Mr. Moderate

For the past decade, evangelical Christians, disgusted with the moral morass they saw in Washington, DC, have voted solidly for the Republican Party. So long as the issues considered by these Christians were narrowly defined as the 3-Gs, Gays, Guns, and God, evangelical Christians were easily roped into voting a straight Republican ticket.

Recently, however, a split has developed between the far right and the more-moderate factions within the evangelical community over global warming in particular. But that tentative split on environmental policy is just the first crack in a logjam of issues that have long divided America, such as the teaching of evolution in our schools (the “more-moderate” evangelicals have no issue with that, a position identical with that of the Roman Catholic Church) and the place of science education within our hierarchy of knowledge (the radical right wing decries reliance upon “science” as “just another opinion” not entitled to any real respect as it is clearly “anti-God”).

In a commentary entitled “What would Jesus really do?” CNN contributor Roland Martin had several things to say on this topic:

The point is that being a Christian should be about more than abortion and homosexuality, and it’s high time that those not considered a part of the religious right expose the hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters in Christianity and take back the faith. …

If abortion and gay marriage are part of the Christian agenda, I have no issue with that. Those are moral issues that should be of importance to people of the faith, but the agenda should be much, much broader.

I’m looking for the day when Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Joyce Meyer, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, James Kennedy, Rod Parsley, “Patriot Pastors” and Rick Warren will sit at the same table as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Cynthia Hale, Eddie L. Long, James Meek, Fred Price, Emmanuel Cleaver and Floyd Flake to establish a call to arms on racism, AIDS, police brutality, a national health care policy, our sorry education system.

If they all say they love and worship one God, one Jesus, let’s see them rally their members behind one agenda.

There has long been disagreement over what it means to be “pro-life.” The Roman Catholic Church has the cleanest record of consistency, opposing abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty, and supporting social safety nets to prevent unwanted deaths among the poor. The Republican right-wing has opposed abortion and euthanasia, but supported the death penalty and opposed all forms of social safety nets, even though the lack of such safety nets clearly leads to the death of some innocent children and other people.

If the Democrat Party could bring itself to stomach some additional restrictions on abortion rights (say, after the first trimester), then it might be able to forge a strong centrist movement around the true meaning of “Pro-Life” by adopting a platform nearer to that of the Roman Catholic Church, but allowing for exceptions in certain stated circumstances which are clearly stated as moral judgments where both sides of each debate can feel that their positions were respectfully addressed and a compromise reached. Certainly, the Democrat Party is the only hope for political support for any social safety net programs. And a good cross-party case can be made for eliminating the death penalty, as most European nations have already done. Or, if we are really into drawing fine lines, eliminating it in most cases, but with a few obvious exceptions. (Ask yourself: is it really justice that Terry Nichols got life in prison, twice, while his co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, was executed?)

But the death penalty is one of those bedrock Republican issues that are always used to distinguish Republicans from Democrats. As things sit, the moderate folks in the middle slide back and forth, according to which way the political winds are blowing. If there has been a recent major violent crime, the death penalty advocates come to the fore. If there has been a recent spate of DNA exonerations, the death penalty opponents come to the fore.

But there is no philosophical “meat” to the Republican position, which is based upon the alleged deterrence effect of the death penalty. In point of fact, after studying these matters for many years, I’m convinced that the death penalty has an extremely minimal deterrence effect, if it has any such effect at all. Just read up on how many death penalty defendants are high on drugs or alcohol at the time of their crimes, or how many more are so intellectually stunted that they can only barely grasp what crime and punishment is all about. Most of these people are quite young, and young people come with an embedded idea of immortality in any case. This is almost inherent with being young: you refuse to even consider the idea that you might die. Such people cannot be expected to intellectually grasp the idea of the death penalty at the time they are committing their crimes, and thus the death penalty is of no real deterrent effect. Amnesty International noted as much when it summarized the findings in the report produced by the official commission in New Jersey which recommended elimination of the death penalty:

The Commission noted that in the 24 years since the death penalty was reinstated in New Jersey in 1982, there had been 455 defendants who were eligible for the death penalty. Of these 228 were subjected to capital trials and 60 were sentenced to death. There have been no executions, and the majority of death sentences have been overturned on appeal, leaving nine people currently on death row. The Commission noted that “the measurement of any deterrent effect based on such miniscule percentages is fraught with difficulty”. It also noted that “many murders are not planned in advance but are committed impulsively or in a sudden outburst of rage”. Finally, it noted that “as a practical matter, the length of time that convicted murderers in New Jersey serve on death row argues against the usefulness of the death penalty as a deterrent”.

And there is always the possibility of finding some future value within the lives of even the most despised criminals. Take Timothy McVeigh as a case in point. With all of the conspiracy theories floating around out there, isn’t there anybody who would wish for the government to give him a dose of truth serum and pry out the identities of the others who helped him? I certainly believe that there is criminal culpability well beyond the few people actually convicted (McVeigh, Nichols, and the husband from the couple that testified against them, Michael and Lori Fortier).

So, at the end of the day, if evangelical Christians can hold their noses and accept a bit of social compromise on issues involving “Gays, Guns, and God,” then they might actually do a whole lot more for advancing the actual program advocated by Jesus in the Christian Bible: helping the poor, forgiving sinners, and trying to make our world a better place to live in, which would include doing something about ongoing environmental disasters that so many Republicans seem to wish to ignore.