Because of the people you meet, and the places you go, the opportunities you are given, and the “alternate universes” you visit (and the awards you get if you stick to it long enough).
NICE FAMOUS PEOPLE
But, okay, one of the other things that keeps me going are the genuinely nice people you meet, including genuinely nice famous people—including comic genius Stephen Colbert, newscaster Walter Cronkite, and the actual founder of Americans United.
Here are some excerpts from columns about some of the encounters:
Several weeks ago AU Director of Development Rudy Bush and I spent a delightful few hours with Glenn and Ruth Archer.1 Dr. Glenn Archer was the founding executive director of Americans United, then known as Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State (POAU). I've heard he was a shoo-in to become governor of Kansas before he was lured to Washington to take a chance on running a brand-new, unfunded organization in need of the missionary zeal he could provide. He is today a still mesmerizing storyteller, with a wealth of detail about the cause to which he dedicated most of his adult life.
Dr. Archer explained to us how he attended meeting and rallies where thousands of people crowded Masonic temples, or Washington's Constitution Hall, or the largest Presbyterian church in some Midwestern town, just to learn of the latest challenge to separation. We can only imagine what rich and moving experiences these must have been! Where were VCRs and minicams when we needed them?
Dr. Archer wrote in his autobiography The Dream Lives On, “Circumstances may change. Discontent with institutions may grow. New and subtle arguments may be advanced to effect greater entanglement between church and state.”2 Indeed, this is a time and place different from that of the founding days—or even founding decades—of AU.
There has been a disturbing trend within many faith groups to ignore the threats to separation out there, not wishing to stir up controversy. People then to sit home and watch Larry King Live for political sustenance rather than go to hear the addresses of visiting scholars, luminaries, or even rabble-rousers. We get embarrassed about “passing the plate” at public meetings, preferring the lure of direct mail, telemarketing, and 800-number response lines.
But even as these emphases and styles change, the threats actually remain the same. The first legal case Dr. Archer got AU involved with was in Dixon, New Mexico, where Roman Catholic nuns, brothers, and priests were paid salaries to teach in public schools, adding a hefty dose of religious activity alongside geometry and world civilization. All this was done at a then-staggering cost of a quarter of a million dollars per year. Was this activity so different from today's actions, where the Rev. Jerry Falwell's sectarian Liberty University in Virginia gets more than one million dollars yearly in taxpayers’ funds to subsidize mandatory church attendance, doctrinal teaching, and the expulsion of students who attend the “wrong” church?
The Manifesto of AU, excerpts of which were printed on the front page of the New York Times on January 12, 1948, cited as one goal to “give all possible aid to the citizens of any county or state who are seeking to protect their public schools from sectarian domination.” That is still an important part of our mandate, and instead of efforts to require students to pray Hail Marys (one of the practices in Dixon), the “new and subtle” efforts are to interject sectarian holiday celebrations, bring youth ministers onto high school campuses, and perform daily “educational” readings from the Bible. The song remains the same.
Eleanor Roosevelt once told Glenn Archer, “The battle for church-state separation may have to be fought all over again.” She has been proven correct, over and over again.
It would be nice for AU to be able to pack up its archives and retire its staff because we had won a lasting victory. The smoke on the horizon, though, suggests we shouldn't be hiring the U-Hauls to move those archives right now.
DEFENDING CHURCH-STATE SEPARATION: IT CAN BE A LAUGHING MATTER3
A few weeks after the media frenzy of the days leading up to the removal of Judge Roy Moore's monolith, AU's Communications Department got an unusual call. It was from a producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a program on the cable network Comedy Central. That's right, it's an all-humor network. The producer wanted me to come to New York for an interview.
This was not an offer to have me do a five-minute stand-up comedy act. It was just an interview about the Ten Commandments lawsuit that would be interspersed with clips from an interview with Alabama's Christian Coalition head John Giles. They wanted me to play it straight.
Everybody I know who is between twenty and thirty-five watches and loves this show and insisted that I must do it. They did concede that the editing of these interviews is sometimes creative, to say the least, and that the format is clearly that of a mock news program. Nevertheless, I must do it, I was told. They said my own children would even watch it. So I went to New York City one Tuesday to film it at the Judson Memorial Church where my friend Peter Laarman is the minister.
The filming took an astonishing three hours, while I sat in the choir loft surrounded by really hot TV lights, cameras, and other unidentifiable electronic gizmos. Some of the questions from correspondent Stephen Colbert were pretty routine, such as, “Why did Americans United get involved in this case?”4
Most, however, were a tad more unusual. One of my favorites was, “Did you get your ordination by responding to a computer pop-up ad?” I was happy to have the opportunity to clear up how I got ordained, since Falwell constantly accuses me of being a phony minister.
A second interesting question was, “Now, the Ten Commandments are in the Constitution, right?” When I responded in a pretty straightforward way to that one, the follow-up was, “I was just in Alabama and those folks told me they were. You might want to check your facts.”
Colbert also asked how I could say that the monument removal had not cast a pall over Alabama since when visiting he “got a speeding ticket for going a mere eight miles over the speed limit, could not find a cup of coffee after 9:30 in the morning, and couldn't find a single Starbucks in the capital city at all.”
Remember, this is a comedy program. I will admit that I couldn't keep a straight face even listening to some of the questions, and I could more or less see the overall direction this piece was going to take.
I was able to appreciate that spirit, knowing that humor has long had its place in the range of protective tactics that prevent people in activist battles from sinking into despair or rage.
THE MARCH FOR WOMEN'S LIVES: ONE SPEECH, TWO MINUTES, A MILLION AMENS5
There is something humbling about being asked to speak to one million people. Just over one hundred of us were asked to do just that, each for two minutes, by the organizers of the March for Women's Lives in Washington on April 25, 2004.
My task in the time allotted was to look at the role of Religious Right leaders in efforts to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and their push to restrict birth control and education on human sexuality. Whatever the “anti-choice” movement may have been in other iterations, it is now almost exclusively an effort to impose a particular religious viewpoint on all of us.
On the march route from the Washington Monument to the US Capitol there were several blocks of so-called “pro-life” demonstrators lining the streets; I did not see a single person waving a poster, screaming through a bullhorn, or wearing a t-shirt who did not make it unequivocally clear that he or she was there to make a religious statement about what God wanted.
There seemed to be a nearly instinctive understanding of the roots of the anti-choice movement in that crowd. I was introduced at about 11:30 a.m., following Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and folksinger Sonia (one of the few songwriters still writing very good and very political songs in the Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs tradition). When the emcee just mentioned the name of our organization—Americans United for Separation of Church and State—there was thunderous applause for blocks. I thought about not saying anything so as not to dampen the moment, but that thought passed.
Here is the heart of what I did say: “The Religious Right is out there trying to collapse the wall of separation between church and state, to crush anyone who does not see the world the way it does. And, if they succeed, we will enter a Falwellian Dark Age where state-sponsored religion replaces responsible moral choice. We'll wake up to a nation where comprehensive sex education is censored, and we just pray that ignorance doesn't kill our children. Our country's laws could be based on Pat Robertson's messages from God, not based on the liberties secured by our Constitution.
