Copyright 1999 Des Moines Register

Reprinted with permission

December 18, 1999 Saturday
SECTION: METRO IOWA; Buttry Stephen; Pg. 4M
HEADLINE: Faith is a touchy issue for candidates to discuss
By STEPHEN BUTTRY
Register Religion Writer
When presidential candidates mix faith with politics, they enter dangerous
territory.
Religion remains a source of strong prejudice in this country. In addition,
public pronouncements of faith invariably set candidates up for accusations of
hypocrisy and exclusion.
With the increased involvement of evangelical Christians in politics over the
past quarter century, politicians increasingly talk about their religious
beliefs.
Only Democrat Bill Bradley is refusing to discuss his faith on the campaign
trail. Though Bradley, a Presbyterian, has written about his faith, he's
treating it now as a personal matter.
Other candidates raise religion in their campaigns in a variety of ways. In
Monday night's Iowa debate, Republican candidates mentioned God more than twice
as often as they invoked the revered name of Ronald Reagan.
With evangelicals making up 40 percent of Iowa Republican caucus
participants, the rewards for dropping God's name are obvious. In the national
electorate, though, faith is a more touchy and perilous issue. Every statement
of faith that wins applause from some voters will make others uneasy or
skeptical.
Though Catholics are the largest denomination, anti-Catholic bias is so
strong that John F. Kennedy was our only Catholic president. He won only after
addressing insulting questions about his faith.
That prejudice remains strong, as the U.S. House leadership showed last month
in rejecting the Jesuit priest who was the leading candidate for House chaplain.
No Mormon has been elected president, and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch appears
unlikely to change that.
Evangelicals have fared better in national politics than Catholics or
Mormons, but prejudice against evangelical and Pentecostal Christians is strong
as well. Non-Christians, though a growing part of the electorate, would face

immense prejudice if one ever dared to run.

Many candidates address religion through issues that they think will win
favor: abortion, school choice, school prayer, posting the Ten Commandments in
schools, shifting social services to faith-based institutions.
To expound about "putting God back in the classroom" might draw amens from
people of various denominations (all Christian, because people of other faiths
know whose God the candidate means). To actually talk about one's faith on a
personal level is more hazardous.
Each slice of Christendom has practices or views that other Christians don't
understand or appreciate.
Jimmy Carter won the presidency talking openly about being born again, an
approach Baptist Vice President Al Gore is repeating. A Pentecostal candidate
talking about speaking in tongues or a Catholic talking about praying the rosary
might not fare as well.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a Methodist, showed some trepidation when he
discussed his personal faith Monday night. He spoke emphatically at first when
he cited Jesus as his most influential thinker, "because he changed my heart."
Moderator John Bachman of WHO-TV said he thought viewers wanted to know more.
Bush stammered, quite clearly trying to find that delicate balance that would
win approval of evangelicals but not brand him to other voters as a Bible
thumper.
"Well, if they don't know, it's going to be hard to explain," said Bush.
"When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ
as the savior, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that's what
happened to me."
Monday's crowd applauded, but such a public declaration of faith can make a
candidate appear hypocritical. Bush's answer was an invitation to examine
whether Jesus changed his life so profoundly as to shape his politics.
For instance, Jesus stopped an execution, saying: "If any one of you is
without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone." Bush's Texas by far leads
the nation in executions.
In a sense, it's a cheap shot to note such hypocrisy, but statements of faith
invite voters to measure a candidate by the standards of his faith.
What politician will measure up to the standards Jesus set?

Copyright 2000 Des Moines Register

Reprinted with permission
January 22, 2000 Saturday
SECTION: METRO IOWA; Pg. 4M
HEADLINE: Candidates exaggerate their power over justices
By STEPHEN BUTTRY
Register Religion Writer
Whatever your view on abortion, someone running for president wants to assure
you that he will appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule your way.
Don't believe him, whoever he is.
Our nation's founders, right or wrong, gave the Supreme Court lifelong job
security. Many justices have ruled in ways that disappointed supporters of the
presidents who appointed them.
Much of the campaign talk about the Supreme Court focuses on the Roe vs. Wade
decision that legalized abortion 27 years ago today.
That ruling fueled the involvement of religious conservatives in American
politics over the past couple of decades. Most Republican candidates for any
office swear their opposition to abortion, while most Democratic candidates vow
to protect the rights established in Roe.
In presidential politics, candidates on both sides exaggerate the number of
justices they might have the opportunity to appoint and promise how their
appointments would rule on the court.
It's fashionable in the current race to say the next president probably will
appoint three to five justices. Vice President Al Gore predicted three or four
vacancies earlier this month in the Des Moines Register's Democratic debate. On
multiple occasions in Iowa, including the Register's Republican debate, Utah
Sen. Orrin Hatch has projected five vacancies.
Gore's projection might be accurate if the president serves two terms, but
that's mighty presumptuous. Hatch's projection is outlandish, and as chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, he should know better.
President Clinton has appointed two justices in his seven years. George Bush
appointed two in a single term. Ronald Reagan appointed three in eight years.
Jimmy Carter didn't appoint a single justice. Richard Nixon made four
appointments in five years, but two were really leftovers from the Johnson
administration. Not since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s has a president
appointed five justices.

