All week there was a tension between gestures of exclusion and inclusion at the Republican National Convention. Let’s start with the obvious:A major political party has nominated a Mormon for president. To the cheers of a crowd that included many evangelical Protestants. Of course the nomination was a foregone conclusion from the primaries. But still, this is a historical moment.
By comparison, it may seem like old news that a party also picked a Roman Catholic as vice president. But Paul Ryan is the first to get the Republican nod since the party began moving in the 1980s toward something akin to a European-style religious party (adjusting the analogy to fit the broader coalitions of the two-party system). It’s worth noting that there was a time when American nativists were insisting that Mormons and Catholics just weren’t assimilable into American society. Now the GOP party is promoting Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as exemplars of God-and-country values.
The GOP also featured an unprecedented convention prayer by a Sikh, a poignant moment considering the violence that community recently suffered at the hands of a white supremacist. No Muslims were on this year’s prayer-giving list, significant given a certain party platform plank (see below) and the harsh anti-Muslim rhetoric of GOP veterans such as Newt Gingrich. (Here’s one Sikh who says the GOP needs to stand against anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric to be truly inclusive.) And of course, no atheists were invited to provide whatever the secular equivalent of prayer would be — a general moment of reflection? People say in opinion polls they are unlikely to support a Muslim or atheist presidential nominee any time soon. But as this week proved, the definition of who’s an acceptable American leader keeps broadening in ways that would have astonished the founding generations. One can only guess who’ll be coming to dinner at future conventions.
The Catholicism Paul Ryan brings to the campaign has very different emphases than that of Joe Biden. It’s no wonder that Catholics are among the most coveted of swing voters — they don’t vote in a bloc, at least not anymore, and the seamless garment of their social teachings runs crossways over party platforms. So for such voters, it often depends on which priorities have priority.
In that vein, Cardinal Dolan’s convention prayer was interesting: By my count he mentioned “freedom” nine times, calling to mind the Catholic bishops’ high-profile fight against the contraception mandate on religious-liberty grounds, a popular fight among the Republican rank and file. Dolan also put in clear plugs for immigrants and the environment. Again, the seamless garment doesn’t seem to fit either elephants or donkeys easily.
Other convention mentions:
Ken Ward, coal-beat reporter for the Charleston Gazette, asks if climate change has become a “joke” to Mitt Romney, who jabbed Barack Obama for allegedly promising to “slow the rise of the oceans.” Obama did voice hope that this generation could begin to accomplish that, but what Ward wanted to know was what became of the former Massachusetts governor’s support for the reduction of carbon emissions.
“So has something legitimately convinced Governor Romney to change his mind? Or is he just pandering to the anti-science crowd who a [get] laugh from even thinking about how human activity is changing the planet’s climate and that perhaps something should be done about that?”
Even as the scientific consensus grows (e.g. here and here, and here and here) that humans are causing global warming with attendant consequences on weather and ocean levels, so is global-warming doubt among the general public – particularly among religious and political conservatives.
And, and before we get back to the convention, here’s another bit of news about the hardening of lines between the scientific and religious communities. “Bill Nye the Science Guy” says teaching creationism is bad for children. ”I say to the grownups, ‘If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve observed in the universe that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it.’” Yes, the Creation Museum leaders are fighting back; Ken Ham said it reflects Humanist of the Year Nye’s “definite anti-God agenda.”
Bill Moyers traces a seemingly obscure plank in the Republican platform — opposition to the minimum wage in the Marianas — to the continued influence on the GOP of Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition veteran who has lobbied on behalf of employers there. Opponents say the workers in the Marianas have been exploited, subjected not only to sweatshop conditions but sexual slavery and forced abortions.
There was a platform plank against the use of foreign law in U.S. courts, which reflects a movement in state legislatures against Islamic law, or shariah, and in turn is one of the signatures of a more general reaction to the growing Muslim presence in the United States. (There’s a stated fear that recognition of religious law could trump laws on, for example, domestic abuse; the one example usually cited was swiftly overturned. Generally courts rule that religion doesn’t give one the option of being a law until one’s self.)
There was an impressive lineup of Hispanic office holders, even amid a platform calling for a halt to federal opposition to the harsh anti-illegal immigration measures in Alabama, Arizona and elsewhere, which opponents say marginalizes legal residents.
Republicans may be trying to leave the Todd Akin controversy behind them in the post-convention bump, but it continues to churn. High-profile Missouri Baptist ministers and other Republican Christians are going all-out on behalf of Akin, whose statements that rape victims have biological defenses against pregnancy shocked many and caused most of the Republican establishment to put as much daylight as they could between Akin and themselves.
Baptist ethicist David Gushee had plenty to say on the convention, but this was an interesting note: he wished for an even stronger pro-family message amid “the post-speech shot of all those happy spouses, children and grandchildren”:
“I wish he had gone on to say: ‘Americans, we need to stop producing so many broken families, because of the suffering of children and because it is one of the best ways to become poor and make your children poor.’”
Best line on Clint Eastwood came from NPR’s Maura Liasson, describing Ann Romney as looking “like the mother of the bride listening to a drunken wedding toast.”
Godbeat gleanings is a more-or-less weekly roundup of more-or-less recent events and observations.
