1 Boring Old Man

It’s unlikely that either George Bush or Dick Cheney ever gave much thought to either Gay Marriage or Abortion. They were political positions that put votes in the Republican column – little more. I’m not slightly surprised to hear Laura Bush saying these things. She seems a sensible person and these are sensible things to say. Frankly, I would doubt that there’s any conflict in the Bush home about such things. The Religious Agenda was an expedient to riding the Religious Right’s vote gathering machine. And during the Bush years, the Religious Right was no better off at the end than the beginning – except for some gratuitous ‘faith based initiative’ money and the absurdity of the ‘abstinence only’ approach to sexuality.

Tempting Faith, by David Kuo
Everyday Citizen
Book Review
June 1, 2007

^{David Kuo went to Washington wanting to use his Christian faith to end abortion, strengthen marriage, and help the poor. He reached the heights of political power, ultimately serving in the White House under George W. Bush, after being policy adviser to John Ashcroft and speechwriter for Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, and Bob Dole. It was a dream come true: the chance to fuse his politics and his faith, and an opportunity for Christians not just to gain a seat at the proverbial table but to plan the entire meal.}

^{Instead of following the teachings of Jesus to serve the needy, Kuo explains that he found himself helping to manipulate religious faith for political gain. Kuo spent nearly three years as second in command at the president’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Yet his experience was deeply troubling. It took both the Bush White House and a severe health crisis to show him how his own Christian values, and those of millions of Americans, were being corrupted by politics.}

^{Instead of following the teachings of Jesus to serve the needy, Kuo found himself helping to manipulate religious faith for political gain. Public funds were used in battleground states, for Republican campaign events. The legislative process was used as a football, not to pass laws but to deepen purely symbolic fault lines. Grants were incestuously recycled to political cronies. Both before and after 9/11, despite lofty rhetoric from the president claiming that his faith-based program was one of his most important initiatives, there was no serious attempt to fund valuable charities.}

Worst of all was the prevailing attitude in the White House and throughout Washington toward Christian leaders. Key Bush aides and Republican operatives spoke of them with contempt and treated them as useful idiots. It became clear, during regular conference calls arranged from the White House with a key group of Christian leaders, that many of these religious leaders had themselves been utterly seduced by politics. It is time, Kuo argues, for Christians to take a temporary step back from politics, to turn away from its seductions.

^{In 1990 paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan mounted a campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States against incumbent George H. W. Bush in 1992. He received a prime time speech slot at the 1992 Republican National Convention, which is sometimes dubbed the "’culture war’ speech". During his speech, he said: "There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself." In addition to criticizing "environmental extremists" and "radical feminism," he said public morality was a defining issue:}

^{The agenda [Bill] Clinton and [Hillary] Clinton would impose on America — abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat — that’s change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country.}

^{A month later, Buchanan elaborated that this conflict was about power over society’s definition of right and wrong. He named abortion, sexual orientation and popular culture as major fronts – and mentioned other controversies, including clashes over the Confederate Flag, Christmas and taxpayer-funded art. He also said that the negative attention his talk of a culture war received was itself evidence of America’s polarization. When Buchanan ran for President in 1996, he promised to fight for the conservative side of the culture war:}

^{I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency of the United States, to the full extent of my power and ability, to defend American traditions and the values of faith, family, and country, from any and all directions. And, together, we will chase the purveyors of sex and violence back beneath the rocks whence they came.}

Scandal, it seems, is a powerful force in shaping our political landscape. Without Bill Clinton’s sexcapades and his subsequent impeachment, I think it’s unlikely that George W. Bush would have ever been elected in the first place. The recurrent scandals in the Bush Administration and the Religious Right’s hierarchy took a similar toll in the 2008 election. Now, the message of the Religious Right is being carried by the conservative media, obstructionist Republicans, whatever the TEA Baggers are, and a weakened group of evangelicals who are past their prime. The Separation of Church and State is not yet firmly re-established, but considering where we’ve been, the road to recovery is at least visible again.

KING: … Gay marriage, you tell us in the book that during the 2004 campaign you talked to George about not making it a significant issue. Do you think we should have it?
BUSH: Well, I think we ought to definitely look at it and debate it. I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have I think the same sort of rights that everyone has.
KING: So would that be an area where you disagreed?
BUSH: I guess that would be an area that we disagree. I mean, I understand totally what George thinks and what other people think about marriage being between a man and a woman. And it’s a real, you know, reversal really for that to accept gay marriage.
KING: But you do?
BUSH: But I think we could, yeah. I think it’s also a generational thing.
KING: You think it’s coming?
BUSH: Yeah, that will come, I think.
KING: How about choice?
BUSH: That was … about the very first question I got on the morning of George’s inauguration, from Katie Couric, who asked me two questions about abortion. That was the social issue in 2000 that everyone got asked about. And then I think gay marriage was the social issue in 2004. And I was say probably in the more recent election as well. She asked me … two questions about abortion, and then she asked me if I was for the overturn of Roe versus Wade. And sort of everything went through my mind. This was the very morning my husband was about to be inaugurated. And I thought, do I really want to start my husband’s presidency, you know, suggesting that a Supreme Court rule being overturned. And I said no. And I think it’s important that it remain legal, because I think it’s important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons.

So what did Laura Bush say [Chris Wallace]? _{added later}

WALLACE: Should gays be allowed to marry?
BUSH: Well, I think what I really believe is that it’s something that is so difficult. It’s a very, very difficult issue for very many people, because the marriage between a man and a woman is so fundamental to our civic life, for all of our history, for the history of humans. And it’s a debate that I think people want to have. But I hope they have it in a way that protects people. And in many ways, I think it’s generational and that gay marriage will come. WALLACE: Gay marriage will come?
BUSH: Yeah.
WALLACE: And are you OK with that?
BUSH: I’m okay with that.

Compare that to Pat Buchanan, "I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency of the United States, to the full extent of my power and ability, to defend American traditions and the values of faith, family, and country, from any and all directions. And, together, we will chase the purveyors of sex and violence back beneath the rocks whence they came."

Laura Bush is a kind person. That means she treats others as if they are the same kind of person she is. Her husband would like to see himself as a kind person too, a compassionate conservative, as he liked to put it. But he didn’t establish an Administration that embraced anything like kindness. His alliance with the subgroup of the Christians called the Religious Right was a pact with the Devil. Like many before him, he established a government claiming to fight evil and corruption [Buchanan’s "purveyors of sex and violence"], and in the process, he ushered in an era of corruption and deceit unparalleled in our history.

It’s disappointing to hear Laura Bush, who is a well respected and admired former first lady, espouse positions on marriage and the value of human life that are contrary not only to her husband’s but arguably, according to polls, in conflict with the majority of Americans.