Category Archives: Kulturkampf

S.C. lawmakers discuss U.S. Constitutional convention

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When I saw this this morning:


I had nothing to go on, so I facetiously responded, “Here we go again. Tell the boys at The Citadel to break out the red flag…”

But based on the reporter’s subsequent Tweets, I’m guessing this is what it’s about:

Amending the U.S. Constitution to make marriage between only a man and woman. (Main sponsor: Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley)

That one kinda snuck up on me. I missed that story when it ran. Or maybe I saw it, and missed the thing about Grooms wanting a U.S. con-con, which was only mentioned in a bulleted sidebar, not the main story.

I’ll let you know if it turns out I’m wrong and its about something else.

A U.S. Constitutional convention, eh? If we do that, can we straighten out the language in the 2nd Amendment this time, do something about that oddly placed comma? Not this one, the first one.

Where Cameron Runyan is coming from

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File photo of Cameron Runyan in 2011.

File photo of Cameron Runyan in 2011.

Earlier this month, Cameron Runyan happened to run across my blog post from November, when I shared with y’all his written explanation of his lone vote against same-sex benefits.

He wanted to get together and “catch up,” so I met him for breakfast on Jan. 23.

At that time, he shared with me some of the story about how he came to be a lone culture warrior on Columbia City Council, among other things. I wasn’t sure at the time that I was going to write anything about the conversation, and took few notes (so Cameron, if I remember anything wrong, please let me know and I’ll correct it). Then I decided that I would write about it, but only after talking with his likely opponent in this year’s election, Tige Watts. I spoke with Mr. Watts Friday, making a point of taking more notes this time.

But first, the incumbent, starting with his conversion experience…

Cameron Runyan’s grandparents were missionaries, but he didn’t really get deeply into religion until just over three years ago.

He and his extended family were spending the Christmas holidays in the Caribbean. On Boxing Day 2011, he and a couple of other family members went out for a run (if you recall from something I wrote earlier that year, he had “disgustingly healthy habits”).

Suddenly, he could not go on. His muscles were seizing up, and he could hardly breathe. Apparently, it was a matter of dehydration or something of that sort — in any case, his electrolytes (which plants crave) were all out of whack. “The point of dehydration where I was is 50-60% fatal,” he added in a text to me today. “You more often die than live at that point. It was extremely dire and painful.” He thought this was it; he was dying. And as he lay more or less helpless on a bed in a medical facility later, trying to recover, he concluded that he was not happy with how he had lived his life thus far. He felt himself to be lacking the proper connection to something greater than himself.

Over the coming months, he plunged into a new sort of relationship with God, one with an evangelical flavor. For a time, his wife had a hard time dealing with the new Cameron. Then one day, he came home and she had undergone a conversion of her own. From then on, the Runyans were on the same journey, bringing their kids along with them.

For a good while, they attended services presided over by Det Bowers. Det was from Hampton County, where Cameron had grown up. And his life had followed in some ways a similar trajectory. Bowers was an attorney who managed Michael Dukakis’ campaign in South Carolina in 1988, and went on to become a preacher who would run to the right of Lindsey Graham in last year’s GOP primary.

But when Mr. Bowers gave up preaching, the Runyans ended up at Columbia’s First Presbyterian Church, well known as one of the most conservative large, brand-name congregations in the city. I showed my ignorance by saying that while I knew First Pres was pretty conservative, it wasn’t as conservative as A.R.P. Cameron said it is A.R.P. (which I think maybe I once knew, but had forgotten), and in fact the biggest Associate Reform Presbyterian church around.

A word or two about the A.R.P. denomination… While the only time I can recall entering an A.R.P. church was for Lee Bandy’s funeral, it looms large in my family tree. Look up the church’s history, and you see among the founders such names as Moffatt and Pressly, which are kin to my father’s mother. Erskine College is A.R.P., as was Erskine Caldwell, in spite of the sexually titillating books for which he became famous. In the years before my grandfather died in 1957, he and my grandmother had been living in a house on the edge of Due West owned by the president of Erskine. Billy Graham was brought up in an A.R.P. church, although he was later ordained as a Southern Baptist.

Among other things, Wikipedia notes that the denomination officially calls homosexuals “to repentance, cleansing, and deliverance in the saving power of Jesus Christ.”

So it is not surprising that when Cameron Runyan gets onto the subject of same-sex marriage, there is a good bit of talk about God’s will along with his objections to moral relativism, postmodernism and so forth.

I think I’ve fairly brought you up to date on that. Some other items from our conversation:

  • When he voted as he did on the benefits issue, I recall that a number of people expressed disappointment in him as a Democrat. Well, he doesn’t consider himself to be a Democrat any longer. (Remember, city council elections are nonpartisan.) As evidence of that, he pointed to his support of Mr. Bowers in last year’s Senate primary.
  • He didn’t want to talk about his relationship with Steve Benjamin who endorsed his candidacy last time around, and with whom he has been so closely allied for quite some time thereafter. But there are indications that that relationship is at best strained, compared to what it was.
  • While he is running for re-election in November, he says he won’t run again for this seat, after this time. I did not gather from that that he was retiring from politics; he just doesn’t want to hold this seat past one more term.
  • When I mentioned that it looked as though he had opposition, he said that yes, he’d heard that Joe Azar might run against him. He did not mention Tige Watts, whose yet-to-be-official candidacy has actually been the subject of some talk in the community.

