E. J. Dionne had an interesting Op-Ed piece in Monday’s Washington Post. In it, he used Mark Souder as the focal point as a Christian, a Christian lawmaker, and a person who recently fell, from grace [sorry–typo] and the high road.
Mark Souder was outted as having had an affair with the very part time staffer with whom he had made an abstinence -only video. Souder is certainly in a long list of those men in power who somehow betray their spouses for other women.
Dionne, a noted liberal columnist, calls upon Christians basically to come down off their high horses. Part of his column from the Washington Post is below:
…I asked Souder to appear at an event with former New York governor Mario Cuomo where both reflected on the role of faith in their public lives. Their thoughts were later included in a book. “To ask me to check my Christian beliefs at the public door is to ask me to expel the Holy Spirit from my life when I serve as a congressman, and that I will not do,” Souder said. “Either I am a Christian or I am not.”
So I do hope that Souder finds a way to work out his redemption. But it is precisely because this story hits me personally that I want to shout as forcefully as I can to my conservative Christian friends: Enough!
Enough with dividing the world between moral, family-loving Christians and supposedly permissive, corrupt, family-destroying secularists.
Enough with pretending that personal virtue is connected with political creeds. Enough with condemning your adversaries, sometimes viciously, and then insisting upon understanding after the failures of someone on your own side become known to the world. And enough with claiming that support for gay rights and gay marriage is synonymous with opposition to family values and sexual responsibility.
It’s not the self-righteousness of religious conservatives that bothers me most. We liberals can be pretty self-righteous, too. It’s the refusal to acknowledge that the pressures endangering the family do not come from some dark secular leftist conspiracy but from cultural and economic forces that affect us all. People are encouraged to put all sorts of things (career advancement, wealth, fame, the accumulation of things, various forms of self-indulgence) ahead of being good parents and spouses. Our workplaces are not as family-friendly as they could be.
Why does it even have to be said that a devotion to family has nothing to do with ideology? In my very liberal Maryland neighborhood — 80 percent of my precinct voted for Barack Obama — parents crowd school meetings, flock to their children’s sporting events, help them with homework and teach them right from wrong based on values that I doubt differ all that much from those prevailing in more conservative environs. And while a lot of my neighbors are active in their religious congregations, the secular parents take their family responsibilities as seriously as the believers do.
And those of us who are liberal would insist that our support for the rights of gays and lesbians grows from our sense of what family values demand. How can being pro-family possibly mean holding in contempt our homosexual relatives, neighbors and friends? How much sense does it make to preach fidelity and commitment and then deny marriage to those whose sexual orientation is different from our own? Rights for gays and lesbians don’t wreck heterosexual families. Heterosexuals are doing a fine job of this on their own.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s a scriptural passage that no doubt appeals to Mark Souder. But it would be lovely if conservative Christians remembered Jesus’s words not only when needing a lifeline but also when they are tempted to give speeches or send out mailers excoriating their political foes as permissive anti-family libertines. How many more scandals will it take for people who call themselves Christian to rediscover the virtues of humility and solidarity?
E. J. Dionne seems right on the money to me. I only wish I were able to articulate his feelings on the subject as well. What separates John Edwards from Mark Sanford or any of the other ‘fallen angels’ of late? Not much. All behaved dishonorably. However, John Edwards never set himself up as an angel. Good thing because he is perhaps the biggest scum bag of all. He just didn’t have as far to fall as the others.
After yesterday’s conversation about Virginia’s traditions – in relation to its drinking and paternal …. assinine Commonwealth retailing of liquor, I am trying to figure out just what Moon has in mind with this topic. E.J. Dionne represents everything abhorant to Virginians. His views do not mesh with the majority of Virginia, – not now not ever before. Virginia prides itself on being a bible belt state, believes in limited self- government, state rights, and freedom. Dionne, may – may represent a significant part of Nothern Virginia over the last 20 years – maybe – after the blue laws disappeared, after the churches started to empty and we accepted idiots like Clinton as leaders – but that is the adverse side effect of being so close to Washington and all the other liberal elites that have flocked here to tell us how they can make our lives better and then addicted us to federal handouts. His attacks on fundemental christian belief is typical of the ego of those who would disparage the wisdom of the framers.
I read the missive several times and conclude that most of it is smoke for his real point of contention with Christians – to wit: “enough with claiming that support for gay rights and gay marriage is synonymous with opposition to family values and sexual responsibility.
I suppose it depends on where you live in Virginia. I was fortunate enough to spend most of my time in the more…progressive areas. I never saw Virginia as a state reflecting the bible belt philosophy like one finds in more southern states.
However, E. J. Dionne is certainly not an anathema to Virginia. We do have one of the finest college/university systems in the United States. Many of those said colleges have national academic rankings. They don’t spew out grits and fat back as curriculum.
We can still like our ABC stores and our liberal thinkers all in one lifetime. After all, Virginia is for lovers and TJ.
PS–Clinton is far from an idiot. You might not like his morals but the country sure was in better shape under his administration.
Yep. Especially when we had a Republican Congress.
Then again, we were also better under Bush with a Republican Congress. Or for that matter, the current Democratic Congress. Being better than now is not too high a bar to reach.
Yes, what part didn’t you like about the Clinton era “the peace or the prosperity”.
Good for EJ!
my favorite paragraph!
