Politics

I usually stay away from politics in this blog (although I did post about Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia the other day--and if you read that post, I just updated it), but something that happened recently reminded me of something that happened several years ago, and, well, here it is:
When George W. Bush nominated Harriet Myers to be a Supreme Court justice, one of the criticisms that was leveled at her was that she "belonged to, and paid tithes to, a church that does not support abortion." My first thought was, "So does Ted Kennedy. So what?" It bothered me that the Senate judiciary committee appeared to be willing to block her nomination on the grounds of her religious beliefs (when they should have simply blocked her for her qualifications--or lack thereof). The problem here, of course, is that the senate wanted to be sure that her religious views (if confirmed as a justice) did not violate separation of church and state; but by seeking out her religious views, they themselves were violating separation of church and state. Now, as far as Senator Kennedy, just because he is a Roman Catholic, it doesn't necessarily follow that he personally shares the church's view on abortion. In any case, it seems clear that his constituents support abortion (or they wouldn't keep voting for him), and so he is voting the views of his constituency (there is some circular logic there, but it holds together--do they vote for him because he is politically pro-choice, or is he pro-choice because they are? It doesn't really matter--if he were not voting their beliefs, he would not get re-elected).
Recently Congressman Larry Craig has gotten into hot water. In the aftermath, he has been accused of being a hypocrite, because he has consistently opposed homosexual rights, and it now seems clear that he is one. It seems to me that he is in kind of the same situation as Senator Kennedy. He votes as a representative of his constituency, and so does not necessarily vote his own beliefs, or even support his own agenda.
By the way, as long as I'm talking about Larry Craig, another comment that I heard about him was that he "had to go looking for sex in a public bathroom." I'm not so sure that he 'had' to--I mean, for a public figure, soliciting in a public restroom isn't really too much different than cruising gay bars, or wherever else gay men usually hook up; he could easily be recognized either way. I had a woman tell me once that she liked having sex in elevators, because the possibility of being caught added a thrill to the encounter. I suspect that Larry Craig was engaging in the same kind of behavior.
The other thing that brought the Harriet Myers nomination to mind was a Methodist organization that lost their tax exemption on part of its property because they refused to allow two lesbian couples to have civil union ceremonies in the pavilion of their property. Now, I think I've made it clear before that I believe in civil unions, but, apparently, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association doesn't. When I first heard about this, I was under the impression that the tax exemption was based on religious use. It turns out it wasn't; the exemption is based on New Jersey's Green Acres Program, which holds that organizations don't have to pay property tax on property that they leave open to the public. The state commissioner environmental protection held that the pavilion is not open to the public, because the two lesbian couples were denied use of it. I'm not entirely sure I follow that logic (after all, they weren't told that they couldn't sit in it, or have a picnic in it), but the New York Times reports that the pavilion is "...used largely for Sunday church services and youth ministry programs..." That being the case, aren't they entitled to a tax exemption on the basis of religious usage, anyway? And, if not, why not? I have a feeling, that, given all the publicity, the state of New Jersey is going to be reluctant, at best, to grant them tax exemption for any reason. So, the good news is, they didn't lose their tax exemption based on religious reasons. Unfortunately, they may have a hard time getting a religious use exemption.
From what I understand, at least one of the lesbian couples ended up having their ceremony on the Methodist group's property anyway, so I'm not sure why the Methodists had a problem with them having the ceremony in the pavilion in the first place. It's kind of like opening up a vegetarian restaurant, but then allowing people to bring in food from the burger joint across the street, as long as they stay in the smoking section... On the other hand, I don't really understand the state's response. Shouldn't there at least be some discussion about this? We understand that you did this, and that's not in line with our policy, and you could be in danger of losing your tax exemption... The worry, of course, is that this looks like something very close to the state trying to tell a church what their beliefs need to be in order to maintain tax exempt status. That didn't happen in this case, but...