It's not often that I say such a thing, but Digby's just plain wrong here. Not about how scary it is to have a true creep with a hard-on for the apocalypse like Hagee messing around in our Middle East policy. It is scary, and any responsible politician or interest group would thoroughly distance themselves from him.

But paradoxically, you can't marginalize bad ideas without entertaining them. I keep dredging up John Rawls' dictum that citizens in a democracy owe to one another good reasons for their positions, but it does apply. It's no accident that Hagee comes from a group previously marginalized in political discourse; because they were allowed to fester in peace without challenge from stronger, more sensible people, they developed unhealthy perspectives under the influence of unhealthy leaders. As it's said, "sunshine is the best disinfectant."

That will require secular folks to put up with and engage ideas they consider weird, boring, or even abhorrent. But what's the alternative? Locking certain people out of the polity, which hardly seems democratic. Letting them get stronger under the rocks without turning them over. Refusing to confront bad ideas and making them better.

I know that calls upon people to wade into conversations they're not familiar with or uncomfortable with, but that's what it takes. And if I may say so, it's why I find it so frustrating that progressive faith ideas get ignored in the wider political discourse. It's like a unilateral disarmament in the battle of ideas. Liberal believers are here, they want to help, there's no reason to ignore them.

One more thing: engaging religious thought does not necessarily lead to the roadblock of absolute principals. What's required in religiously-tinged discourse is to acknowledge others' beliefs as sincerely held, even if you disagree with them, and to acknowledge legitimate interests, where they exist. Part of the problem with positions like Hagee's is that they don't serve anyone's interest in the here-and-now, other than the Likudniks and worse. Hagee should have to answer for that, but of course he can't if his ideas are disallowed out of hand.

Today's topics...

I'll make it short and (bitter)sweet: Obama's win is celebrated around the world, and Clinton's team has announced that she will suspend her campaign and endorse Obama on Saturday. But the road ahead is rocky -- polls show the race between Obama and McCain is surprisingly close. In other news, after failing to effectively disguise creationism as "intelligent design," creationists are trying on a new cloak (the language of evolution's "strengths and weaknesses"), but will any amount of "reframing" disguise the movement's true nature? (haha, get it?)

Clinton Ready to Step Down, Endorse Obama

From CNN:

Sen. Hillary Clinton on Saturday will officially suspend her campaign for the presidency and "express her support for Senator Obama and party unity," her campaign said Wednesday.

From The 77% Weekly
The 40 Out Of 52 Weeks A Year Newsletter
of Rabbi Brian & Religion-Outside-The-Box

Nice effort!

Perhaps you've seen the recent studies about the effect of praise by psychologist Carol S. Dweck. (A variation of it seems to be in every parenting magazine I read recently.) Her work paints a very interesting picture.

In her study, some students were praised for their innate intelligence and some for their effort.

Then, the students were given a test. A test, unbeknownst to them, that was two years ahead of their grade level.

Predictably, they all failed.

Gil's thinking about uppity types demanding equal opportunity in marriage:

I suspect it’s impossible for some to remove religous arguments from the debate. That’s why the debate always goes the way it does; I might argue from a purely rational point of view, but rationality is only one of the factors influencing those who dislike gay marriage on religious grounds, and often isn’t the most important factor. If you wholeheartedly believe that gay marriage is immoral, you look in the Bible to find the passages that condemn homosexuality and buttress your own feelings (and please don’t say that you wouldn’t harbor those feelings if it weren’t for those scant passages, because that isn’t true, is it? If those passages didn’t exist, would you feel differently about homosexuality?) And because you then find confirmation of the things you feel in your gut in your Good Book, that is rational for you. That is part of the debate.

…except that in a secular society, the legal case isn’t to be based upon that. And there’s the rub. There has to be a secular case against gay marriage, but there really isn’t one; or if there is, all it is is an admonishment to go slow. The rest of it rests on these vague assertions of how this will “harm” the family and communities, when in fact the opposite is probably true. But so long as religion is the primary motivation for opposing gay marriage, the opposite cannot be true. And we must not even consider the possibility.