Speaking of Mr. Watts, I’d best turn to my post about him…

 

Runyan stance may generate an actual challenge this year

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Remember Cameron Runyan’s solitary stance on a vote dealing with an aspect of the same-sex marriage issue?

There was a flurry of rhetoric at the time to the effect of “somebody oughta run against this guy.” There was a Twitter feed and everything — although the last Tweet was Dec. 10.

Well, “somebody” may. Free Times is reporting this:

On Nov. 18, Columbia City Council voted — by a count of 4-1 — to extend benefits to the spouses of city employees who are in legal same-sex marriages, including legal marriages from any of the 50 states. Councilman Cameron Runyan cast the lone dissenting vote.

Avatar from the "Replace Runyan" Twitter feed.

Avatar from the “Replace Runyan” Twitter feed.

A day later, on Nov. 19, longtime Columbia political consultant Tige Watts posted the following on his Facebook page: “As God is my witness, I will do everything I can to make sure Cameron Runyan is not re-elected to Columbia City Council 349 days from now.”

It’s looking like Watts wasn’t kidding.

On Monday afternoon, Watts told Free Times that he is heavily considering a run for the at-large seat on Columbia City Council currently occupied by Runyan. Watts says he is in the process of preparing campaign materials and would likely make an official announcement at the end of the month.

Runyan’s at-large post is one of three seats that will be up for election in November…

 

Graham on Paris terror attack

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Since reading about the terrorist attack in Paris this morning over breakfast I’ve meant to post something but been busy.

So I’ll share what Lindsey Graham put out, to get a conversation started:

Graham on Terror Attack in Paris

 

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement on this morning’s terrorist attack in Paris which has left at least 12 people dead.

 

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, the families, and the French people in the wake of this horrendous attack.

 

“Simply stated, radical Islam – through extreme violence and intimidation – is trying to replace our way of life with theirs.  I have no doubt they will ultimately fail, but the question is how many will be injured or killed before that day arrives?

 

“Here at home, we must use this horrific attack as an opportunity to reevaluate our own national security posture.  I fear our intelligence capabilities, those designed to prevent such an attack from taking place on our shores, are quickly eroding.  Through a combination of poor policy choices made by the Obama Administration regarding detention and interrogation policies, and budget cuts approved by the Congress with President Obama’s support, I believe our national security infrastructure designed to prevent these types of attacks from occurring is under siege.

 

“President Obama should immediately change his interrogation and detention policies as we are gradually losing the ability to detect, disrupt and prevent future terrorist attacks.  In addition, it is time to restore the necessary funding to our intelligence-gathering and national security operations.

 

“I fear we can expect and must prepare for more attacks like this in the future.  ISIL is well-funded and has an entrenched command structure that is actively inspiring terrorist attacks throughout the world.  And while President Obama has the right goal in destroying ISIL, I fear the policies he is using are grossly insufficient and leave our homeland increasingly exposed.

 

“Finally, we should acknowledge that radical Islamists have no limits when it comes to destruction and the taking of human life.  That is why it remains imperative that we never allow radical Islamic terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction.  While today’s attack in Paris involved conventional weapons, I fear the terrorist attacks of the future could be even more lethal and even more tragic if these organizations acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.  Denying them this capability is the challenge of the time.”

 

#####

Nice to see left and right getting together to back a pregnant woman

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This morning, I ran across this Tweet from a pro-life organization:

Later in the day, I got this release from the Population Connection Action Fund, which I gather is not exactly what anyone would call rabidly pro-pregnancy:

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Peggy Young v. UPS, a pregnancy discrimination case. We are appalled that in the year 2014 pregnant women continue to face injustice in the workplace at the hands of employers whose actions are wrongly legitimized by lower courts’ narrow interpretation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

Population Connection Action Fund stands firmly with Ms. Young in her fight for rectitude against UPS. No pregnant woman in the United States, or any country for that matter, should be stripped of her right to receive valid accommodations from an employer if she has a substantiated medical need…

I’m glad to see folks from both sides of the Culture Wars banding together to defend a woman in need.

Of course, if you read a bit further in each organization’s statements, you get to language where they are gulfs apart.

But I take these blessed moments of togetherness wherever I can find them.

Here’s an NPR story about the case that brought them together…

Runyan defends his lone vote against same-sex benefits

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I hadn’t really pictured Cameron Runyan as a culture warrior. But here, in the process of defending a vote, he takes on moral relativism, postmodernism, and other newfangled stuff.

Not the sort of stuff you usually hear city councilmen going on about.

