Inconvenient truthinesses

I've followed with great interest the reaction in the feminist blogosphere to Amy Sullivan's Salon interview. In this interview about her latest book, The Party Faithful, Sullivan tries to describe not only how she herself feels about aligning her liberal political stance with her Christian faith, but also the ways in which she envisions the Democratic party addressing what has been characterized as "the religious right," or also "the evangelicals," and mine this population segment for votes during the next election.

One of the things Sullivan points out--and something with which I have personally struggled--is the conflation of evangelical Christianity with political conservatism and the structured hatred it foists upon women, people of color, people with alternative sexualities, you have it. It's more than just a conflation, though; to many voices in the liberal, and especially the feminist blogosphere, this association is now a sine qua non, tidily marked with the "evangelicals" label, and the perfect target of the mudslinging du jour.

Most of the debate, as I see it, has focused on two things: Sullivan's reluctance to identify with "pro-choice" terminology since she feels torn between her discomfort with the act of abortion, and her advocacy for access to it. The other is her suggestions for Democratic campaign strategy. And, of course, the audacity to write liberal-while-evangelical-Christian. Or the other way around. Your pick.

So, I'm starting with the last one, the one which Amanda Marcotte thinks suffers from a mistaken definition. Because, as most self-identified good atheists know, "most self-identified evangelicals are patriarchy proponents with a thin veneer of Christianity over everything as a moral justification." And my gut (and the comments to her post) tells me that Marcotte's conventional relativist use of "most" does little to conceal the overtone that certainly none of those evangelical Christians could ever stand for the actual spreading of new testament Christian values like unconditional pacifism, love, environmentalism, and equality. Since this is my blog, I'll submit here that, in this case, the definition problem lies with cultural institutions like Marcotte's blog that perpetuate the use of the phrase "evangelical Christian" as a shorthand to encompass a hateful conservative political-cultural phenomenon, but deny those who claim the term for themselves the right to return to its actual "radical" (as in, radix ) definition--even if it is exactly this right to radical definitions that Marcotte and her commenters claim for themselves. Does it make me a pro-choicer if I say, with Amy Sullivan, that I feel uneasy about abortions, but believe that every woman needs access to a safe and legal process? Of course it does, in the radical sense of the phrase, just as much as saying that being an evangelical Christian makes me an evangelical Christian in the same radical process of association. But, to mirror Marcotte's train of thought about evangelical Christians, being pro-choice also associates me with the larger context of the phrase, which such cultural institutions like MSNBC, FOXNews, and also CNN have marked as militant pro-abortionists who, according to Sullivan, don't tout the "rare" as much as the "safe" and "legal" and, to most of "America," are the directly inverse complement to the ubiquitous abortion-clinic bombing pro-lifers. Once the label hype sticks, in other words, a rose is no longer a rose, no matter what side of the prejudice or stereotype you're on, and no matter how false it is.

It's exactly this discrepancy between cultural perceptions and personal realities in which Sullivan sees the Democrats' rhetorical challenge in this federal election. The cultural perception is that liberal means anti-Christian, and that Christian means anti-liberal, and that folks like myself have to choose sides. Sullivan fears that many self-identified liberal Christians are scared either into staying at home come election day or into associating with their assigned stereotype and vote Republican (or, in the most scary instance, go for a third(Nader--don't) party(Nader--don't) candidate(Nader--don't)). Of course, it may also scare liberal Christians into voting liberal, even though it seems that the discussions in Marcotte's and other feminist blogs often send a nonchalant "whatever" huff their way. So, yes, it may be true that, if we assume that everybody is a "values voter," liberal evangelical Christians' values may differ from liberal Buddhists' values or liberal Muslims' values, or liberal Hindus' values, or liberal atheists' values. Whatever they are, however, deserves to be addressed with the same respect that the liberal feminist or atheist communities demand, and on a level playing field. Because in equal opportunity, at least for this here liberal Christian, one can't be more equal than the other.