The Gosnell case: Why it won't make any difference

Anti-abortionists have been transfixed by the current criminal trial of Dr. Keith Gosnell, a Philadelphian who performs abortions, and have complained about media coverage -- in their view, the lack thereof, because of their perceived pro-choice bias. I suspect that they want to force a national conversation on the morality of abortion and that if they covered it properly more people would support their cause.

I think that they're wasting their breath.

The reality is that most Americans really couldn't care less about abortion -- one survey I saw a number of years ago noted that the percentage of people who based their vote primarily on a candidate's stance on legal abortion was in single digits, and two-thirds of those were pro-choice. And when was the last time you ever saw abortion as a campaign issue? It almost never happens.

And I think I know why. In its nearly-40-year history the "pro-life" movement has always been dominated by religious types not consistently popular with the public, specifically Roman Catholics and Protestant evangelicals, because of its uncomfortableness with the use of faith as the will to power. In other words, ultimately it's about not "life" but the idea of religious values being crammed down everyone's throat (which Americans despise with a passion, especially today). In this context "religious" arguments simply don't -- can't -- work. Yet the movement keeps trying, wishing and hoping for the cultural change that they have yet to produce.

That hope took root in 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president; I was in college at the time and noticed that fighting abortion was the only acceptable way to be a Christian who sought political involvement. And that led to an unbalanced understanding of what faith was about -- many of my fellow students became flat-out jerks more concerned about "the cause" than the personal character that God wanted to develop in them.

As someone who opposes abortion for reasons having nothing to do with my Christian faith, I see no way that we can have a conversation about abortion unless and until the religious aspect is downplayed. That actually might happen as the United States grows increasingly secular, but it won't happen a moment before. And I'm thankful for that, because fighting abortion has become a form of idolatry.

And that's why the Gosnell trial won't be the touchstone, the turning point, that anti-abortionists have craved.

A rude awakening: The 'realpolitik' of gay marriage

Earlier this week the Washington Post reported that a number of culturally conservative organizations asked the Republican Party not to support same-gender matrimony in the light of last year's general election, threatening to leave if it reversed course.

I seriously doubt, however, that they will. Reason: From a financial and organizational standpoint, they have always been highly dependent on the secular conservatives who have dominated the GOP since the 1970s. And if they do, which to me would be a surprise, they will find themselves increasingly isolated.

They're headed that way anyway; they stopped being a force in American politics on the national level in 2006. That became clear when Focus on the Family, facing the potential of major GOP losses in Congress due to the lobbying scandal and the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, sponsored officially non-partisan "Stand for the Family" rallies in several battleground states hoping to turn out its supporters, one of those, essentially a shill for Sen. Rick Santorum, taking place here in Pittsburgh. (Of course, GOP candidates lost every one of those Senate races, Santorum losing to Bob Casey Jr. by 18 points.)

More to the point, however, the vast majority of secular conservatives really don't care about gay marriage, abortion or other social issues of import to conservative evangelical Christians, something that would be obvious if you subscribe to secular conservative media. You won't see discussions on those in secular print or online media or on the Fox News Channel, FNC's bogus "War on Christmas" notwithstanding.

More troubling, however, is just how easily many of us Christians were suckered into the war against "big government," which in essence was always a class war; the movement from its beginnings in the mid-1950s took aim against those of lesser means who may benefit from political action, in my view violating Biblical principles of social justice. (Yes, the Scriptures do support such, contrary to what you may have heard.)

And while there's nothing wrong with making money, too many of us have idolized businessmen as the Christian ideal, ignoring the economic exploitation that they supported that began taking place in the early 1980s and the heavy lobbying to maintain their privileged status that they do today. In the process the church, in failing to confront the greedy then, has lost much of its prophetic power, which is why few are listening to it today when it comes to a clear violation of another Biblical issue.

Indeed, many, many gays are otherwise politically conservative. I was stunned to learn about a decade ago about the Republican Unity Council, a now-inactive organization that sought to recruit gay or gay-friendly conservative candidates, and one survey noted that George W. Bush received about a quarter of the gay vote in 2000. And of course you have today the more-established Log Cabin Republicans and the more recent GOProud that irritate "culture warriors" to no end. Clearly gays are becoming a more powerful force in the Republican Party, whose chief concern is winning elections, not taking moral stances.

With the gay-marriage issue now facing the Supreme Court -- and remember that one of the lawyers who argued for the overturning of California's 2008 Proposition 8 that banned it was Ted Olson, who played a small part in the 1990s anti-Bill Clinton crusade -- it's time for us Christians to understand that secular conservatives were never really our friends. I always was concerned that Christians might be thrown overboard if we were seen as costing them elections.