Anyway, I pass it on verbatim:

Cameron Runyan for Columbia City Council
Why I cannot support the redefinition of marriage
My recent, lone vote against providing homosexual couples with marriage benefits has caused quite a stir in the capital city of Columbia.  I hope this will shed a ray of light on my action.
Let me first address two primary issues.  First, nothing I say below on this topic means that I do not care deeply about the people who are in the midst of these issues.  I do care, and will continue to care for them.  I also pray that as they read this, they can be as respectful of my worldview as they require others to be of theirs.  Second, there was a time in my life when I believed, like an increasing number in our culture, that what is truth for one person may or may not be truth for another person.  I believed that we should essentially let people do whatever makes them happy within their version of truth.
However, a few years ago, my eyes were opened to the reality that the increasing moral relativism of our post-modern culture is contributing to the unraveling of the societal foundations we all depend on.  Because so many in our culture now see all moral issues as being relative to the individual, we are quickly becoming a society where any absolute moral truth no longer exists.  Nowhere is this more apparent than with the contemporary issues surrounding human sexuality.
Twenty-five years ago, there was not one country on the planet where same sex marriage was legal.  Today, the push to redefine marriage and sexuality has become the issue of utmost moral urgency in our culture.  This movement has led us to redefine gender and the central institution of the family in ways that no previous generation in the history of the world could imagine.  We now face the once incomprehensible notion that a person can choose their gender and, further that they can choose the type of marriage arrangement they desire within their chosen gender.  The fruit of this unprecedented revolution is that absolute moral truths have been exchanged for a relativistic belief system in which nothing can be known with certainty.
City Council’s vote addressed same sex couples but the impact of this moral revolution extends far beyond that because once moral absolutes are removed, anything goes.  Even Facebook is in on the revolution.  Users there can now choose from more than fifty different gender options.  Earlier this year in Utah, a judge struck down that state’s anti-polygamy law opening the way for polygamous and polyamorous marriages.
In Germany, the restraints are even being removed from incest to allow for sexual fulfillment.  A recent ruling there declared, “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.”
Historic women’s colleges are now being forced to accept transgender men and are, ironically in the position of discriminating against women in favor of men.  On other college campuses, students are being encouraged to choose their “preferred gender pronoun” and to change them as often as they wish.  These students may literally choose to be male today, female tomorrow and to have no gender next week.
The moral revolution in the educational arena is also entering our high schools as well.  In a Kentucky high school, a child who was born a boy, but now identifies as a girl, has recently been allowed to use the lady’s facilities along with the school’s girls.
At the end of the day, I have been elected as one of three at-large, city wide officials to represent all the people of our state’s capital city.  The balance of council did their job representing one portion of Columbia.  I have chosen to represent the rest.

In service,

Cameron Runyan

Councilman, City of Columbia, SC

Maybe the terrorist who killed Foley was a British subject, but there’s no way he was a ‘Westerner’

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News reports such as this one challenge our convictions about citizenship and identity in a modern, pluralistic, liberal democracy:

LONDON — The beheading of an American journalist at the hands of a London-accented extremist prompted deep reckoning among Britons on Wednesday over the particularly vicious role their countrymen are playing in the destabilization of the Middle East.

Security officials in London have been sounding the alarm for more than a year over the large number of foreigners in Syria, with the chief of Scotland Yard telling reporters last week that about 500 Britons are among the thousands of Westerners who have joined the fight….

I’ll confess right now that my first reaction is one that is unworthy of someone who prizes living in a pluralistic society. My first thought is, “That was no Englishman. That was a foreigner who had lived in England.”

But then, I have to correct myself: If Scotland Yard says there are “500 Britons” fighting for ISIS, then I have to take it to me that they hold British passports (I sincerely doubt that the Yard is referring to the old ethnic identity of Briton, as in the people who lived in Albion before the Angles and the Saxons showed up.)

And if they hold UK passports, then they are Brits. They are British subjects, with the same rights and privileges as Sir Paul McCartney or Hugh Laurie or David Cameron. That’s the way it is, and the way it should be. To say they are less English (or less British) than James Bond because they belonged to a culture that made them likely to become Islamist terrorists is to deny what separates us from the cultural fascists of ISIS.

However, all of that said… I still don’t see how they, or the 100 or so Americans among the terrorists, can be called “Westerners.” That implies a cultural orientation, one which these fighters categorically and viciously reject. Western culture is something they are against, presumably. They may hold passports from Western nations, but everything they are cries out against all that is Western — including our pious, correct insistence that legally, they are just as British as Monty Python.

Terrorists such as these challenge our vocabulary. We must choose our words carefully, as we are trying to define a new thing, a thing that if it had its way would kill us all. A decidedly unWestern thing…

France isn’t anti-Muslim, just anti-religion. Feel better?

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Oh, I miss my Economist subscription, which the newspaper used to pay for.

