Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter writes, "Too many commentators in the media, in politics, and in the academy, make a casual habit of insulting their religious opponents instead of debating with them," in the paperback foreword to "The Culture of Disbelief." What is most unfortunate about Carter's statement is its accuracy.
Last Friday's edition of the Valley News ran a front-page story on the defeat of an assisted suicide bill in the New Hampshire State Legislature. The bill, HB 339, was sponsored by Hanover Democrat Robert Guest, a retired Dartmouth professor. Overwhelmingly defeated by a vote of 265-90, the assisted suicide bill was vigorously opposed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, the New Hampshire Christian Coalition and the New Hampshire Medical Society.
Rather than reflect on the problems raised by opponents to the bill, Guest chose to make excuses and dismiss rather than discuss. Speaking of the defeat of HB 339, Guest stated, "I must admit some resentment where religion got mixed up in politics." What insidious interpolation of religion with politics took place with regard to the defeat of Rep. Guest's assisted suicide legislation? How was the "wall of separation" violated, save in the public disdain for religious conviction offered by Hanover's representative? Politics and religion are a volatile mix and should be treated with great care. In this time of heightened sensitivity, why is it that this apparently prejudicial remark against religious groups is acceptable behavior?
Even so, Guest deserves the benefit of our doubts, which is why readers of this paper and Guest's constituents deserve an explanation of his comment. Specifically, we would like to know what it is that Guest "resents" about the actions of religious groups that opposed the legislation that he was sponsoring.
Referring to the relationship between religion and American politics, Garry Wills writes in "Under God," "It is no wonder that, in so novel an undertaking, it should have taken a while to sift the dangers and blessings of the new arrangement, to learn how best to live with it, to complete the logic of its workings. We are still grappling with its meaning for us." There is a great deal of tension involved in issues of church and state which must not be ignored. Neither should this tension be ignited and exploited, as it appears to have been in this instance, even though the debate over the assisted suicide bill focused on conscience and law, and did not revolve around private religious belief.
The testimony of the Diocese of Manchester against HB 339 is significant not only for the legal, constitutional, and moral questions it raised, but also for the religious and doctrinal issues which it did not address. The dominant issues were not religion and politics, as Guest would lead us to believe, but the denial of human dignity, the extension of such a law, the social climate created by assisted suicide legislation, and constitutional and legal questions.
Carter grasps the issues best, writing, "We are trying, here in America, to strike an awkward but necessary balance, one that seems more and more difficult with each passing year. On the one hand, a magnificent respect for freedom of conscience, including the freedom of religious belief, runs deep in our political ideology. On the other hand, our understandable fear of religious domination of politics presses us, in our public personas, to be wary of those who take their religion too seriously."
Indeed, an awkward and necessary balance exists, but it is upsetting when a politician attempts to exploit the fear of religious entanglement, invoking the specter of religious domination when in fact there is no evidence to suggest such a conflict. If an unholy alliance of religion and politics led to the defeat of Guest's assisted suicide legislation, however unlikely this may be given the evidence thus far, we deserve an explanation. If this is not the case, then an apology is in order.
Whence the resentment?
