Good news-bad news from the Baptists: A pause in the need to dominate followed by a resolution demanding, ah, more domination

Interesting news out of the Southern Baptist Convention this week. First came word that a not-so-radical has been elected president and that a couple of other almost-moderate positions were taken. Today, we learn the Southern Baptists voted to make a renewed effort to take over local school boards. Call it the good news-bad news joke of the week.

The best coverage I’ve seen on the convention is coming from Mainstream Baptist over at Talk To Action here and here. E.J. Dionne also has an interesting column at the Washington Post.
First, the dare we call it, good news?

Mainstream Baptist writes:

For the first time since 1979, Baptists appear to be hesitating about the relentless rightward thrust toward Dominionism within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Over the past two days Southern Baptists have elected their most moderate President since 1979, have refused to request that its women's mission organization submit to denominational control, and have refused to approve a resolution calling for an "exit strategy" from public schools.

Some of the bad news, of course, is that this “moderate” president Frank Page isn’t exactly what the rest of us would call centrist. Elected, in part, with the help of bloggers who aided in organizing his campaign, Page may simply be a nicer version of the angry presidents of the recent past. Mainstream Baptist writes:

While the new president of the SBC is more moderate than past leaders, he is not a "Mainstream" Baptist. He an "irenic conservative" that professes to be an "inerrantist" who is not mad about it. It is entirely possible that he will merely put a friendlier face and a smile on the ongoing efforts of Southern Baptists to dominate the secular political processes of this country.
…
I suspect that it is merely an unexpected pause in the denomination's trend toward Dominionism.

“Dominionism,” by the way, is the official terminology for the idea of promoting the domination of one brand of religion over all other religions and secular institutions.

At the same time this “pause” in the headlong rush away from American democratic ideals was occurring, the Southern Baptists were also urging their members to run for their local school boards. The idea is to take over, dominate and change public education to indoctrinate all students with the Southern Baptist creed.

From Ethics Daily via Mainstream Baptist:

The resolution passed by the convention "On Engaging the Direction of the Public
School System" denounces the teaching of "dogmatic Darwinism," acceptance of
homosexuality and a "humanistic and secular orientation" in most schools.

This is yet one more reason why progressive and moderates have to get involved in even the most local of political campaigns. Run for office. Donate money and time to help the good candidates who are running.

Beware of stealth candidates who claim to be moderate or avoid all mention of their stands. In Kansas, one anti-evolution radical was elected to the state Board of Education four years ago by barely leaving her living room. For details, see here. Stealth campaigns can only win election because mega-church members know the candidates to support, while the rest of us are not paying attention.

Whether you live in red-state, bash-Darwin Kansas or in the bluest blue state, none of us can afford to be silent or uninvolved ever again.

This Week: Writer Eleanor Arnason, abortion, marriage, politics, the estate tax and more

Eleanor Arnason
Novelist Eleanor Arnason joins In This Moment

Abortion
What is the real issue in abortion?
Another sneak attack on abortion rights -- but California is fighting back

Marriage
BYU fires instructor for supporting gay marriage
"If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right"

Politics
Kansas GOP Watch: The “lost” feeling of moderates and what that means for national politics
Take Back Kansas: State Democrats field full slate of candidates for November
Kansas Republican watch: One more moderate leaves the party of the religious right

Estate Tax & the Fate of the Middle Class
Thoughts on the estate tax: Avarice is insatiable.
Monday report: Profits are up and wages are down, down, down

Privacy
"Who watches the watchers?" Bruce Schneier explains why privacy is important

Who Loves Us?
Pew Project reports on who likes the U.S. and who worries about global warming

"Who watches the watchers?" Bruce Schneier explains why privacy is important

My morning email included the monthly Crypto-Gram from security expert Bruce Schneier. His lead piece, which also appeared online on Wired, eloquently explains why privacy is important:

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness.

He goes on to ask:

How many of us have paused during conversations in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on?

I know I have. In fact, it just made me a little nervous to admit it. That's what all this surveillance does to you.

Schneier concludes with another very good point:

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. . . . Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy.