But fortunately, the magazine did allow me today to read the piece promoted by this Tweet:


And here, basically, is the answer to the question:

France adheres to a strict form of secularism, known as laïcité, which is designed to keep religion out of public life. This principle was entrenched by law in 1905, after fierce anti-clerical struggles with the Roman Catholic church. Today, the lines are in some ways blurred. The French maintain, for instance, certain Catholic public holidays, such as Ascension. But secular rules on the whole prevail. It would be unthinkable in France, for example, to hold a nativity play in a state primary school, or for a president to be sworn in on a Bible.

Over the past 30 years, in response to a growing assertiveness among the country’s 5m-6m Muslims, the focus of this effort to balance religious and secular needs has shifted to Islam. After a decade of legal uncertainty over the wearing of the headscarf in state schools, the French government in 2004 banned all “conspicuous” religious symbols, including the Muslim headscarf, from public institutions such as state schools or town halls. This was followed in 2010 by what the French call the “burqa ban”, outlawing the full face covering in public. Critics accuse France of illiberalism, of curbing freedom of religious expression, and of imposing a Western interpretation of female oppression. Amnesty International, for example, called the recent European court ruling “a profound retreat for the right to freedom of expression and religion”. For the French, however, it is part of an unapologetic effort to keep religious expression private, and to uphold the country’s republican secular identity. Interestingly, many moderate Muslim leaders also back the ban as a bulwark against hard-line Islam….

So now you see. The French aren’t anti-Muslim. Just anti-religion. Sorta.

That will make some of you feel better, and some worse…

Arrested for getting ‘Happy’ in Iran

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Thought this was an interesting slice-of-life-on-the-other-side-of-the-universe item: Iranian students arrested for having made a popular video based on the pop song, “Happy.”

Hassan Rouhani Tweeted his dissent from the official disapproval, thereby asserting his “moderate” cred abroad and, I suppose, playing “good cop” for domestic consumption:

The kids in the video are reported to be out of jail now, but not the director. You know, the authorities can’t be too careful with a dangerous character like that guy. People can’t be allowed to just wander around loose making upbeat, G-rated videos that make people smile…

Below is the full video:

Aw, Jeez, Edith! Not with the Culture Wars again…

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Corey Hutchins must have seen my post a couple of days ago worrying that we’re getting cranked up again on the Kulturkampf stuff two years ahead of the presidential election.

Or maybe he just remembers me bemoaning the use of issues that serve only to divide us, to separate us into camps of “us” versus “them,” back in 2012.

In any case, he tormented me today by sending a link to this item:

Speaking to GOP gatherings in the early presidential primary state of South Carolina this week, Rick Santorum had a message for Republicans running this year: the culture wars still work as a message….

“Folks, the economy is important, but you know what’s more important? The culture. Look at the culture in America. Look at what’s happening to families in America. Look at what’s happening to marriage, to children. Look at the culture. It’s disintegrating in front of us. And as a result people are insecure….”

All I could say in response was to quote Archie Bunker: “Aw, Jeez, Edith!”

But on second thought, I did like the rest of that quote:

“…And as a result people are insecure. They’re afraid … and when people are afraid, the last thing they want to hear is ‘And we’re going to cut this, and we’re going to cut that, and we’re going to take them away from these people who don’t want to work.’ Not the kind of message that’s going to win you a lot of folks who are a little nervous — I’m not talking about the 47 percent —I’m talking about all of their friends and neighbors who feel that they are close to being part of that 47 percent.”

If he’s saying that maybe Republicans should give all the “shrink government to a size that you can drown it in a bathtub” stuff a rest, and stop demonizing people who actually depend on the “safety net” that Reagan used to speak of… well, that would be a positive thing.’

But must it come at the cost of more Kulturkampf?

College of Charleston play flap draws national attention

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Washpost

At this moment, the centerpiece story at the WashPost site is this one:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — More than 750 people packed into a city auditorium here this week for a sold-out production of “Fun Home,” a musical by a New York-based troupe about a woman coming to terms with her closeted gay father’s suicide. The crowd rose in a standing ovation before the show even began.

The emotional reaction was part of a worsening political battle between South Carolina’s public universities and conservative Republican lawmakers, who argue that campus culture should reflect the socially conservative views of the state.

The state’s House of Representatives recently voted to cut $52,000 in funding for the College of Charleston as punishment for assigning students to read “Fun Home,” the graphic novel that formed the basis for the play. House lawmakers endorsed a similar budget cut for the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg for using a different book with gay themes in its reading program.

Republican lawmakers also helped pave the way for the appointment of a controversial GOP state official as the College of Charleston’s next president, sparking campus protests.

The fights serve as a reminder that rapid national shifts on social issues — particularly gay rights — are hardly universal and remain hotly contested across much of the Deep South. The views of people in South Carolina carry particular weight given the state’s early presidential primary, which gives voters here the power to help shape the GOP ticket every four years….

You had probably heard about most of this. I hadn’t heard about the play angle.

It seems like WashPost regards this as a pretty big deal, on account of our early primary. I hadn’t thought of it that way until now.