That day may have come.

More than just 'white privilege'

Janell Ross, writing in Wednesday's Huffington Post in an article titled "Black Unemployment Driven By White America's Favors For Friends," tried to insist that the jobless rate for African-Americans is double that of the population at large is because of so-called white privilege -- that white America simply takes its opportunities for granted and is inconsiderate of "people of color." She quoted as a source a recent book, "The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism" by Nancy DiTomaso, a professor of organization management at Rutgers University who said that most white people admitted that they had little contact with blacks.

I understand that concern, but it's not necessarily the fault of whites. What's really needed is not so much a program to get more African-Americans in the pipeline but a way for black and white to have closer personal relationships -- attend the same churches, live in the same neighborhoods or otherwise associate with the same people.

Trouble is, that kind of "intimacy" was discouraged when I was growing up. And if my experience is any indication, it comes mostly from the black side.

Come again?

I came of age in the 1970s, a time when integration was at least a reasonable possibility. I attended largely white private schools and found myself in an almost-all-white conservative Presbyterian church, so white folks have virtually always been a part of my life. But for reasons I'll never understand this side of heaven, other black kids hassled me, one girl (yes, a girl) abusing me on a consistent basis at one of those schools. I thus decided to build my significant friendships with whites, leading to more scorn from my fellow African-Americans. At that point I didn't care.

As a 10th-grader at a prestigious Catholic prep school, I won two parts in the spring musical and was invited to two graduation parties. I was on the newspaper staff of both the major universities that I attended; at the second university I decided to go through fraternity rush and was extended a bid on the first night from the first house I visited. (I eventually accepted that bid and am a brother today.) In my early 20s I joined a socially prominent Presbyterian congregation; by the time I left 14 years later I had become a deacon and would likely be an elder today had I stayed.

In all of these places there were very few, if any, other blacks. Why was I so accepted, especially when I was often told that it wouldn't happen? I'm not sure I can answer that question so easily; that said, I was not trying to make a statement.

I was simply trying to find a home.

It thus could be that the high unemployment rate for blacks that Ross and DiTomaso refer to is connected to their inability or unwillingness to take risks, leave comfort zones and actually mix with people who don't "look like them"; if you do you risk being labeled "sellout," "honky-lover," "Oreo cookie." Teens who focus on their studies at the expense of a social life are even now often accused of "acting white."

I've worked at the same newspaper for over 16 years, and I got that job indirectly because I used to attend a integrated church with a now-deceased member of the editorial board -- a very fair-minded white man. In 1993 he was my instructor for one of my college classes; I did so well that he put my name in down there.

Maybe instead of complaining about "white privilege," we should be asking ourselves: "Are we connected to the right people, and will they vouch for us?" After all, we all feel most comfortable with those we already know. Perhaps we need to broaden our own horizons and cross some lines -- uncomfortable at first, of course, but well worth the effort down the road.

More false hope

If you haven't heard, the Dow Jones reached its all-time high, over 14,000, last week. Such indicated to many people that the economy is finally on its way back after a six-year (or thereabout) slump because, finally, people with the means to hire will do so.

I think that such optimism, which will be unfortunately short-lived, is unfounded and shows just how much the mentality of "supply-side economics" has taken hold.

One thing we need to understand: "Creating jobs" is not the primary end of employers -- making money is. That is their right, as no one goes into business for any reason except to make a profit, expanding payroll simply a result of doing well.

Over the past three decades, however, "doing well" simply hasn't translated into jobs, and I don't suspect that will change now.

Productivity among American workers is at an all-time high. Automation has eliminated the need for some kinds of employment. And, these days, companies are doing their best to shed payroll, not least because health benefits cost so much. (Which, ironically, is due to the focus on speculation that caused the shift in the first place.)

The so-called jobless recovery of the Bush II years thus should have exposed as a lie the idea of putting the economy in the hands of "job creators," the closest thing our country has to an aristocracy, being the key to improved performance. "All employers are rich people," you might say. True, but not all rich people are employers, and we began seeing in the early 1980s that the policies that directly benefited them primarily didn't "trickle down" to everyone else.

What we need to do is to find ways to get more money into the hands of people who need it the most -- of course that does mean work, but jobs these days are pretty hard to find. Any suggestions?

The back story on the 'sequester'

As I write we're looking at a major shutdown of parts of the Federal government due to last week's "sequester." I'm sure you, and a lot of people, are a little tired of "Washington" not being able to get its act together and come up with some solutions to the perpetual stalemate between President Obama and Republicans in Congress. "Surely they can come up with something," you insist.

