Christian. Many of them diss Christianity regularly, or use the phrase 'the Christians' as if it meant 'the angry villagers with pitchforks and torches, coming to burn us all at the stake'.

Not having been raised a Christian, I have little resentment towards it, at least of such a visceral nature. (DO NOT, however, get me started on Behaviorist Psychology.) I sing in a choir at an Episcopal church, one whose leftist credentials no one could dispute. Peace, Jobs, Justice are constant themes. They bring their social activist agenda into the real world, both by having a full-time employee whose sole job is to find out what the poorest of the poor (the folks in the projects on the West side of Hoboken) need, and try to get it for them.

Recently this has resulted in the parish borrowing an enormous quantity of money, buying a plot of land, and building what they call the Jubilee Family Life Center. This provides community meeting space (the Homework Club meets there), and I believe daycare and job training.

I came to sing in the choir. I stayed because I found a community that shares my core values, even though their religion is nothing like mine. They accept me too; we laugh together when I fail to know something really basic and say something goofy as a result.

So when I go to Rites of Spring, and hear someone dissing Christians or Christianity, I tell them they're wrong. I tell them about counterexamples I know personally (at this point I usually have to explain that no, I'm not dual-path). Sometimes they listen. In this I do have the support of the community leadership; it's not required to be Pagan to come there. In fact one of my favorite attendees in recent years was a Roman Catholic priest whose order required him to take a sabbatical of some kind each year (I'm not clear on the details). He endured a certain amount of good-natured teasing, but he was quite well-liked, and there were many tears when he announced in his third year that his order wouldn't allow him to make the same sabbatical more than three times, and so he could not come back.

And yes, on Sunday he said Mass in an unobtrusive place. Three other Roman Catholics attended, the first year.

The difference between Pagans and Leftie Atheists is that the latter belief that they are right, in the One True And Only Way sense of the term. Opiate of the People and all that stuff. So maybe I'm going to get the same dissing for being a Pagan practitioner as Christians get; but you may be surprised to learn that I know many Pagans whose facts-about-the-world beliefs are pretty much agnostic tending atheist. They're doing act-as-if because they've done the experiment and gotten the (admittedly subjective) results they wanted.

It's time to discard the Old Left idea of "Religion is the Opiate of the Masses." Marx was a JERK on that topic, and many others. (Well, to be fair his view of religion was rather narrow; the religions he knew about were pretty much tools of the state (or willing to roll over and play dead) IIRC. Certainly my Religious Socialists group from the late 80s would have startled him pretty severely.) Remember that politics is not about the purity of your mind, or your heart. And coalition politics is about agreeing not to fight about the things we disagree on, because the fight, the one we're on the same side of, is the important thing. We need all the friends we can get.

The leftists who bash "religion" as if all religion were the same, as if Teresa were no different (or better than) a child-molesting priest just because they both happen to be Roman Catholic, have one important thing in common with the "Christian Right": One True And Only Wayism. They may disagree with the CR's content, but they're acting out the same pattern. "All religion is bad, Karl Marx said it, I believe it, and I'm not listening, LA LA LA I can't hear you!"

Forgive me if I've just done what a friend describes as "hitting the nail on the head - but only after it's already been driven into the wall." And if any of my comments about religion, Christianity, or anything else have offended you, Teresa (or Patrick or...), please accept my profound apologies. I'm not saying I'm not a jerk, just that I'm not as much of a jerk as I was a decade ago (or even yesterday, I hope).

MD² ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 06:13 PM:

First: my apologies if I contributed in any way to the heartsickning. Maybe there's no reason for me to present them, I'm not sure, but my natural paranoïa (and egocentrism ?) incline me to believe so. In any case I hope the wound will close soon enough...
Which strangely put me that Oscar Wilde verse in mind:

"How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?"

It may not be fitting, but still its beautiful. And as such, well needed.

Avram - My, thanks. :)

Xopher - Thanks for actually telling what I should have. I always thought it was a pure marvel how well the shinto-buddhist syncretism had worked out (if you exclude the attempt of power to use religion as a shaping mold), given how incompatible they both were in the first place. This kind of things gives me high hopes.

I'd answer the disenvoweled post, but there are still some words missing. Sigh.

Bruce Baugh ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 06:26 PM:

Xopher, that's a good point about the pagans - and others, including agnostics and atheists - who are ex-Christians. There are real complications attendant on being ex-anything, with many opportunities for bitterness and loss of perspective on all sides. I have a great deal of admiration for a pagan friend of mine who says forthrightly that he can't yet be fair or particularly rational about Christianity, but hopes to someday, and who then actually does stay out of arguments about it. I know that he's often tempted to wade into frays, but he feels that he's doing his own soul and the world some good by keeping away.

I'll be writing up further thoughts on this for my weblog soon, but I've started to think that there's a certain kind of addiction to anger that is an actual clinical condition related to depression.

Tim Walters ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 06:37 PM:

The difference between Pagans and Leftie Atheists is that the latter belief that they are right, in the One True And Only Way sense of the term. Opiate of the People and all that stuff.

I'm a lefty atheist, and I don't believe that. Nor do any of the lefty atheists I hang out with.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 06:39 PM:

Bruce, it's like asking people how political they are. If I were polled about my religion, I wouldn't answer that I'm "very religious", because I know people who are much more religious than I am. Jim Macdonald would say the same thing, though by most people's standards he'd rate as "very religious." It's a problem. People who have a more secular mindset will be asking themselves how much they've done in that direction, while the very religious will be asking themselves how much more they could be doing. I expect the same is true of all the other faiths.

If I were polling people about the extent of their religious beliefs, I'd ask them how long it's been since their religion required them to do something boring, painful, embarrassing, or self-effacing.

Have you run into the term "Chino", "Christian in name only"? It gets applied to people who cut funds going to the poor, sick, needy, widowed, or orphaned, conspicuously fail to exercise compassion and forgiveness, publicly condemn sins in others they privately practice themselves, etc., while loudly trumpeting their Christianity. Basically, they practice a religion that never requires them to do anything they really don't want to do, or refrain from anything they really want. It just tells them they're swell, God loves them, and they're better than people who haven't been cut in on this sweetheart deal. It's dealt with in Matthew:

...Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. / Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. / Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? / And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
If you think you despise Chinos, try talking to (say) a Benedictine nun who's been a social worker in the projects for a decade or three. They're wonderfully scary.

Practically speaking, the other reason it would be a good idea for us to stop antagonizing persons-of-religion is their near-legendary capacity for work. I have fantasies about what might be accomplished if the Relief Society defected en masse to the Democratic Party.

James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 06:49 PM:

The objective is to get Bush and his aides and advisors out of the White House. The votes of people who currently, and on election day still will, identify themselves as religious/conservative are vital. We want them to vote for Kerry, even if reluctantly, rather than vote for Bush, even if reluctantly.

How many of those votes are we willing to give away? How many votes don't we need?

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 07:07 PM:

Jim -- The next questions are: How many of those votes are actually being cost because of Marc Maron? Would Air America replacing him actually get a significant number of them back, or is there some other approach that'd get better results?

What I really want to know: How does the right manage to turn their assholes into a power source instead of a drag? Is there a way we can do that? Would it involve losing the things that make us better than the right?

Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 07:28 PM:

I have been fairly dubious of the leftish talk radio project from the beginning. I just don't like the kind of discourse no matter what political persepctive it's from.

The Internet is bad enough in terms of people shooting off. But on radio they don't even have to take the time to type it out.

Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 07:33 PM:

By the way, regarding Teresa's account of the anonymous troll who turned out to be an acquaitance: People behave better when they know that you know who they are. Those who habitually post anonymously (or under non-transparent pseudonyms) should consider giving it up. It doesn't really protect you. Rather it opens you to the possibility of more cruelty than you would commit if people could see you. And it make the rest of us think less of your contributions to the discourse than we otherwise might.

James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 08:09 PM:

The next questions are: How many of those votes are actually being cost because of Marc Maron?

Because of him, personally? Who can know? Because of the attitude he embodies? I'm willing to bet it's a non-zero number, with no offsetting gain.

Air America Radio has set itself up to be a leader. Leaders influence others by what they do and say. Rush Limbaugh emboldens his dittohead followers, gives them their talking points, gives them their attitude. Those followers are the ones that people who wouldn't listen to Limbaugh on a dare have to deal with every day.

If we say that this Maron fellow doesn't have a negative effect when he acts badly or speaks stupidly, he's wasting our and his time, since he's not going to have a positive effect either when he acts well or speaks wisely.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 09:29 PM:

Avram, turning assholes into powersources is a good thought. The right uses its assholes by sending them out to harass people who speak on the center and left. Ours tend to stay closer to home, where they conduct inquisitions into charges of heterodoxy, and harass and disenchant potential adherents. This is not unlike riding down your own crossbowmen. What we need to do is arm them with talking points and send them out to vex the opposition.

Bruce, I'm fascinated by your statement that "'ll be writing up further thoughts on this for my weblog soon, but I've started to think that there's a certain kind of addiction to anger that is an actual clinical condition related to depression." I wouldn't have guessed it's related to depression, but for years I've observed that one of the things fueling the current political scene is a bunch of people who are chronically addicted to anger, and their sources who pander to it by feeding them bite-size reasons to feel outraged.