Remember how, early in 2012, I worried about the way Kulturkampf issues were being used to divide us in that election? Here we go again, y’all — two years early…

Haley also being nice to the arts this year

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I saw I had an email the other day from the South Carolina Arts Alliance, and I figured, “Well, it’s about that time, when they’re gearing up to fight Nikki Haley’s budget.” I assumed this was the first of a series of increasingly frantic notices, as in 2012 and 2013.

So I didn’t actually look at the release until just now, as I was trying clean up my Inbox. And I saw this:

art advocates

Whoa.

I knew she was seeking to add funding for poor rural school districts, and boost spending on mental health, but now the arts?

I suppose the Democrats will call that election-year opportunism as well, but that raises the question: Is she right? Assume she’s being a complete opportunist here: Is the woman who road to power on the love of the Tea Party right when she now concludes that this is the way to get re-elected.

If so, when and how did this change in the SC electorate occur?

There’s another way for cynics and partisans to read it, of course — that Nikki believes she has the Tea Party sewn up, and she can afford to go fishing in the political center. But from what I’ve seen, if you don’t agree with those folks on everything, they don’t believe in you. Is there any fury like a Tea Party scorned?

The most interesting thing in all this is not what it does to Nikki Haley’s political future, but whether there has been an actual sea change in the electorate. And if there has been, what does it all mean, Mr. Natural?

A wonderfully temperate and respectful speech on an emotional issue

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Andrew Sullivan embedded this video from the Scottish parliament earlier this week because he saw it as “The Conservative Case For Marriage Equality.”

I was impressed with it for another reason: It was so thoughtful, mature and respectful to people who might disagree.

We don’t see a lot of that on this side of the pond when it comes to these Culture War issues. For that matter, we seldom see politicians sincerely addressing themselves to people who disagree with them about anything — the parties are so far apart that speeches are just about lambasting the opposition, and gaining the admiration of those who agree.

Unlike the rhetoric I routinely see in press releases, or in commentary on the Web, there is no name-calling, no castigation of those who disagree as narrow-minded bigots, as the spiritual heirs of lynch mobs.

Instead, we have thoughts such as those contained in this passage:

I therefore commend all of the contributors to this debate over the past few months and years who have sought to make thoughtful contributions, to elevate the ideas and to temper the language, displaying a respect for beliefs which differ from their own, but recognizing that those beliefs are just as sincerely held.

And I hope that that temperance will continue this evening, demonstrating that while this may be a fledgling parliament, that it has a maturity too….

If this woman, Ruth Davidson, is a representative sample, hers is a mature parliament, indeed.

What Sheheen said at the SC Pride Festival

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Corey Hutchins is working out of Charleston these days, but he’s still out there reporting stuff that you might wonder about, but don’t read about elsewhere.

He did a story for Charleston City Paper about Vincent Sheheen’s unheralded appearance at the huge SC Pride Festival in Columbia over the weekend.

Not only that, he managed to get ahold of what Sheheen said at the event, which follows:

Friends, I want to thank you for inviting me here today – not just having me but welcoming me. And I couldn’t help but think of today’s theme: A Part not Apart. To me, being a part means listening, and hearing and sharing and celebrating our differences and also our similarities. I want to be a leader where everyone has a part. That means working together to protect South Carolinians from unfair treatment, bullying at work, at school, wherever it may be for any reason, for you and for anyone. It means working together to make sure workplace protections are in place to ensure people can’t be fired, fired because of their race or their gender or their religion or their sexual orientation. We all know that in South Carolina it’s one of the hardest places to earn a living and be successful. We have one of the highest unemployment rates in America, and we need to work together if we’re going to change that. And we want everybody to be able to work together. We’re not going to agree on everything, but we’ll be honest and listen and work as we strive together to make a better South Carolina. And only together, only together can we be successful. Only together can we salve the wounds that we’ve had in South Carolina for so long. Only together will we move forward. We’ll all be a part. And we won’t be apart. Together we’ll do it. Thank you so much for letting me be with you.

As I read that, it’s pretty consistent with what Vincent has said in the past, and what I had to say about it recently. Basically, what he’s saying overall to the voters in this constituency is that he appreciates and respects them and shares many of their goals, but doesn’t agree with them about everything.

Which people are allowed to do. In fact, I’ll bet not everyone participating in the SC Pride Festival agrees with everyone else who was there about everything, even about what you might call core issues.

I know that in this binary-thinking world, in which everyone is supposed to agree either with every position of the left or every position of the right, that’s hard to imagine. But people are allowed to agree with folks about some things, and not about others.

I think maybe the pope’s thinking the way I do on Kulturkampf

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At first, I was sort of confused.

When I saw this headline on the NYT app Thursday night: “Pope Bluntly Faults Church’s Focus on Gays and Abortion.”

… I thought, What focus? Where’s he been going to Mass?

Because in my experience, there is no particular focus on those things, in actual Catholic churches. And the Church I know is certainly not “obsessed” with those things, as the pontiff said.

All of you who are not Catholic are now asking where I’ve been, that I don’t know the Church is “obsessed” with those things.

