August 14, 2006

Blogometer PM Extra II

BLOGGERS VS. GOP: Policy vs. Theology

Heather Mac Donald is making blogosphere waves with her 8/28 issue article in The American Conservative decrying the "religious triumphalism" of the current GOP leadership. Andrew Sullivan quotes from the article at length:

Conservative atheists and agnostics support traditional American values. They believe in personal responsibility, self-reliance, and deferred gratification as the bedrock virtues of a prosperous society. They view marriage between a man and a woman as the surest way to raise stable, law-abiding children. They deplore the encroachments of the welfare state on matters best left to private effort.

The presumption of religious belief — not to mention the contradictory thinking that so often accompanies it — does damage to conservatism by resting its claims on revealed truth. But on such truth there can be no agreement without faith. And a lot of us do not have such faith — nor do we need it to be conservative.

and writes: "This is indeed one of the main themes of my forthcoming book, although my skeptical conservatism is compatible not only with atheism and agnosticism but also with a Christianity that eschews fundamentalist dogma and psychology. I have differed with Heather on issues like torture and police power - for conservative reasons. I agree with her about heterosexual marriage, but I do not see homosexual marriage as a threat to it, but rather as a compliment and complement. Still, for all our small differecnes, I am delighted that others are seeing the danger that Christianism poses to conservatism and are beginning to marshall the necessary arguments to fight back."

Ramesh Ponnuru joins the converation noting "MacDonald is talking good sense when she says that conservatives should be able to agree on policy without agreeing on theology." But Ponnuru wants to know more about what Mac Donald means by "natural law" and is troubled by this pgraph:

"[T]he conservative movement is crippling itself by leaning too heavily on religion to the exclusion of these temperamentally compatible allies. Conservative atheists and agnostics . . . . view marriage between a man and a woman as the surest way to raise stable, law-abiding children."

Ponnuru comments: "I take this passage to express opposition to same-sex marriage. Let us leave aside two questions here in evaluating MacDonald's claim. The first question to ignore is whether opposition to same-sex marriage should be a central conservative cause. The second is whether valid and decisive rational, non-religious arguments against same-sex marriage exist. Is it true that the conservative movement has been "crippling itself" by alienating atheists and agnostics who oppose same-sex marriage? How many such people are there, and how alienated are they? My guess is that there are only a handful of non-religious people who object to same-sex marriage, and that the few people who hold that set of views will almost always be willing to work with conservatives who, to coin a phrase, agree with them on policy while disagreeing on theology.

Posted by Conn Carroll at August 14, 2006 03:23 PM