RE: The President and the Pope

[marc stern]

Title: Message

I agree with Eugene’s implicit suggestion that there is a fair amount of hypocrisy at work here. Nevertheless, is it not possible to distinguish what Bush did, which was to interfere with the inner workings of a church(by suggesting that the Vatican ought to get its bishop’s in line),rather than publicly calling on church leaders to join in some public campaign? Marc Stern   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 12:21 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: The President and the Pope       Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I wonder how this would have played out in other contexts.  For instance, the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, and various anti-war and other movements have involved political-religious alliances on controversial public policy questions.  (The abolitionist movement was of course indeed dangerous to the republic in the short term, though good in the long term.)  I assume that many good, smart politicians would have seen the potential to build and strengthen such alliances, and I'd guess that they indeed did so.       If in 1963, a government official called on Christian ministers to oppose racism and segretation and support civil rights, and asked them to assert that good Christians should oppose racism and segregation and support civil rights, would this really have been unconstitutional?  If the official sought to strengthen the existing political-religious alliance between civil rights forces in politics and in churches, by bringing in some other religious groups, would that have been impermissible?        It seems to me the answer must clearly be no:  Religious groups and leaders are important sources of moral authority.  To change people's actions and votes, one needs to appeal to their moral sense.  If one wants the civil rights movement, the anti-abortion movement, the gay rights movement, or whatever other movement to succeed, one needs to build alliances with people who can speak the moral language of deeply religious people, and who can speak with moral authority to those people.       Incidentally, here are a few concrete examples of other appeals to religious groups to join a political and moral fight:   Nat’l Journal, Dec. 2, 1993:   Speaking to black church leaders involved in a growing movement to address the disproportionate impacts of pollution on low-income minority communities, Vice President Gore today called on church leaders to join with the administration in "healing our land." Following passionate appeals by leaders to Gore to take steps to confront the issue, Gore joined in condemning "the injustice of dumping on those who are powerless." . . . .       Washington Times, Sept. 30, 1999:   President Clinton offered yesterday to forgive all the debt of poor countries that work to end hunger and poverty in the next millennium, and challenged Congress to approve $1 billion to finance the debt relief. . . .   At a prayer breakfast this week, Mr. Clinton called on religious leaders to put the heat on Congress to approve the funding. . . .       Atlanta Journal and Constitution, June 27, 1996:   The Clinton administration, under fire from the nation's largest black church, pledged more than $ 40 million Wednesday to bolster community efforts to prevent church fires concentrated in the South. . . .   Clinton called on the religious leaders to speak out against crimes of intolerance and to rededicate themselves to ethnic diversity and religious freedom. . . .       Eugene    Richard Schragger writes:  It seems quite dangerous to a republic for its leaders to encourage and promote the formation of political-religious alliances on controversial public policy questions.  To assert, even obliquely, that to be a good Catholic, one should vote Republican (for example), seems to invite the kind of religiously-identified factionalism that can lead to sectarian strife.  If one takes seriously the Court’s identification of government neutrality (or non-endorsement) as an essential attribute of non-Establishment, then a Presidential appeal to any one religious group or his efforts to create a political alliance with any one religious group seems problematic.  It seems to me that the President has a constitutional obligation not to make statements or engage in conduct that encourages such alliances.

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