Here’s where I’ve been — I’ve actually been in the Church, rather than experiencing it as it is written about by secular media. And I cannot recall when I’ve heard a single homily concentrating on any of those topics. Occasionally, during the petitions, I’ve heard an affirmation of life mentioned among all the other things we’re praying for. But “obsession”? “Focus,” even? No. Not part of my experience.

Now I do hear that there are some parishes that do have more of such a “focus.” But I don’t know that from personal experience.

It’s the rest of the world that thinks about those things, constantly, and only interacts with the Church in terms of its positions on those subjects. That’s pretty much all most Catholics seem to know about us. Well, that, and pedophilia. A topic that also fails to intersect with my experience of the Church.

The only intersection I can recall in this diocese between these separate perceptions is when then-Bishop Robert Baker was one of the bishops who said politicians who favor abortion on demand should not receive Communion. But I mostly read about that in the paper. I don’t recall it intruding into my parish life. And I don’t recall of hearing of anyone actually being denied communion in this diocese, although maybe it happened.

I want to say there was another bishop’s letter regarding a political issue sometime since then, but I don’t remember what it was about. It just didn’t have much impact on my experience of church life.

Oh, wait — I remember now that our current bishop, Robert Guglielmone, wrote a letter advocating for Medicaid expansion in SC. Does that count? Probably not.

So I was wondering what the pope was on about.

But when I read some other versions of the story, with different headlines (such as the WSJ’s “Pope Warns Church Focusing Too Much on Divisive Issues”), I got it.

Pope Francis was, in a way, doing what I did as editorial page editor at The State. Not to elevate myself to the level of the Holy Father or anything.

Y’all know I have an aversion to seeing Culture War issues intrude upon our politics. It’s because of the habit of thought I developed as EPE. My view was that there were all sorts of things we needed to talk about in South Carolina — economic development, education, our dysfunctional form of government, the need for comprehensive tax reform. It was tough enough to try to have constructive conversations about those things, untainted by partisan, ideological foolishness, without wasting any capital we had on issues that were hopelessly divisive.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, we could accomplish in terms of changing minds on abortion, or same-sex marriage, or any of those kinds of things. Both sides in the partisan battles in this country used those issues for one purpose — to divide. As a sort of password to identify “their” people — to identify the good, right-thinking people — and to delegitimize those who disagreed.

All we could have accomplished by writing about such things would have been to make close to half our readers furious, thereby closing their minds to anything we had to say about pragmatic solutions to the issues we could actually do something about here in South Carolina.

I still don’t like to see such issues take a front-and-center position in our politics, because they drive us apart, and make it even harder to have constructive conversations on anything else.

Anyway, what does that have to do with what the Pope said?

Well, to begin with, this pontifex maximus is a very humble guy. He doesn’t care about winning argument points. And he understands that in terms of the way the world interacts with the church, perception is reality. So never mind that the church isn’t really obsessed with these things. It’s perceived as being so, and that erects walls between the church and lots of people who would otherwise be open to its central reasons for being.

So, he very publicly lets the world know that while he is Pope, the church will not be “obsessed” with such things. He’s not for a moment backing away from church teachings on those matters, but he assures us that he and the church he heads aren’t going to be going on and on about them. From E.J. Dionne’s column on the subject:

Francis responded plainly in the interview. “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible,” he said. “I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”

As the WSJ described them, his remarks “appeared intended to nudge the church away from politically charged issues by setting out a vision of a church that is more welcoming and less preoccupied with emphasizing doctrine.”

Doctrine. That’s the key word, I think.

This pope’s predecessor was an enforcer of doctrine. That’s how he made his bones in the church. Under John Paul II, he was the bad cop, the modern-day version of a Grand Inquisitor. He was Mr. Rules and Regulations.

This pope is more about the central issues that our faith is about. Love, mercy, open arms and healing hearts. And he doesn’t want to be going on and on about things that distract from that, or to have the world think the church is going on and on about those things.

I like this Pope.

Pope Francis is right: Read all the Dostoevsky you can

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You may have heard by now what the Pope had to say on the plane flight back from Brazil, and he’s absolutely right: He told the reporters they should “read and reread” Dostoevsky.

Or maybe you missed it. Most of the news stories about his informal papal bull session have been about what he said about gay priests. That didn’t seem as newsworthy to me, but then unlike much of the world, I didn’t think that the church hated gay people. What those remarks told us is that this pope is personally very different from the last pope, which is a good thing. In terms of style and orientation and emphasis, we’ve gone from a Grand Inquisitor to a parish priest, with all the best things such a pastoral role suggests — loving, welcoming, kindly, caring deeply about the “least of these.”

As we go along, I expect a lot of people who think the church is hateful will be pleasantly surprised. For me, it will be pleasant, but less of a surprise.