Schneier knows what he's talking about. He's got an international reputation as a security expert -- a security "guru" according to a comment attributed to The Economist on his website. He is particularly good at showing the difference between real security and "security theater."

You can read back issues or subscribe to his monthly Crypto-Gram here. If you want to check out his opinion more frequently, try his blog.

His book Beyond Fear explains security situations so clearly that you, too, can make reasonable decisions about protecting both yourself and your liberty. I recommend it highly.

Pew Project reports on who likes the U.S. and who worries about global warming

A report by the Pew Global Attitudes Project says that the U.S. is continuing to lose friends throughout the world. It attributes a lot of the problem to the Iraq War, which is damaging the U.S. image in Europe and Asia as well as in predominantly Muslim countries.

In most cases, opinions about the U.S. have declined sharply since 2000 – a period that roughly coincides with the Bush administration. The only two countries that express a higher opinion of the U.S. in 2006 than they did in 2000 are Russia by a small amount and Nigeria by a significant one. Given that my personal opinion about both those countries – or at least their governments – has declined substantially in the last six years, I'm not overwhelmed by their endorsement.

The Pew Project also reports that the people of the two nations who produce the greatest amount of greenhouse gases – that would be the United States and China – are the least concerned about global warming. Among those who are aware of the problem, only 19 percent of U.S. residents and 20 percent of the Chinese worry about it a great deal. And 47 percent of Americans worry about it very little, if at all.

I'm part of the 19 percent, but it appears that most of the people who have the clout to do something about global warming – U.S. government and corporate leaders – fall in the "What? Me worry?" group.

Novelist Eleanor Arnason joins In This Moment

We are pleased to announce that award-winning novelist Eleanor Arnason is joining In This Moment as a contributing writer.

Take a look at her fine essay, “Writing Science Fiction During the Third World War,” at Infinite Matrix, which also has more information about Eleanor at the bottom of the essay.

I’ll be posting some early comments Eleanor has sent to us right now. Later, Eleanor will be posting herself.

Welcome Eleanor!!

Thoughts on the estate tax: Avarice is insatiable.

By Eleanor Arnason

[Senate Republican leaders failed this month in their attempt to repeal the federal estate tax, but have vowed to continue their effort to end the tax on the nation’s richest people. Eleanor equates the GOP with dragons and passes on her thoughts about the tax and some other columnists perspective of it. – Diane]

This quote comes via Digby’s web log. It’s from Paul Krugman, whose fine op ed pieces are now hidden behind the dread New York Times subscription wall. I think they put the wall up when they realized that many people were reading the Times on line only to find out what Krugman was saying. He wrote:

The campaign for estate tax repeal has largely been financed by just 18 powerful business dynasties, including the family that owns Wal-Mart.You may have heard
tales of family farms and small businesses broken up to pay taxes, but those
stories are pure propaganda without any basis in fact. In particular, advocates
of estate tax repeal have never been able to provide a single real example of a
family farm sold to pay estate taxes.Nonetheless, the estate tax is up for a vote this week.

… Let me remind senators that this isn't just a fiscal issue, it's also a moral issue. Congress has already declared that the budget deficit is serious enough to warrant depriving children of health care; how can it now say that it's worth enlarging the deficit to give Paris Hilton a tax break?”

I find this amazing. 18 families, each with enough money to solve the problems of many countries, are fighting to pay no inheritance tax. Even if taxes on income and estates were raised to where they were in the good old days of the 1950s, these people would have enough for all necessities and any luxury the rest of us can imagine. What we are looking at here is simple avarice, the Gollum saying, “mine, mine,” or a dragon sitting on its pile of hoarded gold.

I don’t think we should try to satisfy this avarice. Avarice is insatiable by its nature. The dragon will always want to add to its hoard.

What is the real issue in abortion?

The following comes from Matt Yglesias via the American Prospect blog. It’s a quote from a Wall Street Journal review of “The Party of Death” by Ramesh Ponnuru. As I understand it, the book is a defense of the anti-abortion movement and an attack on the Democratic Party for defending abortion rights:

It doesn't matter to Mr. Ponnuru that (his) argument flies in the face of a complex intuition that seems to underlie the American ambivalence: Invisible to the naked eye, lacking body or brain, feeling neither pleasure nor pain, radically dependent for life support, the early embryo, though surely part of the human family, is distant and different enough from a flesh-and-blood newborn that when the early embryo's life comes into conflict with other precious human goods or claims, the embryo's life may need to give way.