“The Religious Right's leaders are the people who contemptibly proclaimed that pro-choice Americans caused the attacks of September 11. They are neither smart enough nor moral enough to dare impose their vision on all of America. On this Sunday morning, this is hallowed space. This is a place where every child is a wanted child. This is where every woman's moral choice trumps the will of politicians and TV preachers.
“This is where we honor the struggles of our mothers and promote the dreams of our daughters by committing ourselves to protecting women's lives—by protecting women's choices. In 2004, pessimism is death. Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us that ‘the arc of change is long but it tends toward justice.’ We will step off soon on this historic march to help guarantee that justice, once achieved, will never be rolled back. The only way we lose is if we quit. Will you be quitting?”
Needless to say, that final question was not treated rhetorically and there was a resounding “No” shouted back to the stage.
This was a sadly necessary, but magnificent, day. I mentioned that you approach a speech to a million people with real humility. It is also true that there is tremendous excitement in completing such a presentation and sometimes even unexpected rewards for the effort.
After the march, I went to a little restaurant in Vienna, Virginia, to unwind and hear Eric Andersen, a songwriter I've been listening to since l963. I was alone at a prime table near the stage, and a family asked if they could join me.
“Of course,” I said.
The father recognized me as an image from one of the giant TV screens that had been placed throughout the Mall. He asked me if I had addressed the march earlier.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but I said yes, I had been on the stage. I needn't have worried. He simply smiled and said, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
AND THAT'S THE WAY IT IS: WALTER CRONKITE, AN ANCHOR OF TRUTH6
Most child-rearing experts would tell you that families should eat dinner together every night. My mother and father were great role models in every way, but did fail that dinner test (at least on weekdays). But it was my fault. As a young teenager, I insisted that I had to eat dinner on a TV tray in the living room, embedded in front of the fifteen-minute CBS evening news broadcast to watch Walter Cronkite.
I admired Cronkite from the start. Like many Americans, I stayed with his broadcast over the years, through the tumultuous ’60s and ’70s until his retirement in March of 1981. During my professional career, I've had the opportunity to meet many broadcast journalists, but Cronkite has not been one of them.
That changed recently. It took about five decades, but I finally got to meet Walter Cronkite in February.
It came about like this: Since leaving the anchor chair, Cronkite hasn't hesitated to speak out on the issues of the day that concern him. He's a strong advocate for church-state separation and was an early endorser of First Freedom First, the joint religious-freedom project sponsored by Americans United and the Interfaith Alliance Foundation.
When the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance Foundation, told me that Cronkite had agreed to take part in a First Freedom First event in San Jose, California, sponsored by the Commonwealth Club, I was delighted.
Younger folks might have a hard time grasping the iconic status accorded to Cronkite and his famous “And that's the way it is” sign-off. Folks closer my age don't. Every night he was with us, reporting on the struggle for racial justice, the Vietnam War, the race to the moon, the Cuban missile crisis, and so much more. These events were utterly fascinating, even if they sometimes seemed far removed from my normal life growing up in the steel town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For years, Americans routinely told pollsters that they considered Cronkite the “most trusted man in America.”
Welton, Walter, and I had a chance to chat for about a half hour in an anteroom before the event began. Cronkite talked about his love of sailing and developments in the news business. However, he seemed even more interested in asking questions than in answering them.
As one example, he quizzed Welton and me on the role Mitt Romney's Mormonism could play in voter interest in the upcoming presidential campaign; he wondered whether there were parallels with America's struggle with electing John F. Kennedy as our first Roman Catholic head of state.
There were a few other things Cronkite taught me about the news; mainly, that it is all right to have some emotional connection to what you were reporting. Who can forget his effort to fight back tears when reporting that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas? That clip remains one of the most powerful images of television history.
After Cronkite spent years covering the Vietnam War each evening, chronicling both the loss of life in Southeast Asia and the turmoil in the United States, he eventually stated publicly that it had been a blunder. President Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly told allies when he heard this, “If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost the country.”
Fair or not, I continue to look at news through a lens shaped by Walter Cronkite.
THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!: BRINGING HOME THE BACON (BROTHERS) AND OTHERS FOR SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION7
When I left the rehearsal for our recent movie Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Separation of Church and State…But Were Afraid To Ask, I was consumed by the thought that this was the most interesting collection of people in one place that I have been with in my entire life—and this was even before we factored in the musicians and Hollywood celebrities! The film was taped one evening, edited through the night, and then fed via satellite to movie theaters in thirty-seven cities the next day.
Perhaps even more importantly, the “champions” of religious freedom whose stories were being told had never met each other and had not recognized that the fight against an evangelistic teacher in New Jersey had much of the same feel as the battle against a Ten Commandments-wielding judge in Alabama or that proselytization efforts at the Air Force Academy in Colorado had the same sickening effect as did religious discrimination in Nevada. Listening to these courageous people talking to each other was mesmerizing.
And, then, of course, there were musicians, actors, and comedians who joined the First Freedom First affair. I had watched Jack Klugman long before The Odd Couple, in the great courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men (which was last year remastered on DVD for its fiftieth anniversary). I'm a big fan of Kevin Bacon both as an actor and a musician, having seen him at Washington's best music room, the Birchmere, and at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
Our program host, Peter Coyote, acts in terrific films and has the greatest voice for narration since Orson Welles (thus, his extensive work on Ken Burns's documentaries).
One more thing: Many of you have heard of the whimsical game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” whereby players attempt to link another actor to Kevin through film roles. The idea is that Kevin is always only six films, or “degrees,” away from every other living actor. After this event, I'm pleased to be just one degree from him—if those preview screenings really count as “films.”
FOLLOWING A TRUE COMPASS: WHEN SOMEONE HAD TO TAKE THE LEAD, TED KENNEDY WAS ALWAYS THERE8
The first time I met Sen. Ted Kennedy was back in the mid-1970s when I was working for the social justice arm of the United Church of Christ.
About twenty-five activists were meeting in a Senate conference room to hash out how to proceed on building support for full congressional representation for the District of Columbia. There were numerous squabbles about tactics and timing.
Then Kennedy swept into the room. Kennedy was known as a strong advocate for the District, and within minutes he assessed the situation and knew what to do. He did an astonishing off-the-cuff speech about the injustice of nearly one million people paying taxes and sending their children to war without having voting congressional representatives or senators to represent their interests. After those remarks, the groups started paying attention to the goal, not their institutional differences.
Over the years, in the numerous nonprofit groups I worked for, I had many opportunities to work with Kennedy's staff. They were extraordinary people themselves, who often stayed in their Senate positions for many years. They saw their work as a public service, not just a stepping stone to a slot as a highly paid K Street lobbyist.
Sometimes they would try to “protect” their boss from taking positions on controversial areas people like me would ask him to become involved with. Frequently, though, their views were ultimately rejected, as the senator would weigh in on why “someone” had to take the lead and that he was that “someone.”
Ted Kennedy was a person with an instinctive sense of what the Constitution means. He came from a radically different background than the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Both, however, viewed the call for justice at its root not as just a religious matter but a demand to be faithful to the written promises of our founding document, the Constitution, and the wise expansions of rights through the amendment process.
