On December 15, 2011, Jennifer Bryson and I sent the message below to David Caton, Executive Director of the Florida Family Association, an organization that has campaigned against the reality television show "All American Muslim" on The Learning Channel. Dr. Bryson is Director of the Witherspoon Institute's Research Project on Islam and Civil Society. She is a graduate of Stanford University and earned her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. As a civilian employee of the Department of Defense, she served for two years as an interrogator at the dentention facility at Guantanamo Bay. (She provides an account of her work and experience here: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/09/3934.)
Dear Mr. Caton:
As pro-life and pro-family Christians, we support and applaud the purposes of the Florida Family Association (FFA) as set forth in your organization’s mission statement: to “educate people on what they can do to defend, protect and promote traditional, biblical values.” We are writing now, however, in a spirit of respect and brotherhood, to urge you prayerfully to reconsider your position on the question of the television show All American Muslim on The Learning Channel (TLC).
You have said that “TLC’s All-American Muslim is propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.” You have also alleged that the show is propaganda “clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law,” and that it “profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.”
All American Muslim is a reality television show featuring five families; it does not purport to be a documentary about the whole of Islam. The important point we wish to make, however, is that the vast majority of our Muslim fellow citizens are indeed ordinary folks. They are good people and good Americans. They share our fundamental moral values and our commitments to democratic institutions and civil and religious liberty. They do not promote hatred of Christians and Jews and have no desire to establish an Islamic theocracy. They are as appalled as we are at the rhetoric and conduct of those of their religion who do promote hatred and who seek to undermine democratic freedoms.
Please know that in our pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom work at the Witherspoon Institute, we have found strong partners and allies in many Muslims. They have joined with us in promoting respect for human life in all stages and conditions; in upholding the virtues of modesty and chastity; in fighting the plagues of pornography and marital infidelity; and in working to protect religious freedom and the rights of conscience both at home and abroad.
Of course, there are violent extremists and enemies of freedom who act in the name of Islam—no question about that. They preach anti-Semitism in its vilest forms and seek domination. They have no respect for the dignity and equality of women or for religious and civil liberty. One of us (Dr. Bryson) has first-hand experience in confronting them: she spent two years serving our country as a United States Department of Defense interrogator at Guantanamo. Like you, both of us believe that Islamist terrorists and radicals must be resolutely opposed and defeated. But it is important to recognize that this is a view we and you share with the overwhelming majority of American Muslims. It is certainly the view of those Muslims who have partnered with us in our pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom efforts. Their moral values are our moral values—and yours.
In our view, it is fundamentally unjust to tar all or most Muslims with the brush of extremism; and, as Christians and Americans, we must never countenance injustice. Moreover, effectively countering the threats posed by genuine extremists requires us to welcome as friends and allies Muslims who share our opposition to radicalism and violence, who value their American citizenship and American freedom just as we do, and who contribute constructively to their communities and the larger society. When we treat our Muslim fellow citizens justly, and when we welcome them as partners in our efforts on behalf of life, liberty, and human dignity, we are being true both to our Christian faith and to our American heritage.
In this spirit we have written previously in The Philadelphia Inquirer,
“Muslims are a growing segment of our population today. The vast majority seek to live in peace as good Americans in a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." They are not terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, and they are as appalled as the rest of us by extremists who attack innocent people, execute apostates, engage in honor killings of allegedly wayward daughters, and the like. Most of them think like most of us: They believe in liberty, virtue, charity, self-discipline, personal responsibility, the sanctity of human life, and the importance of marriage and the family.”
It is not our purpose to condemn you or your organization. We do, however, believe that you are making a mistake—a correctable one—in opposing All American Muslim. And, as fellow Christians, we believe we owe it to you as well as to our Muslim brothers and sisters to say so. We would be happy to discuss our concerns with you and to hear your point of view. We would also be happy to introduce you to some of the Muslims with whom we have been working so that you can see for yourself that there are leaders in the American Muslim community whom Christians should be embracing as allies, not alienating or treating as enemies.