Don't expect more Supreme Court vacancies because the justices are aging. The
court's average age is lower than for the Reagan and Bush elections.
Retirements and death certainly could give the next president more
appointments than Reagan, Bush or Clinton. But any candidate who tells you
that's probable is either lying or doesn't know what he's talking about.
However many justices the next president appoints, at least one will
disappoint and frustrate the president and his supporters. Count on it.
Maybe justices are so unpredictable because we all change our minds as we
grow and learn and as circumstances change. Maybe justices surprise because
their lifetime appointment frees them to vote without fear. Maybe they
understand their job is to interpret the law and sometimes that requires them to
vote contrary to their own wishes. Certainly, the Senate rejects some
presidents' first choices.
For whatever reason, history abounds with examples of justices whose records
are surprising in light of who appointed them.
Republican Dwight Eisenhower appointed conservative California Gov. Earl
Warren as chief justice. The Warren Court became synonymous with the liberal
judiciary. Another name synonymous with liberal politics, John F. Kennedy,
appointed Byron White, who became one of the court's most conservative justices.
Republican conservative Richard Nixon appointed liberal Justice Harry
Blackmun, author of the Roe decision. The elections of Reagan and Bush fueled
hopes and fears that they would appoint anti-abortion justices. Between them,
they appointed a majority of the court. But three of their five justices voted
to uphold Roe, which survived in 1992 by a 5-4 vote.
Republicans Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer promise to appoint "pro-life" judges,
apparently believing they can control the judiciary better than Reagan, Bush,
Eisenhower, Nixon or Kennedy. Bauer vows to "end abortion on demand," which is
beyond the president's power.
Supreme Court appointments are important. You should support a candidate who
will reflect your views in appointing justices. You also should be suspicious of
candidates who promise more than they can deliver.
Copyright 2000 Des Moines Register
Reprinted with permission
February 12, 2000 Saturday
SECTION: METRO IOWA; Pg. 4M
HEADLINE: Wall between religion and politics is crumbling

By STEPHEN BUTTRY
Register Religion Writer
Many political candidates and voters act as if they had never read Article VI
of the U.S. Constitution, Rabbi James Rudin told a Des Moines audience this
week.
Perhaps you haven't read it since you were taking civics in high school, if
then. Among other things, Article VI says, "No religious test shall ever be
required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United
States."
"That's not an article that's quoted often today by political candidates,"
Rudin noted wryly Thursday at a luncheon meeting of the Interfaith Alliance of
Iowa.
Rudin, national interreligious affairs director for the American Jewish
Committee, spoke in his luncheon address and a later interview about the "uneasy
relationship between religion and politics."
Candidates have addressed religion in different ways through the years.
Dwight Eisenhower didn't join a church until after he was elected, an
"unthinkable" situation today, Rudin said. Catholic candidate John F. Kennedy
reassured voters who worried that his first loyalty would be to the Vatican.
Candidate Jimmy Carter talked about being born again, and this year nearly all
the candidates are talking about their Christian faith.
"If we're not careful, we will have a de facto religious test for office,"
Rudin said.
A sector of conservative Christians, including evangelist Pat Robertson, is
trying to spread the notion that the United States was founded as a "Christian
nation." I hear from them whenever I write about church-state relations.
They note correctly that the Constitution does not contain the phrase
"separation of church and state." That phrase came from founders' writings about
the First Amendment, which prohibits establishment of a state religion and
ensures freedom of religion. Rudin noted that the original states had only 5,000
Jews and virtually no followers of the other faiths that are growing as our
population becomes more diverse: Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs.
"If they had wanted to make it a Christian nation, they could have easily
done it," Rudin said. "The fact that they did not do it tells me it was
intentional."

