The bigotry vote

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Look out. Just when you thought apathy in the wake of arrogance had finally gotten the better of it, the religious right is looking to make a comeback just in time for the midterms. The NYT:

Openly anxious about grass-roots disaffection from the Republican Party, conservative Christian organizers are reaching for ways to turn out voters this November, including arguing that recognizing same-sex marriage could also limit religious freedom.

James Dobson may find "disillusionment out there with Republicans," Paul Weyrich may claim that "the enthusiasm is not there," and Tony Perkins may lament that "success brings complacency," but these theocrats are pragmatists as well as moralists. Better the Republicans than the Democrats, after all. (So goes the pragmatism.) At least the former, "the lesser of two evils," will keep up the fight against abortion and same-sex marriage.

But how to turn out the apathetic and complacent? Well, hit the gay button. Arouse the bigotry. It may lie dormant politically, but it can be awakened with the right spin.

And that spin, the one with the stink of desperation? Same-sex marriage threatens "religious liberty," as Perkins puts its.

How, you ask? Better not to try to make sense of the spin, for it makes no sense at all. These are moralists who oppose religious liberty except then their own absolutism is threatened. Besides, just try to define so-called "religious liberty"? What does it mean? That practitioners of religion -- believers, people of faith, whatever you want to call them -- are free to worship as they see fit? Okay. But what if, hypothetically speaking, the ban on same-sex marriage threatens my religious liberty? What if I cannot be free, religiously speaking, so long as same-sex marriage is disallowed?

Take that logic further, reductio ad absurdum. If "religious liberty" is the standard, can anything be disallowed? If one religion claims that something violates its liberty, then that something must be disallowed. But then if another religion claims that a ban on that same something violates its liberty, then that something must be allowed. See? It makes no sense. The only solution is not to mix religion and politics, that is, to allow religions and their practitioners to worship freely in the private sphere while the public sphere avoids such entanglements altogether. The religious right seems to fail to understand that the "religious liberty" spin is the thin end of a wedge that will open a door it doesn't want opened. Regardless, that door has already been opened. Modern liberalism, the liberalism of the United States, already welcomes religious pluralism, the liberty of multiple religions in the private sphere. The religious right, illiberal and un-American, only wants and recognizes liberty for itself. The religious right is self-interested bigotry.

But bigotry still has its adherents. Many of them. Enough to turn a close election. A high turnout of the bigoted, or of those inspired by bigotry to vote according to the bigots, could be just what the Republicans ordered come November. Democrats need to recognize this threat and act accordingly.