“It’s not the self-righteousness of religious conservatives that bothers me most. We liberals can be pretty self-righteous, too. It’s the refusal to acknowledge that the pressures endangering the family do not come from some dark secular leftist conspiracy but from cultural and economic forces that affect us all. People are encouraged to put all sorts of things (career advancement, wealth, fame, the accumulation of things, various forms of self-indulgence) ahead of being good parents and spouses. Our workplaces are not as family-friendly as they could be.”
better under Bush with a republican congress???? I would have to disagree with that wholeheartedly. Who here remembers Clinton’s balanced budget act, I do I do! That was passed by one vote, Al Gore, the tie breaker. How about the tax breaks for the middle class but tax increase for the 1% of the country under Clinton.
The alternative to doing big govt bailouts while on the verge of economic collapse was…..nothing?
http://newdeal.feri.org/
what would have taken the place of the new deal?
Ironic hypocrisy paradoxically repulses and amuses me.
May want to also read “Two Theories of Change” by David Brooks in
today’s NYT op/ed. Dionne ends with a call for “humility” in our politics
while Brooks concludes with the need for the Scottish/English enlightenment’s
focus on “modesty, gradulism and balance”.
( Many young Virginians, including Thomas Jefferson at William&Mary, were
taught by Scots).
And when will we see E. J. Dionne follow up with a condemnatory column on SEIU’s thuggish protesters invading the yard and porch of a private home in Maryland and causing a frightened 14-year-old, home all alone, to hide in the bathroom? For that matter, when will we see our President condemn those tactics by his supporters? Having and preaching Christian moral principles and then failing to hold to them as an individual is unfortunate. But a union acting like the Brown Shirts of the 1930’s gives me much, much more concern.
I am curious what one thing has to do with the other, Wolverine.
That’s what I call a deflection. The response fails to deal with the issue at hand.
I disapprove of picketing people’s private homes whether we are talking about the SEIU picket (wasn’t the man a bank official?) or an abortion providers home by pro life groups or anyone else for that matter.
The two issues are not specifically connected, Moon. The point is that I want to see someone like E.J. Dionne make an effort to go after the issues on both sides of the political spectrum. From what I have seen thus far, the WaPo is all but ignoring these two incidents in Maryland. If this kind of invasive protest stuff is allowed to stand without condemnation from all sides, I fear we may be headed for some very severe and unwanted consequences. You’re right that I utilized a “deflection.” The E.J. Dionne’s of this world need to be deflected in a productive way toward something like this. So does the President, especially since the SEIU is one of his major supporters. Perhaps while one of his boots is on the neck of BP, he ought to put the other on the neck of the SEIU leaders. This kind of stuff can really hurt the Dem image — which is undoubtedly why the WaPo is ignoring it. The Tea Party got slammed big time when a few fringe nuts went after politicians. But the SEIU — just another day at the office it would seem.
I think you might ask the same thing of Beck or Hannity. It isn’t going to happen. Commentators usually fall right or left.
I heard a big dust up on MSNBC or Fox News over which was worse, the home demonstration or cutting the gas line at Rep. Perriello’s brother’s house. Both are bad. Why does one have to be worse than the other? I didn’t realize the BAC guy lived in Maryland and haven’t followed the print media.
I am curious how SEIU folks get that much time off work.
Here is an article from CNN about the protest Wolverine and I are discussing.
I do not approve of any demonstrations at people’s private residences, regardless of issue. I don’t think it matters that a kid was at home. It shouldn’t have happened if the house had been standing empty for 5 years. Work place? Whole different story.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/news/companies/SEIU_Bank_of_America_protest.fortune/index.htm
My “Christian virtue” has been tested during the last week by the contest of
Big Oil vs. Big Government over who can be the most inept and corrupt when
facing the growing national crisis in the Gulf. This is in no small part due to the
crony capitalism of BP and the government agency responsible for regulating
them. The oil mess may well have a larger and longer lasting negative impact
than Katrina.
Poor Richard, I don’t necessarily think anyone is at fault. The jury is out.
/This may be one of those events that leaves a permanent imprint on the planet. Maybe this is living proof that we shouldn’t screw with Mother Nature. Digging a hole in the earth to get its resources? Maybe this was the warning.
I think the problem has more to do with the fact that environmentalists and NIMBY types did not want to look at oil platforms, so drilling operations were moved far offshore. This would have been a snap to fix in shallower waters, where divers could have plugged the leak, cement could have been poured, or any number of interventions that simply aren’t possible over 5000 feet underwater. I am so angry to hear about the Army Corps of Engineers refusing to permit Louisiana to build up sand berms to protect their wetlands, and the US still issuing drilling permits as recently as yesterday. It’s time for Obama to step up and take command. If this “top kill” maneuver BP is attempting does not work, we are looking at the possibility of this leak going on indefinitely, and I agree being far more ruinous than Katrina.
@Poor Richard
M-H,
This was an accident waiting to happen, much like the mine
accident in West Va., a big company skating too close to the edge
for more profit and an inept government oversight system that let
them do it. As this morning’s WaPo headline noted “Agency ignored
red flags on offshore drilling, data shows”. Not to mention the under
the table “gifts” to inspectors who spent much of the work day
apparently watching porn . Guilt and oil are both gushing out.
There is plenty of blame, but first we have to stop the bleeding.
We are killing the Gulf of Mexico!
Emma,
Outside of some down-is-up up-is down spinners on FOX
who has stated, with confirming factual data, that environmentalist were
the major “problem” that caused the disaster in the Gulf? The Wall Street
Journal, for example, has extensive reporting on the crisis and they
note a massive failure of BP and government regulaters to do their
jobs properly – nothing about environmentalist.
I don’t know how the environmentalists got into this mix. If nothing else, what has happened has validated their point. We have an ecological disaster that couuld affect the entire food chain globally.