Circuit Writer

This is my most recent post for the Xenia Institute, now featured at Dialogic Magazine.  I encourage you to take your comments to the original article at the Dialogic website.

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The announcement of Justice John Paul Stevens’ retirement has led to a flurry of media activity around the beltway. The news has been greeted with praise from his colleagues on the court along with nearly everyone else in the political establishment, including his ideological opponents. But perhaps the more important question left to us is: what will happen next? Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog thinks that it will be a “pretty efficient” process that will ultimately lead to the irony of a more conservative court under a Democratic president. Jack Balkin agrees that Obama’s first priority in will likely be to avoid expending too much political capital in a midterm election year; however, he goes on to offer what he views as a potential second priority:

Associate Justice John Paul Stevens posing for photographs at the Supreme Court, September 29, 2009. UPI/Gary Fabiano/POOL Photo via Newscom Content © 2010 Newscom

Second, and equally important, President Obama will nominate someone who is likely to sustain the President’s policies while he is in office, first, on the issues he cares about most at the time and, secondarily, the issues necessary to keep his political coalition together … [These might include] support for the constitutionality of the recently passed health care bill, preservation of Roe v. Wade (as modified by Casey), and support for robust (but not necessarily unilateral) Presidential power in surveillance, detention, military commission, rendition, and other war on terror issues.

This will present an interesting scenario according to Michael Kinsley at The Atlantic. He wonders if the Republican’s desire to expend political capital isn’t also at question. Noting their care to avoid the term “conservative” in the discussions surrounding Stevens’ replacement, he raises questions as to where their priorities might lie in the upcoming nomination process: continue reading…

The latest column for The Tahlequah Christian, written for the week of April 11-17.

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These past few weeks and months have been interesting on the political scene. The national picture has witnessed massive legislative and foreign policy shifts that will likely mark significant changes in how we understand ourselves as a nation. And while this may turn out to be a good thing, in the short run it may leave us feeling uncertain, unsettled, and perhaps even confused. For some, this is already the case, and the results have become chaotic. continue reading…

Here’s a post written for the Xenia Institute, which will be posted following the roll out of our new website and online magazine of opinion, reflection, and dialogue.  I’ll post a link to the article as soon as its available at our new site.

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Senate Bill 1965 was born on February 1, 2010 in the Oklahoma State Senate to Senator Harry Coates.  It passed from this life around April 4, 2010 in the House Judiciary Committee with numerous family members by its side.

The Oklahoma State Senate in session. (Photo by Becky J. McCray/Flickr, used under Creative Commons 2.0)

Senate Bill “SB” 1965 entered the world as an Open Meetings and Records Act, filled with hope for providing transparency in government and the freeing of information.  Showing great potential, “SB” was quickly enrolled in the Senate Education Committee where it excelled in athletics, maturing into an “An Act relating to schools; creating the Task Force on the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association.”  With a bright future before it, SB 1965 graduated, eagerly looking forward to life after education. continue reading…

Here’s an excerpt from Chris Hedge’s latest column at TruthDig.  It’s well worth the read.

The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.

“We are ruled not by two parties but one party,” Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. “It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded.”

Read the rest of the article.

This is a cross posting of my article for the Xenia Institute.  I encourage you to visit our site and ask that you please post any comments you might have on the original article here.

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Last week the Pentagon made a not entirely unexpected move to raise the standards for prosecution of military personnel under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Not surprisingly, voices within the military immediately began creating a stir about issues of conscience and freedom of religion, using the same tired logic surrounding hate crimes legislation here in Oklahoma. This was paralleled by the logistical argument enunciated by Air Force Gen. Norton A. Schwartz while testifying before Congress, in which he asked that legislators not “perturb the force” in time of war. While I have a difficult time understanding how the removal of over 13,000 service members under DADT since its inception doesn’t qualify as perturbing the force, especially considering that over 800 of those removed from service had critical skills such as Arabic, I find it even more frustrating that those opposed to removing this unjust policy continue to trot out the same collection of unfounded arguments. Ruth Marcus at TruthDig appears to share my frustrations:

WASHINGTON - MARCH 18: People sign their names during a rally in support of a repeal of the 'Don't Ask, Don t Tell' policy March 18, 2010 at the Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Perturb the force? Of course, the same arguments could be—in fact, they were—made about racial integration. It is particularly infuriating that the generals would invoke the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an excuse for not lifting the ban. If anything, “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been an impediment to the military during these operations. In an era of stop-loss recalls because forces have been stretched so thin, thousands of service members have been discharged because of their sexuality. continue reading…

In a previous post I covered SB 1965, a legislative effort by Senator Steve Russell (R – Oklahoma City) to effectively opt Oklahoma out of the recently adopted hate crime provisions of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.  While I want to refrain from questioning the senator’s motivations, I have no problem questioning his intentions.  In a press release he spells out a clear opposition to the Shepard Act:

Oklahoma currently has tough, good laws that include hate crimes laws. Any murder or brutal assault is hateful. That is the problem with singling out something more with this federal law.  I believe this legislation far exceeds the powers of government over states as outlined in the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  I am also very concerned that this loosely defined and ill-conceived legislation could be used to target people’s belief, freedom to associate in groups, right to assemble on issues, as well as target people’s right to free speech.

The Oklahoma State Capitol building. (Photo by Daniel Mayer, used under Creative Commons 3.0)

What Russell fails to mention is that Oklahoma’s current statute does not include a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity as motivations for a hate crime.  In his rush to defend the privileges of the empowered, Senator Russell runs roughshod over the basic human rights of members of the LGBTQIA community.  As a commenter on my previous post pointed out, the failure to prosecute the perpetrators of hate crimes creates an continue reading…

The irony of the day is that as the debate rages over scrapping “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and allowing people of the LGBTQI community to serve openly in the armed forces, the Oklahoma legislature is actively working to prohibit state law enforcement agencies from cooperating in federal hate crime investigations. A bill sponsored by Senator Steve Russell (R – Oklahoma City) introduces changes to the state code designed to do exactly that. On its face, the most recent revision of the bill (Senate floor substitute) may sound innocuous:

WASHINGTON - APRIL 12 (2007): Judy Shepard, mother of hate crime victim Matthew Shepard, wipes away tears during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

An Act relating to criminal investigations … which relates to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation; limiting disclosure of certain investigative information; prohibiting state employees from assisting a federal agency under certain circumstances. continue reading…

Bayh has always been shall we say a frustrating sort. Never a profile in courage.

This marks perhaps the kindest response from the liberal blogosphere to Evan Bayh’s decision to leave the Senate.  Michael Tomasky’s thoughts from across the pond (The Guardian is published in the United Kingdom) at least gives Bayh the benefit of the doubt as to his future.  Perhaps because there is talk that his hasty exit might open the way to a Republican takeover of his seat on November, the conservative blogs have been somewhat kinder.  John Stossel offers a positive view of the move based on Bayh’s remarks that he could create more jobs in private industry.  This drew a strong response from Matthew Yglesias: continue reading…

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.

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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.

So in a rather unexpected turn of events I ended up getting involved in the politics of the old hometown.  Well, at least editorially speaking, anyway.  I happened across a copy of the newspaper from back home, the Centralia Fireside Guard, when my parents visited for the Christmas holiday.  The front page included an article that caught my attention.  Firstly, for its content: an meeting of the Board of Aldermen that included voting on provisions to update the city’s non-discrimination ordinances to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” and secondly, for its character.  More specifically, a character in the story whom I both know and am acquainted with.  So here’s a look at the highlights from the article that most concerned me (the complete article happens to be posted on the Fireside Guard website):

One speaker, for example, was Larry Lewis, interim pastor of the Centralia 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?”

[Aldermen] Orsini and Parmeley tried to explain; citing language in the bill and its supporting ordinance that specifically excluded religious organizations. He suggested the bill could lead to immorality and wanted to know if it would affect hiring practices for churches and religious schools. “No,” said Orsini, “you can discriminate to your heart’s content.” That led Lewis onto another tangent through which seemed to equate gay and transgender lifestyles with prostitution. “Would I be required to rent out a prostitute?” Orsini assured him he would not.

