Last week Mike Huckabee threw his hat into the ring and he said something that I found interesting and very telling when it comes to the state of politics in America. We understand that part of the business of politics is the need to speak to your audience in ways that they will understand and agree with because you want them to donate lots of money to your campaign. Mike was speaking to an audience made up of members from the religious right so we should understand his message in that context. He said that our Government is “criminalizing Christianity” and if he is elected he will put a stop to it. Really? Let’s have a look.
The First Amendment to our Constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…..” So let’s say that the Government set out to “criminalize Christianity”, wouldn’t that be a direct violation of the First Amendment? It sure looks like to me because such a law would have to prohibit either the “establishment” of Christianity or the “free exercise” of Christianity in one way or the other. What is Mike really saying? And, for that matter, what was the message that his audience hearing?
Mike was talking about the Federal regulations that allow abortion and the more recent rulings legalizing marriage between persons of the same sex. Mike doesn’t approve of such things and the folks he was talking to don’t approve either – at least not openly. There are, however, Christians who want the right of choice when it comes to pregnancy and there are also Christians who would like to marry their partner of the same sex. Mike is not saying these Christians are being forced into these choices. No, Mike is saying that they should not have the choice in the first place.
It looks like Mike sees the criminalizing of Christianity more as a prohibition of his ability to impose his Christian belief system on others rather than being forced to engage in behavior that is counter to his belief system. If I turn the argument just a bit, Mike seems to want the ability to make choices for himself and for others if he disagrees with their beliefs, but in America we are all supposed to be equal so how does that square?
Jeb Bush, in his speech to the graduates at Liberty University over the weekend, talked about how the “liberal left” is always accusing conservatives of trying to impose their beliefs on others. Jeb thinks this is an incorrect assessment of the situation, but Mike’s stance sure seems to be confirming the “liberal left” characterization. I can almost hear someone from the “liberal left” saying to someone from the “conservative right” something like, if you’ll stop doing it, I’ll stop accusing you of doing it.
And then yesterday we hear the story coming out of a Pew Research Report that the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian has dropped by 8% in the last seven years while the percentage of those identifying as unaffiliated went up by just under 7%. Bill O’Reilly proclaimed that Christianity is under attack in America, but I doubt that it is that simple.
The talking heads indicated that part of the demographic shift was due to “the millennials” moving from the Christian population to the unaffiliated population in a defiant response to the extreme conservative Christian views on homosexuality and immigration, etc..
When I wrote my book, A Broken Sausage Grinder; Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?, I looked at the Bill of Rights and how it came to be a series of Amendments rather than part of the Constitution itself. As I examined the First Amendment, I pointed out that the Founding Fathers were faced with a tough choice when it came to religion. The majority population in the thirteen States, and the colonies before them, was primarily Christian, but not totally Christian. Then, as now, there would have been pressure to incorporate Christian values into the daily lives of all Americans and that pressure would have been resisted by the non-Christian population. The wording of the First Amendment clearly shows us the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in the way it shows us that in the absence of preference for Christianity; there should be no preference for any religion.
I wonder if the extreme conservative movement to the right from the Evangelical Christian position that is directly attributable to the Tea Party Movement over the past decade or so might offer another plausible explanation? Is it possible that the religious extremists attempt to redefine American values could end up driving people away from Christian values altogether?
The Sausage Grinder is Broken, will you help to fix it?
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