[list_indonesia] [ppiindia] The Republicans: Distracted by religion

** Mailing-List Indonesia Nasional Milis PPI-India www.ppi-india.da.ru **

The Republicans: Distracted by religion
 John C. Danforth The New York Times 
 Thursday, March 31, 2005

ST. LOUIS, Missouri By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have 
transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The 
elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional 
amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both 
frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to 
keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube. 
.
Standing alone, each of these initiatives has its advocates, within the 
Republican Party and beyond. But the distinct elements do not stand alone. 
Rather they are parts of a larger package, an agenda of positions common to 
conservative Christians and the dominant wing of the Republican Party. 
.
Christian activists, eager to take credit for recent electoral successes, would 
not be likely to concede that Republican adoption of their political agenda is 
merely the natural convergence of conservative religious and political values. 
Correctly, they would see a causal relationship between the activism of the 
churches and the responsiveness of Republican politicians. In turn, pragmatic 
Republicans would agree that motivating Christian conservatives has contributed 
to their successes. 
.
High-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life of Schiavo, including 
departures from Republican principles like approving congressional involvement 
in private decisions and empowering a federal court to overrule a state court, 
can rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious power 
blocs. 
.
In my state, Missouri, Republicans in the General Assembly have advanced 
legislation to criminalize even stem cell research in which the cells are 
artificially produced in petri dishes and will never be transplanted into the 
human uterus. They argue that such cells are human life that must be protected, 
by threat of criminal prosecution, from promising research on diseases like 
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes. 
.
It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to 
identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been 
pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri 
dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into 
statutory law. 
.
I do not fault religious people for political action. Since Moses confronted 
the pharaoh, faithful people have heard God's call to political involvement. 
Nor has political action been unique to conservative Christians. Religious 
liberals have been politically active in support of gay rights and against 
nuclear weapons and the death penalty. In America, everyone has the right to 
try to influence political issues, regardless of his religious motivations. 
.
The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is 
with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has 
become the political extension of a religious movement. 
.
When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it 
raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of 
constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a 
religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own 
sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold 
together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a 
uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians 
to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of 
another. 
.
Take stem cell research. Criminalizing the work of scientists doing such 
research would give strong support to one religious doctrine, and it would 
punish people who believe it is their religious duty to use science to heal the 
sick. 
.
During the 18 years I served in the Senate, Republicans often disagreed with 
each other. But there was much that held us together. We believed in limited 
government, in keeping light the burden of taxation and regulation. We 
encouraged the private sector, so that a free economy might thrive. We believed 
that judges should interpret the law, not legislate. We were internationalists 
who supported an engaged foreign policy, a strong national defense and free 
trade. These were principles shared by virtually all Republicans. 
.
But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become 
secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried 
every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single 
minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today 
it seems to be the other way around. 
.
The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for 
a prosperous and secure future. Our current fixation on a religious agenda has 
turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our 
roots. 
.
(John C. Danforth, a former U.S. senator from Missouri, resigned in January as 
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He is an Episcopal minister.) 
.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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