“Equal protection” of the laws meant you treated all people fairly; “no laws” abridging freedom of speech and press meant even objectionable comments were not the subject of government regulation.
We saw this demonstrated in many ways. When Kennedy was not able to be in town the night of Americans United's fiftieth-anniversary dinner, he insisted on recording a very personal video for us.
“For fifty years, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been a skillful, tireless, and indispensable ally in the ongoing struggle to protect religious liberty,” Kennedy said. “All Americans are in your debt on this auspicious fiftieth-anniversary celebration.”
At Americans United, we knew we could always count on Ted Kennedy to oppose various schemes giving tax aid to religious schools, school prayer amendments, and other threats to the church-state wall. He also helped lead the fight to keep Robert Bork off the Supreme Court.
But there was a very human side to him as well. In spite of the burdens of leadership on so many issues, the senator never lost touch with the individual people hurting in America.
No book could chronicle every instance of kindness by the senator. But I want to tell just one: I'm writing this just a few days before my son is getting married. Twenty years ago, he had been diagnosed with a rare form of muscle cancer.
Imagine what my wife and I went through. Imagine our feelings of despair. When Kennedy heard about the initial diagnosis, he offered to send my son a note about his own son's illness and urge him to be strong.
The offer was as unforgettable to me as any policy position he ever took. And when my son made a full recovery, Ted Kennedy couldn't have been more pleased to hear it.
That was the Ted Kennedy I knew. That was the Ted Kennedy I will miss. Americans have lost a man the likes of whom we will not see again for a very long time.
OF ALLIES AND ANNIVERSARIES: MEETING FRIENDS AT THE INTERSECTION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS9
I've always been a fan of the actor Richard Dreyfuss—even before he starred in Jaws.
Recently, I had the chance to meet him at an event in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), a great ally in the fight to preserve religious liberty.
Dreyfuss was the master of ceremonies for a celebration marking the RAC's fiftieth anniversary. I was honored to have been invited to participate by the Center's longtime director, Rabbi David Saperstein. My role was to speak briefly about the importance of the Center's voice—and indeed all of the voices we can gather in defense of separation of church and state.
I was introduced by Jane Wishner, a long-time lawyer and activist who had been a legislative assistant for the Center back in the ’70s. I first met her then and have encountered her in other events over the years. Jane explained a number of programs that got her and many other young people involved with the RAC's public policy work and then went on to say what a funny guy I was. When you get an introduction like that, it's a good thing if you just happen to have a few zingers for the crowd.
For example, I mentioned that I was stuck in an airport on the way to San Antonio a few days earlier and started playing around in my head with the idea of incorporating some reference to every one of Dreyfuss's films into my seven-minute address. I noted that this worked for a while with The American President and Whose Life Is It Anyway? but that I had to end the whole mental project when I realized he had also been in a film last year called Piranha 3-D. Not much to go with on that one.
Speaking of humor, at a reception before the program began, I ran into Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) whom, in a previous incarnation, I used to encounter at Christian Coalition meetings in Washington. (I assure you that he was getting comic material there, not trying to absorb the Coalition's bad history and constitutional analysis.) We chatted about how strange it was to see the same kind of people who were there in the ’90s now roaming the halls of Congress with a Tea Party banner flying metaphorically over their heads.
LONG-FORM TELEVISION10
On a recent Saturday night, I was happy to see Phil Donahue being interviewed on CNN by Piers Morgan.11
Phil was great as always; his answers persistently brought a smile to my face. And the clips of his show (including one with Marlo Thomas as a guest before they ended up dating and marrying) reminded me of the numerous times I was on both his syndicated show and his unfortunately short-lived programs on MSNBC and the now-defunct NewsTalk Television network.
In those recollections, however, I was also saddened by the state of both daytime talk shows and evening cable news shows. It's not because it isn't fun to be on Hardball with Chris Matthews or The Ed Show or (occasionally) Fox News. It's because it is pretty difficult to say much beyond sound bites in the five minutes allotted these days for the average segment. (Some are even shorter at three minutes.)
What Phil did—and what William F. Buckley did in his two-hour, unedited specials—was to give a long forum to issues that mattered—and still do. A Buckley debate on evolution that I did more than ten years ago still elicits comments from people in audiences I speak to now.
SING IT LOUD AND PROUD: AU LIFTS MANY VOICES UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE12
As many of you know, Americans United hosted a series of concerts around the country in late September to boost awareness about church-state separation, raise money for AU, and, well, have some fun.
My daughter Christina lives in Massachusetts. She sat down at the Voices United concert in Newton and began chatting with the man next to her, whom she did not know. He turned out to be Ellery Schempp, the plaintiff in the famous 1963 Supreme Court school prayer ruling Abington Township School District v. Schempp. I've known Ellery for years; I'm glad my daughter got to know him as well.
There are other great stories from what turned out to be a magical weekend. In Montgomery, Alabama, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center arranged a show in a local theater he owns featuring blues great Guy Davis. Greg Lipper, AU's senior litigation counsel, went down for the show and told me he was blown away by Davis's artistry.
In Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, AU Director of Communications Joe Conn arranged to rent a local community center and hosted Anne Hills and David Roth. Roth drove across several states to play this gig.
Jackson, Mississippi, hosted Jenna Lindbo at the Julep Restaurant, a venue that often opens its doors to special events by the LGBT community. Jenna flew in for the show and came back raving about the energy she witnessed there.
In New Orleans, a very special show took place in Ward 8, featuring poet Chuck Perkins and accompanying musicians, as Perkins performed his unique brand of slam poetry with a strong focus on social justice.
I even got in on the act. At my home in Maryland, I hosted folk singer Tom Pacheco, an artist I can never hear enough from. More than a hundred friends crowded into my living room for this very special acoustic show.
The big finale was in Los Angeles. At the historic El Rey Theater, Americans United played host to Sarah Silverman and Russell Brand, two edgy and thought-provoking comedians and actors.
Both Sarah and Russell were incredibly gracious, down to Earth, and highly professional. It was a joy to work with them.
So why did we do this? As a long-time fan of folk music, I am aware of the power of that medium for social protest. Folk music—the people's music—provided the soundtrack to some of the great social justice struggles of our times. I wanted to tap into that spirit to increase awareness of Americans United's mission.
I'm aware that not everyone shares my fondness for folk, so I made sure that we included other genres. When I asked Boston-area singer/songwriter Catie Curtis to head up this project, she agreed: The more music the better. The more styles the better. The more performers the better.
Then we thought: Why limit Voices United to music? When Catie said she had a connection to Sarah Silverman, I knew we had to pursue that. The next thing I knew, Russell Brand was on board too, and we had a great finale for Voices United. Catie and folk singer Mary Gauthier shared the stage with Sarah and Russell, providing the perfect combination of fun and folk. It was an evening that will not soon be forgotten by all who attended.
In recent weeks I've had numerous emails, letters, and phone calls from people who wanted to thank Americans United for sponsoring this event. Some said they hadn't thought much about church-state issues before. Some said they weren't involved with Americans United. Now they wanted to be.
Some came for the music but left inspired to speak out. That's just what we wanted. People made connections; they made commitments to get involved; they vowed to learn more.
We couldn't have done this without Curtis. Catie's energy never failed to amaze me. I thought we'd be lucky to land one show in every state. Catie did that and more—she gave us seventy-four shows in fifty states (and DC). And oh, by the way, she played at three of them!
I also have to give a shout out to Todd Stiefel of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation, who provided a generous donation to get Voices United up and running. Some doubted this was possible; Todd's generosity proved them wrong.
GOING VIRAL: AU VIDEOS PROMOTE THE CAUSE—TO A BRAND NEW AUDIENCE13
Americans United decided to try its hand at making some viral videos. The first was created during an all-day taping in Los Angeles with Jane Lynch, the star of the popular television musical show Glee, and Jordan Peele, the brilliant comedian from Comedy Central.
Sarah Stevenson, who works in AU's Development Department, was there to watch the production, brief the participants, and give the many people involved a few Americans United goodies—not quite what the Academy Award “bling bags” contain but some nice items that show what we do here.
The three-and-a-half minute long video, “Jane Lynch and Jordan Peele: Epic Church-State Breakup,” was based on a song written by Faith Soloway and was directed by her sister Jill Soloway, a Hollywood director/producer/writer. The theme was the breakup of Lynch portraying “Church” (dressed in a flowing white gown and a wig that mirrored a certain hairstyle of a number of television preachers’ spouses) and Peele's “State” (wearing a blue leisure suit and sporting a large flag belt buckle). It was a spoof of 1970s-era pop music, filmed in a nightclub whose owner supports our cause. The message: Even if church and state thought they belonged together, they actually need an epic breakup.
After some routine editing, the video debuted on May 30. The website Funny or Die premiered it for us. Soon it was everywhere—and people really seemed to like it. The last time I checked, the video had more than sixty-two thousand views on Funny or Die, and 85 percent rated it funny.
At about the same time, we announced a new series of concerts similar to our Voices United fundraisers last fall. On a lark, Stevenson sent an email to the website of the popular rapper Macklemore, who had recently released a song about marriage equality.
To our surprise, his staff wrote back and said he'd be happy to do a short video endorsing Voices United. With very little promotion from Americans United, that video took off as well, and, at this writing, is also racing toward three hundred thousand views on YouTube.
I'd be the last person to claim any dazzling competence or intense familiarity with the world of cyberspace, but I was blown away by the results of our viral video experiments. When you get a familiar message out in a new way, it can be surprising how many folks who ignored it earlier suddenly pay attention.
STRANGE PERSONS OF A “RELIGIOUS RIGHT” BENT
Of course, just as I've had the chance to meet some wonderful secularist advocates, I've also had the experience of commingling my life with some truly strange figures as well. There are the “big names” like Bill O'Reilly, the late Jerry Falwell, and well-known “public intellectual” Ann Coulter, and then the not-so-well-known Pastor Wiley Drake and General “Jerry” Boykin.
I was always told to “play nice” in the sandbox and on the jungle gym and that childhood lesson has been incorporated into my lifestyle, at least most of the time. I rage against their ideas but try to keep my public encounters low key because I believe I should reserve my “screaming rages” for telemarketers, people who text while driving next to me, and of course door-to-door magazine subscription salespeople.
Jerry Falwell died in the spring of 2007, and I wrote a reflection on my encounters with him. He, of course, appears in other places in this book and is also the subject of many anecdotes in my previous book, Piety & Politics. Here's what I thought was the most pathetic about Falwell:
OF MYTHS AND MEN: REFLECTIONS ON THE JERRY FALWELL ERA14
Jerry Falwell was declared dead at 12:40 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15. Bulletins about the gravity of his condition had abounded on news websites as soon as reports surfaced that he had been found unconscious in his office earlier in the morning.
Death is a singularly unpleasant matter for people, including journalists, to discuss. They expect that even the harshest critic of the deceased will listen to oft-repeated parental and social columnist advice: “If you have nothing good to say, say nothing.”
On May 15, most of the people who actually had encounters with Falwell on radio and television followed that scenario. So did I—with some important qualifiers. I called him “passionate” and “never yielding” but noted that he “politicized religion and failed to understand the genius of our Constitution.” I also pointed out that “I disagreed with just about everything Falwell stood for.”
This relatively restrained criticism was anchored in the one hundred or so media clashes I had with the man over the last twenty years. It would have been foolish not to have acknowledged our deep divisions the day he died. Not everyone played nice. Pundit Christopher Hitchens appeared on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 and blasted Falwell with a ferocity I cannot ever remember seeing on television news.
To what end does anyone say anything about the dead? Let me try this: It is important to put a life in perspective immediately so that an uncorrectable mythology doesn't develop. With Falwell, most commentators said that he “apologized” for blaming civil libertarians, feminists, gays, and pagans for the horror of September 11 because this caused God to lift his mantle of protection.
But the “apology” wasn't really one. Falwell said he wished he hadn't named specific groups and acknowledged that God hadn't told him that his mantle had been lifted. Falwell's horrendous remark concluded that 9/11 gave “us probably what we deserve”15 and for that I could find no apology to the victims or the public. Indeed, a fundraising letter under the signature of one of his sons after this so-called “apology” blamed the whole ruckus on evil liberals and insisted it had all been taken out of context.16
The first person to put me on the air live when Falwell's death was announced was Ed Schultz, one of the few successful progressive talk show hosts. He asked about my personal relationship with Falwell, and I had to concede that it wasn't warm. The very first sentence of my book Piety & Politics is, “The Reverend Jerry Falwell doesn't like me.” He was always very belligerent with me on television. Over the years, he called me a liar, asserted I “was paid by Al Gore,” and repeatedly insisted that I'm not really a minister.
Some of Falwell's conservative allies asked me why he seemed to dislike me so much. I'm not a psychologist, but I have thought that he hated the fact that I am not embarrassed to be both a Christian and an advocate for the right to believe or not believe anything or everything in matters of theology.
It is also important to point out that when a person dies who has had a conventionally “successful” life (and perhaps did have a major impact on electing many members of Congress and a few presidents), his or her “success” often comes at the expense of others. What Falwell would have described as “victories” were viewed very differently by others.
Women denied access to reproductive choice as Falwell worked to cut off federal funding and create an atmosphere of fear that led many doctors to stop performing abortions have reason to see themselves as his victims. So do members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities who saw zealots fueled by Falwell's narrow interpretation of the scriptures deny their rights. Speech matters; that is why it is important to protect it. When it comes from a powerful national pulpit, it can have tremendous power to heal or open wounds.
Falwell was not always in the business of mixing partisan politics and religion, or even policy discussion and salvation. In the 1960s, he told evangelicals to focus on winning souls for Christ and not work to elect your favorite politician to the White House. He changed.
First, he joined politically with other evangelicals to try to retain tax exemptions for racially discriminatory private religious schools. (To his credit, Falwell later renounced his support for segregation.) In l979, he was given the chance to run the Moral Majority. He decided to focus on a very narrow range of hot-button social issues and employ increasingly ham-fisted demands that his moral views be written as legislative fiats—or politicians would suffer consequences at the polls.
