Keeping the Faith

Democrats are starting to do something that I thought they would never do. They are starting to use the language of religion. From Progressive writers expressing their faith to Senate minority leader Harry Reid saying the federal budget is a moral document, Democrats are starting to speak a language that we had once thought extinct.

In the bygone days of the Progressive Era, there was no separation between faith and progressive politics. The biblical commands to help the poor were behind the populist demands for accountability in corporations and government. Even the defunct Prohibitionist movement was believed to be a way to help people out of the morass of poverty. Progressive activists worked hand in hand with churches to feed the hungry and heal the sick. Despite the Progressive ties to the Christian message of charity and justice, the Regressive Republicans somehow gained the reputation as the “Christian Party”. There can be no question which party supports regular Americans, and which Party primarily seeks to redistribute wealth to those who are already wealthy. There can be nothing more unChristian than supply-side tax money give-aways to the rich. How then could Democrats, while holding the moral and religious high ground, lose the religious voters to the Party that routinely hurts them?

Democrats shot themselves in the foot on this one. With the rise of the Religious Right in the forms of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, a new, hate-driven Christianity came to prominence. The ideas behind it are not new, but the force and organization with which they push their message are revolutionary. The Religious Right literally does not believe in the separation of church and state, and their literature offers all kinds of rationalizations for why there should be no such barrier. The State, they say, should be Godly, and in being Godly, should enforce God’s laws. Thus homosexuality, all forms of art that include nudity, atheism, and all alternative forms of faith should be outlawed (or at least strongly discouraged). It is not hard to motivate people behind the Religious Right’s ideas. You believe the Bible, don’t you? You believe that people shouldn’t sin, don’t you? Well, if you really believe it, you have to become militant about it. You have to save America from its own freedom. You have to help take the nation back from the godless liberals.

Godless liberals? The Bible is a very liberal document. It instructs—commands, no less—that we uplift the poor and minister to the sick. Jesus would never have tolerated the lack of health care in this country. Jesus certainly would not have approved of the money changers that run many of the churches that carry his name. Jesus would never have approved of a war in Iraq that destroys what it liberates. Democrats, even then, had the moral high ground. How did they respond to this unwarranted attack by the false prophets?

They shut up.

Progressive Democrats, while personally pious and faithful, do believe in freedom. They believe that alternative viewpoints should be heard, even if they are offensive and outright wrong. L. T. Hobhouse said that liberals should not simply “tolerate” all opinions “as if they didn’t matter”, but they should give all opinions a “fair hearing”. At the end of the day, liberals were still supposed to say right is right and wrong is wrong. But in the unrelenting force of the Right wing attack, they wilted. The theology that was preached by the false prophets was no kind of Christianity that Progressives wanted to be apart of, but how could they stand up against supposed “men of God”? When they finally resisted, they resisted the wrong way. Their answer to this bad theology was secularism. To prevent the dismantling of the constitutional protection of the church and the state, they insisted on enforcement so strict that regular Christians were offended. Worst of all, they failed to find a way to talk about abortion that would make the pro-choice stance appeal to people of faith. The liberal answer to the Religious Right was, in a way, Godless.

The more I read about the results of the 2004election, the more I am convinced that the issue of abortion needs to be taken off the table. There were hundreds of thousands—perhaps even millions—of people who can’t bring themselves to vote for Democrats because they believe that abortion is murder. I will not claim that abortion is the only, or even the primary, reason for the 2004 loss, but it is a major factor. People vote against their own economic interests, they even vote for the party that will give their money away to the rich, because they think that pro-choice Democrats are baby killers.

I am pro-choice, and I am not particularly fond of abortion. I don’t believe that I have a right to control a woman’s body. I completely understand and agree with the woman’s-rights argument for choice. Middle America, however, ain’t buying it. It’s not that the women’s-rights argument is wrong, but if we fail to find another way to explain the pro-choice position to religions Americans, we will lose them forever.

Consider the Hillary Clinton approach: abortions should be safe, legal, and rare. Studies have shown that the main reason most women have abortions is because they find themselves in a desperate situation with no way out. Regressives claim that abortions are a matter of convenience, but this has never been true. When teenage girls find themselves pregnant while they’re still in high school, they see a future that dooms both mother and child to perpetual poverty. That is desperation, not convenience. Poverty, health care, and teen pregnancy are the primary causes of abortion, and Regressives have no solid answer for any of them. If we address these problems—treat abortion as a symptom and not a cause—we can reduce the number of abortions to virtually none.

This compliments the Christian message perfectly. Marching outside abortion clinics with hate-filled messages on picket signs doesn’t stop abortions. It doesn’t even slow them down. Abortions can be reduced by following Christ’s directions to aid the poor and the sick. It is a Christian answer and a Progressive answer, and it could actually solve the problem. Imagine that! Regressive politicians would be horrified. They don’t want to solve the problem; they want to keep it alive as a political tool.

As William Saletan said in his Slate column, “the ideal number of abortions is zero.” Should women’s rights groups fear this approach? Is this just a prelude to robbing women of their rights? Those who really care about the plight of women need to take a very close look at this brand of pro-choice that also seeks to reduce abortions. When an abortion happens, after all, it means that something has gone wrong—an unplanned pregnancy, a rape, a health crisis. The progressive pro-choice answer is to minister to the needs of women, and reduce the causes of abortion. It is, at its core, pro-women. It is the opposite of the Regressive approach.

This new approach is pro-choice, but it is a sort of pro-life pro-choice. It insists that abortions remain safe and legal, but it seeks to reduce the number of abortions by helping women in their times of need. The approach needs a name to distinguish it from the other lines of thought. I’m not especially gifted at coming up with creative names, but for now I’ll simply stick with Pro-Women. I think that about sums it up.

“Mr. Lower, are you Pro-Life or are you Pro-Choice?”

“I am Pro-Women.”

Maybe not. If Arnold Schwarzenegger used that term, it could take on a whole different connotation.

© 2005 Bryan Lower

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