HOW SHOULD DEMOCRATS DEAL WITH "Moral Values"?

(Talk to Sarasota Democratic Club on January 8, 2005 by Wade Matthews)

Back many decades ago I was a member of the University of North Carolina's varsity debate squad along with three other undergraduates, one of whom was Charles Kuralt, who later had a well-known television program. There's one thing I remember that our debate coach advised us to do when delivering a speech. He said: "Stand up, tell them what you want to say, say it, tell them what you said, ask for questions, then sit down".

So what I'd like to do first is to evaluate "moral values": What are they? How important were they in the November election? How important are they now? How important are they likely to be in 2006, and in 2008?

In the light of that opinion or speculation, what do I see as the options for the Democratic Party, and which of those options do I recommend, and why? Then I want to talk a little about linkages to other issues.

Finally, I'd like to talk about wordsmithing the names and terminologies of those moral values in the opposite way from what the Republicans and their allies have done so successfully over the past years. I think this is important because, sometimes, whichever side succeeds in putting a few favorable or unfavorable descriptive words together and getting most people to use them, that side wins the battle and pre-empts any intelligent discussion of the substance of the issue that the other side might otherwise have used.

I need to begin with what is often called the non-profit disclaimer: Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the organization of which I have had the honor of being the volunteer, unpaid, very part time President of the Sarasota-Manatee Chapter for the last four years or so, is a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We can neither endorse nor oppose a political party or a candidate for public office, and we can not declare partisan preference, though we can obviously support or oppose legislative bills that might be supported primarily by one political party and we can urge one and all to support church-state separation. Ditto for other non-profits with which I am affiliated. The opinions and recommendations I make here are therefore my own, as a concerned Democrat, and they don't necessarily reflect those of Americans United or any other organization of which I am a director or member.

The exit polls and subsequent polls seem to tell us that about 22 percent of the nation's voters this past November felt that "moral values" were the single most significant issue in deciding how they would vote, and that those for whom "moral values" was the most important issue, went overwhelmingly for Bush and the Republicans. What were those "moral values" in the minds of those voters who said they were most important? We don't really know, and many of those voters themselves probably were just registering a vague unease, wanting to vote for a return to what they imagined were more traditional mores.

Pollsters often had to burrow in to find out what, but several unfortunate "values" stood out both from those interviews and from the results of other referenda on election day. Constitutional amendments were on the ballot to outlaw gay marriages in eleven states (and in eight states to outlaw gay civil unions as well), and those amendments all passed by an average of around two to one. Only 25 percent of voters in exit polls backed gay marriage, while 70 percent of Bush voters opposed civil unions as well as marriage for gays.

Opposition to abortion rights was also strong among voters who listed "moral values" as their prime vote motivation. Support for vocal prayer and display of religious materials in public schools, opposition to human cloning, to euthanasia, support for so-called "faith-based" programs was important to many of them. Others believed that Bush was a "man of God" or a religious man, and voted for him for that reason. Not very many mentioned such "moral values" as help for the poor and elderly, toleration or kindness to those with differing religious views, access to medical care for all, greater equality of opportunity, a more peaceful world, and even fewer mentioned what I would call such "moral values" as protection of the environment, more equitable tax and education policies, foreign economic aid, and similar traditionally Democratic Party planks.

Notice that most of those "moral values" to which poll respondents and voters on referenda gave salience were not things that affected their personal lives. They affected the lives of other people, and it deeply offended those voters that other people had or might have the freedom to marry regardless of their gender, to terminate a pregnancy, to attend a school or receive government funds without having a religion they did not share forced upon them.

Those intolerant values were certainly important in this past election, but probably not as important as their advocates would have us believe. It clearly serves the purposes of intolerant religious extremists to convince America and particularly the Bush administration that the votes of their flocks re-elected him. To the extent that Democrats are willing consequently to modify their agenda to mollify those extremists, that shifts both sides of the political debate in their direction.

Will the "moral values" issues that got the most publicity in this election be equally important two and four years from now? Many have spoken of this election as a "watershed", just as they spoke of Ronald Reagan's election, Nixon's resignation, and even Newt Gingrich's ascendancy. Going back even further, there was said to be a moral "watershed" when prohibition was mandated by Constitutional amendment. We now know better.

There are many things that can happen to push these fundamentalist "moral values" off the voters' front burners. Think of the already worsening war in Iraq, the mushrooming Federal deficit, possible crashing value of the dollar, even sudden and radical global warming, as well as happier events such as possible Arab-Israeli peace and cooperation, medical breakthroughs, etc. There are also things that Democrats can do to seize the issue.

Democrats have several options for handling "moral values". One is to move to the right. Some already seem to be reacting in a traditional way in our two-party system: become more like the winning party, so as to capture some of their votes. The new Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada (who I understand is personally anti-choice), and even House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, have shown signs of taking that option on things like abortion, church-state separation and gay rights. Young superstar Senator Barak Obama and some others have shown ambivalence.

That option might not work this time. For one thing, the two parties have never been more different in issue orientation. With Georgia's nominal Democrat Zell Miller now retired from the Senate, there are no longer any real far-right-radical Democrats in the Senate, and to the best of my knowledge, in the House, probably for the first time since the Civil War. On the Republican side, the liberal Rockefeller wing is almost extinct on the national scene, with a very few exceptions like Rhode Island's Chafee and possibly Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arizona's popular Senator McCain is independent, but most of his views are solidly in the conservative Republican tent. A move by a Democrat to agree with a hard-right Republican "moral value" would probably lose him more liberal and Democratic votes than he would gain from Republicans and other conservatives.