Yours sincerely,
Robert P. George and Jennifer S. Bryson
(cross-posted at First Things)
Monday, January 2, 2012
If you'll be in or near Washington D.C. next weekend, don't forget to register for the Conference on Christian Legal Thought. Details here.
One of my superstar former students, writing about his experience at one of our nation's premier law schools, sent me a note after reading my MOJ post on marriage, religious liberty, and the "grand bargain." Here is the text, with names removed to protect the innocent:
I had a first-hand experience with this reality in law school. One of my constitutional law professors taught the section of our course relating to same-sex marriage under the "inevitability" banner. I met with him in office hours later to talk to him about something else, but I brought up a question that I have been wrestling with: if the SSM advocates are right and opposition to SSM becomes analogous to racism in our society, what will happen to Catholics and others whose views on SSM cannot and will not change? Are they to be excluded from public office, political and judicial appointments, or places of trust and responsibility within private institutions (e.g., law firm partnerships)? I posed the question to him because I was curious to hear his response, since he is generally a kind and reasonable person who seemed open to other viewpoints.
His response was very disappointing, and it shook my confidence in him. He responded to me by saying something along the lines of: "Well, they [Catholics and others] will either have to change their views or be treated in the same way that white supremacists and the segregationist Senators were treated. They were excluded from the judiciary entirely for decades because of the South's views on race."
He evinced no sympathy for the traditional marriage position or those who hold it. They were to be relegated to the ash heap of history. He said all of this to me knowing full well (because I had foolishly just told him) that I was a Catholic who opposed SSM.
Is anyone prepared to say that the view expressed by the professor is merely a fringe opinion in the contemporary academy? Is anyone prepared to say that it is the view of only a small minority, or a minority at all, in what University of Virginia sociologist Jonathan Haidt calls the liberal tribal-moral community of contemporary academia? Would anyone deny that there is a significant element in the elite sector of the culture---an element with real power over the lives and careers of people like my former student---that wishes to penalize or discriminate against those who refuse in conscience to yield to the liberal orthodoxy on issues of sex and marriage? Consider the professor's own words. He made no effort to hide his goals and intentions. On the contrary, he made it abundantly clear that Catholics and others who persist in their dissent are to be treated the way we treat white supremacists. They are to be stigmatized, subjected to discrimination, and denied the right to hold certain offices.
And this professor, as my student observed, is a "generally a kind and reasonable person who seems open to other viewpoints." What are we to expect, then, from those who are even less "open to other viewpoints"?
The New York Daily News and other media outlets are reporting this morning on a series of fire bombings in the borough of Queens. Fire bombs were hurled at four buildings: two private homes, a small shop, and a mosque. Obviously, all of these atrocities are to be condemned in the harshest terms, but an attack on a house of worship is especially outrageous. As believers in God, and in the freedom that helps to enable men and women to seek Him with a sincere heart and to strive to discern and do His will, we Catholics should be the first to condemn this attack, or any attack, on our Muslim brothers and sisters (and, indeed, our brothers and sisters of any faith) and to call for those responsible for it to be hunted down, prosectuted, and justly punished. One cannot help but be concerned that this particular crime was, at least in part, motivated by a desire to intimidate Muslim worshippers. We should therefore condemn it no less swiftly and no less harshly than we condemn violent attacks by Islamist radicals on Christians and Jews and their houses of worship. Just as good Muslims sought to protect Coptic Christians against violence at the hands of extremists (who, alas, were numerous) in Egypt, good Christians should seek to protect our Muslim fellow citizens. This is a time when we who are Catholic would do well to recall what we are taught about Islam by our Church in the great document Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council:
The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.
Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.
Amen.
