Over this past semester, the Orient has reserved its opinion section for the most extreme and least informed partisans on campus. But I was impressed when its two resident political agitators, Steve Robinson and Caitlin Hurwit, outdid themselves in last week's issue.
Mr. Robinson's Annuit Coeptis column "Liberal secularism has transformed into a religious dogma" starts with a Wikipedia definition of religion, which is our first opportunity to not take him seriously. From there, Mr. Robinson argues that secular liberalism is ironically comparable to the religions that it (allegedly) tries purge out of the public sphere.
Crucially, Mr. Robinson does some purging of his own. His premise does not work without taking the religious out of "religion," and his revised definition is too vague to substantiate an argument. By his framework, all ideologies come across as pseudo-faiths.
If I may be as broad and presumptive as the columnist, I could cite the Reagan-"worshipping" American right, the Marx-"fearing" Communists, and even Rand-"reverent" libertarians, all of which abide by varieties of political dogma.
To support this shallow argument, Mr. Robinson lazily attributes devotional language to liberal positions on welfare and climate change, as if rhetoric alone transforms a political stance into a breed of political "faith." And his generalizations about the American left implicitly presume that it is impossible to be a religious secularist, or even a secularist who doesn't view religious dogma as "the parasite of human existence." While some liberals (perhaps even Ms. Hurwit) support that assertion, not every secular liberal feels such animosity toward religion and people of faith.
Although he tries to prove that leftist values are "analogous" to religious faith, he only reduces "religion" to a form of belief unrelated to worship, divinity, god and anything remotely religious.
At best, his argument is meaningless. He calls secular liberalism a belief system, which indeed it is. At worst, his argument is offensive to those who hold religious beliefs, as their faith is likened to support for a progressive tax policy and eco-awareness.
Rather than revealing the religious elements of secularism, Mr. Robinson's column does the opposite of its intention, making a case that religion is no different than any passing political belief. I welcome Mr. Robinson's defense of such an argument, but it sounds suspiciously anti-religious to me. God might disapprove of such an undertaking.
Unwittingly, Ms. Hurwit acts like a caricature of the "secular liberal" Mr. Robinson demonizes. In her op-ed "Theology should play no role in the development of legislation," Ms. Hurwit takes on the Catholic Church, saying the institution deserves "criticism of their policies and a reevaluation of their current tax-exempt status" based on their treatment of a Catholic congressman and their opposition to aspects of the health care reform bill. While the Catholic Church merits criticism for many other sins, Ms. Hurwit got it all wrong last week.
Ms. Hurwit establishes her argument on two false assumptions. First, she says that the Catholic Church has no place in "involving themselves in the structure and development of public policy." It is a broad, and incorrect, claim. If we measure the Church's "involvement" based on the letter to Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), the Church did nothing questionable. A private organization is entitled to limit its membership or deny privileges to members as it wishes. If the Church asks Rep. Kennedy to abstain from Communion because of his public views on abortion, it may do so—through rights endowed by the same Constitution our columnist often misinterprets.
Second, despite Ms. Hurwit's claim, no political matter (i.e., a woman's right to an abortion) is "fundamentally indisputable" based on Supreme Court precedent. The assumption that Supreme Court rulings somehow resolve any and all debate related to subject matter is equally nave and horrifying. Were that the case, Plessy v. Ferguson and the standard of "separate but equal" accommodations would remain valid law. Subsequently, there is no halo of protection that makes a woman's right to abortion invincible to all political debate, nor does it guarantee the inclusion of abortion coverage in a national health care reform bill.
So when Ms. Hurwit's condemns the Church because it "makes no secret of its opposition to abortion rights and is staunchly anti-choice," I'm not sure where she finds offense, other than the fact that Ms. Hurwit clearly despises its pro-life position. Ms. Hurwit then claims that, regarding abortion, the "precedent of the separation between church and state has been expressly established." I must ask, by whom? Her claim grossly oversimplifies the Supreme Court's rulings on issues between church and state—a huge category of jurisprudence that has nothing to do with Roe v. Wade. For the Orient to publish a writer who asserts that Roe v. Wade created an absolutist relationship between the state and religions is deeply misleading.
Let's try to understand the Church's "transgressions" here. By default, any "grassroots mobilization" it coordinated only reached out to its own membership. I cannot imagine that an archbishop's opposition to the health care bill would impress Muslim, Jewish, or atheistic citizens to lobby accordingly. Nor can I imagine a democratic government that forbids churches from addressing members on issues that touch on public policy. Ms. Hurwit appears to support that standard. Our founders, thankfully, did not.
Ms. Hurwit's final lines provide a harakiri ending to the whole episode. She says: "true democracies cannot be beholden to the whims and theology of religious institutions. This is particularly true when considering the scope of diversity in this country."
It is an astonishing conclusion. Unless we punish churches for discussing political questions, we are "beholden" to their "whims"?
Ms. Hurwit doesn't take us down a slippery slope; she walks us off a cliff. Furthermore, religious institutions are integral to upholding the very diversity she describes. The suggestion that our democracy depends on systematically repressing speech in these diverse religious institutions is an "oxymoronic, illogical" and certainly unconstitutional proposal.
If Mr. Robinson's goal is simply to provoke reaction, then I fear that I am testament to his success. Nonetheless, if that is his only goal, he misuses the Orient's public forum. One would hope that this newspaper has higher ambitions than inciting backlash, or that Mr. Robinson has more to offer than controversy. As for Ms. Hurwit's column, I can only say that considering the frequency with which she cites the Constitution, she stands to benefit by actually reading it.
I hope that the Orient will continue to uphold high standards of journalism and will do more to avoid the partisanship and ignorance perpetuated by its political contributors. At a school like Bowdoin, we should strive to be above the nonsense of political talking points and ask more of ourselves when we engage political questions. The Orient should set the standard for such discussions.
Carl Woock is a member of the Class of 2010.