Self-righteous anger over something that doesn't actually threaten you is a definite buzz. I suppose I can see it being a form of self-medication for depression, if that's what you mean. I remember seeing some trashy shock-and-alarm right-wing news site that had a prominent front-page link labeled "Outrage of the Day," and thinking, "Hello, white rats, press the lever here, get your pellets now!"

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 09:57 PM:

I do think it's important to remember that Marc Maron isn't all of Air America Radio or all of liberal radio. Al Franken's show is great. And I'm listening on the KPOJ feed, which for some reason has The Ed Shultz Show right after The O'Franken Factor, rather than Randi Rhodes. Ed Schultz is very good, too. (They seem to have Ed Shultz stuck in there in the middle of a complete Air America Radio; someday I may take the time to figure out how they're doing that.)

The problem is not with the idea of liberal talk radio. The problem is that Marc Maron is an offensive, unfunny jerk.

mythago ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 10:22 PM:

If I (social liberal, non-Xian by choice) deride the not-so-right-but-Right Revs. Falwell and Robertson for their claim that NYC invited 9/11, I am disparaged as being "anti-religious."

Disparaged by whom, please? Falwell and Robertson were roundly derided--by the right as well as the left--for their 9/11 bullshit and crawled back into half-apologies. They have no credibility beyond their own tiny communities. There is no mainstream support for either of them.

I don't expect the discussion to get anywhere because of the folks so mired in angst about their past dealings with nutbar fundies that they Don't Get It and never will, but:

Problem #1 is the conflation with "religious" and "Christian," and even with "right-wing Christian." The people doing it probably aren't even aware that they've been reared in a Christian culture that treats all other religions as invisible and are aping it. They're also handing the Right a goal on a silver platter: painting the Left as enemies of all things Godly.

It's especially appalling when you consider the liberal Christians who have been, quite literally, silenced by right-wing enemies for daring to claim that God wants us to be nice to people. (Nothing seems to inflame the Right more than being reminded that Jesus told us to give away our money and help the less fortunate.)

There is, indeed, a bias in the Left against Christianity specifically and religion in general--because so many of us desperately want the comfort of hateful bigotry that being liberal otherwise denies us, so picking on "the religious" is a safe, self-congratulatory safety valve.

I won't even get into the far left types who seize on Israeli politics as an excuse for their anti-Semitism.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 10:25 PM:

Theresa Nielsen Hayden writes: "Mr. Puchalsky, please feel free -- encouraged, even -- to try that one again with different word choices."

I don't think I'll try, thanks. The word choices in the disemvowelled post were, I think, appropriate for what was being said. So I'll say something else.

I am a Jew by descent, Unitarian Universalist by practice, and married to a minister -- so I think that I can speak as well as anyone about the experience of being religious and on the left. And I disagree with the original post and many of the comments here.

There's a reason that Jews and other religious minorities in the U.S. don't tend to get too concerned about people who are anti-religion. They have more important things to worry about, like prejudice against their particular religion. So Jews will obsess about anti-Semitism, Muslims about anti-Muslim prejudice, but only Christians, in general, tend to be offended by people who are anti-religion. And most people tacitly know this; "anti-religion" tends to be a euphemism for "anti-Christian".

Take Marc Maron's comments, for example. I've seen at least one commenter here inform everyone that his comments were directed equally against Christians, Jews, Hindus ... any religious believers. But, according to the Air America review, Marc Maron ("gratuitously") announced that he was a Jew before making his Easter comments. And the comments that were cited as being of concern in the review were all explicitly Christian. So the contention that the concern is general anti-religiousness doesn't seem to hold up.

So now we're getting into the same area that the Republicans exploit when they say that black stereotyping of whites is just as bad as white racism against blacks -- the idea that racism is racism, whether it's by a minority group reacting to a dominant one, or whether it's by a dominant group against a minority. And please, let's not have the claim that Christianity is not religiously dominant in the United States.

I'm going to wait and see whether this is disemvowelled before bothering to write more.

bellatrys ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 10:51 PM:

Oh, Teresa, I fear there are plenty of Xtian Wrong zealots who spend all their time in internecine feuding, too (akin maybe to Borderers rieving amongst themselves?) and therefore waste huge amounts of energy and money on internal heresy hunts and teeth-gnashing that is supposed to be going to creative/constructive endeavors. The Traditional movement I grew up in has split up into feuding camps all anathematizing each other in verbal flyting now.

OTOH, this is a good thing, as it means that, frex, the SSPX will not likely ever get together enough of an organization together to start their desired Reconquista, let alone the subsequent establishment of an Inquisition on this side of the Pond...

You're welcome, btw - I'm thinking about all this, maybe a little more formulation (if not necessarily coherence) of the problem: the trouble is that so much is linked together that is not really related at all. (Not just in this case of course.) So, the linking of Christianity with the local social structures and fiscal status quo, ever since Constantine. (I have come to think that it would have been better for so many ways if Christianity had stayed just one of many Mystery cults, celebrated by earnest folk in their dining rooms or maybe little garage chapels...)

This is witnessed nowadays in arguments like the ones I read in the paper recently, that churchgoers are more likely to be financially stable pillars of the community, with the implication that *religion* was what caused the money and the conventionalized versions of happy ever after, - not one of those arguing it seeming to notice that maybe it was equally likely that pillars of the community were odds on going to belong to whatever other socially sanctioned mainstream belief structures were present in their local culture.

Or the logical problem that the "proof" means that if the reverse were in fact demonstrated, then they lose the "proof" for the truth claim - ie, if your premise is that religion (specifcally Christianity) is good because it is good for society, then society must be a higher thing than faith, and if it turned out that religious belief in fact on the whole made people more likely to tune out and drop out, then it would follow that it must be a bad thing that shouldn't be promoted.

We need to break the mental links somehow that allow the aggressive hypocrites to have (so to speak) googlebombed the search term "Christian" and make it clear that no, they don't have trademark on it. We need to displace them. Frankly, youse guys are doing some of the most effective job of it I see. It's very depressing doing research and turning up hateful, ignorant, so-bad-you'd-sneer-if-these-were-presented-as-parodies, versions of belief all the time. (And please, what is the cause for the linkage between "Christian" and "bad HTML/horrible colour schemes"? Researching my rant on Gibson has given me so many migraines...)

As far as not thinking about the feelings of others - empathy is always a quality in short supply in humans, i think, and this is most obvious in a war, but it's all the time really. It's *scary*, putting yourself in another's place and understanding them - even if you don't agree with them, at the end, you still have to accept the possibility that they might be right, you wrong, instead. A lot of people aren't capable of empathy. But this - and so much else - isn't caused by religion, it's just *human* (or maybe sentient) issues. This is starting to be reazlied in fandom, with some of the incendiary wars over canon/fanon, complete with excommunications, heresies, virtual auto-da-fes, and mystics/prophets claimed on all sides of such debates as the One True Pairing. I've read some people realizing to their own dismay that - though they are all secular, liberal, in favour of free-speech, not conventional or religious - still they want to silence dissenters and banish them to the outer darkness, and by watching the flamewars rage, realize that this is perhaps how religious wars begin...

Xopher, I was brought up in a climate where, while old paganism got respect for being authentic and "manly", neo-paganism got nothing but mockery for being new (as if Christianity wasn't once) and the refuge of ethical lightweights (at best). I had a chastening experience many years ago when I assumed that because my hosts were part of "our" group and Catholic they shared all our memes and made a crack about certain beliefs usually derided as "New Age" only to be challenged because the people I was staying with had belonged to that group, before, and still had fond feelings. It was humbling, and confusing, and salutory to have my assumptions challenged that way. I still feel obscurely guilty and ashamed, and as though I ought to apologize for past dismissive uninformed attitudes about atheists and pagans and wiccans, even if I was just a teenager back then - offering a sort of general "mea culpa" if you would like to have it, as representing one of those groups, for general arrogance and generalizations.*

I think those are correct, who point out that a lot of anger at Christianity is from those who are experiencing spiritual whiplash - raised in it, then converted out, a Conversado's zeal, only in another cause. I have some of that myself, towards the narrowed versions of Catholicism that have been raised up as the One True Faith, and must separate the personal indignation from the abstract outrage sometimes.

And then there are the bandwagon jumpers who just mock whoever their in-crowd mocks. We do see a lot of this in sf, and the identification of science with anti-religion may be higher here than elsewhere, as someone said upthread, "Galileo", and Patrick's betrayal experience case in point. (OTOH, I see a lot more respect for religion, ethics and metaphysics generally, a lot more *engagement*, in the sf communities, than in the world at large, and in many a parish council meeting. I think, frex, Diane Duane does a far better job of evangelizing than Pat Robertson or EWTN ever has or will.)

But also a lot of it - and this is the hard part for us ecumenical and liberal Christians even - is deserved even when from outsiders. I have a hard time denying my agnostic and athiest friends the same right to wax wroth that I claim, when they are being harrassed verbally at work or in court by bigots threatened by their unbelief. I want to say, "We don't teach that," but the problem is that sometimes, well, we *did*, fairly officially. And the temptation is strong to not simply distance one's self from Ye Bad Olde Days, (we've learnt better) but also to minimize them or justify them (typically I see this in what I call Inquisition Denial Syndrome, similar to Slavery Denial Syndrome among Southern Romanticists.)

