Time for Some Honesty

I watched the Alito hearings for as long as I could stand. It seems that the purpose of the hearings is, in fact, to afford committee members an opportunity for speechmaking and the nominee an opportunity for obfuscation. Somehow, I don't think that this is what the founders had in mind, but then they didn't expect third choice hacks like Alito to be nominated, either. But what strikes me is the dishonesty of the Republicans in their repeated references to Roe v. Wade.
We've had a Republican legislature for years. For the last five years, the Republicans have controlled the White House. Let's be realistic: If they had wanted to push a Constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion, they could have gotten it through Congress. If they had wanted to push an amendment to outlaw same-sex civil unions, they could have done it. It wouldn't have been all that hard. They would have needed a handful of Democratic supporters, but there are anti-choice Democrats and Democrats from anti-choice districts who might have supported these amendments.
Let's face it: If I get elected by running against abortion or gay marriage, it seems like a no-brainer for me to make sure that I at least put a proposal in the hopper. That's a lot easier than going back to my constituents and explaining why I haven't done anything. At the very minimum, I'm going to co sponsor someone else's measure. I may not care whether the measure passes, and I may not stick my neck out very far to secure its passage, but I don't want to have to face single issue voters and tell them that I didn't do anything the pet issue that brought them out to vote for me. And I'd probably try to get press coverage of my efforts.
But how many Republican bills for constitutional amendments have been proposed? If there have been any, I haven't heard anything about them, and I don't think the pro-choice groups would have let them die in silence. Anyone who wants can do the research, but my guess is that these amendments that the conservative Republicans claim to want so earnestly have never been proposed in Congress.
I suggest that there is a reason for this: The Republicans are afraid of what would happen if they lost abortion and same-sex unions as issues. They haven't had such wonderful wedge issues since the civil rights days. There are people who come out to vote only because they have these issues to be agitated about. Give them up and the religious right falls apart because the teaching of evolution simply won't galvanize them the way that "rights of the unborn" and "protection of marriage" do. So if the Democrats are smart, and I hope that they are, they'll demand that Republican incumbents for Congress this year give an account of their activities. And if voters are smart, and I hope they are, they'll draw distinctions between those who talk a good game and those who actually do something.

The Book of Daniel II

I watched “The Book of Daniel” Friday night, and I can’t see what the fuss is about. I could fault the writers for having so much trouble descend on one family in the course of a two-hour introductory, but I can think of times when I felt like there was that much happening to my family.

Daniel is a well-meaning, earnest man who wants to do right by his congregation and his family, not in that order. There are a lot of pressures on him, just as there are pressures on all of us. Like many people I’ve known—especially priests—he talks to God about them. When a good friend of mine, a priest named Whit, spoke to a God he could not see or hear, he called it “prayer,” and no one had a problem with it. Why anyone has a problem with an audiovisual representation of Jesus hearing the prayer is beyond me. And Jesus shows up when Daniel reaches for the Vicodin, sometimes keeping him from using it. Is there a problem here?

I’ve known a lot of people who claimed that God spoke to them. I always wanted to ask what language he used and exactly what he said. It usually seemed that he was telling them to do something that I couldn’t support. Jesus, on “The Book of Daniel,” isn’t like that at all. He asks questions, he expresses love, and he sometimes jokes. In other words, this Jesus isn’t one who shows up only to help or judge; this is the embodiment of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” This is an omnipresent but not particularly intrusive savior. Is there a problem with that?

I glanced at the show’s message boards, and there are some very angry people there. Maybe everyone just needs to take a deep breath, count to ten, and watch a couple of episodes. It certainly doesn’t hurt anyone when television, through shows like this one, “Joan of Arcadia,” and “Touched by an Angel,” can prompt discussion of spiritual things.

The Book of Daniel

As I write this, I’m planning to watch “The Book of Daniel” on NBC tonight. It got a rotten review in the Washington Post this morning, and if it’s really that bad, I might not watch the entire program, but I plan to start watching. I also plan to offer my take on it as a guy whose doctoral study included a strong dose of popular culture. And if I had any doubts about watching it, they dissipated as the outcry against it from religious groups has risen.

A few years ago—maybe more than a few—there was a series of movies in which God took the form of an elderly man. The first one, in which the Creator spoke to John Denver, was such a success that there were two sequels. If George Burns, who played God and was nearly as old as God, were alive and well today, that series could still be turning out sequels. I don’t remember such an uproar over a great comedian portraying God.

A few years after that, there was a charming TV series. God didn’t appear, but His angels did. One of them was pretty hot. They talked a lot about God, but nobody got all that upset. The series ran for years. Hollywood stars hoped (or maybe prayed) to get a guest spot on an episode.

A few years after that, there was another charming TV series. This time, God spoke to a teenaged girl, taking the form of a dogwalker, a punk, a little girl, an old lady, and others. Again, no outcry from the religious groups. I’m not sure why the series didn’t last longer than it did. It was well executed, and the problem may have been scheduling.

So now we have “The Book of Daniel,” and religious groups are upset because Jesus shows up. I grew up in the Protestant Trinitarian tradition, and I was taught that Jesus was God in a form comprehensible to humanity—God the Son. From what I can see in the publicity for the show, it offers a pleasant western European looking Jesus who looks a lot like the one in the paintings in thousands of Protestant churches. And He shows up, as I get it, at key moments to offer guidance to Daniel. Isn’t that what some of the evangelicals claim—direct guidance from God? You can say that the physical portrayal is simply a dramatic convenience—a way of representing what cannot be seen. What’s the fuss? More later.

But in keeping with my skepticism about evangelicals, it occurred to me today that something is really strange about liberal folks like me and our relationship with religion. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson—particularly Pat Robertson—are Protestants. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were Protestants. Jimmy Swaggert was a Protestant. To me, at least, these people are far more objectionable than Pope Benedict.