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The Oogedy-Boogedy Gap, Defined
But in searching around, I was unable to find much outrage -- even from the Religious Right. Imagine what the reaction would have been if say, Michael Moore, or Katha Pollit or a Democratic candidate for office -- anywhere -- had written this:
"As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit. The silence is deafening -- with two notable exceptions: Steve Waldman, editor of BeliefNet and Jonah Goldberg editor of The National Review. Goldberg denounced "...the quasi-bigotry that has you calling religious Christians low brows, gorillas and oogedy-boogedy types... [and he demanded that she]... drop the nonsense about how the G-O-D people or the Palin people are low brows and beasts. There are low brows and beasts everywhere, on every side of the ideological spectrum. The rest of the column engages in gross stereotyping of religious conservatives. The party is "increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners" and has surrendered "high ground to its lowest brows." Before liberals get too smug, we should remind ourselves that it was not so long ago that calling conservative religious people with whom we disagreed (from non-violent nuns praying in front of clinics to Ralph Reed to the Aryan Nations) meaningless epithets like "religious political extremists" was considered state of the art politics. Inside the Beltway consulting firms were paid big bucks to craft this and similar focus-grouped epithets (read, "messages"). Later, liberals and Demorats were shocked, shocked to find out that the electorate viewed the party as "hostile" to people of faith. The fact is that religious bigotry, both subtle and overt, exists across the religious and political spectrum (including that obnoxious variant, anti-religionism). That this is surfacing so spectacularly in the Republican Party and in the conservative movement is an opportunity for progressives. Let's remind ourselves that religious equality and toleration have, along with absolute respect for the right of indidvidual conscience and separation of church and state, long been core values for both religious and non-religious progressives. If we want to be able to gain and hold the moral, intellectual and political high ground in defending and advancing our values, it is essential to know (or at least to seek to know) the difference between fair criticism and religious bigotry. It is difficult to hold the moral high ground against the religious bigots of the Religious Right, if we think, act and speak like religious bigots ourselves.
The Oogedy-Boogedy Gap provides us with an extraordinary opportunity to define ourselves in ways consistent with the values of the rights of individual conscience and separation of church and state that made possible the coalitions that forged the Constitution of the United States from Article 6 that proscribed religious tests for public office, and later, the First Amendment.
The Oogedy-Boogedy Gap, Defined | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 hidden)
The Oogedy-Boogedy Gap, Defined | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 hidden)
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