Or to get defensive and say, well, look at Stalin, look at the Nazis, look at the numbers of who killed/tortured more than whom...I think Teresa does well to remind us that numbers are not trustworthy in the hands of ideologues, no matter even if in our favour.

This still doesn't constitute a "How to solve the problem," but I really think that the problems of public awareness are always ongoing and always consist of talking and engaging individuals - so that you realize, "Wow, it *is* possible to be both a Christian/an atheist/a Buddhist/fill-in-the-blank *and* a decent intelligent human being at the same time! Fancy that!" No miracle fixes, undoing the tower of Babel, I fear though. All elbow grease.

Then, the other problem, of Air America specifically and liberal media in general. I agree with Kathryn that trying to out-Rush Rush is a bad idea. Descending to levels of and all. But there has been, I think, a problematic non-enagement, a refusal to dirty one's robes mixing in the mess of the agora, and so the field of fray has been left to such demagogues, who can pretend to speak for the polis simply because they are *there* all the time, speaking in word that can be understood.

That's a level that *should* be descended to imo, not a level of vileness, but a level of engagement on intelligible levels, not assuming that all hearers are at your level. This is hard to do. And it goes both ways: we need to heckle those who claim to speak for us and infact marginalize us, we who are believers and we who are not, but are friends and respecters of the same. If everyone who is indignant here complains about it, and more importantly, *to* the folks in charge at the offending places, and not simply as cranks, it will have an affect. They will know we exist, and presumably care about not turning off their existing constituents even if it is really all about preaching to the, well, choir and not making converts.

After all, the people in whose interest it is, that there should seem to be *no such people as us*, no believing liberals/feminists, no respectful atheists/agnostics or members of other creeds - we all know whose *real* interest it is in to pretend that we don't exist, to upset the status quo!
----

*Of course, I have also met Pagans who were completely daft, and believed in the Hollow Earth and that they were channeling Lemurs from Atlantis, and had the reincarnated wisdom of the ancient Sages - yet couldn't manage to master basic computer skills. But now I recognize that their personal daftness merely expresses itself in all areas, and isn't the cause of nor caused by their creed.

bellatrys ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 11:00 PM:

BTW, I am a big fan of John Stewart Mill, who helped clarify my religious thinking tremendously, and unlocked a lot of tangles of subjectivity and relativity for me - I believe it because I believe it is true, not because I believe it is useful for me or for society, and I believe it is true in no small part because that is how and where I was raised, I freely admit it.

Along with Robert Sapolsky whose atheistic humanistic mundane attitude helped me deal with scrupulosity problems: "Is my religion approaching an obsessive compulsive disorder?" is a question we all need to ask ourselves on regular occasions (not sure if RCs more than anyone else, but maybe all of us with Orthodox vs Reform type divisions.)

[cloaking again for a bit]

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2004, 11:03 PM:

Rich, you're Jewish by descent, so surely you know about the secular/religous divide in Judaism? And that some secular Jews consider themselves Jewish while disdaining the religious Jews?

Teresa & Bruce -- I think you're on to something with the theory about depression, adreneline, and self-rightious anger. You might find another piece of the puzzle in this LiveJournal post (not by me) about depression, pain, self-mutilation, and Dave's Insanity Sauce.

Mary Kay ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 12:10 AM:

If I were polling people about the extent of their religious beliefs, I'd ask them how long it's been since their religion required them to do something boring, painful, embarrassing, or self-effacing.

Just because that's how I am, I'd like to point out that it isn't solely religion which may require this of you. I have finally abjured all attempts at faith and belief, but something in me -- conscience, self-respect, intellectual integrity, whatever --requires these sorts of things from me frequently. Because I require myself to be aware of my own failures, own up to mistakes, apologize for wrongdoing, and as much as possible be an empathetic and ethical human being. I don't do these things because a deity tells me to, but because I think the world would be a better place if more people did it and I'm trying to do my part. I don't have the talents that many of my friends have to contribute to the world's art or literature or beauty or utility, but this I can do. Or try to do.

MKK--oh, and I visit my family twice/year which is boring, and painful and requires self-effacement

Bruce Baugh ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 12:33 AM:

Teresa (and anyone else who may be interested): My permalinks are messed up at the moment, but "Grognards and Sedevacantists: An Anger Syndrom?" is the new top entry at my weblog.

mythago ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 12:59 AM:

There's a reason that Jews and other religious minorities in the U.S. don't tend to get too concerned about people who are anti-religion.

When the "anti-religion" purely refers to "anti-Christian"? Sure. There are a lot of people who are convinced it's not their ox being gored so there's no point in caring. Add to that the fact that many Jews, as another poster noted, are themselves anti-"religious" and think of Judaism as a cultural/ethnic identity, while scorning the religous aspects.

If you hang out with a lefty group and tell them you're a Jew, they probably won't start on the anti-religion screed. If you let them see that you *practice Judaism*, watch out for the rants about Patriarchal Monotheistic Religions (tm) to fly.

Stefanie Murray ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 02:35 AM:

If you hang out with a lefty group and tell them you're a Jew, they probably won't start on the anti-religion screed. If you let them see that you *practice Judaism*, watch out for the rants about Patriarchal Monotheistic Religions (tm) to fly.

I've got to say, you're using an awfully large brush there.

Alec Austin ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 06:20 AM:

Though I don't believe that the question of whether religion-bashing (or Christian-bashing) is or has been significantly damaging to the cause of American liberalism is one that any of us can answer definitively, I do know that it has caused strained relations between several of my best friends over the years; and this is between people who are no longer actively religious. But while I understand why my friend who groups all Christians together feels the way he does (he grew up in Dallas, Texas, and still hasn't told his father that he's gay), at various points in time his behavior has really hurt another of my friends, who was raised Christian and only abandoned her faith towards the end of college.

That said, while I deplore my first friend's insensitivity on the issue of religion, I'm hesitant to judge him too harshly, because I once nursed similar prejudices. I'm not religious myself, but I attended a religious high school, and though I attribute much of my former intolerance to my being an arrogant teenage ass, I doubt that I would have ended up being quite as asinine about it if I hadn't been subjected to inane chapels once a week and otherwise intelligent classmates acting as if their religious principles were axiomatic.

Since escaping to college, I've met many people for whom I have great respect who also happen to be religious (I know at least one of them is a reader of Teresa's blog), and while I'm a fairly skeptical agnostic, I both admire and envy them their faith. I believe that much of the new testament's advice regarding human behavior is valid and sensible, although I certainly don't follow it as often as I'd like to.

It's late, and I suspect that this post has wandered away from its original point, but I suppose I'm attempting to make a plea for compassion, understanding and decorum, as saccharine as that sounds. Lis Carey, Patrick, Teresa, and others who hold religious convictions should not be treated as if they were part of a monolithic group that is hostile to reasoned thought; not only is it unkind, it's just not true. I doubt that anyone here would actually defend Marc Maron's statements, and I get the feeling that a great deal of energy and hostility is being expended on a debate over an issue that few of us will be able to influence in any significant way except by taking care to improve our own behavior towards others and perhaps suggesting to others, as gently as possible, that they might be able to improve theirs.

And on that note, good night.

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 08:38 AM:

From what I can see Air America?s problem is mainly that the jokes weren?t funny. There?s plenty of funny people on the left who are as capable of firing up the progressive base as Rush et al. are of firing up the barbarian base ? this, as I understand it, being Air America?s editorial charter ? and some of them are involved with the network, so I?m sure it?ll find its feet sooner or later. But I do think they have to be careful not to narrow their appeal too much.

Very few jokes are, in the end, and the percentage of actual funny jokes becomes vanishingly small when you start talking about Zany Morning Radio.

As for "narrow[ing] the appeal," I think there's a fine line between alienating religious folk and "firing up the base." Common perception aside, Rush Limbaugh isn't actually popular with every conservative out there-- I knew several in college who viewed him as a sort of cross between "necessary evil" and "useful idiot." They personally found his act distasteful, but they recognized his usefulness for the conservative movement.

While the show in question sounds titanitcally unfunny to me (at least in the descriptions of those who have heard it), it's not clear to me that it's actually going to alienate significant numbers of religious liberals and do electoral damage, save maybe through an appearance in a right-wing attack ad. I don't know enough about the demographics of the American electorate and Air America's listeners to say anything sensible about it. I will venture to suggest that the readership of this blog, con-going SF fandom, and and the lefty blogosphere in general are probably not a representative sample.

The show and the comments on some blogs about it are certainly well constructed to be very upsetting to a certain group of thoughtful religious liberals, and even people like myself who are not strongly religious, but respectful of religion. That makes them Bad on some level, and not the sort of thing I really plan to listen to, but as to whether they're electorally damaging, I can't begin to say. It might be that there really are a lot of liberals out there who will find this sort of thing energizing, and go on to organize and rally, and work, and through their efforts sway the votes of people who have never even heard of "Air America," let alone listened to it. I don't think any of us here know that.