But you need to understand one thing, contrary to conventional wisdom: This fight is not, and never was, about "spending," despite what the Republicans will tell you. It's about politics -- more accurately, just what and whom that money is being spent on. There's a reason why the late Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, a former Speaker of the House, said, "All politics is local."

That is to say, "What's in it for me?"

I'm serious about this -- after all, that's the way our political system was built so that we feel that we have a stake in the way things are run. Remember that we don't have just one nation -- we have 435 different regions of the country, all with different, and often contrasting, agendas. Plus, we have a culture of telling the government what it should and shouldn't do. Bottom line, the chaos we're seeing now is precisely because of that diffusion of power.

This is why the tea-party movement, which when it got started in 2010 promoted itself as an independent grass-roots force (which couldn't be further from the truth), couldn't but fail. "Cut spending," it demanded.

But it never mentioned exactly what should be cut and by how much. After all -- and this is rarely addressed -- one person's "waste" may be another's livelihood. If you think I'm just blowing smoke, try closing a military base and see just how many folks get up all bent out of shape. (It happens all the time here in Pittsburgh whenever people talk about closing a major base near our airport. Why? It provides jobs.)

The "fiscal conservatives" should have learned that lesson in 1995, when the government ran out of money and shut down, not once but twice. Recall that President Clinton during that budget battle wouldn't knuckle under to GOP leadership's demands, offering a budget that resulted in a surplus but preserved the social programs that it wanted gone. In the end it got most of what it wanted, but Clinton won the PR war and another term in the process (and also got him impeached because he had the gall to be reelected).

Similarly, Obama may have tried to set a trap for congressional Republicans, whom he had to have known aren't inclined to work with him or anyone else; in saying in the fall that this impasse surely wouldn't -- couldn't -- happen, he was either being extremely naive or cunning. It's too soon to tell if this political chicanery, if that's what it is, will work given that few people haven't already taken sides. But as I indicated before, folks will focus on what benefits them personally before anything else. Advantage the president.

A bad history lesson

The title pretty much said it all -- "A Speech Worthy of Booker T. Washington."

That was the name of a piece by Jonah Goldberg that was published last week in National Review Online concerning a speech that a Dr. Ben Carson, who is African-American, delivered at a recent National Prayer Breakfast. Goldberg likened the contrast to Carson and President Obama, who of course attended, to Washington, who worked and lived in the South; and W.E.B. Du Bois, who lived North.

"Washington believed that blacks should emphasize education and self-advancement and worry about integration later," Goldberg wrote, while "Du Bois favored a civil-rights-first strategy combined with reliance on technocrats, including what he called the 'talented tenth,' or the best African-Americans."

But if Goldberg were to consult any non-conservative African-Americans, especially in the South, he might understand why Du Bois eventually won out.

Because, at first, they actually did take Washington's advice. Even in the midst of Jim Crow, or perhaps because of it, the black community in the South, especially in urban areas, did indeed build its own infrastructure, with businesses and educational institutions and especially churches that defined the black experience in those days. Most Southern cities actually had their share of black millionaires.

Yet Goldberg and other conservatives consistently fail to note that African-Americans in those days weren't permitted to vote or otherwise participate in public life and that their lives might even be in danger if they found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let's not forget why we saw the "Great Migration" from the South to Northern cities about 100 years ago. (It's why I live in Pittsburgh and not Virginia or North Carolina, where my ancestors came from.)

This is why Washington barely registers a footnote in contemporary black history -- he was seen as an "accommodationist" or "sellout," someone who maintained his own authority but failed to bring others to the table.

And, indirectly, it was Du Bois that actually helped to break down Southern segregation; he spearheaded the "Niagara Movement," which gave birth to the NAACP -- an organization that is still despised by many on the political right but whose membership generally comprised that day's black bourgeoisie. Although Martin Luther King Jr., who occasionally quoted Washington, provided the moral and spiritual muscle behind the civil-rights movement, the NAACP, driven functionally underground in several Southern states, provided the legal muscle. (Also recall that King received his master's and doctoral degrees from Northern institutions.)

Goldberg also fails to appreciate that African-Americans, even those in the North who didn't experience the political roadblocks of their Southern cousins, also need something to vote for, and Obama eventually became that reason. He may not like Obama's liberalism but doesn't recognize that by its very nature his conservatism is highly offensive to much of that community.

