theocracy here we come

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when do we get to vote for the new messiah?

 

 

Gotta Have Faith

By Paul Krugman

New York Times | Opinion

 

Tuesday, 17 December, 2002

 

Last week the Bush administration made an important announcement. I'm not

referring to the selection of a new economic team, which will make absolutely no

difference to policy. I'm talking about the executive order removing

longstanding barriers between church and state.

 

The announcement didn't attract much attention amid the furor over Trent Lott.

Yet it contains the seeds of a similar future uproar. The media were shocked,

shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for segregation

-- something that was obvious long before Mr. Lott inserted his foot in his

mouth. One of these years they'll be equally shocked to discover that prominent

Republicans have a soft spot for theocracy.

 

Of course, the administration insists that the new policy isn't intended to

allow government-funded proselytizing. And it would surely deny that by

explicitly permitting religious discrimination in hiring -- organizations that

receive federal contracts can " take faith into account in making employment

decisions " -- it is opening up a new source of patronage for its friends on the

Christian right.

 

Why am I not reassured?

 

For one thing, we are well advised not to trust anything the administration says

about the goals of its domestic policy. John J. DiIulio, who initially headed

the Bush administration's faith-based initiative, told a reporter, Ron Suskind,

that this White House had no interest in the substance of policy, caring only

about political payoffs: " What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything

-- being run by the political arm. "

 

Mr. DiIulio repudiated his own carefully drafted, 3,000-word letter to Mr.

Suskind after Karl Rove put a horse's head in his bed. (O.K., I'm not sure about

that last part.) But the best guess about any domestic policy from this

administration is that its real purpose is to cater to a part of its base. And

which part of the base wants to blur the line between church and state?

 

George W. Bush is always careful to speak in favor of faith in general, not any

faith in particular. Congressional leaders are less careful. Last spring Tom

DeLay, soon to be House majority leader, told a church group that: " Only

Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in

this world -- only Christianity. " He also said he was on a mission from God to

promote a " biblical worldview " in American politics.

 

By the way, one piece of that biblical worldview involves scientific education.

After the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay suggested that the tragedy had

occurred " because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing

but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud. " Guns

don't kill people; Charles Darwin kills people.

 

Mr. DeLay isn't an obscure crank; he's the most powerful man in Congress. Still,

is he an outlier? No. Don Nickles, now challenging the wounded Mr. Lott for

Senate leadership, is less given to colorful statements, but is as closely

aligned with the religious right as Mr. DeLay.

 

And the influence of the religious right spreads much further. The Internet

commentator Atrios, who played a key role in bringing Mr. Lott's past to light,

now urges us to look into the secretive Council for National Policy. This

blandly named organization was founded by Tim LaHaye, co-author of the

apocalyptic " Left Behind " novels, and is in effect a fundamentalist pressure

group. As of 1998 the organization's membership contained many leading

Congressional figures in the Republican Party, though none of the party's

neoconservative intellectuals.

 

George W. Bush gave a closed-door speech to the council in 1999, after which the

religious right in effect endorsed his candidacy. Accounts vary about what he

promised, and the organization has refused to release the tape. But it's notable

that he appointed John Ashcroft as attorney general; Mr. Ashcroft gives every

appearance of placing his biblical worldview above secular concerns about due

process.

 

I'd like to think that the furor over Trent Lott's nostalgia for Jim Crow,

hidden in plain sight for years, would serve as a signal to ask about other

uncomfortable truths hidden in plain sight. But I suspect that it won't, that

we'll soon go back to worrying about politicians' haircuts.

 

And then, years from now, when it becomes clear that much public policy has been

driven by a hard-line fundamentalist agenda, people will say " But nobody told

us. "