I will say again that if people really want to break the association between religion and the right wing, the thing to do is not to try to silence left-wingers who say mean things about religion, but rather to put forth an alternative vision of liberalism founded in religion. If you're fighting about idiot radio hosts, you've already lost.

It's not like there's a lack of material around. Teresa's credo post has a bunch of great stuff-- why not try to get "I believe in the God of the Burgess Shale" bumper stickers out there next to the "Visualize World Peace" ones (or better yet, on top of them)? They'd be a wonderful antidote to some of the toxic juvenalia you get in the "Darwin Fish" mode.

And, hell, you've got the whole New Testament-- there should be a devastating attack ad to be made from pulling various bits of Scripture and contrasting them to the behavior of Bush and his cronies. $10,000-a-plate fundraisers vs. loaves and fishes, and that sort of thing. Rich men, camels, and needles. Jesus was a lefty, for God's sake-- use that. ("What Would Jesus Do? Vote Democratic.")

And when the Republicans squawk about it, double the ad buy.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 08:54 AM:

Avram points out that Jews have a secular/religious divide, to which I can only respond "So what?" -- the conflict between secular and religious Jews in the U.S. is not really about the secular Jews being anti-religious, it's about assimilation. And really, the point was that Maron was not making jokes about Christianity from some generic leftist position -- he announced that he was a Jew first. His jokes can't be characterized as generically anti-religious.

To continue with what I was saying before, there are reasons why liberals are often anti-religious. Liberalism originated in Enlightenment thought, and Enlightenment thought is deeply anti-religious, because organized religion of the day was a tool of perpetuation of an unjust social order. And guess what -- the *dominant* religion in each country still is. Catholicism in the U.S. is, to take one current example, trying to deny Kerry communion over pro-choice views (while ignoring the death penalty favoring views of other Catholics) and the larger strands of U.S. Protestantism are driving anti-gay legal action. Judaism in Israel, Islam in Saudi Arabia, Hinduism in India -- each is exactly as oppressive as it is permitted to be.

So Christians in America have to expect anti-Christian language from liberals. Yes, this will include jokes. Because some Christians in the U.S. really are doing their best to control both other religions in the U.S. and the atheists or agnostics who make up the bulk of liberal activism. I don't make these jokes myself, but I'm not willing to come down like a ton of bricks on those who do.

So why aren't liberals careful to distinguish between liberal and conservative Christians? Gee, why wasn't Patrick Nielsen Hayden careful to distinguish between anti-religious and non-anti-relgious liberals when he wrote about self-inflicted wounds, and how this was a problem for us, a problem of our own making? I'll let you think about that one for a bit while I check for disemvowelment again.

Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 09:24 AM:

Tim, sorry, left out some words. I was referring to the Self-Righteous Religion-Bashing Leftie Atheists. This error on my part was unintentional but inexcusable - but I hope not unforgivable.

Epacris ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 10:53 AM:

(Maybe going back a ways upthread, but had a bad day & not caught up yet.)
As Sylvia, Varia & others have noticed, often: "... the most venomous anti-religious zealots tend to be people who were raised by religious zealots and have fought themselves almost free ...". This is something I've met in my life with quite a few people. I've also mentioned elsewhere that I was taught by fairly "liberal" Christians, and this lets me grit my teeth & remember some of its better aspects over time.

It's likely that many of the more zealous anti-clerics in these last three centuries have experienced, or seen the consequences of, some of the worse aspects.

One of the few protests marches I've been on, a year or two back, was an "anti-globalization" rally (which of course is one of those convenient misleading labels, like "global warming" instead of "climate change"). Only time I'd actually prepared a comment in case some reporter asked what I hoped to do there. It was something like "Trying to turn the WTO away from The Dark Side and get them to use their power for a better world instead of making it worse." Which is pretty much what I'd say about many religious leaders (including the non Jewish/Christian/Moslem faiths, which still represents a very large number of people despite them often being ignored in 'religion' discussions).

It's one of the most worrying parts of current affairs that more & more it seems that the extremists in so many groups are becoming the most prominent in them. Is likely to lead to reaction against them, and back to the old spiral that's cause so much grief already.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 11:22 AM:

I should add that I fully agree with Atrios when he writes (on his blog):

"Left-leaning people with strongly held religious views need to stop worrying about what some comedian says on some radio show and need to start worrying that the public faces of their religion are people who, if they had their way, would establish their own flavor of theocracy and revoke our right to worship as we please (or not at all)."

All right, I'll creep up on what I got disemvowelled for before:

I previously wrote that only a Christian in a Christian-dominated culture could have written Theresa Nielsen Hayden's "You are not obliged to believe in, or counterfeit a belief in, any religion at all. That is not at issue. You're grownups. No one's going to impose any kind of theism on you. No one's trying, either. I acknowledge that most of you have had the dignity to notice that."

Of course people are trying. Catholics are trying, when they try to apply leverage to the Democratic Presidential candidate that we have chosen, after the primaries. The only reason that they haven't been able to impose their theism on us is because we have continually fought to keep them from doing so. And yes, throughout history, we have been told that we lack dignity because we notice this.

But mentioning history is probably the wrong thing to do, because it makes it sound like the problem is in the past. The problem is just as current as all the people here who got righteously offended at jokes about Christians and were the souls of tolerance and apathy when someone called a declaration of Judaism during Easter "gratuitous". You see, this is why the complaint we hear is about liberals beings "anti-religion" -- because you're trying to play those of us who are religious but not Christian for suckers.

David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 11:41 AM:

Teresa wrote: Basically, they practice a religion that never requires them to do anything they really don’t want to do, or refrain from anything they really want. It just tells them they’re swell, God loves them, and they're better than people who haven't been cut in on this sweetheart deal.

Antinomianism. One of the oldest heresies in the book.

Mythago wrote: If you hang out with a lefty group and tell them you’re a Jew, they probably won’t start on the anti-religion screed. If you let them see that you practice Judaism, watch out for the rants about Patriarchal Monotheistic Religions (tm) to fly.

Wait a minute. What lefty group would that be? Is this like the “some people” that G-W keeps talking about in his speeches?

Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 01:47 PM:

I've been trying to reconcile the Teresa who's written so many wonderful things with the one who wrote "No one's going to impose any kind of theism on you. No one's trying, either. I acknowledge that most of you have had the dignity to notice that."

I think I finally figured out that the problem is the scope of "No one". I now think Theresa meant "none of the well-meaning liberal religous people participating in this discussion here". Rich and I (and probably others) assumed she meant "no one in the country". I assumed it was so obvious as not to need saying that no one in this discussion would want to do that, so I could only assume that she meant no one in the country, which I found absurd.

And I keep telling myself that Patrick's "Fuck you, not my problem, I've got mine, Jack" characterization wasn't directed at me, so I shouldn't be offended, but frankly, I'm having a hard time.

I still don't understand why anyone here takes seriously the complaints of a critic who describes someone's mention of their religion as "gratuitous". Keep in mind that "Two of the hosts gratuitously announced that they're Jewish, and one..." [made fun of Christmas and Easter rituals]. Maron may be a moron, but what exactly did the other host do wrong?

I agree 100% with the idea that liberals shouldn't go around indiscrimantly putting down religion. However, re-reading the LA Times column, I'm not convinced that that's even what was happening on Air America. Is it really anti-religous to offer a mock prayer on behalf of Bush asking heaven "what's going on up there"? Granted, it may have been heavy handed and crass, but it sounds to me like it was mocking Bush's claims of religous guidance, rather than Christianity or religion general. After all, if God really is guiding Bush, I think a lot of people here would ask the same question.

Patrick and Teresa, read the LA Times column with a critical eye, and tell me if it really convinces you that the reporting of religous intolerance is accurate? Read it from a "don't let the Right get us at each others' throats" point of view, and see what you think of it.

Yes, there are portions of the left who say terribly offensive things about religion. I don't support them, but I don't think they're that big a problem. I understand that you don't agree with that assessment, Patrick, but there's a big difference between "I disagree" and "Fuck you". Earlier, it sounded like you were confusing the two.

Oh, and if anyone cares, Air America is no longer on the air in Los Angeles, anyway.

mythago ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 02:00 PM:

Wait a minute. What lefty group would that be?

Perhaps one of the groups that disinvited Rabbi Michael Lerner from a speaking at an anti-war protest after he raised concerns about criticism of Israel bleeding into liberal anti-Semitism?

But frankly, liberals who believe religion is the opiate of irrational, stupid people don't much care what religion it is. Sure, they may only be thinking of Christianity, but I have gotten my share of disbelief and "You don't *really*....." if I pass over the coconut shrimp or say I have to attend religious services.

Rich, expecting a liberal tradition of anti-religiosity does not excuse it. "Well lots of Christians are assholes!" That sounds like the line racists give: it's OK to hate blacks because so many of them are criminals.

Rich Puchalsky ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 02:28 PM:

Jeremy Leader, thank you. The main disagreement that I have with what you wrote is that I don't really care whether the people here personally wouldn't force their theism on me, as long as they support church hierarchies that would. Does it matter what well-meaning liberal Catholics think as long as they still fall in line for, and give their money to, the Church? In some senses it does, but they can't pretend that they aren't part of what's being done in their name.

mythago, I don't excuse a liberal tradition of anti-religiousity because I expect it. I excuse it because there are very good reasons for it. I think that liberals should always be suspicious of the dominant religion in their country, because there isn't a single religious tradition that hasn't used its local dominance to force itself on others. Too bad if some people are surprised that you don't eat shrimp. Without the liberal tradition that produced those people, we'd be living in an officially Christian nation and your problems would be a lot worse.