One can only wonder what would have happened if he had worked from his powerful national pulpit on other issues, from peace to the environment, and had spoken out against policies he found unethical without partisanship or electoral threats attached.
I don't celebrate the death of people. I would have gladly celebrated the demise of Jerry Falwell's ideology, though. But it did not die with him. Unfortunately, the flammable mix of religion and politics will continue for the foreseeable future.
Falwell was so “out there” that he was a media favorite, but his ascendancy to the top level of the Religious Right lured some into thinking he (and his colleague the Reverend Pat Robertson) were strange national outliers and that fundamentalists they might encounter in their hometowns were more reasonable. This often turned out not to be the case and the following tale reminded me of this lesson:
OF DEATH AND TAXES: PASTOR DRAKE'S PARTISAN POLITICKING AND “IMPRECATORY PRAYERS” LEAVE ME COLD17
Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park in California, and I go back a long way. He first took an interest in me when I criticized the highly partisan content and style of Christian Coalition voter guides back in l998 at a National Press Club event in Washington.
Drake called such public criticism “an absolute ungodly approach, absolutely Satanic approach.” He then urged his supporters to begin an “imprecatory prayer” campaign against me.
Even though seminary-trained, I was a tad uncertain about the meaning of this tactic. Imprecatory prayers, it turns out, are prayers that bad things—up to and including death—befall the “prayer” recipient. In other cultures, they would simply be called “curses” (and dolls might be involved).
Six months later, Pastor Drake and I were on CNN together one afternoon, and I happened to mention that he had been praying for my demise for some time. When I returned to my office, I discovered that he had faxed me a handwritten note informing me that he was “shocked” that I would bring up this “private matter” on national television. I was certain that I had not learned that rule at the seminary.
Pastor Drake is now back in the imprecatory prayer business, and two other AU staff members and I are the targets of his ire. Back in August, we sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service asking it to investigate the possibly illegal intervention in a political campaign by Drake. He supported the election of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on church stationery and on his church-based daily radio program.
Drake claimed these were “personal” endorsements, but it would be abundantly clear to any observer that the use of the church letterhead was intended to convey a “weightier” endorsement than that of a single cleric. The stationery also lists Drake as the “Second Vice President 2006/2007 Southern Baptist Convention” and, indeed, on one radio broadcast he told listeners that he was throwing his weight behind Huckabee in his role “as Second Vice President.” So much for the “personal” nature of his endorsement.
We faxed our complaint to Drake as we sent it to the IRS, and the pastor sent out an angry press release two hours later calling for those imprecatory prayers against both Joe Conn and Jeremy Learing (whose real name is Leaming) and a presumptive continuance of the same against me.
His missive included sample prayers for the biblically semiliterate, which included, “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.”18
All this led me to two immediate questions. First, since he had spelled Jeremy's name incorrectly, was there a person named Jeremy Learing who should be notified? Second, did he really know my children? One is working at Google. The other is finishing law school at the University of Virginia.
We didn't learn much more until early February when an article appeared on a right-wing website informing readers that Drake's church was indeed under IRS investigation.
Drake's attorney, Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund, announced that all this was a “Big-Brotherish” response caused by Americans United. Drake announced the imprecatory prayer effort would be expanded.19
The pastor is not discussing the particulars of his case much under advice of counsel, but he did say that he “loves the media.” Our latest tête-à-tête has gotten a reasonable amount of press coverage.
When distressed Christians write him and rebuke his tactics, he sometimes e-mails them back and notes that the tactic is God's, not his own. (As in, “don't blame me, take it up with God,” washing his hands of the whole thing.)
On the other hand, we've had a number of people write us in similar disgust at Drake's tactics and including some sizeable contributions. (One even requesting that we send Drake one of our “a gift has been given to AU in your honor” letters).
Interjecting death prayers into the discourse over important legal and policy manners is pretty disgraceful. Pastor Drake has a competent legal team to defend his interests. If he prevails, he prevails, and what we thought was “wrong,” the IRS did not.
In that event, I'm quite sure he will declare victory.
This preemptive strike of curses, however, is properly seen as alien to American political and spiritual life. As a people, we decry fatwahs against writers who do not toe a fundamentalist Islamic line. We denounce threats of violence announced by Hindu fundamentalists. To his credit, even Governor Huckabee didn't seem too pleased with the tactics telling the press that he preferred “the saving of souls rather than the damning of souls.”
I'll be heading home now as I finish this column. An ice-storm is expected to start soon. As long as it doesn't rain frogs….
I have not had the misfortune to have too many encounters with Ann Coulter. But she clearly is not a fan of mine, nor I of her. She is an insufferable and mean-spirited person. Here is an account of the bizarre column she did about me in 2009:
WHEN ANN COULTER ATTACKS: MY LATEST INTERACTION WITH AMERICA'S “PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL”20
I don't know what a “public intellectual” is, but Ann Coulter is frequently referred to as one. If this is true, I am hoping that I am not a “public intellectual.”
Ann has occasionally taken potshots at me in the past. In writing an obituary for Dr. Jerry Falwell, she said that the only disagreement she ever had with him was that when he laid blame for the attacks of September 11 on various groups, including gays and feminists, he did not personally cite Sen. Edward Kennedy and Barry Lynn as the precipitating cause.
And after Hurricane Katrina (no, she did not blame me for the weather), Ann suggested that “Barry Lynn's church” probably didn't do much for the victims. (Actually, the United Church of Christ, in which I am ordained, gave $4.4 million since 2005 in disaster relief, and the church even organized trips to New Orleans for volunteers to personally help the victims.)
A few weeks ago, Ann took her most recent jab at me. I noticed while checking my e-mail one morning that several people had forwarded me one of her columns. Why? Had she become a convert to church-state separation “gospel”?
Not quite.
Ann had written a column about people who hate their own kind—as in Southerners who concede the racism of the area, Vietnam veterans who talked about atrocities, and ministers (well, one to be precise) who are antireligion. In the paragraph about me, she suggested not only that I wasn't a true minister, but also that I wasn't a Christian.
Ann wasn't suggesting I had violated some scriptural prohibition or that I didn't believe in some doctrine. She meant I was not Christian, but Jewish. She said, “The first person to post Barry Lynn's bar mitzvah photos or birth announcement (mazel tov!) wins a free copy of my latest book.”21
How does one respond to this?
I suppose I could have held a “tea party” in protest or even started screaming during some congressperson's forum on healthcare. Or I could just use my vast interlocking media conglomerate of a radio talk program, a Beliefnet debate blog, and the Americans United's website for a spirited defense.
That's just what I did. In a blog, I confronted Ann with the truth. It included a photo of a birth certificate and the earliest-known photograph of my parents and me at a New Jersey beach.
The birth certificate was an ancient one from Cameroon that someone had found in the trash. I blurred the actual name of the holder and printed in bold letters “BARRY WILLIAM LYNN.” The photograph was a phony, altered picture of two large-headed space aliens holding their “son,” an alien with my face superimposed.
