America magazine has a new blog called, well, "America Magazine's Election Blog." Here's the announcement:
Our blog is designed to help teachers in civics, history, politics and journalism use the blog to stimulate discussion in the classroom, facilitate research projects by the students, and familiarize the students with Catholic social thought and what that tradition has to say about current events. The special election blog will run from September 8 through election day.
Each weekday morning, the blog will have a new posting by 8 a.m. EDT. This will be posted by our regular political blooger, Michael Sean Winters, author of the recently published book Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can save the Democrats. Additional posts from the
America staff will appear throughout the week. Students, like all readers, can post comments on these blog posts by the staff. Teachers can work with the America staff if they want their students to post blog entries also.
Now, I'm a regular reader of America (I was a Jesuit Volunteer, after all), and I enjoy the blog and Michael Sean Winters's work. And, it seems to me that the stated mission of this new blog -- "to help teachers" and to "familiarize students with Catholic social thought and what the tradition has to say" -- involves a new challenge. If the blog is to be true to that mission, it seems to me that the blog will have to work hard (as we all should do) to avoid one-sided, partisan, or polemical use or interpretation of "Catholic social thought." It is encouraging that the blog links to a reasonably diverse array of political sites and blogs. I hope the editors will invite contributions from reasonable and faithful Catholics who see the tradition playing out in ways that might, from time to time, depart from the magazine's editorial stance.
To be clear, I don't think group blogs have an obligation to be internally "diverse". (MOJ is, but we are somewhat rare, I think.) Most of the bloggers at, say, dotCommonweal seem to lean left, while most at the First Things blog probably lean right, and that's fine. But America is setting out to create a resource for teachers, and I am inclined to think such a (worthy) project carries with it some responsibilities. We'll see.
UPDATE: Here's a link to another election-related blog for Catholics. (The short film, by Grassroots films, was -- I thought -- very powerful.)
Archbishop Charles Chaput has responded to Senator Joe Biden's recent comments about abortion.
The Washington Post has a piece today (here) about the campaign by the Alliance Defense Fund (from which, I should disclose, I have in the past received payment for legal work) to urge pastors and clergy to "endorse political candidates from their pulpits," in "violation" of "I.R.S. rules." Worth a read.
I've written about the whole politics-and-preaching thing (here):
The government exempts religious associations from taxation and, in return, restricts their putatively "political" expression and activities. This exemption-and-restriction scheme invites government to interpret and categorize the means by which religious communities live out their vocations and engage the world. But government is neither well suited nor to be trusted with this kind of line-drawing. What's more, this invitation is dangerous to authentically religious consciousness and associations. When government communicates and enforces its own view of the nature of religioni.e., that it is a "private" matterand of its proper place, i.e., in the "private" sphere, not "in politics," it tempts believers and faith communities also to embrace this view. The result is a privatized faith, re-shaped to suit the vision and needs of government, and a public square evacuated of religious associations capable of mediating between persons and the state and challenging prophetically the government's claims and conduct.
That said, I'm skeptical with respect to the claim that it necessarily violates the First Amendment to tell churches that desire to receive tax-deductible contributions that they may not formally endorse candidates (there might, of course, be problems with enforcement and application). I'm also skeptical, though, with respect to the claim -- asserted by someone quoted in the article -- that the ADF is encouraging "churches to violate core principles of our society."
For a very thorough treatment of the issue -- one that, I believe, is currently under submission to the law reviews -- see this paper, "Politics, Pulpits, and Institutional Free Exercise", by my friend and colleague, Lloyd Mayer.
Monday, September 8, 2008
An MOJ reader sent me the following:
"I thought this was an interesting perspective on the election from a fellow in Canada:
'Regardless of his political persuasions, I doubt any reader is himself in doubt about the views of McCain and Palin on, say, abortion, or same-sex marriage, or the ramifications of the U.S. First Amendment. Messrs Obama and Biden have more "nuanced" views -- i.e. more likely to say one thing and do another -- and yet their own positions are clear enough, when the lights are trained on them.
If I were a woman, and the most important issue to me were the preservation of my unfettered legal right to kill my unborn children, I would have no difficulty in choosing the Democrat ticket. Whereas, up here in Canada, it really wouldn't matter if I voted Conservative, Liberal, New Democrat, Bloc, or Green.'
What does it mean to "interpret" the Constitution. That question is often beneath the surface, and occasionally on the surface, of MOJ posts about constitutional controversies. Rick Kay's writings on originalism are, IMHO, state-of-the-art. Here's his latest:
Original Intention and Public Meaning in Constitutional
Interpretation
Richard S. Kay
University of Connecticut School of
Law
Northwestern University Law Review,
Forthcoming
Abstract:
In recent years
academic explanations of the originalist approach to constitutional
interpretation have shifted the relevant inquiry from the subjective intent of
the constitution-makers to the "original public meaning" of the Constitution's
words. This article is a critical analysis of that development. In the actual
course of adjudication by honest and competent judges either method should
usually yield the same result. The reliance on public meaning, however,
distracts the interpreter from the connection between the normative force of the
Constitution and the founding events, a link that is essential to the legitimacy
of constitutional judicial review. In the hands of less careful or less rigorous
judges, moreover, abandoning intent as the central object of interpretation
enlarges the range of plausible outcomes, threatening, as a practical matter, to
subvert the clarity and stability of constitutional meaning that is central to
the constitutionalist enterprise.
Keywords: Constitutional Law, Interpreation, Originalism, Public
Meaning
To download/print, click here.