CHip ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 03:04 PM:

Jim answers

The next questions are: How many of those votes are actually being cost because of Marc Maron?

with

Because of him, personally? Who can know? Because of the attitude he embodies? I'm willing to bet it's a non-zero number, with no offsetting gain.

This is debatable. Many on the ]Left[ want someone to actually stand up and give the right-wing jerks blow for blow (cf An American President); Nader's doing this was his most obvious attraction. Does it cost \more/ than it gains? That's a lot harder to judge; if somebody told me "Guess or die!" my guess would be that it does, but I can't separate my personal dislike of excessively-heated conflict from the vague feeling that ]liberal tolerance as practiced[ frowns on generating heat in place of light.

mythago says There is, indeed, a bias in the Left against Christianity specifically and religion in general--because so many of us desperately want the comfort of hateful bigotry that being liberal otherwise denies us, so picking on "the religious" is a safe, self-congratulatory safety valve.

That sounds like a rather smug comment, even with "us" rather than "them". Could it be that they observe how the power of large monolithic churches is used and compare that to how the power of large monolithic businesses is used? That's obviously not a complete view -- but when perhaps the most visibly progressive religious organization in this country is roundly condemned both by large parts of its membership and by its compeers in the rest of the world, missing the more subtle (and less-condemned?) work of organizations such as Xopher's church is easy.

I'm torn on this; I would like to see some mass or high-level denunciation of chinos by the religious, but I have enough background/issues with authority and rationality (as well as I can work out what that is) that I hesitate to look toward -- or even trust -- anyone claiming that they're driven by what I see as myth and superstition. And I found myself agreeing with my reading of the text quoted by MD^2; I'm wondering whether \any/ sardonic humor is acceptable in this direction?

I haven't heard Maron's comments -- but humor with any target will occasionally miss; the question is whether to give up the target in the absence of a supremely skilled marksman. (Where's Moliere when we need him?) I don't try it myself -- I can't turn out a two-edged remark reliably -- but I'm wondering whether it's reasonable to demand that all humor be reasonable....

bellatrys: I've often thought about your point on Xianity not becoming established; I don't know whether what looks like tolerant polytheism in pre-Empire Rome would have survived the gradual recovery of the European Middle Ages or been replaced by some other similarly institutionalized practice. (And I agree with most of the rest of your discussion.)

Tim Walters ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 03:16 PM:

This error on my part was unintentional but inexcusable - but I hope not unforgivable.

Not at all.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 04:28 PM:

Rich: Liberalism originated in Enlightenment thought, and Enlightenment thought is deeply anti-religious, because organized religion of the day was a tool of perpetuation of an unjust social order. And guess what -- the *dominant* religion in each country still is. Catholicism in the U.S. is, to take one current example, trying to deny Kerry communion over pro-choice views

I’m sure the Catholics reading this blog will be shocked to hear that Catholicism is now the dominant religion in the US.

I’m personally amazed that Catholicism — the actual faith or practice, rather than any actual individual people — is somehow now capable of taking action. I’d thought it was Archbishop Burke of St Louis talking about denying Kerry communion, and the archbishop of Kerry’s home diocese, Sean O’Malley, sort of making grumbling noises along those lines, but then not actually forbidding communion to Kerry. Why, it’s almost as if they were a diverse group of people with varying opinions!

So why aren't liberals careful to distinguish between liberal and conservative Christians? Gee, why wasn't Patrick Nielsen Hayden careful to distinguish between anti-religious and non-anti-relgious liberals when he wrote about self-inflicted wounds, and how this was a problem for us, a problem of our own making?

Y’know, I’m in the hazy area between agreement and disagreement with Patrick over the post that started this thread, but I respect him for saying it’s a problem “of our own making” rather than laying it all at someone else’s feet.

Mary Kay ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 07:05 PM:

Does it matter what well-meaning liberal Catholics think as long as they still fall in line for, and give their money to, the Church? In some senses it does, but they can't pretend that they aren't part of what's being done in their name.

This is, flatly, nonsense. I am an American taxpayer and I pay my taxes every year. But what the current government of the United States is doing is certainly not what I'd choose. Nevertheless, I pay my taxes because that it my obligation to my country, and I work for change. The same is undoubtedly true for church members.

MKK

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 07:44 PM:

Jeremy & CHip--I have heard Marc Maron's comments, and it's his comments I'm reacting to, not the LA Times review. I realize that this cheating, but, hey, what do you expect?

Mr. Maron is indeed indiscriminately bashing religion; the single line of the mock prayer the review quotes is not in fact what offended me, regardless of whether it's what offended the reviewer.

CHip--in fact, there's a lot of denunciation of chinos by Christian organizations, including churches, but that doesn't get nearly as much media attention as what they say about abortion. The conservatives leaving the Episcopal Church over ordaining women & gays and electing a gay bishop gets more media attention than all the Southern Baptist congregations that quit the Southern Baptist convention rather than go along with newly-adopted reactionary agenda.

Some other comment somewhere upthread--I don't feel "oppressed by secular society"; I do, however, sometimes feel mightily annoyed with certain individual, otherwise-liberal, otherwise-tolerant secularists who appear to lose the use of their brains when the subject is religion.

Avram--Although neither of those two stories mentions it, a Vatican cardinal, when questioned at a press conference, said that politicians "in a state of grave" sin, including politicians who vote for pro-choice legislation, should be refused communion. This is closer to being an official position of the Catholic Church. However, when a follow-up question specifically asked about John Kerry, he said that that was a matter for the US bishops to decide. And what Archbishop O'Malley said is in fact the long-standing practice of the Catholic Church, with a strong grounding in theology: You can't know the state of another person's soul, and so you always presume that someone presenting themselves for communion is doing so in good faith. Only in the most extrardinary circumstances should someone be publicly refused communion, and merely voting for legislation the Church disagrees with will usually not qualify.

What you've noticed, Avram, and Jeremy has missed, is that this is a highly contentious question among Catholics. What not only secularists but Protestants often miss is that Catholics argue a lot. In some ways, the Catholic Church is a two thousand-year-old argument. (And we wouldn't have it any other way.)

Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 09:00 PM:

Actually, Lis, I haven't once addressed Catholics or Catholicism here, because I don't know enough to do so, so I suspect you're confusing me with someone else. And if you (and others) say Maron was offensive and idiotic, I'm inclined to believe he was. All I have to go on is the LA Times review by someone who finds Limbaugh "entertaining", and a few minutes of listening to Randi Rhodes before Air America disappeared here. Personally, I flip to Limbaugh's show every few weeks on the way into work, listen for ten minutes or so, and realize that he's too busy being pompous and outraged at liberalism to actually state clearly what it is he's complaining about, so I get bored, and switch to something else. My reaction to Randi Rhodes was largely similar, except she was more self-deprecating and less pompous, and her biases seemed closer to my own (which made her jokes, which were at about the same level of lame humor as Limbaugh's, slightly more amusing to me).

My take on the whole Catholics and Kerry thing (keeping in mind the lack of knowledge I mentioned above) is that the leaders of Catholicism have every right to point out to one of their parishoners that he's doing things the Church opposes; they also have the right to tell others "this guy doesn't represent our point of view on this issue". However, if they do so, non-Catholics then have the right to state their disagreement with the Church, and I'd hate to try to draw a precise line that seperates legitimate disagreement from pointed humor.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2004, 10:20 PM:

Any of you who are going to feel a personal sense of loss over the departure of Rich Puchalsky may have my apology now.

mythago ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 07:28 AM:

Without the liberal tradition that produced those people

I believe you meant "without the First Amendment," which was not a product of modern-day liberalism, nor of anti-religious bigotry.

I'm not talking about people who are surprised that I don't eat treyf. I'm talking about people who think it's stupid and retrograde, partly because it's a mark of religious belief, and partly because, let's face it, there are plenty of bigots who simply drape their emotional overreactions in blue rather than red.

Suspicion of dominant, supercessionist thinking is a Good Thing. Lumping all religious beliefs together, as you do, is just plain dumb, especially when you ascribe characteristics of some of those religious beliefs to everyone.

Avedon ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 08:42 AM:

Actually, Teresa, I was startled to see Rich's comment disappear. Thanks for the apology, but it was a message to me that if I have quibbles with anything above, I'd better just shut up.

Which is, pretty much, the same message I'm getting from the NYT and The Washington Post on the same subject, when they publish opinion pieces about how liberals should stop being so hostile toward religion/Christianity, but consistently fail to give equal coverage to the many liberal Christians who are frustrated by the replacement of Gospel-Christian values with the weird Old Testement/Revelationist hate-mongering that has now come to be associated with with the term "Christianity".

And that's who our real target should be - Big Media in all its glory has allowed this corruption to happen. It's not a few bloggers and Mark Maron, it's the much more pervasive end of the media that refuses to acknowledge that the "Christianity" they have been "defending" from evil little liberals is in fact not the Christianity that most Americans were raised with and indeed hold the values of.

