Pledges, promises and paybacks

When a candidate proposes that if elected he or she will promise to

do something, once in office, that candidate should follow through on

those promises. The relationship of a candidate and voter is much

like an agreement, a verbal contract. The candidate promises action

on issues, only if the voter elects him.

For the most part, candidates should follow through on their

words, but in this case, the president should be held more

accountable on delivering his promises because he had already

experienced four years of the presidency, and knows what is possible

and what is not. There is no reason why religious groups should be

excluded from expecting anything from the government because they are

part of the public. The fundamental principle of our system is built

by the people, for the people.

IMAM SAYED MOUSTAFA

AL-QAZWINI

Islamic Educational Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

I remember the comment of George Stephanopoulos: “The president

has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.” Every presidential

administration provides a dismal record of broken commitments as the

difference between rhetoric and policy is manifested.

In a 2000 debate with Vice President Gore, candidate Bush said:

“I’m not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the

world and say, ‘This is the way it’s got to be.’” In fact, one of

George Bush’s most popular lines in his stump speech during the 2000

campaign was: “I’m worried about an opponent who uses nation building

and the military in the same sentence. See, our view of the military

is for our military to be properly prepared to fight and win war and,

therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.”

Regardless of one’s view of the war in Iraq, America is engaged in

the most massive project of nation building since the Marshall Plan a

half-century ago. The president ran on a platform that appealed to

his conservative base, one that promised not to “overextend” the

military, which he accused Bill Clinton of doing, and not to engage

in nation building. He abandoned this platform within months of

taking office, and we are far from the “humble foreign policy” he

advocated four years ago.

Betrayed constituencies litter the political landscape. Any group,

religious or secular, that contributed money and manpower to a

candidate, has the right to expect fulfillment of promises made to

it. Certainly a man like President Bush, for whom religious faith is

at the core of his being, will try to respond favorably to a

religious agenda -- or at least appear to do so. The reality is that,

like his promise about abstaining from nation building, no political

promise is legally or morally binding. Candidates know this as they

speak, and voters know this as they listen.

Remember candidate George H.W. Bush’s 1988 promise: “Read my lips,

no new taxes.” This vow was made shortly before he became president,

betrayed his base and raised taxes. The current President Bush’s

religious base should know, better than most, that only God keeps all

of His promises.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yam

Newport Beach

Religious groups should insist on commitment, responsibility,

accountability and faithfulness, not “payback.” “Payback” may be good

politics, but it is not good religion. Good religion is covenantal

not contractual.

Members of faith communities, like everyone else, regularly enter

into contracts. We dispute written contracts in courts of law and how

oral contracts are binding just about everywhere. In the “total

complex of relations among people in society,” literally “politikos,”

it is fair to expect “quid pro quo,” something given or received for

something else: “You give me that, and I’ll give you this.” Contracts

require mutual understanding and agreement from those involved.

Politics is “the art of the possible,” so how can those elected do

everything they want to do themselves, much less be committed to

doing everything that those who voted for them want when our agendas

are so diverse? And, how can we expect to receive what we most desire

from government?

Faith witnesses that “God gives us everything! We are to give all

to serving God and others.” “All” means all we are and all we have

been given, not only this or that. At marriage celebrations, partners

commit “all that I am and all that I have,” not some of whom I am and

a portion of what I have. Those of us who take Holy Scripture

seriously proclaim the great first covenant summarized, for example,

in Leviticus 26:12, “I shall be your God and you shall be my people.”

Christians have an equally essential second covenant summed up by

Jesus, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” (1 Corinthians

11:25) We must understand that an integral part of both covenants is

“you can’t always get what you want, but ... you get what you need,”

which last June in this space, Rabbi Miller rightly called “the

immortal Rolling Stones’ song.”

A covenant is a living, dynamic, beneficial relationship beyond

“payback.” Politicians and their constituents would do well to take

this ideal to heart.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON)

PETER D. HAYNES

Saint Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

There is a difference between keeping your promises and being

obligated to help someone just because they helped you. If any group

is pressing the president for favors because of favors they did for

him, the only word for that in my mind is bribery. If, however,

people supported the president and voted for him based on issues he

promised to address prior to the election, then great -- our

government works. We are a representative government and people voted

for the president based on issues he addressed as relevant. It is

then up to him to keep his promises, or he becomes just another

politician and not the man of integrity many believe him to be.

The whole question is divisive in the first place. It represents

the views of those opposed to the president’s agenda who are trying

to get popular support for the theory that he is being blackmailed.

Since they lost the election, now they are trying to undermine the

platform the election was based on. This too, is part of the way our

government works. As ugly and divisive as it seems, at least they

have the right to object.

SENIOR ASSOCIATE PASTOR

RIC OLSEN

Harbor Trinity

Costa Mesa

A Zen Buddhist might say, “Senator, in our tradition, a woman’s

choice to have an abortion may be considered a moral one, and I

believe abortion should remain legal.” The fundamentalist Christian

is entitled to say, “I think abortion is always immoral. I want you

to take steps toward making it illegal, and I will not vote for you

if you do not.”

“Separation of church and state” does not mean that input from

individuals and groups who are guided by their religious traditions

will be excluded from the decision-making process in a democracy.

Rather, it protects us from those fundamentalists (who are found

globally and within all religious traditions) who would like to have

their religious views forced on everyone. Fundamentalists -- whose

extreme views go beyond traditionalism, conservatism or orthodoxy --

often think separation of church and state means that society is

against religion, and they do not appreciate that its purpose is to

ensure that all religions are respected in a diverse nation.

Competing claims must be weighed by those who have been elected with

a view to the Constitutional rights and welfare of all in a

pluralistic society.

President Bush did not win by a landslide in this most recent

election, and Al Gore won the last. It does not take many

conversations with friends, family and co-workers to figure out that

the country is truly divided on critical issues -- the war in Iraq,

the threat to social security, problems with our education and health

care systems, the disgrace of poverty, as well as differing views

about abortion and homosexuality. It is significant that 22% of

voters in the 2004 election claimed their vote was based on “moral

values,” which they interpreted as opposition to abortion and

homosexuality. It is hard to fathom how so many people can believe

that “morality” refers to what people do in bed, while war,

globalization, world trade, poverty and the nuclear threat are not

viewed as moral or religious issues, or are given little importance

in deciding who to vote for.

Rosemary Ruether, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, noted

that many Americans also voted against their own economic interests

-- jobs, the dangers of shrinking social services, the threat of

privatized social security, tax breaks for the rich -- because they

were “emotionally stirred” by the sexual issues.

I worked for one year in Washington, D.C., on a lobbying project

sponsored by groups such as the Religious Coalition for Abortion

Rights, Catholics for a Free Choice, Planned Parenthood and the

American Civil Liberties Union to pass legislation which would

provide for funding for abortion for victims of rape or incest under

the Medicaid program (which provides federal health care funding for

women living in poverty). In other words, poor women depending upon

public assistance for health care could not have an abortion, even if

the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. This work

demonstrated to me the value of religious as well as nonreligious

groups working to influence public policy.

At our Zen Center, we do not take a Zen Center, Zen Buddhist or

group position on political issues. We do have formal talks, readings

and discussions about current issues and the ways in which Zen

Buddhist practice relates. We believe that each person is best guided

by awareness meditation practice to discern his or her viewpoints and

actions.

The conservative and/or Christian groups certainly will pressure

President Bush and Congress to pursue their agenda. The rest of us

will have to work hard to resist these threats.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa