Patch Blog: Santorum is Barry Goldwater's Nightmare (And Mine Too)

I lost my own religiosity years ago. Raised in an Irish-Italian, Catholic household, I was communed at 8, confirmed at 11, and just about finished with the whole business of religion at about 20. The explanation for my falling away is fairly simple - religion just didn’t work for me. In many ways I wish it had because as life goes on I acknowledge its comforting aspects, and I recognize, at its core, a sense of morality and good. It is the very notion of “comfort” however, that is probably at the root of my misgivings about religion.

Throughout history and around the world wherever one looks one finds religion in some form or another. Why is that? Does the fact that religion is pervasive among humankind define in itself the presence of God or does it define something else? In my mind, the fact of religion indicates not the presence of God, but the presence in human beings of a universal need - the need to explain in a comforting way the mystery of existence, the finality of death, and the relative insignificance of humankind in the imponderable vastness of the Universe. It really comes down to exactly this - if on a given day a family of humans is happy and content, and if on the next day a member of that family, a mother or father or child, has died, what explanation can be offered to surviving family members that lessens despair and brings them comfort and hope?  Does telling a child that his or her mother is dead, and will now be committed to the ground, forever, to become dust, soothe the soul? Or does creating an anthropomorphic “Father Figure” who will greet the recently departed mother in “Paradise” and allow her to live at his side in eternity do a better job of it? Is it any surprise that human beings have opted, across time, place and history for various versions of storyline number two? That being said, it is also apparent to me that reflected in the act of soothing and comforting a child made fearful and sad by the death of a parent, is a God-like virtue - kindness and empathy. In other words, the inwardly reflective desire of human beings to comfort a loved one is in itself an argument for the presence of God.       

I found it necessary to offer this inkling of where I’m coming from on the issue of religion because though I am non-religious in the context I have described, I have never been particularly anti-religious (i.e. I would never begrudge someone the source of their strength and comfort) at least until now. Because what I’m seeing today in America is the danger posed by the insertion of religious dogma into our secular politics. And it is reassuring to know that I am not alone, that my perception of this danger is not confined to a liberal or progressive point of view. Speaking in 1994, the Father of Modern Republican Conservatism, Barry Goldwater, had this to say about religion and politics:

        Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the
        [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going 
        to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. 
        Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians 
        believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and
        won’ t compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

This is a remarkable assessment by a man whose overall economic and social values lie at the heart of the Republican party, a party whose leading Presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, embodies everything that Goldwater was “frightened” of in politics.

A man who relentlessly champions the tenets, rules, and beliefs of a singular religion, Christianity, as the appropriate foundations for crafting the laws of our secular society. In a recent swipe at President Obama, Santorum used the phrase “phony theology” to describe the President’s religious convictions, and just in case anybody missed the point, he went on to state that Obama’s theology was “not based on the Bible.” I don’t know if it’s news to Rick Santorum, but neither is our country nor our Constitution. No reference is made to God in the U.S. Constitution, and within eight years of its adoption, the U.S. Senate unanimously ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli which stated that “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
 
Rick Santorum is Goldwater’s nightmare, and mine too. A politician/preacher who ignores the clear, secular intentions and roots of America while replacing them with a religious-based framework. He does so without understanding, or more frighteningly perhaps with understanding, that such a religiously guided point of view must by definition be absolute. Among the true believers, God and his “laws,” are infallible, and as pronounced by Goldwater, Christians acting in the name of God are incapable of compromise.

In a Democratic Republic compromise is the essence of governing, but for the theocratically inclined compromise represents not accommodation, but defeat. A kind of surrender that implies weakness of conviction or faith, which is unthinkable to them. This is why religion cannot dominate the political realm. Ultimately, in its narrowness and absolutism it is intolerant, it divides rather than unites, and it does so on religious grounds. Religion can influence and shape political discussions, as it has since our nation’s inception, but it cannot be paramount in those discussions. The only place where religious-based solutions and answers for society at large can reign supreme is within a theocracy, and for advice about how that works, I suggest that Rick Santorum and his supporters consult the Mullahs of Iran.