I like Barry Lynne and have admired him for many, many years, and I'm glad they occasionally quote him, but we should all be writing letters complaining that those creepy articles like this piece of rubbish from Kristof are not accompanied by a variety of articles from the many liberal Christians who disagree.

It's about time we harassed the press into recognizing that liberal values are essentially Christian values, and that that is why we are horrified by these so-called "religous" people. Like I said.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 09:28 AM:

"Actually, Teresa, I was startled to see Rich's comment disappear. Thanks for the apology, but it was a message to me that if I have quibbles with anything above, I'd better just shut up."

Generally Teresa's policy, and mine, is to get drawn as little as possible into explanations of specific acts of comment-section moderation. But since it's Avedon asking, I'll make a brief exception.

Teresa's view about the poster in question is that being right about one or two points doesn't constitute a license to be consistently antagonistic. We all get that way sometimes, but it seems to have been this guy's mode from his very first post.

It's not news that Teresa takes a very interventionist approach to moderating comment threads. There is a certain kind of rhetorical whaddya-say-to-that-huh bullying for which she has a short fuse, and sometimes she'll cut it off before it's consciously registered on others. At times I've wondered if she wasn't being a bit quick on the trigger where that stuff is concerned. But over time I've come to decide that she's right to be--that there really is a kind of glassy-eyed, prosecutorial, not-listening-to-anyone-else nastiness that some people get into in the course of online discussions, and it spreads toxins through all the other parts of the conversation. (You will certainly remember instances of this phenomenon from back when we did this stuff with xerox machines and mimeographs rather than computers and web browsers.) The best case for Teresa's overall approach is the health of the ongoing discussions here and on Making Light.

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 09:29 AM:

I didn't see what got Rich banned, but this has been bugging me for quite a while now. I will try to phrase it in a way that will avoid disemvowellment:

Lis Carey writes:
Jeremy & CHip--I have heard Marc Maron's comments, and it's his comments I'm reacting to, not the LA Times review. I realize that this cheating, but, hey, what do you expect?

Would you please take a minute, read the LA Times piece, and actually respond to the comments people have made here about it. I've watched three or four rounds here of people in this argument stubbornly refusing to address the same topics as their opponents in the debate, and, really, this is even more depressing than reading the paper.

The people who haven't heard and aren't commenting on the radio show (myself included) aren't exactly perched on the highest point of the Moral High Ground, but given the limited distribution of Air America and the transient nature of radio programming, it's more of an imposition to ask them to figure out what you're discussing. (If you point me to a transcript of the show in question, I'll be happy to read it and comment on it, and I might be able to listen to an audio archive if someone has one, and can steer me to the relevant bits.) Reading an op-ed is relatively easy, even at a registration-required rag like the LA Times.

My (admittedly quick) reading of the original article leads me to think that the people talking about it have a point-- the fact that some of the hosts "gratuitously announced they're Jewish" is used as evidence that the shows are "mocking religion," and were I Jewish, I might well find that sort of "religious == Christian" thinking insulting. I don't agree that failing to condemn the slight against Jews equals agreement with it, but I honestly can't see what purpose is served by refusing to even comment on it.

So, please, consider this a polite request to comment on it.

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 09:32 AM:

(I should note that Patrick's comment snuck in while I was writing the above.)

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 09:54 AM:

As to the rest of Avedon's post, What She Said. I definitely agree that at this point, way too much fuss has been made about a few perhaps imperfectly-phrased blog comments by people who are basically on the (if you'll pardon the expression) side of the angels--at the expense of attention that really ought to be paid, as always, to the astonishing mendacity of the mass media.

I would like to point out to Chad Orzel that I have never read the LA Times piece, nor did I ever bring it up or comment on it. At least one person out in the blogosphere has claimed that "it [i.e., these discussions, including this Electrolite thread] all started" with that piece, which is certainly not true for me. I think Chad is on to something when he says that some people have been "stubbornly refusing to address the same topics as their opponents in the debate," but you know, it can be just as easily be observed that some people have been trying to talk about one thing while other people insist on yelling at them about something else which they didn't bring up and didn't express an opinion about.

In particular, I certainly do agree that the line about how "two of the hosts gratuitously announced that they're Jewish" is amazingly stupid and offensive. In one of his several salvos, our departed commenter spluttered that "*No one* seemed to find it at all odd that this reviewer thought that Jews should stay hidden," but the fact is that I simply didn't track on it until the discussion had already advanced to the point of strident imputations that we were all hypocrites because we hadn't sprung forth with the denunciations that Mr. Prosecutor believed appropriate at the time he deemed them necessary. I can't help but think that this represents a basic misundertanding of the nature and purpose of this kind of conversation.

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 10:25 AM:

I would like to point out to Chad Orzel that I have never read the LA Times piece, nor did I ever bring it up or comment on it. At least one person out in the blogosphere has claimed that "it [i.e., these discussions, including this Electrolite thread] all started" with that piece, which is certainly not true for me.

Actually, you probably have read it, though you might not have realized so-- the little bit of the piece that's actually about religion is quoted in its entirety in the Kevin Drum post you linked in the original post.

(I'm not trying to be accusatory, by the way-- it wasn't the main focus of your comments, and it's easy for that to not register. I didn't realize that I'd actually read the whole thing until yesterday, when I checked it out to see what was there. I thought there had to be more to it than that, based on the heat the thing was generating. I'm still kind of amazed that it generated that kind of heat.)

I think Chad is on to something when he says that some people have been "stubbornly refusing to address the same topics as their opponents in the debate," but you know, it can be just as easily be observed that some people have been trying to talk about one thing while other people insist on yelling at them about something else which they didn't bring up and didn't express an opinion about.

Absolutely.
That's the primary reason this comment thread has been so frustrating. It's disturbingly reminiscent of Usenet.

I should note that I agree that Rich went way over the line in some of his comments, especially given how scanty the original material was. However, several other people (Jeremy, CHip, Avram to some degree, probably more that I'm forgetting) have raised similar (or at least related) points in a much calmer manner, and those have mostly been lost in the shouting.

I think there's probably more ground for agreement here than many of the participants realize, but it's difficult to see when no two people in the conversation are talking about the same thing.

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 10:27 AM:

Also: What Avedon Said.

David Moles ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 11:34 AM:

Perhaps one of the groups that disinvited Rabbi Michael Lerner from a speaking at an anti-war protest after he raised concerns about criticism of Israel bleeding into liberal anti-Semitism?

Perhaps ANSWER are a bunch of nutbars about as representative of the Left as Mel Gibson is of the Right.

I wouldn’t put a rant about The Patriarchy past them. I hope mainstream progressive organizations have learned their lesson about letting the inmates run the asylum. But what they did to Lerner is still not what you’re accusing “lefty groups” of doing.

I’m sorry you’re running into so many stupid and retrograde “lefties” who insist on telling you they think your religious practices are stupid and retrograde. I don’t have any trouble believing that it’s happening, and I’d like to see it stop. (That’s how this all started, right?) But any group whose idea of a good time is denouncing practicing Jews (or Christians, or Moslems) for “patriarchal monotheism” is not part of any Left I’m part of, and where such groups do exist, I don’t think they should be taken as representative.

(That also goes for anyone denouncing anyone for matriarchal polytheism, by the way.)

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 11:51 AM:

Chad, I've been seeing a number of people apparently deciding whether or not any of the Air America hosts have said anything offensive about religion solely on the basis of the LA Times review. And when I say that I actually heard the remarks of one of those hosts, and found that host's remarks offensive on the basis of the remarks, not on the basis of the LA Times review, I've been confronted with a demand that I explain why I hadn't first condemned certain comments in the review which at that time I had not read.

Strangely, I feel no guilt over that. I feel no sense of omission. In basin my remarks on Mr. Maron's, rather than the review, I was attempting to introduce to the discussion of whether or not Mr. Maron had engaged in religion-bashing somewhat more direct evidence than third-hand discussion of the review.

I didn't comment on the other host who was supposed to have engaged in religion-bashing, because I hadn't (and still haven't) heard that show, and had no basis whatever for an opinion. I have now read the review, and if I had only the review to go one, I'd almost certainly conclude that the reviewer was an idiot at best, and quite likely looking for reasons to run down Air America.

Strangely, I still feel perfectly free to base my opinion of, and my remarks about, Mr. Maron on what I heard him say, rather than on a crummy review of dubious intention.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 01:33 PM:

Avedon, when I'm explaining to people that my policies don't exclude strong statements and the relentless pursuit of an argument, you're one of the writers I have in mind. This isn't a Relief Society meeting.

To reiterate the local rules: Being abusive, a troll, or an abusive troll, will get you zapped on the spot. Drive-by postings that irrelevantly jeer at or denounce the proceedings get the same treatment. Excessive incivility will lose you the vowels out of your message, or out of offending portions thereof. The message will still be readable, but only to those who care to work at it. There is no continuing prejudice. If you follow a disemvowelled post with a polite and constructive one, you're fine by us. If you follow it with a funny one, you get quadruple points. Decisions may be appealed, but we acknowledge no obligation to explain them.

