Cardinal George responds to Mayor Emanuel on 'Chicago values'

Three cheers for Chicago's Roman Catholic archbishop, Francis Cardinal George (left), for his response to Mayor Emanuel's bizarre statement that support of Western society's traditional understanding of the nature of marriage is somehow alien to "Chicago values."

Cardinal George- like yours truly- was born and raised in Chicago, and knows very well that the values of that great city are deeply rooted in the faith of those who built it and grew it and continue to make it vital. This includes not only the liberal Lakefront enclaves where Leftist politics and relativist ethics prevail, but also places like Little Village and Pilsen and Jefferson Park and Belmont-Cragin and Portage Park and Bridgeport and Chicago Lawn and Beverly and and all the other neighborhoods where generations of Polish and German and Irish and Hispanic and Bohemian immigrants- along with people from dozens of other ethnicities- brought the traditional faiths which sustained their families in the Old World, and made them a vital part of their lives in the New.

I'm told that the African-American communities on the South and West Sides are dispersing to the suburbs. But despite the politically correct decision of the NAACP to arbitrarily declare same-sex "marriage" a "civil rights issue," the roots of Chicago's African-American community, too, are deeply sunk into the nourishing soil of historic Christianity. How dare the mayor suggest that the elitist, postmodern values of a few isolated groups somehow represent the values of the entire city of Chicago?

To not only declare the entire Western ethical tradition prior to the last few years to be an exercise in bigotry because it excluded the novel notion that same-sex couples ought to be able to marry, but to stigmatize the religious teachings of the churches which represent the overwhelming majority of Chicagoans outside the ethical pale, is an exercise in arrogance almost beyond the bounds of belief.

Yet there is, admittedly, another issue involved here. It, too, should be addressed. In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama gave what I consider to be one of the most intelligent and helpful speeches on the subject of the relationship between faith and public policy in American history. I do not agree with everything he said in that speech; I gave my response to it in some detail here. But for the moment, suffice it to say that Mr. Obama made the important point that it is by no means inappropriate for Americans to carry their religious beliefs into the public arena.

As well he might have. Despite the widespread incomprehension of this fact on the Left, the Abolitionist movement, the movement against child labor, the peace movement of the '60's, the Civil Rights movement, and in fact virtually every other important reform movement in our nation's history has arisen from the religious beliefs of Americans. If the line between private religious belief and public policy were drawn as strictly as today's Left would draw it, we would be living today in a very different America- and few reasonable people would find it a change for the better!

So where should the line between religious belief and public policy be drawn? One of the points which it seems to me that Mr. Obama misses in his speech is that the very diversity of religious belief renders even the most inappropriately sectarian political appeals to religion innocuous. Appeals to Scripture or to the tenets of specific religious traditions will be politically ineffective- and therefore harmless- precisely to the extent as they appeal to standards of authority only a small number of people recognize; the overblown fear of theocracy among those who criticize the Christian Right seems to be to be more than a little hysterical.

But the question remains as to how religious Americans can constructively- and effectively- translate their religious concerns into political arguments. And it seems to me that here Mr. Obama comes close to nailing correct answer.

...Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible.

I think he errs only in suggesting that a belief in the inerrancy (or more accurately, the authority) of the Bible need be an impediment to expressing one's religious concerns in practical language and arguments accessible to those of other religious traditions, and none. For that matter, since politics is indeed "the art of the possible," there ought to be no theological objection to compromise even on a matter of public policy involving religious conviction, if it be granted, as an example, that even reducing the number of abortions is preferable to not reducing the number of abortions. To take the best deal one can get is by no means to regard it as ideal, or to preclude continued efforts toward a better one. A good case can be made, though, that where such an improvement on the status quo thorough compromise is possible, it is not only permissable, but obligatory.

But Mr. Obama's central point, it seems to me, is right on target: whether the question of slavery or child labor or abortion or same-sex "marriage," Christians and members of other religious traditions need to argue their case on a basis accessible to people who do not share their religious presuppositions. And it is perfectly true that the religious Right has failed miserably at this point. As a Lutheran, I would argue that much of the reason is a failure on the part of many American religious traditions to recognize the biblical nature of Luther's doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, one implication of which is that justice (unlike justification) is religion-neutral, and ought in principle to be a matter on which people of all religious traditions (and none) can agree. To speak of Christianizing the political order- as all too often has been done on the religious Right- is, on Lutheran terms (and I think on biblical ones) to misunderstand just what it is that makes something specifically Christian. What is unique to the message of the Church is the proclamation that forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available through faith in Christ. But as the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1, the law of God is written on the human heart. It is accessible to all of us. It It is not the role of government to proclaim the Gospel, but rather to enforce justice. Therefore, there can be no such thing as specifically Christian public policy; there can only be good and just public policy, or bad and unjust public policy.

Casting the matter in those terms, Cardinal George does a very fine job of what the Roman Catholic tradition in fact does so well: making a philosophical, rather than a specifically theological, argument for the traditional view of marriage. For my point, I would add three practical, rather than theoretical, arguments.

First, contrary to the assumption that seems to permeate the debate on same-sex "marriage," there is in fact no particular demand for it among gay Americans, and never has been. In no jurisdiction anywhere in the world where civil unions or "marriage" have been accessible to same-sex couples have more than a handful of such couples availed themselves of them. The overwhelming majority of those who have are lesbians, which may be due to a second factor.

The gay community has been commendably forthright in speaking of the comparative rarity of sexually exclusivity among even "committed" male couples. This should not be surprising. Gay men are, after all, men- and men, by nature, are inclined to promiscuity. Women, on the other hand, initate the overwhelming majority of divorces even among heterosexual couples. While what statistics are available indicate a far higher divorce rate even among male couples than among heterosexual couples, the divorce rate among lesbian couples in Europe is off the charts. Even the studies which have concluded that there is no adverse effect on children when they are raised by same-sex couples frequently qualify that finding by mentioning the characteristic instability of lesbian relationships.

Despite the common argument that extending marriage to same-sex couples does not affect the institution of marriage for the rest of us, it seems to me reasonable to ask whether effectively accepting adultery as an expectation for a sub-set of married couples, and a divorce rate hugely higher than the already unprecedented divorce rate among heterosexual couples for another, larger sub-set, can help but negatively impact the institution of marriage itself, with negative consequences for the rest of us.

These are real concerns, and to attempt to dismiss them- or Cardinal George's cogent philosophical argument that marriage by definition ought to be confined to couples consisting of a man and a woman- as mere bigotry is not only intellectually dishonest, but an exercise in totalitarianism. Attempting to silence opponents by demonizing them is a common game on the Left. It has become depressingly routine in the debate on same-sex "marriage."

When Mayor Emanuel (and Mayor Menino of Boston, and others on their side of this issue) choose to forgo logic and debate in favor of intimidation and bullying, they display values that are not simply alien to Chicago.

They are alien to America. And the mayors of Chicago and of Boston and their allies should be ashamed of themselves for espousing them.

HT: Real Clear Religion