Last week the Bush administration made an
important announcement. I'm not referring to the selection
of a new economic team, which will make
absolutely no difference to policy. I'm talking about the
executive order removing longstanding barriers
between church and state.
The announcement didn't attract much attention
amid the furor over Trent Lott. Yet it contains the seeds
of a similar future uproar. The media were
shocked, shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have
a soft spot for segregation — something
that was obvious long before Mr. Lott inserted his foot in his mouth.
One of these years they'll be equally shocked
to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for theocracy.
Of course, the administration insists that
the new policy isn't intended to allow government-funded proselytizing.
And it would surely deny that by explicitly
permitting religious discrimination in hiring — organizations that
receive federal contracts can "take faith
into account in making employment decisions" — it is opening up
a new source of patronage for its friends
on the Christian right.
Why am I not reassured?
For one thing, we are well advised not to
trust anything the administration says about the goals of its domestic
policy.
John J. DiIulio, who initially headed the
Bush administration's faith-based initiative, told a reporter, Ron Suskind,
that this White House had no interest in
the substance of policy, caring only about political payoffs: "
What you've got is everything — and I mean
everything — being run by the political arm."
Mr. DiIulio repudiated his own carefully
drafted, 3,000-word letter to Mr. Suskind after Karl Rove put a horse's
head in his bed. (O.K., I'm not sure about
that last part.) But the best guess about any domestic policy from this
administration is that its real purpose
is to cater to a part of its base. And which part of the base wants to
blur
the line between church and state?
George W. Bush is always careful to speak
in favor of faith in general, not any faith in particular. Congressional
leaders are less careful. Last spring Tom
DeLay, soon to be House majority leader, told a church group that:
"Only Christianity offers a way to live
in response to the realities that we find in this world — only Christianity."
He also said he was on a mission from God
to promote a "biblical worldview" in American politics.
By the way, one piece of that biblical worldview
involves scientific education. After the Columbine school shootings,
Mr. DeLay suggested that the tragedy had
occurred "because our school systems teach our children that they are
nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized
out of some primordial mud."
Guns don't kill people; Charles Darwin
kills people.
Mr. DeLay isn't an obscure crank; he's the
most powerful man in Congress. Still, is he an outlier?
No. Don Nickles, now challenging the wounded
Mr. Lott for Senate leadership, is less given to colorful
statements, but is as closely aligned with
the religious right as Mr. DeLay.
And the influence of the religious right
spreads much further. The Internet commentator Atrios,
who played a
key role in bringing Mr. Lott's past to
light, now urges us to look into the secretive Council for National Policy.
This blandly named organization was founded
by Tim LaHaye, co-author of the apocalyptic "Left Behind" novels,
and is in effect a fundamentalist pressure
group. As of 1998 the organization's membership contained many
leading Congressional figures in the Republican
Party, though none of the party's neoconservative intellectuals.
George W. Bush gave a closed-door speech
to the council in 1999, after which the religious right in effect endorsed
his candidacy. Accounts vary about what
he promised, and the organization has refused to release the tape. But
it's
notable that he appointed John Ashcroft
as attorney general; Mr. Ashcroft gives every appearance of placing his
biblical worldview above secular concerns
about due process.
I'd like to think that the furor over Trent
Lott's nostalgia for Jim Crow, hidden in plain sight for years, would serve
as a signal to ask about other uncomfortable
truths hidden in plain sight. But I suspect that it won't, that we'll soon
go back to worrying about politicians'
haircuts.
And then, years from now, when it becomes
clear that much public policy has been driven by a hard-line
fundamentalist agenda, people will say
"But nobody told us."