As usual, 90% of all fuggheadedry falls into the same few basic categories, over and over again. In non-trollish discourse, the two biggest sins in my book are not engaging with the ongoing conversation and the other people in it, and habitual and unthinking unpleasantness.

You know the rule that says that if a convention volunteer only wants to work Security, the last place you want him or her working is Security? In the normal course of things we all play Junior Prosecuting Attorney once in a while, but someone who only ever wants to play Junior Prosecuting Attorney is going to ruin the conversation. His brain has gone to glory. He's lost his upper storey. His pig is gonna fly.

(Damn. I miss Chuch.)

If someone's starting to manifest those characteristics, and isn't being dissuaded by the constructive feedback the readers here so reliably dish out, I'll usually try to say something to them about it. Sometimes I don't get in there fast enough. Sometimes I do, but they aren't listening to me any more than they are to anyone else. The difference is that I can get their attention. I try to use this power only for good.

Do I lose much by booting out guys like that? I don't think so. They might say something interesting if you let them stick around long enough, but in my experience they don't do it very darned often. If they were more in the habit of saying interesting things, they wouldn't have to get into fights with people to get their attention. In the meantime, they polarize conversations, collapsing it all into glorious friggin' them, their glorious friggin' views, and such people as have continued to stick around arguing for and against them and their views. Everything else that might be said gets lost.

...

Oddly enough, I was in the middle of drafting an admonitory remark to Mr. Puchalsky when he posted the message that prompted his disappearance from our midst. I'm not sure he'd have understood it anyway. Maybe he would. The core of it said, "If you truly don't care what the people here would and wouldn't do personally, you're putting on a public performance, not taking part in a conversation, and you've missed the point of this venue. We can stable that high horse of yours out back, if you want to get down off it and join the discussion in progress. If not, the web provides a great many tilting yards for people who just want to break talking points against each other." It then went on to suggest that having a few valid points doesn't entitle you to be both aggressively heavy-handed and underinformed about a bunch of other points; but that's very minor by comparison.

I find personal abuse ever so much more tolerable than the impersonal sort.

I'm not going to quote Mr. Puchalsky's last-and-deleted message, but it didn't make the points you're hoping for. Your points are just fine.

...

I see several other comments have been posted while I've been writing this one. I'm such a slow writer these days.

Chad Orzel, I have real trouble imagining you getting disemvowelled. I'm startled to hear that you find it imaginable.

And one general remark: I thought "gratuitous" was a poor choice of words the first time I saw it. It didn't make enough sense. If you assumed that it reflected the writer's exact intent and meaning, it was offensive, but that interpretation didn't match the rest of the article. What I assumed was that the writer was probably reaching for something else, failed to grasp it, came up clutching "gratuitous" instead, and didn't have enough sense to see that it was loaded. Where others saw malign intent, I saw thumbfingered writing. I'm not saying I'm right about that; I'm just explaining why it took me longer than it might have to sort out the objections to it.

Terry Karney ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 03:07 PM:

Teresa: I'd not expect Chad to ever be disemvowelled either, but I am not surprised that he thinks about it.

There have been a few times (one in recent memory) when I was so wroth at something said here that I wanted nothing more than to wring a neck, or two (to be fair I can't think of this being the case with any regular contributor, but that's not the point) and I have wanted to say things of a far less than civil nature.

The fear of public recrimination, in the form of my being unvowelled, was usually enough to temper the white heat to something more orange, but (with guilty conscience) I knew what I had meant, and was, mildly, afraid, I had still not managed to restrain myself enough.

And my agitation was such that not posting would have been worse than taking my lumps.

Terry

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 04:08 PM:

Chad, I've been seeing a number of people apparently deciding whether or not any of the Air America hosts have said anything offensive about religion solely on the basis of the LA Times review.

I've seen some of that, but I've also seen people referring to the LA Times piece in order to note that the manner in which the author expressed his objection was itself fairly objectionable. And also that the attitudes reflected in those comments (specifically that religious == Christian) might be involved in the tension between Christian religion and liberalism.

That, to my mind, is a far more interesting discussion than the argument over whether or not a particular radio host is offensive (you feel offended, that's good enough for me). One of the things that's been really frustrating about this thread is that it seems like every time someone brings up the question of attitudes, we get dragged back to whether or not the radio show was offensive.

Teresa:
Chad Orzel, I have real trouble imagining you getting disemvowelled. I'm startled to hear that you find it imaginable.

That's largely a matter of my knowing that the threat is there, however remote. Some of my first drafts aren't nearly as civil as what I end up posting.

And one general remark: I thought "gratuitous" was a poor choice of words the first time I saw it. It didn't make enough sense. If you assumed that it reflected the writer's exact intent and meaning, it was offensive, but that interpretation didn't match the rest of the article. What I assumed was that the writer was probably reaching for something else, failed to grasp it, came up clutching "gratuitous" instead, and didn't have enough sense to see that it was loaded. Where others saw malign intent, I saw thumbfingered writing. I'm not saying I'm right about that; I'm just explaining why it took me longer than it might have to sort out the objections to it.

"Gratuitously" was the flag that brought it to my attention, but I don't think it was the real problem. I can't think of a word that you could replace "gratuitously" with and end up with something that wasn't problematic.

No adverb will change the fact that "Two of the hosts [...] announced that they're Jewish" has absolutely no place in a list of evidence purporting to show that liberal talk radio is biased against religion. It makes no sense at all unless the list-maker thinks that "religion" and "Christianity" are identically equal, and then we've got a problem.

"Gratuitously" was an aggravating offense, but the fact the he mentioned Jews at all is troubling.

adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 04:39 PM:

Avram replies:

Do we really need another verse of the more-oppressed-than-thou song? Look, the Celebrity Atheists List (C'mon, you knew there hadda be one!) lists Janeane Garofalo as an atheist, and she co-hosts their evening show. There are probably more. Happy?

Sigh. I suppose it'd help if I had some idea who she is. An actress, right? That much I know.

So what does she have to say about religion on her segments? Is it any more to people's taste? If the answer to the first question is "Not much", is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Xopher, I'm pretty sure (from listening to the learned discussions of people who read--and quote!--a lot of Marx) that the "opiate of the people" remark was not perjorative.

Mary Kay ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 04:42 PM:

Avedon and Chad should both marry me right now.

MKK

Kevin J. Maroney ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2004, 06:26 PM:

Kathryn Cramer said: I have been fairly dubious of the leftish talk radio project from the beginning. I just don't like the kind of discourse no matter what political persepctive it's from.

I listen to leftish talk radio all the time--Brian Lehrer, Leonard Lopate, Tavis Smiley, a lot (but by no means all) of NPR's news coverage. It's a vital part of my intellectual life.

What's really problematic, to me, is "left wing talk radio" which is really "Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Hannity in left-wing drag". I'm not fond of insult radio, or, as I think someone smarter than me called it, "political anger pornography"; I don't think it helps the political discourse and it doesn't make the world a better place.

What I've seen of Al Franken's political work (including his books and what I've heard of his show and the blog thereof) isn't political anger pornography. It sounds very much like Marc Maron is.

adamsj wrote: Janeane Garofalo. . . . Sigh. I suppose it'd help if I had some idea who she is. An actress, right? That much I know.

She's an actress and stand-up comedienne who has in recent years turned into a political commentator because she discovered that, as an actress and comedienne, mass media would listen to her when she speaks. She's now one of the co-hosts of Air America Radio's evening program, "The Majority Report".

CHip ::: (view all by) ::: April 26, 2004, 12:26 AM:

Lis: I did not make any reference to the LATimes; if I misused secondary sources as primary I'd have to contend with the memory of my mother the historian (who quietly eviscerated Two Crowns for America with the observation that it read as if Kurtz considered Parson Weems a primary source). Nor do I contest the fact that you, personally, found the actual remarks offensive -- even though you in other fora have questioned my right to be offended. But I don't see you answering my generalized question: is Maron worth condemning as if he were the center of a substantial trend rather than an overshoot of a healthy skepticism?

Avedon et al: condemning the media for not showing both sides of disagreements in Xianity is an easy out, with limited validity. I'm aware of some of the quiet disagreements and rearrangements, and have seen them covered in the media; is it unreasonable of me to suggest that it is time for liberal Xianity to be a little less quiet? Is it not possible to crank up the volume (enough, perhaps, so that AUSCS is not the only voice the media turn to) without turning into Limbaughs of the left?

Avedon ::: (view all by) ::: April 26, 2004, 12:45 AM:

CHip: I'm sorry, did you miss the point? Liberal Christians aren't being quiet, they are simply being ignored. You have seen zilch about what's really going on in the media, because the media barely acknowledges it is there.

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 26, 2004, 10:47 AM:

CHip,

A) Mr. Maron does not need to be the center of a substantial trend to be criticized for his own public bad behavior. Nevertheless, the comments here, and on Political Animal, and on Eschaton do rather tend to support the idea that Mr. Maron is not an entirely isolated phenomenon. That portion of the left which is virulently anti-religious is a tiny minority, but it's a very vocal minority, and to some extent it's representing "liberals" to people whose economic and social interests are better defended by liberals, but who, because they don't ordinarily follow politics close and do rely on the mainstream media, are easily led to believe that "liberals" are a threat to their freedom of religion. We need to reach those people; Mr. Maron and others like him are an active impediment to doing that.