I noted in the blog that my purpose in all of this was to correct her misinformation. After all, I would not want her scholarly credentials sullied. (Of course, this is a joke, too, because her recent books on Joe McCarthy and evolution have been savaged by historians and scientists for their loopy conclusions and ridiculous “evidence.”)
Arguably, the level of public discourse in this country has hit a new low. The late William F. Buckley Jr.'s Firing Line (which I did a number of times) was a wonderful opportunity to have two uninterrupted hours of actual debate. Charlie Rose's late night show on many PBS stations is an honest effort to give people a chance to hear what real thinkers have to say. We need more of this.
What we are getting, though, are more “short form” shout-fests. I am just waiting for a Fox show to feature Ann and a chimpanzee, in which Ann says, “If we really descended from apes, why are you still here?” And the monkey just smiles wistfully.
AWARDS
Let's face it—everybody likes a little recognition for what they do. When I walk out of my office and left twenty-five yards, I come to what we call the “Wall of Shame”—a section of space to which have been affixed a cache of hate mail. We aren't ashamed, by the way, to receive it; we're just ashamed of the rank idiocy of the people who write gems like:
Example #1:
“Dear Commie Pinkos at Americans United for Communism: Thanks for butting in our state of Maine with your wonderful values and getting involved with screwing with the kids at South Bristol Elementary School. Well done. P.S. Just so I'm clear—I do not support your group.”
Example #2:
“This is your new group name: belugas of america
This is your commitment:
Democrats run on emotion, feelings, estrogen.
Flacid men
Feminists.
Open borders
Bilingual education
Protection of the smut industry
White men with dreadlocks
Legalize drugs
Anti family
Anti tradition
Anti christian
Pro muslim
Pro abortion rights
Anti flag
Pro gangsta rap
Pro hump and grind movies and tv shows etc.
Feelings feelings feelings
Broke back mountain (“Best western since lonesome dove”)
Anti military…
Anti catholic…
Pro sexual predators…see vermont
Pro liberal whiny judges
Anti american
You are the real hate groups. You will bring this great country to it's (sic) knees
Barry and all like him can kiss my a**
Who in the hell do you think you are
Go back across the pond where you belong
And finally, example #3:
“Go climb a gum tree and get stuck at the top!”
On the more positive front, people who like what you do can make for some highlight of your career in the awards they deem you worthy of receiving—for being a “national irritant” to a “Medal of Freedom” designee to being labeled a “creative citizen.”
What's better than being labeled a national “irritant” by your foes? Being recognized as one by your friends!22
I had this honor recently when I was privileged to receive the Robert O. Cooper Peace and Justice Fellowship Award at Southern Methodist University. SMU Chaplain William Finnin told the news media that the award, named for a former chaplain at the Dallas school, is for people who put themselves in such a “position to the reigning power that makes them irritants to the status quo.”
In light of that, here's an update on some of my irritating activity over the past few weeks. I'll start with a powerful group that's easy to irritate—Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council (FRC). During the course of the Harriet Miers nomination, it became known that White House strategist Karl Rove had called FRC board member James Dobson to assure the Colorado Springs Religious Right honcho that Miers is a conservative evangelical who goes to a prolife church.
I pointed out in the press that this use of religion to sell a Supreme Court nominee is the latest example of a religious litmus test articulated by President George W. Bush back in 2002 when he said he would only propose judicial nominees who “believe our rights come from God.”
Perkins took umbrage and sent out an e-mail with a rather unflattering photo of me. He noted that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Queried Perkins, “Better watch that one, Mr. Lynn. Can you impeach a dead President?”
That's cute. However, Jefferson's Creator was not viewed as a force meddling in American politics even in the late 1700s. Moreover, given his lifelong commitment to separation of church and state, Jefferson would never have supported the idea of a “religious test” for public office. Perkins is desperately trying to shift attention away from the utter hypocrisy of the Religious Right, which demanded that even speculation of how John G. Roberts's religion might affect his judging be off the table but now stands idly by while the administration sells Miers by highlighting where she goes to church.
I have also irritated Franklin Graham recently. Speaking at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Graham gave a combination meteorological/theological assessment of Hurricane Katrina. He blamed New Orleans for engaging in “satanic worship” and “sexual perversion” and asserted, “God is going to use that storm to bring revival.”23
Graham's Samaritan's Purse charity is in the area putting up roofs and giving children evangelistic tracts and stuffed lambs that play “Jesus Loves Me.” Just days earlier, I had criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency for having such unclear reimbursement guidelines for houses of worship that the government could end up funding evangelism. Basically, I was calling for accountability and the preservation of civil rights rather than just dumping tax dollars into collection plates.
Graham denounced my modest proposal as “ridiculous,” and the product of a mind that “hates God.” All this bluster and name calling could be a cover for Graham, who perhaps hopes that nobody notices that he has in the past received a cool $7 million in federal funds, yet claims all relief efforts should have as their “primary purpose” to “share the redeeming love of the Lord Jesus Christ.”24
Finally, I have irritated Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—again. He chose C. S. Lewis's novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for a statewide reading contest. Kids are supposed to read the book and submit essays, artwork, and videos about it in an effort to win prizes.
The problem is everyone acknowledges that this book is a thinly veiled allegory of Christianity's core concepts. Aslan the lion is a Christ-like figure, who is killed by evil forces and rises again. Lewis once noted that the series will “make it easier for children to accept Christianity when they meet it later in life.”
I realize not everyone who reads the book sees the Christian connection, but I can't believe Jeb doesn't. Here is a man who simply doesn't appreciate the separation of church and state and who wants everything from faith-based prisons to faith-based child welfare programs and faith-based vouchers to subsidize religious schools. We asked the governor to use better judgment in the future and to add non-religious books to the contest this year so all Florida children can participate.
So far, the governor's office has refused to address the religion issue, commenting only that the Lewis book is a “classic story of good versus evil.” (And one Christian talk show host told me Lewis's book couldn't be promoting the Gospels because it contains “animals that talk.” Right.)
Sometimes one has to disturb even friends and colleagues. When AU got word recently that some senators who normally support church-state separation were backing a measure that would give religious school vouchers to displaced hurricane victims, I spoke out. Our protest, picked up by the media, helped stall the bill, which had been on a fast track.
“Irritant” can be a strong word. But the simple fact is that sometimes some powerful people need to be irritated. They might need to be prodded to action or reminded that their views don't square with the Constitution.
TO BOISE AND BEYOND: IT'S FAR FROM QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT25
A few of the events in a recent swing through the American West contained some out-of-the-ordinary footnotes. In Los Angeles, I was given the Leonard Rose Award by the Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a group that collects funds to help poor women, many the victims of assault or incest, pay for medical expenses linked to reproductive health.
Grants went to women in forty-eight states last year. That group was particularly interested in AU's efforts to preserve the independence of the federal courts, prevent politicking from the pulpit, and stop religiously based discrimination in President George W. Bush's “faith-based” initiative.
Boise also featured an unusual occurrence. My final appearance there was the annual banquet for the Idaho affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. I had noticed that the next ballroom over from our dinner was an event labeled “Angel Party.” I assumed this was most likely a rehearsal dinner for a wedding in a family surnamed “Angel.” Well, not exactly!
