There were 3 or 4 panelists on the program, but the only two I remember were the representative of a religious activist organization who opposed the research and an earnest young man from the Christopher Reeve Foundation who supported it.  The debate was remarkably polite given the contentious and polarized nature of the subject matter, and all the panelists presented cogent arguments to support their positions.

     Then, at the end of the program, the moderator asked the panelists to sum up.  The young man from the Foundation listed a number of illnesses and injuries that could potentially be treated with fetal stem cells.  The religious activist replied, "There may indeed be some pragmatic arguments in favor of stem cell research, but we prefer to take the moral position," and the discussion ended.

     That's when I wanted to scream.  I wanted the young man to say, "Wait a minute.  This isn't about pragmatism versus morality.  I see nothing moral about letting hundreds or thousands of my fellow human beings suffer and die when we have technology that may save them.  I understand that you have a different view, and you have every right to it, but you have absolutely no right to label your view as the only moral position and my view as something else.  I view my position as a moral position too."

    The point here isn't that the young man from the Foundation did a poor job.  Everyone who has spoken in public knows that you always think of your best remarks on the way home.  It is possible that the young man from the Foundation truly didn't see his position as a moral one.  More likely, he was taken by surprise and didn't want to interrupt the moderator's concluding remarks.  However, I believe that there are some remarks, and this was one, that just shouldn't be allowed to stand unchallenged.  (If the activist had said, "We believe all those supposed therapies you mentioned are fictitious concoctions of a Yiddish conspiracy promoted by the Elders of Zion," you can bet something more would have been said.  My point here is that what he actually did say was equally demanding of a response.)

     I don't know if the activist's concluding thrust was a deliberate, calculated attempt to put a moral "spin" on his side of the issue or something that just came to him naturally, the product of his familiarity with the language of values and the easy assumption of moral superiority that most members of the Religious Right seem to possess.  And it doesn't really matter (except that, as I discuss below, we need to become familiar with the language of values too).  What matters is that viewers of the program were left with the unrebutted claim that the debate over stem-cell research is a contest between morality and pragmatism.

      If you think little things like this don't have an effect, consider another incident during a C-Span program I saw shortly after the presidential election.  It involved a focus group of Ohio voters, half who voted for Kerry, half who voted for Bush, explaining why they voted as they did.

     When asked why he voted for Bush, one fellow said, "I had doubts about Kerry's values."  The moderator asked him why, and he replied, "Well, I'm not absolutely sure about this, but Kerry was running as a Democrat, so I just assumed he was a liberal."  

     A Kerry voter on the other side of the table who had already given his explanation for his vote, said, "I find that statement deeply offensive," and so he should have.  But consider this:  The Bush voter did not appear to be a political activist, just a regular guy, and I doubt activists on either side would have been chosen for the focus group.  And the Bush voter was trying to be fair.  He admitted that he wasn't really sure that Kerry was a liberal and seemed a little worried that he might have made an unfair assumption on that point.

     However, the Bush voter didn't seem hesitant at all in his believe that, if Kerry was indeed a liberal, then Kerry had dubious moral values.  (And, in this context, I think "liberal" is less a poli-sci-class-like descriiption of a person with a particular opinion on the role of government and more a code word for everyone who disagrees with the social and religious agenda of the Religious Right.)

     I'm not suggesting that the Bush voter came to his conclusion about the morality of liberals because he watched the same program on stem-cell research that I did; I don't even know which came first.  But I am suggesting that exposure to dozens of incidents like the one at the end of that program, coupled with exposure to the many much more explicit assertions that liberals lack values, that our traditional values are under attack from the left, that active devotion to the conservative religious agenda is the only way to counter the moral break-down of our society, etc., etc. have had their effect.

     Part of the solution, it seems to me, is for those of us who oppose the Religious Right as a matter of principle to become confortable with the language of values, to use that language whenever it is appropriate, and to vocally resist attempts, like those by the religious activist at the stem-cell debate, to hijack that language and recast the moral universe.

     Moreover, I think it is important for us to use that language with regard to EVERY issue for which it is appropriate, not just those issues that obviously relate to the separation of church and state.  To be sure, that controvery alone provides many opportunites for stating moral principles -- principles of tolerance, compassion, opposition to bullying and intimidation, and support for fundamental American constitutional values.  But I don't think confining the language of values to that area will be sufficient.

     Imagine, if you can, a religious conservative who was also a constitutionalist.  He might say to his colleagues and those uncommitted Christians who were curious about whether they should join the Religious Right, "I agree that the people who refuse to abide by our version of Biblical law are irresponsible, immoral scum who threaten our families and the way of life we hold dear, but I also believe strongly in the First Amendment to our American Constitution, and the First Amendment says we have to let them have their say."  I don't think he would gain many adherents.  More likely, people would start talking about the need to repeal the First Amendment.

     For many people who are, or who perceive themselves to be, in the religious majority, religious freedom is an abstraction with little apparent utility.  Education in American colonial history helps (the Pilgrims, the Quakers, Roger Williams, etc.) as does education in American constitutional history, but most people who are out of school would rather read People Magazine or Sports Illustrated than pick up a history textbook (an attitude I share).  It can help immensely just to view those of other beliefs as decent, worthwhile human beings.  Sometimes friendship isn't enough to repel religous bigotry, as the very troubling events in Sarajevo (once a peaceful multiculteral community with many inter-religious friendships and even intermarriage) show, but I still believe that having a close friend who is a Jew, a Muslim, or an atheist will usually do more to keep a Christian from becoming a Religous Right zealot than reading a tract on religious freedom will.

     Now imagine seeing a public figure on TV who says, "We have a MORAL RESPONSIBILITY to help the people devastated by Hurricane Katrina."  (Not just, "We MUST help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.")  Your brain adds his statements, and your interpretation of his statements, to its database about what he's like.  Both statements indicate that he cares about people, but the first also indicates that he cares about moral responsibility.  Then, when you later see him debating someone from the Religious Right and the rightist says, "Your problem is that we care about moral responsibility and you don't," your brain may say, "Wait a minute. . . ."  That's a lot more powerful than having him say it.  In most cases, I'm going to believe what my own brain tells me over what some politician tells me.

     The first Hurricane Katrina statement also has the virtue of subtlety.  The politician didn't say outright, "I believe in moral responsibility," which might cause a somewhat critical listener to think, "He's a politician; I wonder if he's telling the truth about that."  The politician didn't appear to be talking about his beliefs at all; he was talking about what should be done in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  But his statement nevertheless conveyed his belief in moral responsibility.

     And for those of us who are not public figures, the same principle applies to our conversations with our brothers and sisters, our friends, our neighbors, and our coworkers.  If these people perceive us as people who take moral positions in non-theological areas (and, of course, if they also see that we back up our moral statements with moral actions), it will be more difficult for them to demonize us when the conversations turns to the push for theocracy.