Well, yes. This has never been an argument about policy alternatives or visions of the family or even about different readings of scripture. It's about raw power, by way of determining whose moral vision will be allowed to dominate the social discourse. There's one side that claims a consistent, unified and eternally operative religious morality trying desperately to fend off a more heterodox vision.

And that's really it. The one side is frightened to death - rightly - that if they lose the power to define the institution of marriage, their moral vision will become only one among many at work in society. They want to maintain that power not because the family will fall apart without it, as they like to tell people, but because if they lose, "religion" - by which they mean their religion - will lose its privileged place in the discourse. It's a bit above my paygrade to say if their decision to draw lines in the sand around abortion and homosexuality was foolish or not; what's important is that they did, and it's not quite working out the way they intended. Their ideas have to compete in the political marketplace, and at least on this issue, they're losing.

They've had more success with abortion, but the differences are instructive. Unlike opposition to same-sex marriage, which seems to rest finally on a theological assumption about the intended use of sexuality, opposition to abortion relies on some a priori assumptions about what it means to be human that can be defended outside a religious framework. Which is to say, you don't have to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jesus to be against it. Furthermore, there are policy preferences that can be defended without imposing religious belief. In fact, many of the policy goals associated with the pro-life platform can be accomplished without using the pro-life movement's favored techniques. Increasing economic opportunities and sex ed works just as well if not better than punishing doctors and women. For that reason, I think abortion is forever going to be half a loaf for all sides.

In any case, think back to John Rawls' dictum that citizens in a liberal democracy owe to one another good reasons for their political positions. The conservative Christians (and a few others) are terrified that if they lose this battle, the reasons they offer are going to be reduced to "just because," which obviously doesn't really cut it. So they're right to be scared: the stakes are very high for them. Expect them to dig in even more as things start to slip away.

In the wake of the Postville immigration raid, it's nice to see the not-so-fine folks at Agriprocessors feeling at least a little heat:

Mounting pressure from Jewish groups and members of Congress has led the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States to start searching for a new CEO less than two weeks after federal agents arrested nearly 400 of its employees in a massive immigration raid.

Aaron Rubashkin, the founder of Agriprocessors, announced May 23 that he intends to find a replacement for his son Sholom as company CEO.

The announcement follows statements from three Jewish organizations raising the specter of a boycott, the launch of a campaign by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and a call from U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) for an investigation of the company.

It'd be much better if they were facing jail time, of course. The Rubashkins have a long history of exploitive labor practices, and while their workers literally were rounded up like cattle, there is so far no word of any sanctions forthcoming against the people who hired them.

While the apparently ineffectual, perhaps downright unjust, system works itself out, some religious people are pushing back:

In its statement, the Jewish Labor Committee asserted that the company had displayed “a clear pattern of employer negligence and even lawlessness,” including the violation of child labor laws and toleration of various forms of worker abuse.

The committee’s statement was followed by a “request” from the Conservative movement’s top bodies that kosher consumers “evaluate whether it is appropriate to buy and eat meat products” from Agriprocessors.

That same day, Uri L’tzedek, a project started by students at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a liberal Orthodox rabbinical school in Manhattan, began circulating a petition asking Agriprocessors to pay its workers at least the federal minimum wage, abide by laws pertaining to workers’ rights and treat employees according to Torah standards.

Organizers say that about 450 people from across the denominational spectrum had signed as of Monday.

“Until these changes are made, we feel compelled to refrain from purchasing or consuming meat produced by your company, and will pressure every establishment with which we do business to cease purchase of your meat,” the petition reads. “Effective June 15, 2008 we will stop patronizing any restaurant that sells your meat.”

Great, it's a good start. Hopefully, a coalition of religious people and others will be able to help effect meaningful change in immigration policy.

But the whole subject reminds of some questions that I come back to every once in a while. How is it that highly religious people like the Rubashkins can be such rotters in business and in life? What is it that causes such a disconnect between their ethics and their practice?

I'm thinking that it's something like they feel that having observed the letter of the law, they're not obliged to go beyond it. But I honestly don't have any idea. If anyone has a better (or funnier) theory, I'd like to hear it.