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison made clear, Rudin said, that America's
founders wanted religion deregulated.
Jefferson, opposing an effort to establish a state church in Virginia, wrote
that we had a "wall of separation" between church and state. In the centuries
since, Rudin said, each generation has struggled to define that wall: how high
it is, where it ends and begins, whether it has any doors.
While the founders didn't want an official religion, they wanted and allowed
"a vigorous exchange between religion and politics," Rudin said.
Religious leaders were active on both sides of the slavery issue in the 19th
century, he noted. Religion played key roles in the 20th century in the debate
over issues such as Prohibition, civil rights, the Vietnam War and abortion.
Other nations demonstrated in the 20th century how dangerous the mix of
religion and politics can be, Rudin said. After Adolf Hitler rose to power in
Germany, clergy wore swastikas on their robes and congregations joined in the
Nazi salute. Josef Stalin used the Russian Orthodox Church to achieve his
political goals, Rudin said.
At the other extreme, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini showed what could happen when
"religious leaders use the political system to impose their views on the whole
society."
However religion and politics mix, minority faiths must always be protected
under our tradition of liberty.
As a child growing up in Virginia, Rudin was the only Jew in his third-grade
class. He remembers standing outside in the hall with two Catholic children
while his Southern Baptist teacher read the New Testament to Protestant
children.
His father angrily went to the principal, also a Southern Baptist. The
principal gave the teacher a lesson in Baptists' historic belief in religious
freedom and the separation of church and state.
"Southern Baptists don't do this," the principal scolded.
Rudin remembers the experience when he hears candidates talking about
restoring public prayer in public schools in an increasingly pluralistic nation.
"When you're 8 years old," Rudin said, "you don't want to be excluded from
your class."
Copyright 2000 Des Moines Register

Reprinted with permission

March 4, 2000 Saturday
SECTION: METRO IOWA; Buttry Stephen; Pg. 4B
LENGTH: 679 words
HEADLINE: Republican campaign keeps focusing on faith
By STEPHEN BUTTRY
Register Religion Writer
John McCain made a high-stakes gamble this week by taking on two of the most
powerful and controversial leaders of the religious right.
No doubt the move was cheered by many independents and Democrats, and some
Republicans, who agree that evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are
"agents of intolerance" to whom Republican candidates should not pander.
Initial returns by Republican voters, though, showed that maybe McCain should
be a little more tolerant of intolerance.
He lost primaries in Virginia and Washington as well as caucuses in North
Dakota this week after taking his shot at the evangelists. He squandered any
momentum from last week's Michigan victory and gave his rival, Texas Gov. George
W. Bush, a reprieve from his own religious faux pas.
McCain needs some big victories this coming Tuesday to keep his hopes alive.
Both leading Republican candidates have bumbled clumsily around religious
issues.
While it may be appropriate for candidates to discuss their personal faith in
a campaign, Bush brought the matter up awkwardly in an Iowa debate, identifying
Jesus as his favorite political philosopher.
Jesus may have changed Bush's life, as he explained in the debate, but Jesus
was no political philosopher. He deflected efforts to engage him in political
debate. He refused to pursue earthly power.
Nonetheless, that statement didn't hurt Bush in Iowa, where McCain didn't
campaign and where Republican caucus-goers like to hear candidates express faith
in Jesus. Bush won handily here, and religion didn't seem to be a factor in New
Hampshire, where McCain won big.
Their next battleground was South Carolina, where Bush campaigned hard for
conservative Christian votes by appearing at controversial Bob Jones University.
The school did not integrate until the 1970s. The university denounces
Catholicism, Mormonism and many other faiths as "false religions." University

President Bob Jones III has called the pope "the anti-Christ."
A candidate doesn't have to agree with every position of an organization that
hosts a campaign appearance. However, the positions of Bob Jones are well known
and controversial. Bush didn't need to scold his hosts but could have
acknowledged differences in a context that stressed his campaign theme of
wanting to be "a uniter, not a divider."
Instead, Bush appeared to be pandering to intolerant and divisive forces. He
invited the rebukes from McCain and Catholic candidate Alan Keyes for condoning
anti-Catholic bigotry.
Bush's apology seemed hollow. With his South Carolina victory safely counted,
now that he's seeking New York votes, he sees the error of his ways and wishes
he had spoken out against the school's offensive views.
I'm not suggesting that Bush, whose brother Jeb is Catholic and has a
Mexican-born wife, agrees with the teachings of Bob Jones University. However,
the candidate has shown that he's willing to give bigotry a pass in order to win
votes.
McCain apparently couldn't resist joining Bush in the minefield of religious
intolerance.
In his speech ripping Falwell and Robertson, McCain stressed that he was not
attacking evangelicals as a group. He praised the work of Chuck Colson's Prison
Fellowship ministry and James Dobson's Focus on the Family.
"Evangelical leaders are changing America for the better," McCain said.
Those statements, though, were lost in the attack that followed. While
Falwell and Robertson certainly can be faulted as intolerant, McCain's rebuke
seemed to many voters to be the same kind of religious intolerance he was
criticizing.
Moreover, the timing was suspect. Falwell, Robertson and McCain have
coexisted peacefully within the Republican Party for years. McCain didn't liken
them to union bosses until they opposed him in a political battle.
November's election is a long way away. Hopefully, this campaign that keeps
focusing on faith will give the winner an appreciation for our nation's
religious diversity.