Kerry, Religion, and the Politics of “Respect”: Why “Article of Faith” Is Just Proxy for Irrational Stuff that Religious Folk Believe.(The following is a brief essay I submitted to
American Spectator for consideration. Since it may not get published there, I thought I would share it with the SA crowd and its readers. Enjoy.)
Beneath what is often called the “culture wars” is a division of philosophical labor which tells us that moral beliefs that are derived from one’s religion or theology are not really items of knowledge. Rather, they are on the same level as mere opinion, matters of personal taste, and/or deeply held spiritual beliefs that may not be extended as normative for others. So, this is why Ron Reagan, the son of the late U. S. President Ronald W. Reagan, can tell a national television audience in his speech before the 2004 Democratic National Convention that many who oppose embryonic stem cell research “are well-meaning and sincere,” but this is based on nothing more than belief, “an article of faith,” to which of course they “are entitled.” However, asserts Reagan, “it does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many.”
This is quite a trick, one mastered by 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, a Catholic who believes that human life begins at conception but does not think this belief should be reflected in our laws. The trick works because a “belief” never can in principle count as an item of knowledge that may defeat the deliverances of another person’s equally subjective “belief.” This is why Kerry, a U. S. Senator, can scold Pope John Paul II for “crossing the line” when a document issued by the Vatican suggests that Catholic politicians, such as Kerry, not support legislation that would allow homosexual unions, for “to vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral." Kerry, in his reply, offers the requisite affirmation of faith—“I believe in the church and care about it enormously”—followed by the requisite disclaimer that it is, after all, just religion and has nothing important to say about anything of any consequence---"But I think that it's important to not have the church instructing politicians.” Apparently, however, politicians may instruct the church about what it should consider important.
Although Kerry’s retort may seem self-referentially incoherent, it does not seem that way to Kerry and like-minded citizens. Here’s why. Because theology is not part of a knowledge tradition, and thus there are no real experts who have insights about these matters from whom Kerry may find a remedy for his ignorance, the Pope is just another believer with a fancy hat and a larger constituency than the population of Massachusetts. Just as Nancy Reagan’s belief in astrology should not have guided the work of professional astronomers working on the Hubble Telescope or the Reagan administration’s NASA budget, Mr. Kerry’s belief that life begins at conception, or his church’s view that marriage between a man and a woman is essential to the public good, should have no influence in shaping public policy because it is merely a belief and thus can never in principle be employed as normative for other people who hold contrary beliefs. For some reason, this equating of another’s, or even the Pope’s or one’s own, religious beliefs with complete nonsense is given the label of tolerance.
For those of us who maintain that marriage between a man and a woman is normative and that human beings are intrinsically valuable from the moment they come into existence, Kerry’s position is condescending and insulting. By calling our views “articles of faith,” not only does Kerry reveal a deep ignorance of what is an “article of faith,” he implies that these views are held by many of his fellow citizens for no reason. This is because in the circles that Kerry runs “articles of faith” are those beliefs that you are required to believe because “that’s your religion” and not because you actually may have thought about them. That is, Kerry doesn’t seem to think that there are rational believers, individuals who have actually evaluated the competing arguments over the issues people are deeply divided and have concluded that the socially conservative positions on abortion and marriage have good support and thus are in fact true. But not just "true for me" or "true for you," but actually true for everyone.
Kerry told President Bush in their third and final debate that he “completely respect[s]” these views because he “is a Catholic” who “grew up learning how to respect those views.” But his disclaimer that these are “articles of faith” betrays this “respect.” For by implying to serious believers that their views and the cases for them can never in-principle rise to the level of real knowledge, Kerry has declared these views to be permanently irrational and not worthy of being respectfully assessed by our law making bodies.
