The US church and state divide is now dangerously blurry
The right’s latest hallelujah upswing is far better organised than anything the Democrats can offer
Edward Luce
A cursory reading of the leading conservative Supreme Court justices, including Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas, shows a religiously-inspired revulsion against modernity © Patrick Semansky/APThe meek shall inherit the earth, according to Jesus.
“Not on our watch,” insist America’s Christian right.
The gap between political Christianity and the gentle message of the gospels has always been wide.
Choosing Donald Trump — the personification of profanity — as the bible belt’s standard bearer in 2016 arguably destroyed any remaining link.
Trump is to the Christian right what Leon Trotsky said in defence of totalitarianism — the end justifies the means.
America’s former and perhaps future president has more than earned his Christian spurs.
The looming end of America’s right to abortion is the direct result of the three justices Trump put on the Supreme Court.
There are plenty more earthly rewards available to the Christian right.
Its larger agenda is to roll back the tides of secularism.
A cursory reading of the leading conservative Supreme Court justices, notably Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, shows a religiously-inspired revulsion against modernity.
The fact that two-thirds of Americans support abortion rights, for example, is no obstacle.
The laws of God and the words of America’s founding fathers — almost the same thing in the eyes of legal originalists — were not the product of focus groups.
Since the ends justify the means, the laws governing elections can also be reinterpreted.
The word “democracy” appears nowhere in the bible or the US constitution.
The thing America’s liberals have going for them is public sentiment, which is generally on their side.
But what people tell pollsters they think is a poor match for the certainties of judges with lifetime tenure on America’s apex court.
In most other respects, Joe Biden starts at a disadvantage in his goal of defending American secularism.
“What are the next things that are going to be attacked?” Biden asked after the Supreme Court draft opinion to abolish Roe vs Wade was leaked last week.
“This is about a lot more than abortion.”
Biden’s main handicap is that the Christian right is far better organised than his party.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, is willing to tear up longstanding conventions and poison any remaining goodwill in US politics to get conservatives on the Supreme Court.
That his methods cause outrage is a bonus rather than a price.
Contrast that with the left’s patience with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal justice, whose refusal to retire when Barack Obama was president meant the vacancy fell to Trump when she died.
Ginsburg, whose life was about advancing women’s rights, was replaced by Barrett, who champions stay-at-home mothers.
The shift illustrates the ruthlessness of America’s right and the sentimentalism of its left.
To reverse that requires a cultural revolution for which Biden may be ill-equipped.
His forlorn attempts to pass his signature “build back better” bill shows how hard that will be.
The first problem is that it should have been called the “American women and children act”.
The original bill would have enshrined access to universal early years education, funded childcare support for working parents and the right to parental leave.
This would have made it easier for the US middle class, and particularly women, to re-enter the labour force.
It would also have brought America into line with the rest of the west, where these rights have been the norm for decades.
Ginsburg first made her name studying gender equality in Sweden in the early 1960s and took her ideas back to US courtrooms.
Sixty years later, America still lacks the maternal rights that Ginsburg admired in Sweden: gender equality is now set to go backwards.
US maternal mortality numbers are already high by western standards.
Roughly half its women of child-bearing age live in states that will outlaw abortion when Roe vs Wade is scrapped.
The next battle line against secularism — the rollback of public education — is being set by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, rather than by Trump, his state’s best-known resident.
DeSantis, who had made little secret of his desire to be the 2024 Republican nominee, is stripping local school boards of powers in the name of parents’ rights.
In reality this is about defunding public schools, which conservatives see as the breeding ground of secular values.
Almost a quarter of a millennium after America’s distinctly non-pious founding fathers wrote the guidelines for a secular republic, the US is experiencing a religious revival.
These periodic “awakenings” eventually burn themselves out, but they never disappear.
This latest one is still gathering momentum.
Its opponents so far lack the means to reverse it.
0 comments:
Publicar un comentario