Furthermore, the religious fanatic faction and those they influence are never going to share enough values with the Democratic Party to give it their votes. Listen to fundamentalist college president Bob Jones III's letter to President Bush (as quoted by columnist Maureen Dowd on November 16): "Christ has allowed you to be his servant" to "leave an imprint for righteousness" by appointing conservative judges and approving legislation "defined by Biblical norm." "In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism." "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ."

Or hear the words of Stephen Strang, founder and publisher of the slick and expensive-looking Charisma and Christian Life in its October 2004 edition: "Just before President Clinton was elected in 1992, the Lord also told me that Clinton would be in office for two terms." Apparently in a later chat with God, the Almighty told Strang "After Clinton, I will raise up a man like David. A chosen man after My heart who will lead this nation in righteousness." Strang continues, no longer directly quoting God, "George W. Bush did not win the popular vote—he was not man's choice. The unusual circumstances surrounding the 2000 vote, including the endless recounts and the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, reminded us that God had intervened. I believe President Bush was God's choice."

Strang then gives God's plans and agenda, including re-electing George Bush, removing three Supreme Court justices, confronting and defeating demonic spirits in the U.S. and the Middle East, "raising the economy strong again", and causing oil prices to drop. If God so explicity endorses Republicans and their intolerant agenda, how can a move to the right help the Democrats?

Another Democratic option might be to shift focus but without change in the Democratic Party position away from "moral values" to things like the Iraq war, the deficit, other disasters, social security, etc. That might work if some of those issues I mentioned a few minutes ago blow up within the next two or three years, but probably not otherwise.

A third option would be "no change". After all, the key reason Bush won was probably not "moral values" at all, but Kerry's ambivalence on Iraq, his history as a war protester years ago, has relative (compared to Bush) stiffness, fear of terrorism with Bush's uncompromising approach toward those (particularly overseas) who disagree with his tactics, the benefit from incumbency, and the real possibility that votes were stolen from the unverifiable electronic voting machines without a paper trail. With a more attractive candidate running against a non-incumbent Republican, particularly if the next Republican Presidential candidate is still more an extreme rightist than Bush, a Democrat might win the presidency without policy changes on moral values. Maybe.

I would recommend a fourth option: Redefining "moral values" and focusing the campaign on those values, at least in the absence of a more urgent issue such as overwhelming antiwar sentiment or financial crisis. This option would mean repeatedly emphasizing the morality of expanded medical care, greater educational opportunities, a more egalitarian society through changing the tax code, preserving social security for its original purpose, radical deficit reduction through raising taxes on the very rich and reducing military expenditures through winding down Bush's Iraq war, and cooperatively protecting the world's natural environment, and our own. This would also mean moral emphasis on expanding assistance to poverty-stricken nations, including reducing unsustainable population increase in many of those nations through family planning assistance and major programs for women's rights and education. Democrats would thereby seize the moral values issue, but by emphasizing liberal values, not the intolerant and hard-right moral values of the current dominant forces in the Republican Party.

All those items, and others, are more justifiably "moral values" and more in keeping with most conceptions of Biblical teachings and the precepts of most religions than are depriving women of the right to control their own bodies and gays of personal rights that heterosexuals have, forcing taxpayers to pay for other people's religion through vouchers, so-called faith based charities, and other merging of church and state, and even slowing or halting medical advances through religious-motivated restrictions on stem-cell research.

Okay, but how does one convince the American people, the voters, that these are the true "moral values". Obviously, it would take a campaign, with some coordination, and support from various religious, civil libertarian, environmental, educational, and other organizations. But I suggest that such a campaign would be greatly helped if Democrats would take back the name game from the Republicans. Perhaps because so many advertising companies are dominated by Republicans or perhaps for other reasons, Democrats have been on the losing side of sexy or politically appealing names for political issues. I'm not in the advertising business, but as an illustration, why don't we start calling things by names that are more appealing for what we advocate, and less appealing for what they advocate. For example, on the negative side, call them:

• Power Puritans, not Evangelical Conservatives
• Religious Zealots or Extremists, not Fundamentalists
• American Taliban, not Social Conservatives
• Anti-choice, not Pro-life
• Forced Pregnancy or Forced Child-bearing, not Outlawed Abortion
• Tax-funded Religion, not Faith-based Charity
• Embryo (less preferably Fetus), not Unborn Child
• Flat Earther, not Biblical Literalist
• Merging Church and State, not Restoring Moral Values
• Torture, not mistreatment

And we need catchy slogans that bear repeating and make a point we want to make, like:  "9/11 was a faith-based initiative".

With signs like " Vote for God" at churches used as voting sites (this happened in Sarasota) and clearly partisan voters' guides distributed by some religious leaders, we had "faith-based voting".

In summation, I would recommend that Democrats not attempt to capture the "moral values" voters by compromising their basic liberal principles or by trying to deflect attention to other issues. Instead, Democrats should recognize the importance of moral values to many sincerely religious people as well as to some bigots, zealots and extremists. Democrats will never win over the latter, who are primarily concerned with forcing their own views and prejudices on others, and should not waste the effort of trying. But the more sincerely religious may be convinced by broadening the definition of "moral issues" to include programs that help the less fortunate, the environment, that promote religious freedom through church-state separation, that don't pass on deficits and debt to the next generation, and that promote greater equity and fairness. Democrats should explain to "moral values" voters that these programs are supportive of religious principles shared by diverse religious faiths, as well as by ethical and humanist views. In publicizing and advocating these traditional Democratic "moral values", Democrats should try to rename many programs and change many slogans so as to better promote our values and more accurately describe them.