I was in the middle of my speech, commenting on some of the more bizarre recent ramblings of James Dobson and Pat Robertson. I mentioned that Robertson had just told people in Dover, Pennsylvania, that if a disaster struck the city God wouldn't help them. They had angered God, Robertson said, by tossing a pro-“intelligent design” slate out of office.
Suddenly, loud hymns began wafting through the walls from the event next door. Was this a divine comment signaling support for my criticism of Robertson? Again, not exactly. It turns out “Angel Party” is an annual right-wing fundraiser for a group called Birthright of Idaho, one of those dishonest “counseling” centers for pregnant unmarried women seeking advice who are never told about any options other than motherhood and adoption.
In 2012, I was very happy to receive a 2011 Roosevelt Medal of Freedom award for defending religious freedom. This is what I said when receiving the medal in Hyde Park, New York (former home of the Roosevelts):
I am deeply honored to receive this award. The freedom of religion accorded by the separation of church and state is always a fragile commodity, even more so at a time when at least four candidates from one major political party each believe God has chosen them to be the next president
The founder of Americans United was Glenn Archer, a law school dean from Kansas who gave up his promising political career there to spend the rest of his life in the cause of real religious freedom, concerned about religious influences in public schools, efforts to subsidize religious schools with tax dollars, and censorship based on theological critiques. He became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, who had written in her newspaper column and in Ladies Home Journal that public schools should not teach religion and that when she sent her children to private schools she “never thought about asking the government to pay their tuition.” Presciently, Mrs. Roosevelt once told Archer “the battle for church-state separation may have to be fought all over again.” Indeed it has, in each generation.
Meanwhile, the president articulated as early as 1937 a proactive interpretation of tolerance—not viewing it as the gift of the powerful to the small, but as a core attribute of all men and women: “the lessons of religious tolerance—a toleration which recognizes complete liberty of human thought, liberty of conscience—some which by precept and example, must be inculcated in the hearts and minds of all Americans if the institutions of our democracy are to be nurtured and perpetrated.”26
The Roosevelts would, I suspect, be gravely disappointed today. The political process itself is being poisoned by the corrosive effect some forms of religion are having on our greatest institutions of democracy. The schools, the judiciary, the social service net: all corroded by a kind of religion that claims to know all things and whose only complaint is that it does not run all things. We are entering a campaign season in which candidates routinely go to political gatherings in Iowa where preachers quiz them on personal piety as well as political philosophy, violating the core spirit of the Constitution's abhorrence of “religious tests for public office.” Every issue from reproductive choice to the national debt has advocates drawing from scriptural tradition instead of critical thinking, sound analysis of data, and the commonly shared values of our Constitution. Judges are being removed from office for making unpopular decisions; the Tea Party has discovered a new bill of rights in their sock drawers that preserves corporate power and displaces the conscience of the very individuals who are America.
Our schools face a double assault of efforts to force religious indoctrination into textbooks of science and history and treat those institutions as “mission fields” for outside groups to subject a captive audience to proselytization and evangelical outreach. If they are not transformed in that way, advocates seek tuition tax credits, school vouchers, and other experimental mechanisms to end up forcing taxpayers to subsidize religious doctrine in schools, which do not even match their own academic claims.
In the social service arena, President Roosevelt, in June of 1941, signed the first executive order barring discrimination in employment by government contractors and grantees based on race, creed, color, or national origin. Regrettably, the Bush administration altered that to permit religious charities who are recipients of government funding for purportedly secular social services to discriminate in hiring, given preference to fellow believers and barring jobs to persons of other viewpoints. This scandalous practice continues in the current administration. Groups justify their hiring bias in the most peculiar ways: “We feel more comfortable working with people like us” or, in the case of the group World Vision—recipient of three hundred million tax dollars last year—proclaiming that if you tell people of your bias in advance, it's “not discrimination.” Ms. Parks, we told you about where you could sit before you bought the ticket, so don't complain. We have all heard all of these excuses before.
I want to be free of the fear that some politician claiming to hear the voice of God will seek to impose her or his will on all, depriving the rest of Americans from exercising their own conscience. But for that freedom to be viable, all of us need to work to preserve it. I've had the honor of participating in this effort for most of my adult life. It is not a freedom built solely by judicial decisions or acts of Congress. It is ultimately kept alive when it, in the words of Justice Learned Hand: “does not die in the hearts of the people.”
PUFFINS AND PRIZES: A PAT ON THE BACK FOR “CREATIVE CITIZENSHIP”27
I recently attended a great party in New York City. I got to listen to comedian Lewis Black (without having to pay $100 for a ticket); I got to chat with Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio; I saw my friend Phil Donahue and discussed with him the trend of religious minorities and nontheists demanding, and getting, equal space for displays in publicly owned spaces that previously housed only nativity scenes in December.
This December 9, 2013, soirée was cosponsored by the Puffin Foundation and the Nation Institute. I was there for a reason: to accept an award that was extremely meaningful to me, one I was honored and humbled to receive.
The Puffin Foundation's main job is to award grants to artists and arts organizations. Anyone who has seen the doodles I make during staff meetings can attest that I'm no artist. But the foundation—which is named for the beautiful and hardy puffin, a species of bird found mainly in very cold regions of the world—also awards an annual prize for “creative citizenship” to an activist who challenges the status quo.
I was delighted to be named this year's recipient. A Puffin Foundation official, in introducing the person who would introduce me, focused primarily on my work at Americans United, making a specific reference to our innovative Voices United series of musical events, started in 2012.
I was quite amazed to get this award and could barely believe anyone considered me in the same category as civil-rights icon Robert Moses, playwright and AIDS-awareness activist Tony Kushner, writer and economic justice advocate Barbara Ehrenreich, and Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.
Cecile introduced me and told some stories about my life. She noted that in one of my books I had revealed that my mother, then in her late eighties, told me that she was once escorted to the outskirts of a Pennsylvania coal-mining town by the police and told never to return. Her “crime”: distributing information about birth control. Cecile also reminded the five hundred people in attendance that I had once filled her in on how creationists explain the ability of Noah's Ark to hold so many animals: “They only took babies, including baby dinosaurs.”
If you've ever heard me give a speech—as opposed to arguing with/yelling at Sean Hannity or Pat Buchanan on television—then you know that I think humor is essential to public appearances. I picked that up from my father. My dad could not teach a Sunday School class or write the minutes for a civic club without embellishing the content with a joke or two.
Since Black had already decimated the phony “war on Christmas” during his time at the microphone, I had to do some last-minute edits to my prepared text. I noted that the owners of some for-profit corporations are arguing that their companies have a right of conscience to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees through company health insurance plans. They are actually claiming that corporations can practice religion.
The two cases the Supreme Court will hear on this topic in March involve a chain of craft stores owned by conservative Baptists and a Mennonite-owned firm that manufactures wood products for home construction.
My thought: “I will only give this credence when I see a do-it-yourself garden gnome sitting next to me in a pew at church or have the Adirondack lawn chair I sit in during the summer start singing hymns to me.”
