Circuit Writer

If I would’ve started a pool as to what issue would be the first to catch my attention in this new year, my money would not have been riding on church and state.   That is, at least, until I discovered what may seem like a relatively obscure action of taken by the Board of Aldermen from my hometown of Centralia, MO.  In their final meeting of 2009 they discussed three proposed ordinances that would have amended the city code’s non-discrimination protections to include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” a change that I welcome and support.  Unfortunately the meeting ended with a failure to pass the proposed changes by a vote of 4-2. However it wasn’t the inaction of the aldermen that concerned me; it was the religious activism on the part of a local pastor.  Here’s an excerpt of coverage from the local newspaper:

One speaker, for example, was Larry Lewis, interim pastor of the Centralia [First] Baptist Church. Suggesting he spoke for “Centralia’s faith community,” he said the ordinances violated the separation of church and state and would, among other things, give the city’s stamp of approval to those lifestyles. “This would be divisive when this community needs healing.”

This prompted me to look into the proposed ordinances for myself, and I was disappointed but not surprised to discover that the language of the bills included very specific exemptions for churches and other religious institutions and organizations.  (I write more about this at my own blog.)  The claim that the bills violated the separation clause was nothing more than political grandstanding designed to provide a supposedly “legal” cover for the public moralizing of an exclusivist religious perspective.  In actuality, this no-holds-barred attempt by so-called Christian interests to codify their own morality proved to be the greater threat to the separation clause.  In instances such as this, the dual meaning of “separation of church and state” is too often forgotten.  The first amendment not only protects religious institutions from encroachment by the state, but protects the state, and by extension its citizens, from the encroachment of religion.

I discovered that I wasn’t alone in this new year’s concern.  As I wrote about the moral tyranny of religion in local politics, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State wondered about similar issues at the national level.  They recently posted a report offering a look at President Obama’s record on this issue after one year.  Their findings aren’t nearly as gleeful as those on the Religious Right might have you believe:

There’s no denying that when Obama took office, many who stand guard on the church-state wall breathed a sigh of relief. The previous eight years had been difficult ones, and there was a sense that things had to get better because they really couldn’t get any worse.

…

But that doesn’t mean everything Obama has done has pleased advocates of church-state separation. Indeed, the Obama record on church and state is mixed. One year later, it’s a good time to step back and assess his record so far.

Lifting up Obama’s decision to open federal funding for stem cell research and inclusion of minority and non-religious voices in his speeches and public functions as highlights, this report goes on to address areas of concern.  Noting the President’s rather ambiguous record regarding appointments to federal judgeships, including the appointment of Justice Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the report goes on to raise real questions with regard to the administration’s positions concerning faith-based initiatives, school voucher programs, and church/state cases being pursued by the Department of Justice.  While I don’t necessarily share these concerns to the same extent that Americans United might, I do think they make legitimate points about Obama’s record on the separation between religion and politics.

Yet, as important as these collisions between religion and politics are, I’m left with a troubling question: If we are to honor the non/religious pluralism of our contemporary society, how do we effectively work to promote the common good?  And perhaps even more importantly, how do we even determine a common good?  While it should be apparent that I support the liberal (lowercase “L”) ideal of tolerance, I’m not blind to its problems.  Ethicist and scholar David Hollenbach perhaps describes them best:

In public life, all encompassing understandings of the common good must be subordinated to the importance of tolerance.  A live-and-let-live ethos thus leads to what John Dewey once called an “eclipse of the public.”  The good that can be achieved in the shared domain of public life is hidden from view as protection of individual, private well-being becomes the center of normative concern.

(David Hollenbach, The Common God and Christian Ethics, 10)

In an age of religious and nonreligious sectarianism, competing political visions, and outright discord and distrust, how do we seek out a vision for the shared good?  The health care debate that spanned the entirety of 2009 really exemplifies the difficulties we face.  The cries of nationalized health care and “death panels” drowned out the voices of reason for a rational public discussion.  And to make matters worse, this non-debate effectively silenced discussions on other important issues such as the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, apprehension, detainment and trial of suspected terrorists, and the plight of the poor, which extends to far more basic concerns than health care.

It is my hope for 2010 that we as a nation will work to find some means for engaging in national discussions that don’t automatically degenerate into shouting matches and propaganda wars.  Yet looking back at 2009, I’m left to wonder if we can actually summon the ethical wherewithal to make that hope a reality.

Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.