No matter what else happens between now and November I'll give John McCain credit for at least one act of wisdom: He refused to attend that anticonstitutional abomination -- the misnomered "Compassion Forum" -- on CNN last night. It was the closest thing yet to a religious test, which the U.S. Constitution does not specifically ban, but does frown on pointedly: none "shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
We are treading on perilous ground. We have, for the first time to my knowledge, now lined up major candidates for the U.S. presidency and grilled them on personal, religious faith. The founders would have been appalled, and for good reason. It is precisely the kind of church-state entanglement that severed and factionalized Europe for centuries -- something the founders hoped to avoid by establishing the world's "first wholly secular state," as one scholar of the early American republic has put it.
But you wouldn't have been reminded of our secular founding from watching the "Compassion Forum," sponsored last night by Pennsylvania's Messiah College and characterized this morning by the NY Times as "an exercise in earnestness on pressing moral and social issues, a 90-minute break from the political thrust and parry of the presidential campaign trail" in which "candidates ... address[ed] religious beliefs in at times starkly personal terms."
And Brother, did they ever. They had to. That was the whole point. They had to wear their Christian religion on their sleeves (an act I could swear Christianity's founder admonished) so as to gather up as many Christians-cum-Democrats as possible.
It was more than an embarrassment; it was an insult to the Constitution. It was also -- and this is just one more reason the founders declined that whole religious-test business -- an embarrassment and insult to religion itself, since it dragged the theologically fanciful down into the mud of earthly infighting.
For instance right before Mrs. Clinton took the opportunity to assure us, "You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life," she took the opportunity, you know, to slam Mr. Obama as an "elitist, out of touch and, frankly, patronizing." She was nevertheless quite hesitant to call him an elitist, as she assured us, saying the elitist would have to speak for his elitist self. Far be it from her to speak for the ... elitist. That would be unGodly. So ask the elitist. Her lips were sealed.
When asked about the possibility of God's personal role in her political career, Clinton jokingly replied: "Well, I could be glib and say we’ll find out, but I — I don’t presume anything about God." Which was an excellent answer, which leads one to the more excellent question of why, then, they were sitting there seedily trying to answer these unanswerable metaphysical questions to begin with.
To the same question Obama replied: "It takes a certain self-righteousness where we think we have a direct line to God. The public square is not the place for us to empower ourselves in that way." Precisely. That's what the founders thought, too.
It's also apparently what John McCain thinks, as once did his ideological predecessor, Barry Goldwater, who nevertheless was responsible for getting this religious kickball rolling.
Keeping questions of "social morality" out of political campaigns had always been Goldwater's creed -- until he ran into the impenetrable 1964 juggernaut of Lyndon Johnson. Suddenly, raising questions about America's "moral decline" seemed to be catching on with large segments of the electorate, so, just as suddenly, Goldwater decided that further pressing these questions wasn't such a bad political idea after all.
Before long the New & Religious Right -- which grew out of the Goldwater movement and which he despised -- was holding his party hostage. He ultimately lamented his '64 comingling of religious morality and politics, since politics, as he later wrote, is nothing more than the necessary art of compromise, while religionists are all about "absolute moral right and wrong." That inherent conflict presented a "challenge to democratic society [that] is too great. It's simply unworkable."
McCain's refusal to take last night's religious test on cable-network television is at least an indication that he, too, understands this. But now, and largely because of McCain's reluctance, Democrats are chasing the religionists with fervor anew. As the Politico reports: "Many Democrats believe that with McCain as the GOP nominee, the ambitious prospect of narrowing the religion gap is within their grasp."
Hence two Democrats' willingness last night to take a religious test, which -- will these marvels never cease? -- they both passed with flying colors.
In the short term, that undoubtedly is a good bargain. In the long term, however, as presidential candidate Goldwater and many others discovered too late, it's a foul one. And it's why Article VI, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution says what it says.
For personal questions or comments you can contact P.M. at fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com
THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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