OBJECTIVELY ANTI-CATHOLIC

Yes, They’re Anti-Catholic (Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review Online, 8/1/2003)

York believes that it is unfair, and even dangerous, to charge Senate Democrats with anti-Catholicism. He points out that the Democrats are not against Bush nominee Bill Pryor because he is Catholic; they're against him because he's against abortion. They would also oppose an evangelical Protestant who opposed abortion as vigorously as Pryor does. They would oppose an atheist pro-lifer, for that matter....

So Republican rhetoric about the Democrats' having adopted a "religious test for office" is not true. It is true, however, that the Democrats have adopted the next best thing. They have a viewpoint test for office that has the effect of screening out all Catholics faithful to their church's teachings on abortion.... It really is true that faithful Catholics "need not apply" as far as most Democrats are concerned....

The Democrats are not prepared openly to say that their litmus test excludes Catholics and evangelical Protestants. That's why they will continue to squeal even if Republicans make the argument in the most precise, rhetorically clean way possible. And why Republicans should not flag in doing exactly that.

The controversy stems from having one word ("anti-Catholic," "racist") where we need two. We need a descriptor of someone's subjective thoughts, emotions, and motives; and we need a descriptor of the objective consequences of someone's objectively observable actions.

Most people, for instance, think of a racist as someone with particular subjective characteristics. There was much ill-feeling among conservatives who opposed affirmative action on subjective grounds that are not the least racist, only to have Democrats accuse them of racism on the grounds that the objective consequences of refraining from affirmative action would be harmful to blacks. Here we have the same phenomenon with roles reversed: the Democratic actions are clearly harmful to Catholics, depriving faithful Catholics of the opportunity to serve in the federal judiciary. The Democratic actions are objectively anti-Catholic, but there is no real evidence that the Democrats are subjectively anti-Catholic, in the sense of being motivated by a desire to harm Catholics. For subjective phenomena are unobservable. No one can observe another's thoughts, emotions, or motives, only the actions that emerge from them.

If we had those separate words, we could call the Democrats objectively anti-Catholic without risk of confusion with a charge of subjective anti-Catholicism. As it is, we are torn: to make a charge of subjective anti-Catholicism would be, at best, uncivil because we can have no proof of the correctness of the charge, and, at worst, outright wrong. And given the limitations of our vocabulary, making a charge of objective anti-Catholicism opens up the possibility of misunderstandings that can expose us to the charge of incivility.

I am inclined to agree with Ponnuru. The ad that ran in Maine and elsewhere was uncharitable; but it is important to make the point that Democratic actions are, objectively, anti-Catholic. That is why Republicans should look for "precise, rhetorically clean" language, and run more ads.

MORE:
Some things change, some things really don't (Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver)

[T]he committee debate on Pryor was ugly, and the vote to advance his nomination split exactly along party lines. Why? Because Mr. Pryor believes that Catholic teaching about the sanctity of life is true ...

The bias against "papism" is alive and well in America. It just has a different address.

Using Religion as a Litmus Test (C. Boyden Gray, letter to Washington Post)

It was the Democratic Senate opposition -- and not the Committee for Justice's ad campaign -- that injected religion into the Pryor debate, suggesting a litmus test that would allow the Democrats to block (by filibuster if necessary) any person of faith they choose.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) framed the issue in his opening statement by saying, "When it comes to the separation of church and state, we have to be concerned as well. . . . I personally am a deeply religious man. I believe if we all behaved more in accord with traditional religious teachings, we would have a better, healthier and safer country. But the comments the attorney general has made . . . are troubling."

Later, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Pryor, "Do you not understand that [your] statement . . . raises concerns of those who don't happen to be Christian, that you are asserting . . . a religious belief of your own, inconsistent with separation of church and state?" He also argued that "you have opened up a long series of questions related to the Establishment Clause. It is one thing to say that we have the freedom to practice. It is another thing to say that we condone by government action certain religious belief."

In Durbin's view, apparently, the only way to avoid an establishment of religion is to establish atheism.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at August 1, 2003 1:56 PM