It was a very pleasant evening, as I think you can gather. I would have never expected a night like this when I was growing up. I didn't plan to become an activist, nor did I strive to get involved in controversial matters. It just happened that way.
ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES: CINEMATIC ACHIEVEMENT AND A BIZARRE CAPITOL HILL HEARING
LOUIE, LOUIE!: MY “HELLISH” DAY TESTIFYING IN CONGRESS28
I always enjoy testifying before congressional committees about the Constitution. Until a few weeks ago, though, I have never had to testify about my personal religious views.
That changed on June 10, 2014, when US Rep. Louis B. “Louie” Gohmert (R-TX) got a chance to ask me questions at a hearing. The hearing, sponsored by the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, was supposed to be about “The State of Religious Liberty in the United States”—but for me it took on a bit of an inquisitorial tone.
I gave the standard five-minute summary of my testimony. During my remarks, I expressed skepticism about some of the statements by the three other witnesses (all chosen by the Republican majority), who asserted that there is a wide-ranging war on religion in America. I also issued a warning about how the radical redefinition of religious freedom crafted by people like them was the real danger to the First Amendment.
Then it was question-and-answer time.
There were a few inquiries about the state of school-prayer litigation and the faith-based initiative from Democratic representatives, but soon the rotation came around to Gohmert.
I knew that Gohmert has a reputation for taking ultraconservative positions on various policy matters, but I will admit to being a bit perplexed by the line of inquiry he pursued with me.
He began by quoting one of Thomas Jefferson's observations about God. His point seemed to be that Jefferson hadn't really been a Deist after all. He then observed that Franklin D. Roosevelt had recommended that soldiers read the Bible and wanted to know, “Are you offended by that?”
I assumed that this line of questioning would lead to policy issues—perhaps a discussion of the role of religion in the military (which has been controversial lately). When I noted that I rather liked Roosevelt and had received a Freedom of Worship Award from the Roosevelt Institute a few years back, Gohmert noted that the award “wasn't awarded by Roosevelt himself.” (No surprise there since FDR has been dead for nearly seventy years.)
It got even stranger. Soon Gohmert was talking about a Seinfeld episode where the character Elaine became upset to learn that her boyfriend was a Christian. This led to the real zinger: “Do you believe in sharing the good news that will keep people from going to hell, consistent with the Christian beliefs?”
Things were clearly unraveling fast. “I wouldn't agree with your construction of what hell is like or why one gets there,” I replied. I was later able to add, “I personally do not believe people go to hell because they don't believe in a specific set of ideas in Christianity.”
Gohmert then asserted, “So the Christian belief, as you see it, is whatever you choose to think about Christ—whether or not you believe those words he said that nobody, basically, goes to heaven except through me?”
I responded, “We could have a very interesting discussion some time, probably not in a congressional hearing” about theology. Getting the final word, Gohmert assured me that he did not mean to be “judgmental,” adding, “I appreciate your indulgence.”
I don't know the religious background of every member of the subcommittee, but I do know there are at least two Jewish and one Buddhist member. I hope Gohmert wasn't being “judgmental” about their after-death trajectory either.
The next day, there were dozens of blog posts about this exchange, generating hundreds of comments. Not surprisingly, the comments on sites like Glenn Beck's The Blaze generally lambasted me and praised the insights of Gohmert. Respondents on more progressive sites, like Rachel Maddow's blog, chastised, vilified, and otherwise rejected his “inquisitorial” techniques.
After an encounter like this, I always wonder what else I could have said or done. I got plenty of suggestions about this, too. Why didn't I demand that the Democrats leap to my defense and insist that Gohmert stop his line of questioning? Why didn't I echo the response of one witness at the infamous Joseph McCarthy hearings: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
I appreciated the advice, but I've concluded that I was probably on more solid ground with what I said. I had to assume that many of the subcommittee members have probably heard equally strange lines of inquiry from the gentleman from Texas before and were shaking their heads one more time.
The next day I appeared on MSNBC's The Ed Show, where I labeled Gohmert “kind of a walking talking example of why we need separation of church and state.” Politicians, I noted, should not try to decide which theological beliefs are correct and which are not.
A protracted debate over theology seemed to be a less-than-productive way to spend the subcommittee's time and the taxpayers’ money, so after the hearing, I told Gohmert I'd be happy to have lunch with him to discuss the nature of hell and biblical interpretation in a more appropriate venue.
Gohmert and I obviously don't agree on these questions. But we could still have an interesting discussion. I'll let you know if that conversation ever comes to pass. My lunch invitation has seemingly been lost in the mail.
AT THE MOVIES: MY LATEST ON-SCREEN APPEARANCE IS NO NOAH29
Many of you know that I am a film buff. Have me speak at an event and if there is a multiplex in the vicinity of the site of my hotel, I'll probably ask you to drop me off for a 10 p.m. showing of, well, pretty much anything.
In a recent column, I mentioned Noah, the new film starring Russell Crowe that generated enormous hostility from some Religious Right groups for taking license with the biblical version of the tale. These critics scored the movie for theological errors and a hefty dose of pro-environmental “propaganda.”
One recent rainy Sunday afternoon, my wife and I saw it in a local IMAX theater. Although I don't agree with the Religious Right criticism, I did walk out underwhelmed.
But enough about watching a movie. How about being in one? I had that opportunity recently when I was contacted by EchoLight Studios, a company with a heavy investment by former US Sen. Rick Santorum that makes “Christian worldview” motion pictures.
EchoLight's first effort was a holiday offering called The Christmas Candle. It was expensively advertised but a critical- and box-office bomb. In the wake of that fiasco, Santorum and his backers got a better idea: Make films and pitch them almost exclusively to megachurches that have their own audio and video set-ups. The studio's next offering will be available for church showings in September. And I'm in it.
No, this is not a work of fiction. One Generation Away is a documentary about “religious liberty”—more than likely claims of “religious persecution” of the Christian majority.
I had some hesitations, but when I learned that AU allies like Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Mikey Weinstein had been interviewed I agreed as well. The director and crew came by AU's office with lights, two cameras, and a makeup artist in tow. I spent a few hours with them.
When you've been in the advocacy business as long as I have, you get pretty good at knowing what to say so that nothing—at least in theory—can be taken out of context or make you look like a total dolt. Of course, it's always possible to edit a film in a devious way in which parts of sentences are strung together with material in between left out; a kind of visual ellipsis. I don't expect trouble like that. Sarah Jones from AU's Communications Department sat during the interview; she thought it went well.
Let's be candid here: I would have preferred to have been offered a heftier role: an aging Batman, the inventor of a cure for cancer, a heroic (did I mention aging?) rescuer of a person tied to the train tracks. But you don't get to pick all your roles, so I am just playing “me.”
In my youth, I had my mind changed dramatically about issues by hearing people I didn't expect to enjoy open my eyes and ears to some new ideas. Maybe somebody sitting in a pew at a church-turned-cinema will have the same experience. We all sing to the choir a lot and hope the members of that musical ensemble go out to sing to others. I will continue to speak to choirs and people belting out a different tune in the hopes that minds do sometimes change.
And if I get an Oscar nod for this project, I'm going to make sure that Santorum invites all of you to the after-party.