Here’s another prediction — this pope is going to get good press, so he’s going to seem like a nicer, friendlier guy, whatever he says. Why do I say that? Because he’ll walk to the back of the plane or bus or whatever and bat the breeze with the media types, no holds barred. John Paul II did that, and you know what good press “John Paul the Great” got. Whereas Herr Benedict only took prepared, screened questions. Reporters love a guy who’s generous with access, and spontaneous. It has always puzzled some people why the press was historically so kind to John McCain. He did the same thing, long before there was such a thing as the “Straight Talk Express.” And the press loved him for it.

The WSJ story was headlined, “Pope Signals Openness to Gay Priests.” It probably would have captured him in a nutshell if it had just said, “Pope Signals Openness,” period.

But while I was sort of kidding about the Dostoevsky thing as big news, I’d like to know more of what he said about that. This pope has made news mentioning Dostoevsky previously, in a recent encyclical. But since that document was put together on the previous pope’s watch, no one knew for sure whether it signaled a particular interest in the Russian master on the part of Francis.

The Holy Father says, read more of this guy.

The Holy Father says, read more of this guy.

Anyway, his comment — however sketchily reported — about reading Dostoevsky does what the previous pope was so good at. It’s made me feel guilty. I read Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov when I was in college (the first as a class assignment, the second on my own), but haven’t reread either since then, and have never gotten around to such other masterpieces as The Idiot (which was specifically mentioned in the encyclical).

I suspect the pope recommended such reading because Dostoevsky is way, way deep on moral issues. Which is why I should have read him more by now. Yet I haven’t, while reading O’Brian’s novels about the Napoleonic Wars over and over and over and over (on my fifth time through the earlier novels now). Ditto with John le Carre.

What’s really awful is that I go around citing Crime and Punishment all the time, thereby giving an artificial impression that I’m way, way deep, too. Or maybe not. People can probably see through that…

But I hereby resolve to do better. I downloaded The Idiot to my iPad this morning. That counts for something, right? I feel more serious already, almost profound.

Isn’t it cool how, in ebook form at least, all the greatest literature is free now?

Looks like Tom Davis regrets not running in 1st District

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While we’re speculating whether Tom Davis will change his mind and run against Lindsey Graham after all, it looks like Tom himself is sort of regretting that he didn’t run for the 1st Congressional District. Here’s his reaction, on Facebook, to the campaign’s descent into cultural wedge issues:

Two days ago in SC 1st district GOP primary, it was creationism, now it’s gay marriage. Ridiculous. Obsession with using the coercive power of the federal government in such “social conservative” matters is inconsistent with the principle of limited and constitutional government. I wish one of the candidates had answered the gay-marriage question like this: “I oppose federal government efforts to redefine marriage as something other than a union between one man and one woman, and my personal belief is that marriage should be between a single man and a single woman. But I also oppose federal government efforts to define marriage as only the union between a single man and a single woman. The federal government has only those powers delegated to it in the constitution and defining what constitutes a marriage is not one of them.”

Grooms jumps into Culture Wars with both feet

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Larry Grooms has apparently decided that Kulturkampf is the way to differentiate himself from the rest of the Gang of 16 in the GOP primary for the 1st Congressional District:

Charleston, SC – In a political shocker last night at the College of Charleston Forum – not one Republican up on stage stood up and supported traditional marriage being between one man and one woman.

In fact, the Post and Courier this morning, published an article titled, “1st Congressional District Candidates Speak Up on Gay Marriage, Other Issues,” and it exposed the candidates’ decidedly liberal position on marriage.

For example, Teddy Turner, Jr.’s newly found conservatism apparently doesn’t include protecting social issues like marriage. Turner said, “I don’t think social issues should be a federal issue.” Candidate Tim Larkin said, “…This is a South Carolina Republican telling you the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. It’s wrong.” Candidate Elizabeth Moffly said she didn’t think Congress should legislate morality or what goes on behind closed doors. Candidate Peter McCoy said, “When it comes down to the government telling somebody how to get married … I think the government has zero role in it.”

Even self proclaimed conservative, former Governor Mark Sanford didn’t refute the others – and now we know why – because at the Forum, Sanford refused to be clear on the issue too.

To view the article, click the following link:

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130312/PC16/130319795/1031/1st-congressional-district-candidates-speak-up-on-gay-marriage-other-issues

Conversely, Larry Grooms was about 90 miles away at a Tea Party Forum in Bluffton – defending social issues like life and marriage. When asked about the Republican Party hemorrhaging demographics – Larry pointed out that Hispanic voters and African American voters care deeply about social issues – and abandoning life and marriage would hurt Republicans with those groups and not help.

Today, Larry issued the following statement about the lack of support for marriage at the College of Charleston forum last night:

Larry Grooms said, “I firmly believe marriage is between one man and one woman – and I will fight to defend traditional marriage against every attack. Quite frankly, I’m appalled that the other candidates refused to stand up for traditional marriage. But I’m not surprised. My opponents have sure talked a good conservative game, but now everyone can see, the others just won’t be as conservative as they say they will. And last night’s forum proves my point.

But whether it’s social issues, government spending issues or government waste issues – voters can trust me to stand in the gap for conservatism because I’ve got a record of doing just that.