Notice that the WSJ talks about “precious human goods or claims.” I can’t tell if the reviewer means ‘goods’ in the sense of values or material wealth. I read it as wealth: That we must balance the rights of an embryo against property rights, a very WSJ thing to say.

That aside, this is a good comment. However, we should not assume that the WSJ has become our friend and ally. On most issues, the people there are wrong and mean.

[Eleanor Arnason sent on this quote to us. It certainly is an interesting way to view the issue of choice and abortion – Diane]

BYU fires instructor for supporting gay marriage

Lately we’ve been watching Brigham Young University and other religious colleges, and their treatment of students who disagree with their churches’ positions on fair laws for lesbians and gays. Today we get word from AP that the university will not rehire an instructor who supports same-sex marriage. “Not rehiring” is academese for “firing.”

BYU is run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has spent millions campaigning against gay marriage. AP reports that in May the church told its members to support a constitutional amendment banning it.

The instructor in question is Jeffrey Nielsen, who teaches philosophy. In a June 4 column in the Salt Lake Tribune, he wrote: "I believe opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral."

Another sneak attack on abortion rights -- but California is fighting back

Here's another small battle in the ongoing war over abortion rights. California has sued the United States in federal court over something called the "Weldon Amendment" – an obscure provision tucked inside a $143 billion funding bill that says federal money can be withheld from any state that "discriminates" against a health care provider for not providing – or at least making referrals for – abortions.

As the suit points out, Roe v. Wade legalized abortion and California law, while it generally upholds the right of health care workers to decline to perform abortions in most situations, requires doctors and hospitals to do them in emergency situations affecting the life or health of a pregnant woman.

The suit seeks a declaration that the Weldon Amendment is unconstitutional. It asks the court to either prohibit its enforcement or rule that California law requiring abortion care in emergency situations does not violate it.

The suit, California v. United States, No. 05-00328, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

It came to my attention because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just allowed Catholic hospitals and doctors opposed to abortion to intervene in the case so that they can make their own arguments. The court said the anti-abortion doctors' interests might differ from those of the United States.

The case is moving at a fast clip. The district court has set a case management conference for June 23 and will probably set a hearing date at that point. There is not likely to be a full trial – both sides have presented the facts in briefs and other documents, so they'll probably just present arguments to the judge.

The Ninth Circuit could be right; perhaps it is appropriate to allow participation by doctors opposed to abortion. However, I would hope that the district court would also allow – or even invite – intervention by Planned Parenthood or other organizations that can speak for women who need abortions. While this suit is certainly about the right to emergency abortions, California also sued to protect federal funding for numerous state programs.

The state may consider the right to emergency abortion very important, but it also needs that federal money. Its interests are not the same as those of women who need an emergency abortion. If the anti-abortion crew gets to present its point of view, someone should be speaking up for women.

"If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right"

Here's a quick marriage quiz: In what year did it become legal for persons of different races to marry in all of the United States?

a. 1865?
b. 1883?
c. 1954?
d. 1967?
e. 2000?

This is a bit of a trick question. The answer I'm looking for is 1967, which is the year the U.S. Supreme Court said laws prohibiting interracial marriage (known as anti-miscegenation laws) were unconstitutional. The case is known by the serendipitous name of Loving v. Virginia -- Loving being the actual name of the couple who were prosecuted in Virginia in 1958 for marrying each other.

But you could make a case for 2000, because that's the year Alabama finally took its anti-miscegenation law off the books. They couldn't enforce it after 1967, but it was still there.

Those other dates? Well, the Civil War ended in 1865. 1954 is the date for Brown v. Board of Education, which made segregated schools illegal.

And 1883? That's the year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Alabama's anti-miscegenation law because it punished both white and black people equally. Look how many years it took the court to fix that mistake.