B) I don't believe I've ever questioned your right to be offended by people attacking your beliefs or attacking other people because of beliefs you share. I have questioned the idea that the mere expression in public of beliefs you disagree with constitutes an "attack."

C) What Avedon said: Liberal Christians are speaking up; the media just doesn't find that "newsworthy." The SCLM is in love with the storyline, "Religious right, secular left," and anything that challenges that is mostly ignored. Catholic bishops are being asked right now for their opinions on Kerry's pro-choice votes, and whether he should receive communion; they're not being asked whether Scalia, who supports the death penalty, criticizes the Church's stance on the death penalty, and has and will rule on death penalty cases, should be refused communion. (And let's not overlook the fact that the Kerry question became a public issue because reporters raised the question; the bishops have mostly been trying to avoid becoming political tools in this election.) Or take the flurry of astonishment a few years ago when the Pope publicly described evolution as a scientific fact; this would have astonished fewer people has the news media been in the habit of reporting on Catholic bishops opposing efforts to force "creation science" into public classrooms. And I've already mentioned the marked difference in media attention to the conservatives threatening to pull out of the Episcopal Church over its liberal positions vs. the media attention to the Southern Baptist congretations that pulled out of the Southern Baptist Convention over its conservative positions.

It's very hard to get out a message that the media isn't interested in reporting.

Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 26, 2004, 11:20 AM:

Xopher, I'm pretty sure (from listening to the learned discussions of people who read--and quote!--a lot of Marx) that the "opiate of the people" remark was not perjorative.

Hmm. I'll take your word for that; my point was that certain elements of the left have been using it as if it meant "being religious is no better than being an opium addict," meaning that religion lulls the people into passivity and is a barrier to The Revolution.

Religion is a tool. Its ideal use is as a spiritual technology to put people in touch with the Divine. It can also be wielded as a political weapon by any side. These powers can be used for good or evil, eh? The flail's primary use is threshing grain, but it can also be used to strike an enemy: for murder, or for self-defense. You may not want to thresh grain personally, but that's no reason to denounce flails.

Jeremy Leader ::: (view all by) ::: April 26, 2004, 03:14 PM:

My understanding of "opiate of the people" was that a more modern translation might be something like "anaesthetic of the people". That is, he was addressing religion's power to help people get through great pain and suffering, and not so much its addictiveness or destructive tendencies. When you're getting a leg amputated, an opiate is a good thing! Now, Marxists would claim that a lot of those amputations are unnecessary, but that doesn't mean that the first step is to stop administering painkillers. I think Marx was claiming that when society was reformed and made more just, there would be less suffering, and so less need for religion.

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 26, 2004, 09:41 PM:

Liberal Christians aren't being quiet, they are simply being ignored. You have seen zilch about what's really going on in the media, because the media barely acknowledges it is there.

While I do agree that the media are part of the problem, I still agree with CHip that it would be a good idea to "turn up the volume" even more. Yes, it's hard to shake the media out of a story rut, but it's got to be done. It may require levels of noise that good and decent Christians find unseemly, but the alternative is worse.

It sucks that the media have locked in on a story, and are ignoring the efforts of liberal Christians who are trying to get their story out. But all that really means is that liberal Christian efforts to this point haven't worked. Maybe it's time to start fighting dirty.

Epacris ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 05:27 AM:

[tangent] Although "Black and White" -- as in view of the world -- was mentioned earlier, I haven't spotted any use of "shades of gray/grey". This seems to be as good a place as any (the believe/don't believe threads might be another; the general theme does recur).

Suggestion: Instead of the rather gloomy aspect of gray/grey (combined with 'shades' implying shadow & darkness) we instead use a whole range of colours, perhaps a rainbow -- tho' some might then assume one is referring either to Jesse Jackson's group or the gay community.[/tangent]

I'll get out of your way now

Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 09:19 AM:

Epacris, that's an odd illuminating thought. It had never occurred to me that the black/white/shades of gray schema implies bipolarity, and makes the betweens sound dismally unattractive. I'm not sure what to do with it -- we need language that uses the idea -- but I'll be on the lookout for opportunities.

Stefanie Murray ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 10:15 AM:

Chad,

In light of your (and others') comments about religious lefties' work not being visible, it's worth mentioning that lots of the people out at the giant March for Womens' Lives were there representing religious groups. The comment thread at Daily Kos* mentions one group of over a thousand Unitarians marching, under the banner of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice," and another poster mentions her "very-photographed "Texas Southern Baptist For Choice!" sign"; Guardian coverage (linked to by the lefty, secular mag The Nation) mentions Catholics for a Free Choice being there too.

All of which is wonderful, and a quick rebuttal to anyone who says that liberal, religious people aren't out there in public under banners that say who they are and what they're up to.

So I gotta wonder what's up with the guest poster at Kevin Drum's blog, who, with his political credentials, should be out there calling attention to the participation of the religious left, not drumming up yet another round of "religious people can be lefties too"/"no they can't," which does no one any good. If a high-level Democrat can't even look around at the march he's attending, and maybe say to himself, "hey! More people should know how many allies we have!" well, then, I guess we have to take the Kos comments and make a few waves ourselves. :)


*-you have to scroll through a lot of posts to find these types of comments, though: the thread is mostly about the numbers.

Stefanie Murray ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 10:19 AM:

ps--sorry about the goofy quote marks in the above. It's cold here and too much of my brain must obviously have been devoted to cursing the vagaries of Minnesota springs. :)

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 10:52 AM:

Right on, Stefanie.

I had the same reaction to CHip's question, "Is it unreasonable of me to suggest that it is time for liberal Xianity to be a little less quiet?" Christ on a pogo stick, man, you live in the Boston area, where Voice of the Faithful's ongoing challenges to the Catholic hierarchy have been front-page news.

It isn't that progressive Christians aren't out there with banners and bells on. Sojourners, Call to Action, Catholics for a Free Choice, the Alliance of Baptists--you can spend all day just listing the various liberal and progressive Christian groups. The problem isn't that they're being "quiet"--they're making as much noise as anyone could ask. The problem is that the media pretty much ignores them save for an occasional man-bites-dog story, because, you know, everybody knows that "religion" and "right wing" are pretty much synonymous, except in the special case of black people.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 12:40 PM:

PNH: The problem is that the media pretty much ignores them save for an occasional man-bites-dog story

So how do we get you folks to bite more dogs?

Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 01:44 PM:

Teresa: a "glorious mosaic"? Fond as I'm not of David Dinkins, that was one of his better lines. Lo, this is a many-colored land.

Lis Carey ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 02:46 PM:

Patrick: The problem isn't that they're being "quiet"--they're making as much noise as anyone could ask. The problem is that the media pretty much ignores them save for an occasional man-bites-dog story, because, you know, everybody knows that "religion" and "right wing" are pretty much synonymous, except in the special case of black people.

AvramSo how do we get you folks to bite more dogs?

You're missing the point--religious believers of liberal politics are in fact out there in great numbers "biting dogs" all the time, but the media are usually not interested in reporting the story, no matter what lengths they have to go to to not report it.

Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 08:30 PM:

The problem isn't that they're being "quiet"--they're making as much noise as anyone could ask. The problem is that the media pretty much ignores them save for an occasional man-bites-dog story, because, you know, everybody knows that "religion" and "right wing" are pretty much synonymous, except in the special case of black people.

I don't really want to keep beating on this, because I'm not especially religious (I retain enough residual Catholicism to get the references in Jim Macdonald's Peter Crossman stories, but I only make it to church a couple of times a year), and thus don't really have any standing to be dictating strategy to religious liberal groups.

I'm a little bothered, though, by an air of.. I hesitate to call it "defeatism" in these comments, but I'm not coming up with a better word. "Fatalism," maybe. Yes, it sucks that we don't have a better press corps, but many of the media-blaming comments on this make it sound like there's absolutely nothing that can be done

The fact is, these groups aren't doing "as much as anyone could ask," in terms of drawing media attention, because they're just not succeeding in drawing any attention. Doing more of what they're doing already may not do the trick, but maybe there's something different that they could be doing. I have a hard time believing that there's absolutely no way to get the media to pay attention to liberal Christian groups.

I don't have any concrete suggestions, as I know nothing about what they've tried, and I'm not a media relations person, but there's just got to be something that would work. The alternative is too depressing to contemplate.

Whether that would turn out to be something the groups in question would be willing to do is another question. Breaking the fundamentalist stranglehold on religion in politics may well require adopting some of the tactics of the right-wing media machine, which sort of goes against the grain of what I know of such groups. (They may come more naturally to the militant atheists, though, which might go a long way toward explaining the origin of this whole argument.)

If breaking the fundamentalist stranglehold on religion in politics is a goal of liberal Christianity-- and you can argue about whether it should be or not-- unpleasant tactics may have to be considered.

But, as I said, it's not really my place, and I'm not particularly up on the groups in question. I'm just trying to explain why I keep coming back to this.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 27, 2004, 10:05 PM:

Whether or not it's "your place", those are good points, Chad.