...most of the time, what conservatives call anti-evangelical bigotry is simply harsh criticism of the Christian Right's agenda. Scarborough seized on a recent column by Maureen Dowd, which accused President Bush of "replacing science with religion, and facts with faith," leading America into "another dark age." The Weekly Standard recently pilloried Thomas Friedman for criticizing "Christian fundamentalists" who "promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad," and Howell Raines, for saying the Christian Right wants to enact "theologically based cultural norms."
This isn't bigotry. What these (and most other) liberals are saying is that the Christian Right sees politics through the prism of theology, and there's something dangerous in that. And they're right. It's fine if religion influences your moral values. But, when you make public arguments, you have to ground them--as much as possible--in reason and evidence, things that are accessible to people of different religions, or no religion at all. Otherwise, you can't persuade other people, and they can't persuade you. In a diverse democracy, there must be a common political language, and that language can't be theological.
This is the heart of John Kerry's point in the third debate about the role of faith in politics. It's appropriate to use faith to guide you to your political conclusions, but when it comes time to write the laws, you must rely on facts.
Beinart also makes a great point that the Christian Right has taken a page out of the PC playbook by treating their political beliefs as integral to their identity, and thus above criticism. There's definitely a similar odor in the way the way that some hardcore multi-culti types challenge rationalism as an oppressive white-male construct, and the way that some evangelicals dismiss inconvenient facts as elite-liberal-academic treachery. This is their truth. Who are you to challenge it?
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