You can find these and other interesting facts about the history of interracial marriage on the Loving Day website. According to an article in the June 13 Washington Post, Ken Tanabe, who set up the website, is advocating a national "Loving Day" to be held every June 12 –- the day the Loving decision was issued -- to honor interracial marriage.

As we discuss the issue of gay marriage, it's useful to realize that this country has discriminated against other forms of marriage in the past. In 1912 a member of Congress even proposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting marriage between Caucasians and those "having any trace of African or negro blood."

And if you think the rhetoric is nastier about gay marriage, consider this statement quoted on the Loving Day website and attributed to the trial judge in Virginia who convicted the Lovings for getting married:

Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, Malay, and red and placed them on separate continents, and but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend the races to mix.

Kansas GOP Watch: The “lost” feeling of moderates and what that means for national politics

Mark Parkinson, former chair of the Kansas Republican Party, sums up the feelings of many of his former political colleagues this way: "A lot of people in Kansas are feeling lost right now."

That’s just one of the more pointed comments in a Los Angeles Times profile on the state of the Kansas GOP. As a long-time observer of Kansas politics, I can tell you that the story by Nicholas Riccardi is right on the money.

The key, though, which isn’t emphasized in the story, is that the religious right cannot win at the polls if moderate Republicans do not collude with them. This is true for Kansas and for the rest of the country. The question now is whether the change in attitudes among traditional Republicans in Kansas will mark the beginning of a change among moderate Republicans nationally.

What Kansas Republicans are beginning to understand is that they truly made a pact with the devil when they first decided to ignore the excesses of the religious right and work with the mega churches and their followers.

Sometimes it wasn’t a matter of “ignoring” anything, but of moderates being booted out of positions in local precincts and the state committee. At other times, moderate Republicans decided to use the extra grassroots strength provided by the religious right to win at the polls. I think this is particularly true on the national level.

The Times notes:

Political observers say the fracture within the Kansas GOP may foreshadow the future for the national party. The division between moderates and social conservatives is expected to define the contest for the party's 2008 presidential nomination.

Kansas has been at the forefront of the culture wars that helped the Republican Party gain national dominance this decade. Twice in the last seven years, its Board of Education voted to teach alternatives to evolution in public schools. Voters in 2005 overwhelmingly approved a ban on gay marriage. The state's attorney general last year subpoenaed medical records of abortion patients.

The entire Times story is well worth reading. Republicans across the nation need to understand what their counterparts in Kansas are now learning. If you collude with the religious right, you will eventually end up losing your political power and handing your state, and the nation, over to people whose policies will destroy what you believe is important.

Take Back Kansas: State Democrats field full slate of candidates for November

Hat tip to Thoughts From Kansas for passing on this information and linking to the state Democratic web site.

Monday report: Profits are up and wages are down, down, down

This chart has got to be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Click on it to get a clearer view. From an Economic Policy Institute report posted today, it shows how productivity is way, way up at the same time that us wage-slaves are falling behind. If all that work we’re doing is bringing in more money for our employers, doesn’t that mean we're making more money, too? Nope, the Economic Policy Institute reports.

In the snapshot report, the institute notes that while productivity and profits are up, a greater portion of the money is being funneled away from salaries. The folks who made that profit possible, in general, appear to be getting far less of the money pie than previously.

Wage growth has been shortchanged because 46% of the growth of total income in the corporate sector has been distributed as corporate profits, far more than the 20% in previous periods.

Meanwhile, the institute reports that median household income has fallen for five years in a row, more people are in debt, poverty is increasing, job creation hasn’t kept up with population growth and rising health care costs are eroding the declining income of families.

Kansas Republican watch: One more moderate leaves the party of the religious right

Illness slowed me down a bit, and I’m a tad late on this, but it’s still worth noting as this AP story from The Lawrence Journal-World does:

Edwards County Commissioner Duane Mathes has switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat to run for a seat in the Kansas House.
...

“I don’t think I left the Republican Party,” he said. “I think it left me.”

Mathes is the fourth member of the Kansas GOP to switch sides for the upcoming election. His defection is notable because he is not from affluent Johnson County or liberal Douglas County. Mathews represents the backbone of the Kansas Republicans. He is a semiretired farmer and stockman from a rural southwestern Kansas county with a population of 3,449.