I would be remiss if I didn't challenge Goldberg's comment that Dr. Carson "inveighed against a culture of victimology and dependency," the context likening that to liberalism. Thing is, modern conservatism has from the start complained about being victimized by the likes of "evil liberals" and hostile media, among others, many of its apologists always bellyaching that they don't get respect while simultaneously trashing everyone in sight who doesn't agree with them. And I'd be willing to bet that, as a conservative writer, Goldberg is himself on "welfare" from rich conservatives who pay him a mint to serve as their propagandist. Did you know that, in its nearly-60-year existence, National Review has never made a dime of profit? (Indeed, the only conservative medium that to my knowledge is in the black is the Fox News Channel.)

It seems that Goldberg is trying to tell people that African-Americans need to choose between political empowerment and cultural integrity; however, if he understood the history of the civil-rights movement he would see that both were in play. For example, at the time of the Montgomery bus protest Rosa Parks was not the first choice for someone to rally around; the original symbol was a 15-year-old girl who had been abused by a driver -- until the community learned that she had gotten pregnant out of wedlock to a married man. Besides, maintaining "cultural integrity" in the post-Civil-War, pre-civil-rights South didn't mean that folks would eventually give you a chance as a human being.

This is why Dr. Carson's remarks simply didn't resonate in the black community. It's one thing to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," but try doing that without any boots. And "getting boots" sometimes means political action, the last thing some folks want.

Seeking validation

"They're not sure that what they believe is true at all. If it were I'd be no threat to them."

Those words came from the late atheist activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair in an interview with conservative journalist Cal Thomas, who asked her why so many Christians hated her and which he quoted in the 1999 book "Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?" that he wrote with the Rev. Ed Dobson. She, of course, has long been vilified for, among other things, having prayer removed from public schools. (Which is unfair, since what was actually banned was only sectarian — in this case, Protestant-based — prayer exercises conducted by agents of the state — that is, teachers and principals. And the Supreme Court decision at the time was quite popular.)

But O'Hair's statement speaks to a larger point: It seems that we Christians, far from simply trying to engage the greater culture, have been seeking validation from the culture. Which is something we should never do or have ever done because, when that happens, we end up being swallowed up by it.

Christian "culture warriors," including Thomas at times, have long lamented the loss of a Christian consensus as to what's right and wrong, what's true and false. However, in the process — and especially beginning in the late 1970s, with the rise of the "religious right" — we neglected to include our own personal and corporate character, not realizing that part of today's opposition to "Christian values" has to do with the way some of us act in the public square.

I first heard that in early 1980, from the pulpit of a suburban Atlanta church; the pastor was consistently preaching against "secular humanism" and punctuated his rant with the phrase from Hebrews, "for our God is a consuming fire." Later on, and not by just that pastor, that list of targets was expanded to include abortionists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union, the national Democratic Party, Bill Clinton ... the list went on.

So what does this have to do with validation? Well, if you feel the need to force your values down everyone's throat, perhaps you don't really believe that it will win out in the end. It results from what psychologists call "cognitive dissonance," where folks with a strong commitment to a specific worldview encounter evidence that suggest that they just might be wrong and not only dismiss it outright but go to war against it.

This basically describes the conservative movement and much of the Republican Party today. In the wake of electoral losses they have suffered over the last two decades you might hear some of their apologists say, "If we can get back to Ronald Reagan ..., " with "scholar" Dinesh D'Souza insisting that he had "the winning agenda." Times were different then, however, and besides, they have never faced that the electorate voted for not so much what Reagan stood for but for Reagan himself.

Which is why they hated Clinton so much — they saw, correctly in my view, that he threatened to undo everything they had worked for. Suddenly personal insults, gossip and innuendo, condemned in Scripture, became part and parcel of Christian political discourse, and the hypocrisy wasn't lost on a lot of non-believers, who began turning against them. (Then again, they still exhibit denial, blaming their loss in last year's general election on the media and other outside forces, never considering the reality that people simply aren't buying what they're selling.)

To me, this points to several things: 1) A practical atheism, a lack of trust in God that He will preserve His people in the midst of tribulation; 2) Self-absorption, in that life revolves around you and you alone and thus the lack of consideration of others, especially those that don't agree; and 3) Idolatry, in that His Kingdom isn't the supreme value.

I am not saying that Christians shouldn't be active or argue for our values in public life. I am saying, however, that we need to rethink our entanglements with non-believers who will cherry-pick what they want to curry favor with us lest we be perceived as just another interest group. Moreover, we also need to act with a certain humility, understanding that if the world doesn't get it, well, it didn't get the LORD Jesus either. He never sought validation from the powers of the world, and neither should we.