If these other candidates can’t be conservative at a College of Charleston forum, then how can you trust them to be conservatives in the face of other Congressional members or Congressional leadership or this President?”

Larry Grooms has received various awards fighting for social issues including:

  • Legislator of the Year, South Carolina Citizens for Life
  • Senate Legislative Champion Award, Palmetto Family Council

 

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Did the ‘war on women’ meme even work?

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Ralph Reed (answering the question, What ever happened to that guy?) had an op-ed piece in the WSJ today (“Round Up the Usual Social Conservative Suspects“) bemoaning — as you would expect him to — that once again, social conservatives are being blamed for a Republican defeat.

The main thrust of his piece is that the GOP would push the culture warriors away only at its peril.

Nothing new there. What interested me was this one paragraph in which he was speaking not about Republicans, but about Democrats:

Despite the Obama campaign’s accusation of a Republican “war on women,” Mr. Obama actually won women by a narrower margin than he did in 2008; he lost married women by seven points. Nor did single women—who went heavily Mr. Obama’s way—vote on reproductive issues. Forty-five percent of single women voters listed jobs and the economy as their most important issues, while only 8% said abortion.

That was welcome news to me, given my repeated complaints about the Dems overemphasizing Kulturkampf stuff this year. (I would like very much for the president’s victory to be because of other factors, and for both parties to know that, and in the future act accordingly, so that I don’t have to be quite so appalled at the tenor of campaigns to come. And on the immigration front of the Kulturkampf, there are actually some signs that some Republicans learned something.) Of course, considering the source, I immediately wondered how accurate his characterization was.

That led me to this interesting 2012 exit polls graphic at the NYT site (if you don’t get anything else from this post, go check that out). While the words on the graphic seem to contradict Reed, saying, “Mr. Obama maintained his 2008 support among women,” when you call up the actual numbers (just scroll your cursor over the blue and pink bubbles), you see a slight drop — although it’s only one percent, which is well within the 4 percent margin of error.

But in looking further at the numbers, I saw something that I had forgotten about, if I ever knew — that in 2008, President Obama edged out John McCain among men — the only time the Democratic nominee has done that in the last four presidential elections. Maybe, if they believe their “war on women” meme worked, Democrats should have claimed the Republicans were conducting a “war on men” as well.

I knew without looking that Reed was accurate in saying Obama won among single women and lost among married ones. As for what he said about single women caring far more about the economy than abortion — well, that makes sense (think about it — I would expect pretty much every broad demographic group to cite the economy as a bigger issue than abortion), but I haven’t found data that back it up. Has anyone seen that subset analyzed along those lines? I have not.

I have always believed that we don’t look hard enough at exit polls after elections. Yet in the polling world, that’s where the substance is. Ahead of the election, political junkies mainline polls in their desperate desire to know what might happen. Exit polls are the only kind that tell you what the actual voters who actually showed up were actually thinking on Election Day. Maybe you have to allow a bit for a Democratic bias (Republicans are more likely to refuse to participate in exit polls), but it’s still valuable stuff.

I would have liked Ike, JFK, maybe even Nixon

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I was at first drawn in by this book review in The Wall Street Journal this morning, because at the outset it addressed a big concern I’ve had since the start of this election year:

Even as we tremble at the edge of a fiscal cliff, the culture war insists on our attention. Abortion, contraception, gay and women’s rights, and welfare have all returned to shake up an election season that was supposed to be a simple economy slugfest. Robert O. Self’s “All in the Family” could help explain why. Mr. Self, a professor of history at Brown University, has heroically researched the history of the culture wars from the early 1960s to the present. He offers a provocative analysis that accounts for today’s alliance between small-government and social conservatives, on the one hand, and welfare-state and social liberals, on the other….

However, I was less enchanted by what followed:

Mr. Self begins his history by describing “breadwinner liberalism” as the status quo of the early and mid-1960s. The architects of the Great Society assumed the primacy of male-earner and female-homemaker families. Labor unions fought for a family wage for their predominantly male membership, the Moynihan Report (1965) raised alarms about black male unemployment, and the first efforts at affirmative action took the form of quotas in municipal contracts for male construction workers. In all these cases “women were largely an afterthought,” Mr. Self writes. Breadwinner liberalism, he argues, was based on a model of “masculine individualism”: hardworking, striving, self-reliant….

The review goes on to recount the book’s take on the Kulturkampf that has plagued our politics since the 1960s. Apparently, the author of the book thinks the changes that have come are all to the good; the reviewer demurs.

All I know is this: In 1960, I could have been comfortable as a liberal. For that matter, in 1960, I could have been comfortable as a conservative. I can see myself having voted for Ike. I think I would have been torn between Nixon and Kennedy. (At the time, I favored Nixon, but I was only 7 years old. I don’t know what I would have done as an adult.)

Whatever happened, and however you define it, I can’t be at home in either camp today. And the Kulturkampf stuff is a big part of the reason why.