From The 77% Weekly
The 40 Out Of 52 Weeks A Year Newsletter
of Rabbi Brian & Religion-Outside-The-Box

Loving yourself and others.

• Would you tell someone that they look terrible?
• Do you routinely tell people that they ought to dress differently, live somewhere else, or eat different foods?
• Can you imagine telling a stranger that they ought to have achieved more than they have?

God may work in mysterious ways, but a simple computer program may explain how religion evolved.

By distilling religious belief into a genetic predisposition to pass along unverifiable information, the program predicts that religion will flourish. However, religion only takes hold if non-believers help believers out – perhaps because they are impressed by their devotion.

Let me begin by saying that religion has no monopoly on morality. And any religion would be hard pressed to push any form of morality as they are all guilty of abandoning it when it suited their grip on the minds of the many. And no I am not trying to prove there is no god or there is if you enter the diary you will see my point. newscientist.com

McCain ‘kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross’

There’s been talk for years that many Bush supporters believe he was literally chosen by God to be president. We don’t hear as much about this lately — God wanted a U.S. president who would screw up everything he touches? — but the notion of divine intervention on behalf of Republicans has been a relatively common sentiment in far-right circles for quite a while.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/0...

More headache-inducing stupidity below...

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail asking if I'd like a review copy of The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken: The New Politics of Religion in the United States. It looked interesting, but I had to give what's become a standard response: send it along if you like, but I can't promise anything.

A week or two later, I get an e-mail from an online friend. Would I like to review a book edited by a friend? It's a good guy, somebody she'd like to do a favor for. Sure, tell me him send it along if he likes, but...

Turns out it's the same book, which promptly turns up in my mailbox. And it does look interesting. I dipped into it one night before bed, and was promptly hooked. I'm only a few chapters into it, and already getting great stuff out of it.

From The 77% Weekly
The 40 Out Of 52 Weeks A Year Newsletter
of Rabbi Brian & Religion-Outside-The-Box

Control — or suffer!

If you have ever felt a bit under the weather and stared glassy-eyed at the myriad of choices of over-the-counter cold remedies available at a pharmacy, you know how overwhelming choices can be.

This "confusion of choice" was recently proven in a study where doctors were asked what they would choose for a patient who seemed to need surgery but had one non-surgical, medical option that could be tried first. Almost 50% said they would have the patient try the non-surgical option. But when the same situation was presented again, this time with two non-surgical options, the percentage of doctors who said they would have the patient try either non-surgical choice dropped to just over 25%!

Choices can be overwhelming.

The attempt to pull in "swing Evangelicals" has never been one of my favorites. Obviously, it seems like a pretty low-percentage shot to me.

But I have always liked the Vanderslice/Common Good Strategies tactic of having Democratic candidates more or less invade hostile territory. Ted Strickland advertised on Evangelical radio stations, and Bob Casey appeared at some conservative Evangelical or Catholic events. In both cases, it worked.

What the tactic does is keep a Democratic candidate's negatives down. The conservative voters won't necessarily vote for him or her, but they'll give some grudging recognition to a liberal brave enough to take them seriously. That can make a significant difference when the Republicans have nothing to run on and have to pin their hopes on tearing down their opponent.

It's not a universally applicable strategy, but it is one that would work well for somebody like Obama, whose charisma forms a major asset, and who's demonstrated some skill in telling audiences things they don't particularly want to hear.

I predict that before the convention, he'll appear at a conservative Catholic function somewhere in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. Progressives will freak out and want to know why their candidate is pandering to the Religious Right, the sky will fall, and then we'll all get over it and get on with the campaign, Obama's "centrist maverick" credentials well established for the fall.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions.

• 2 Peter 2:1*

People are happy and excited now that an end is finally in sight for this godawful primary season. No reason they shouldn't be: it's tough on everybody. But we should resist the temptation to read uncritically every apparent piece of good news for Barack Obama. There's been a fair amount of baloney published already about the presumptive nominee, and more to come.