Jacques Berlinerblau (Georgetown) has offered up a list of "top 10 religion and politics stories to watch" which made it onto the Washington Post a couple of days ago. Among other stories, he includes this as Number 3:
3. Justice Kagan’s Dissent in Arizona School Tuition Organization v. Winn, et al: In her first dissent--and a crackling one at that--Justice Elena Kagan lamented how difficult it had become for citizens to bring establishment clause cases to the Court’s attention.
She warned that the decision “offers a roadmap—more truly, just a one-step instruction—to any government that wishes to insulate its financing of religious activity from legal challenge… No taxpayer will have standing to object. However blatantly the government may violate the Establishment Clause, taxpayers cannot gain access to the federal courts.”
Still, Kagan’s demurral reminds us that 2011 was not a good year for those opposed to the blurring of church/state lines.
I've commented critically here before about Berlinerblau's view of Winn. In this column, Berlinerblau does not offer many specifics about which cases or other controversies he believes "blurr[ed] chuch/state lines," but I wonder which ones he might mean. He does mention Mayor Bloomberg's decision to prohibit any clergy member from saying anything religious at the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attack. This comes in at number 7 on his list. Berlinerblau praises Mayor Bloomberg for "hold[ing] his ground" and he urges other "[s]ecularists" to "study the episode carefully if they want to prevail again." But that seems like a moment that does not fit into the otherwise blurry year.
Coming in at Number 6 on this list looks like the effort of Bronx Household of Faith to use public facilities on equal terms with everyone else. I guess this, listed under the title of "The Swashbuckling Evangelicals," is what the blurring refers to -- an effort by a religious group which "never stops, never thinks small, and is afraid of nothing" to use a public facility in the same way that other groups are allowed to do so. But Berlinerblau should be happy about the outcome here: Bronx Household of Faith lost at the 2d Circuit, and its cert. petition was denied by the Supreme Court. No blurring at all.
Finally, at Number 10, Berlinerblau lists the so-far inchoate possibility that Occupy Wall Street and the "Religious Left" join forces, "with crafty Obama operatives forging those bonds and reaping the rewards." According to Berlinerblau, this has not yet happened, but he describes it as a "missed opportunity." Yet that this has not happened also does not seem to fit the blurring-of-church-and-state narrative which seasons the rest of the column.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
A supremely interesting looking book by the eminent Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, III, Cosmic
Constitutional Theory: Why Americans Are Losing Their Inalienable Right to Self-Governance (OUP 2012). Judge Wilkinson's thesis is that what binds constitutional thought today is a commitment to the systematization of the Constitution in accordance with high -- indeed, cosmically high -- theory. Here is the publisher's description:
American constitutional law has undergone a transformation. Issues once left to the people have increasingly become the province of the courts. Subjects as diverse as abortion rights and firearms regulations, health care reform and counterterrorism efforts, not to mention a millennial presidential election, are more and more the domain of judges.
What sparked this development? In this engaging volume, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson argues that America's most brilliant legal minds have launched a set of cosmic constitutional theories that, for all their value, are undermining self-governance. Thinkers as diverse as Justices William Brennan and Antonin Scalia, Professor John Hart Ely, Judges Robert Bork and Richard Posner, have all produced seminal interpretations of our Founding document, but ones that promise to imbue courts with unprecedented powers. While crediting the theorists for the sparkling quality of their thoughts, Judge Wilkinson argues they will slowly erode the role of representative institutions in America and leave our children bereft of democratic liberty.
The loser in all the theoretical fireworks is the old and honorable tradition of judicial restraint. The judicial modesty once practiced by Learned Hand, John Harlan, and Oliver Wendell Holmes has given way to competing schools of liberal and conservative activism seeking sanctuary in Living Constitutionalism, Originalism, Process Theory, or the supposedly anti-theoretical creed of Pragmatism. Each of these seemingly disparate theories promises their followers an intellectually respectable route to congenial political outcomes from the bench. Judge Wilkinson calls for a plainer, simpler, self-disciplined commitment to judicial restraint and democratic governance, a course that alas may be impossible so long as the cosmic constitutionalists so dominate contemporary legal thought.
