The Anti-Manichaeist

Once again I’m piggy-backing off of Jesus Politics. The New PantaGruel is a prime example of how social conservative thinking does not dovetail naturally with economic conservativism. They show what happens when socially conservative Christians develop deeper habits of political deliberation. They do not become “liberals”, they become independents who are critical of both of the main parties in the US.

I’ve invited Pantagruel to consider some of my own postings. I also have some comments on a post entitled, Arguments Against Single-Issue Voting Lack Nuance, Honesty, and Guts that came out just before the election. The post is by Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S.J., Inquisitor(G.J.(ps, I earlier used G.P. because I have an uncle who goes by those initials.)). G.J.’s main point is that there is nothing wrong with weighting a single issue as being of primary concern in deciding one’s vote. He chastises the Christianity Today for being overly concerned with appearances and respectability with the mainstream by adopting their extreme characterization of single-issue voters. G.J. is critical of how CT dismisses supposedly “single-issue voters”, while at the same time implicitly pushing Bush as a candidate through their selection of important issues.

G.J. states why for him Abortion undergirds other issues:

Abortion, properly understood by pagans and religionists alike, pertains to end of life “issues,” like euthanasia; genetic meddling on all kinds of life; the proper limits of the state; economic and “social” justice–and more. How we regard and treat life, especially human life, and the health of the family (the fundamental ordering structure of society) is a basic, foundational political concern that rightly precedes all others. One can vote on it as a “single-issue” or “litmus test” because it impacts all other “issues” most profoundly, and a person’s views on “abortion” always tell you a great deal about that person and what you might expect from them.

For G.J., one’s stance on abortion is key to whether one is for the culture of life or death. It comes down to how all choice takes place in a legal and social context and that pro-choicers implicitly endorse a libertarian legal/social context where the individual(woman) is the arbiter of what is right or wrong.

However, G.J. dismisses considerations of whether there is some ambiguity as to when we become human beings and deserve legal personhood. He treats the sanctity of human life as key to the health of the family, which is then the fundamental ordering structure of society. This may fit with what Pam Cochran argues is a confusion of the traditional USAmerican notion of family with the more inclusive biblical notion of family. A confusion which may then lead one to over-weight the importance of fallible attempts to maintain the traditional family as a means to strengthen civil society. G.J. also passes without comment over the important issue of whether Republican Party is likely to significantly change abortion law. That is, whether pro-lifers can expect significant reductions in abortions, given our current political strategy of focusing on ephemeral, marginal changes, while maintaining our long-term commitment to make all elective abortions illegal again.

I would maintain that our political strategies affect our opposition’s strategies. As such, prolifers bear some responsibility for the reactionary political strategies of pro-choicers that oppose compromise on even marginal changes. This is why I believe prolifers need to change their political strategies to depoliticize and prevent abortion. It also is why abortion should have been weighted less in the last election on account of the fact that sustainable progress would require more changes in political strategy from both sides.

So, in response to G.J., I have no problems with a single issue being decisive for someone’s vote in an election. What I have a problem with is when an issue remains decisive for several elections; all the while very little progress is made on said issue and our voting strategy has serious, unintended consequences. In that case, unless a convincing alternative strategy, besides giving one party way too much power, is proffered to effectively make changes on the issue, we should change tactics and advance our goals through other strategies.

That is why I focus my activism to prevent abortions (and the deaths of already-born people) by persuading pro-lifers to admit that we may not be able to make our ideals into law and that we need to understand pro-choicer’s positions better to foster compromises to prevent abortions and to allow for other issues to be decisive in our elections. Beyond that, I see movement towards the development of more of a “culture of life” as properly arising from the bottom-up, rather than the top-down. That is why I encourage my prolifer activist friends to emphasize more on the changing of hearts rather than laws, since in a world where time, energy and resources is scarce, there is invariably a tradeoff between different forms of activism and we all must count the (opportunity) cost.

dlw