IN THEORY:Did Edwards make a misstep?

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ campaign has been criticized for employing two bloggers who have made controversial remarks about Roman Catholics and Christianity in general. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has demanded that Edwards fire bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, but Edwards, though he acknowledged he was “personally offended” by some of the things they have said, refused to let them go. This week, both resigned. A national Catholic-based advocacy organization, Fidelis, also called on Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to condemn the controversial posts on the blogs. Do you think Edwards should have quickly removed the bloggers from his campaign or was it enough for him to criticize what they said?

Of course, John Edwards should have removed the bloggers for their profane, vehement and vitriolic anti-Catholic bigotry, because to do otherwise is to assent to a disturbing bias against more than 60 million Catholic citizens in our country, where he aspires to serve as president.

The historian Will Durant observed that no nation in history has survived without a strong moral code informed by religion.

We seem to have embarked into a society without a moral compass, values erased from objective norms, tolerance elevated above truth.

Such individuals as the bloggers are attempting to anathematize the Catholic church. Anti-Catholicism has been regrettably observed as among the last respectable prejudices left in America.

The late Supreme Court Justice William Douglas warned that similar actions were not creating neutrality toward religion but a brooding hostility to it.

As Roman Catholics and Americans, we cherish the separation of church and state, but one cannot separate religion and politics. They are distinct but not separable.

Edwards should remember that our republic was founded by people who wanted to escape religious persecution, not religion. The separation of church and state was not driven by a desire to protect government from religion but rather to protect religion from government.

Our constitution was not designed to drive religion from the public square. Rather, it was religion that led to the public square with the pilgrims at Plymouth.

The presidential candidate might also recall that his namesake, Jonathan Edwards, one of the first presidents at Princeton University, stirred congregations in this land with sermons that warned of “sinners in the hands of an angry God.”

MSGR. LAWRENCE J. BAIRD

Pastor

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church

Many people lack basic education about how to disagree in public with the opinions of others in an appropriate manner. We could easily get the idea from some radio and television talk shows that shocking, vulgar and combative methods are acceptable — or even admirable. We have the right to free speech, but how do we use it to serve the common good?

An essential quality of civility is “a style and manner that elevates human interaction and discourse,” according to a document circulated among faculty at Cal State Fullerton. Teachers and students were urged to be sensitive about the impact of their communications on others in order to create a respectful environment for learning and the free exchange of ideas. It can be difficult to find the middle way between strained silence and angry outbursts. Zen practitioners try to become aware of how clinging to opinions in order to bolster the ego creates suffering. We are all challenged to become more mature and skillful as we examine different positions on the issues of the day. For example, the bloggers could have criticized the teachings of Roman Catholic officials on emergency contraception without being obscene and mean-spirited about it.

Blogs, group e-mails, websites and MySpace can publicize careless comments to a large audience. More specific education is needed about how to use new technology responsibly.

Because the blogs are the personal expression of employees in their free time, I think Edwards as an employer was right not to fire the campaign staffers. But it was imperative that he emphasize his disapproval of these offensive communications, since some people would try to discredit him through guilt by association. The bloggers did the right thing by resigning, and I hope they will seek assistance in overcoming their bigotry.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

If we all lost our jobs because of thoughtless words, who would work? When our words or actions disregard others and reveal irrational attitudes or preconceived judgments, we need correction and education.

John Edwards’ statement in response to the two campaign workers’ prejudices seems wise and gracious to me. He is reported to have said, “Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor or anything else.” This seems gracious, because it gives those two relatively obscure bloggers the “second chance” I trust we would all want in such a situation to learn why our words were wrong and to change our ways.

It seems wise because Edwards wants to be judged on his own thoughts and opinions, positions and perspectives, as we all would.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON)

PETER D. HAYNES

Saint Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

If an employee of mine published a reasoned and temperate evaluation of the tenets espoused by another faith, he or she would remain in my employ. But if the critique descended into vitriol and denunciation — ravings in the guise of “satire” — the staffer would suffer the conesquences.

To weigh in on ecclesiastical dysfunction or the role of women in the church is legitimate, but to descend to the verbal violence of vulgarities violates a boundary. Words possess tremendous power. When President Bush was chastised for taunting our enemies with the dare “Bring ‘em on,” he ruefully noted, “You’ve got to be mindful of the results of words.” How true. There is no justification, when speaking of a religion, for provocative messages that tighten the tension.

A political candidate must be known by the company he keeps. Those of his associates who demonstrate disrespect for another’s faith deserve repudiation. After all, if Edwards were to be elected president, he would hardly tolerate such performance by a Cabinet member or advisor. This incident provides a view into the candidate’s standards of decency. The president should ideally symbolize national unity, for we are not the Divided States of America. Vituperative language that castigates religious faiths is beyond the pale.

Former Rep. Dick Gephardt said, “Our Founding Fathers created a system of government of men, not of angels. No one in this House can pass a Puritanical test of purity. If we demand that mere mortals live up to this standard, we will see our seats of government lay empty, and we will see the best, most able people unfairly cast out of public service.”