Perhaps a moment of explanation is due before I move on to my response.  For one, I wholeheartedly support the passing of the three proposed changes to the city ordinances.  The ordinances in question included updating the Unlawful Housing Practices, Unlawful Employment Practices, and Unlawful Public Accommodation Practices; Chapters 8.1, 7.1, and 7.2 of City Code for all of those interested.  However, I found myself most concerned by the arguments offered by Rev. Larry Lewis, the interim pastor of First Baptist in Centralia.  But before I go on to post my letter to the editor (which was published in this last week’s edition of the paper), I should note that I’m acquainted with Rev. Lewis.  My father has farmed land owned by the Lewis family and I’ve met him a couple of times along the way.  And this isn’t the first time I’ve been on the opposite side of the issues with Larry.  In 1992 I rather matter-of-factly informed him, as only a 12-year-old can do, that the Toronto Blue Jays were going to fly in a poop on the heads of his Atlanta Braves in the World Series.  But before I digress too far, here’s my response to his concerns about the first amendment violations within these proposed (and sadly defeated) city ordinances:

To the Editor,

It is with a sense of sadness that I write in regard to the recent failure of the city to pass nondiscrimination ordinances with regard to sexual orientation and gender identification.  However, I write to specifically challenge Rev. Larry Lewis’ assertion that these ordinances would violate the separation of church and state.  Having read the language of the bills, including specific exemptions for religious or sectarian organizations or corporations, his claims that these ordinances violate first amendment separations are simply inconsistent with their language.  In fact, I would go a step further to argue that his actions more closely border on violating the separation of church and state.  By claiming to speak for “Centralia’s faith community,” he asks the city to implicitly enforce a certain religious moral perspective.  Just as the separation clause in the U.S. Constitution serves to protect religious institutions from government interference, it also serves to protect the state from the moral tyranny of religion; a tyranny all too often unchecked.

Yet in spite of our differences, Rev. Lewis and I do share two things in common.  We are both religious leaders and we both have ties to the Centralia community.  I just find it unfortunate when we can’t agree that the same Jesus who fought discrimination by associating with the poor and unemployed, lepers, widows, sinners, tax collectors, drunkards, and other societal outcasts 2000 years ago wouldn’t also fight discrimination and division today.

Respectfully,

Clint Collins

Pastor, First Christian Church of Tahlequah, Oklahoma

While it may appear that I stuck it to the good reverend pretty hard, the language of the proposed changes to city code supports my position.  The changes to the code concerning Unlawful Housing Practices appear to have no impact on religious organizations and corporations as far as I can tell.  However, the changes concerning Unlawful Employment Practices, and Unlawful Public Accommodation Practices do have ramifications for religious institutions.  Yet, as I read the language of these documents, they contain very specific exemptions that prevent the state from dictating to the church on these matters.  The changes to the Chapter 7.1 covering Unlawful Employment Practices contains a small, but clear exemption found in the definitions under Section 7.1-1 pertaining to definitions:

EMPLOYER: Any person employing six or more persons within the state of Missouri, and any person directly acting in the interest of an employer, but does not include corporations or associations owned and operated by religious or sectarian groups.

This definition can be found on page 41 of the Agenda for the Board of Aldermen for December 21.

Likewise, the changes to Chapter 7.2 covering Unlawful Public Accommodation Practices also offer clear exemptions.  In fact, this one appears to be wide enough to drive a large truck through.  Here is the exemption Section 7.2-3, subsection C:

C.. The provisions of this section shall not apply to a private club, a place of accommodation owned by or operated on behalf of a religious corporation, association or society, or other establishment which is not in fact open to the public, unless the facilities of such establishments are made available to the customers or patrons of a place of public accommodation.

This exemption can be found on page 48 of the Agenda for the Board of Aldermen for December 21.

I think the saddest thing about the whole affair is that my own fears appear to be true.  The fact that the separation of church and state clause serves to protect not only the church from government interference, but the government and the people from oppressive religious overreach has been lost on many in this country.  Too quickly we have forgotten the mythic history of our nation that this country was founded on the principles that the state could not enforce religious doctrines or impose pietistic moralities upon individuals.  In instances like this, in my own humble little hometown of Centralia, we continue to hide behind half of the first amendment separation clause in order to impose our own rules upon one another.

If this isn’t the oppression of empire that Jesus actively opposed in his life and teachings, then I’m sad to say that after years of seminary training, I don’t know what is.