There is nothing more fascinating to me than seeing the political left discuss moral values today. It reminds me of the time last year when my Introduction to American Politics section gathered to discuss Bush's surprising victory. One freshman informed the class that the biggest problem with the election was the number of people who decided to vote on their "values."
Similarly, when Chuck Schumer, a Democratic senator from New York, criticized the appointment of conservative appellate court judge Bill Pryor, he stated concern over Pryor's "deeply held beliefs." Both are clear examples of how the left has combined semantic chicanery and disdain for religion as a means to drive their own "values."
Along those lines, the ACLU has demonstrated that it has a keen nose for sniffing out the most trivial of travesties. Although I commend its efforts to help maintain civil liberties in this terrible, theocratic dictatorship its followers claim we live in, it once again proved to be a foe to the very civil liberties it vows to protect. The latest example is their insistence on the removal of a small cross on the seal of the small town of Tijeras, New Mexico. Right next to it is a large drawing of the Native American zia, a religious symbol as well, which garnered no protest. It would seem that anything that has to do with the Christian church needs to be hidden from the public.
As comedian Dennis Miller so aptly stated last year, "It's unbelievable to me. The ACLU will no longer fight for your right to put up a nativity scene, but they'll fight for the right of the local freak who wants to stumble onto the scene and have sex with one of the sheep."
It seems that as long as the word "Christian" is remotely related to a public object or symbol, there is a stigma of intolerance attached to it. There is seemingly nothing intolerant in imposing a post-modern view of homosexuality or abortion on others, but the minute someone decides to follow his own religious tenets, he is considered intolerant and overly conservative.
The same hypocrisy applies to liberals for the war on terrorism. I have never seen a Democrat rally to the defense of religion and values in demanding better treatment for the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay. Of course, we all remember Amnesty International's claim that Gitmo is "the gulag of our time." One of Amnesty's complaints turned out to be that a soldier accidentally handed the Koran to a prisoner without gloved hands (in fact, while the prisoner was spitting at and throwing feces at the soldier). The fact that we continue to allow these prisoners to read the very book that they incorrectly interpreted to justify their terrorist activity shows how civil our treatment of our enemies is.
The left had no qualms when Christopher Ofili covered a picture of the Virgin Mary in elephant feces and called it art. In this sick sense of post-modern multiculturalism, could we say that if a soldier decided to defecate on a Koran (which did not actually happen), it would be an Ofili-esque expression of action art?
The far left today seems satisfied with their labeling all things Christian as the next terrible plight to America. We have radical groups howling over an idiot like Pat Robertson and his recent assassination comments, but we don't have the same reaction when the very leaders of other countries call for the death of America. We have a media so willing to point out how poorly enemy prisoners of war at Gitmo are treated ---- despite access to medical care and three meals a day, but willing to write little about how civilian Nick Berg was brutally beheaded.
The lack of sound moral analysis by the left today is appalling and disgusting. Religious expression has always been a fundamental right and the very reason why the pilgrims left their homeland to start anew. While I do not think organizations like the ACLU or Amnesty are terrible, they have clearly been hijacked by the left and lost sight of their real purpose. The ACLU should go back to protecting the civil liberties it holds so dear, including religious expression. Likewise, Amnesty should place its focus on greater human rights crises like Darfur or should have even focused on the pre-war human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of their stance on the respective wars. Their place should be to root out injustices rather than displaying inherent religious biases for the sake of vapid multiculturalism.
So what do I think about the pejorative ways the phrases "values voter" and "deeply held beliefs" are used? Honestly, I just find it amusing that some on the left, in the mold of Schumer, are willing to admit they don't vote on values -- it's simply shallow.
--Kane Kim is a junior economics major from Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
