Gary Bauer Still Doesn’t Get It

Gary Bauer wrote a response to the Sojourners faith forum entitled, “The Religious Left Still Doesn’t Get Christians.”

There are so many things wrong with this piece that I’m not sure where to start.  I’ll go through a few of his more egregious comments one by one.

1)  The first problem is the headline: “The Religious Left Still Doesn’t Get Christians.”  Is there a dichotomy between the two?  What about the many Christians who are part of the religious left?  Bauer is trying to set the parameters of debate by assuming what he cannot prove.

2)  “For all their God talk, liberals still aren’t willing to do the one thing necessary to have a shot at securing your support: moderate their extreme positions on the issues you value most.”  He goes on to indicate that the issues Christians value most involve abortion and sexuality.  Bauer provides no evidence — just an assumption that he hopes people will take as the Gospel.

3)  “Barack Obama didn’t get as personal but punctuated each of his talking points about faith and poverty with a hearty ‘Amen.’”  Not true.  I’ve re-read the transcript, and I can’t find a single time that Obama used the word “Amen.”  Unless I’m missing something, Bauer appears to be lying about Obama in order to paint him as a buzzword-invoking panderer.  What Obama actually did was talk about how a commitment to social responsibility is something he finds in all of the religious leaders he respects.

4)  “The forum highlighted two far more basic truths about the Left’s foray into the realm of religion.”  Foray?  Listen, buddy: the left was doing religion long before you guys were.  Have you heard about the evangelical abolitionists?  The mainline social gospel preachers?  The Catholic labor organizers?  The African-American civil rights activists?  Only recently has Christianity been painted as inextricably linked with right-wing politics.

5)  “A few years ago, when President Bush revealed that he prayed about his decisions in the Oval Office, otherwise sagacious political commentators derisively called him a ‘theocon’ and much of media presented it as proof that the president believes God told him to bomb Iraq.”  An example would be helpful here, Gary.  Which sagacious commentators called Bush a “theocon” simply because he prays in the Oval Office?  Anyway, maybe the reason people fear that Bush thought God told him to bomb Iraq was that Bush said God told him to bomb Iraq.

6)  “Christians believe all human life has intrinsic value — given by God — which no man or manmade institution can take away.”  This from a guy who supports the death penalty.  Bauer cannot mean what he says.

7)  The relevant quotations are scattered throughout the article, but Bauer routinely used “Christian,” “person of faith,” and “evangelical” interchangeably, as if they’re one and the same — and as if they’re all right-wingers. 

Straw man arguments like these used to work, but they’re losing force.  Old guard religious righties like Bauer will eventually lose relevance altogether if they don’t start showing at least a smidgen of respect for those of us who are progressive precisely because of our faith.