While I would not apply a priggish test to John Edwards’ selection of campaign workers, my litmus test is that if we would be aghast at a President Edwards himself employing foul language and denunciatory rhetoric, we should look askance when his highly visible representatives do so. No president, and hence no candidate, should associate with the trash-talking language of contempt and ridicule, or mean-spirited and reckless statements. We need campaigns to be insightful, not incendiary. We need high standards in public life, especially in the Oval Office. A president should exemplify what is best and noblest about our great country. We ought to discover in a president the qualities of respect, fairness and decency that most of us cherish. Coarse, vicious and inflammatory words must be rejected.

We hardly look to the political arena to find civil discourse. Even those with the best intentions find it difficult to stay on the high road of substantive and thoughtful consideration of the issues. Slash and burn attacks are nothing new on the political landscape. But obscene and outrageous mockeries of religion can never be countenanced.

The primary lesson applicable to this incident comes from the time of our Republic’s founding. It was written by George Washington and addressed to the Jewish congregation in Newport, R.I. Washington affirmed America’s resolve in four words: “To bigotry no sanction.”

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a political debate about the future of our country without the threat of blackmail or extortion or having to be politically correct? Does John Edwards’ campaign have to be so homogenous with his beliefs that no one on his staff can have their own opinion?

On the other hand, is the political discussion helped by trashing other people’s faith systems? I honestly could find no one in this debate whom I agreed with. Bill Donohue is just as much a bigot as the women he criticized, who are clearly bigots as well. I am no fan of Edwards, but his campaign was hijacked by both sides. His campaign hired these women for their liberal agenda and their appeal to liberals. They were hired without a thorough evaluation of what they stood for. They could have had some integrity and stood behind their blogs, but to save face they claimed they were just being satirical. Reading their comments makes it hard to understand their satire, if that is what it truly is.

Edwards should have responded quicker and stood by the fact that the women have the right to their opinions. Instead, he too caved to political pressure and proved he was just another politician playing the game for the presidency. Wouldn’t it be nice to see someone with actual values run for the presidency? So far, the field looks thin to me.

RIC OLSEN

Lead Pastor

The Beacon

Anaheim

This is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black, where the pot is actually worse than the kettle.

It seems a bit ironic that Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, apparently doesn’t understand what civil rights are. People are supposed to have the right to disagree with what others claim to be the proper rules to live by.

Donohue insisted that John Edwards fire a couple of bloggers because they had criticized, in their own personal blogs, the church’s opposition to homosexuality, abortion and contraception. They may have used a bit of profanity, but it was just to emphasize their disagreement with the church’s policies. They were simply expressing views that many, many others throughout the world agree with.

Just as it has taken years to get a general agreement about the fact that the current global warming is being caused by the actions of mankind, most of the world is now realizing that the unfortunate results of overpopulation are another inconvenient truth. There is no question that the church’s policies tend to force women to bear more children, whether or not they are really wanted or can be properly cared for. And that is a problem for all the earth’s inhabitants. There are already too many people on this crowded bus. The indirect results of too many people could actually further cause the environment to change in ways that would no longer allow us to survive.

Instead of rebutting the arguments that he dislikes, Donohue simply resorted to ad hominem personal attacks on the bloggers, calling them foul-mouthed bigots and demanding that they be fired. It seems to me that in the United States people should not only be allowed but encouraged to express their opinions. Donohue should be the one to be fired until he learns what civil rights means and stop making personal attacks on all those whose opinions disagree with the church’s arbitrary rules. Civil and logical debates are called for, not childish name-calling.

I realize that at one time the church could have people punished or even burned at the stake for disagreeing with the church’s policies, but that era is supposed to be long gone.

JERRY PARKS

Member

Humanist Assn.

of Orange County

I believe this involves the theory in Judaism that “a prince rules over all the matters of his province,” but does not rule over another province. The Talmud teaches us that even an emperor rules over dry land but does not rule over the sea. Judaism regards the system of law as transnational and transgeographic in nature. All Jews, regardless of their place of residence, are bound by the criminal and civil aspects of Jewish law no less than by those provisions of Jewish law that are entirely religious or ritual in nature.

Any political candidate is held responsible for what was said, what people thought he should say, what he didn’t say, and what he meant to say. The situation at hand becomes more complex with bloggers. Clearly, causing harm to another person constitutes a wrong in virtually every legal system, unless justification for such action is recognized by the system itself.

A good example would be former President Richard Nixon and Watergate. A literal reading of Samuel I would seem to indicate that this power is shared by the king of all nations. The elders of Israel demand of Samuel, as we demand a new president in 2008, “Appoint for us a king to judge us like all the other nations, a monarch empowered to administer the King’s Justice to his kingdom to all subjects regardless of their religion or race.”

Mr. Edwards, should administer justice to his staff, and if the staff member is not in sync with his or someone else’s policies, then he should not be working for Mr. Edwards, and he should be terminated from his post.

Also, in the Talmud it states that all the laws of the king are enforced upon the people and they are directed by the king’s men (in this case, bloggers) to carry them out.

The king’s men speak in the name of the king, and the bloggers speak in the name of Mr. Edwards. If they would not, it would become very problematic.

RABBI MARC RUBENSTEIN

Temple Isaiah

Newport Beach