Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

But as a society, we have great difficulty taking-in disturbing information and analysis of this sort. It so runs against the grain of our sense of reality, (whether religious or nonreligious); our sense of justice; and our sense of the rough consensus of what America is or should be about that has held the country together through difficult times.  

The difficulty we have in coping with such things, is often indicated when people seize on minor issues of language in response to a major piece of writing or a speech; or a broadcast. The language issue may or may not be a valid concern, but it is usually at most a case of the tail wagging the dog in it's relative significance.

This appears to be what happened in response to Sharlet's article.  

While opponents of the religious right have this difficulty -- so do members of the religious right itself -- as Sharlet detailed in The Revealer.

Last week, I published in Rolling Stone a feature about Brownback and his involvements with a variety of Christian Right activist groups that usually fly below the radar. The story was 7,100 words long, and in it Brownback offered a thoughtful statement of his convictions and discussed his vision for God-ruled nation. He also discussed his involvement with a self-declared "invisible" organization that invokes Hitler as a leadership model (albeit sans genocide).

But the one word from the story that made it out of Rolling Stone and into the broader media was "fruits." Brownback was talking about his belief that same-sex marriage is a threat to national wellbeing. As evidence, he cited Sweden. "You'll know 'em by their fruits," he said.

Some progressive readers interpreted this as crude humor on Brownback's part. Some conservative readers took it as evidence of my alleged biblical illiteracy, despite the fact that I cited Brownback's scriptural allusion. At last count, there were a few hundred blogs, papers, and activists groups debating the matter. Not a major media storm, but a squall.

The truth is that Brownback did not mean to make a joke, nor did he mean to use "fruits" as a slur. I didn't think he did, nor did I mean to imply that. But I was laughing at the senator. Just once, in a 7,100 word, rather earnest story. The moment was classic "Beavis and Butthead: "Dude. Did he just say fruits?" At the same time, it revealed what I believe to be a basic truth about the belief that homosexuality is a biblically-forbidden abomination that threatens families, and that therefore should be outlawed: Expressed politely or with slurs, that belief is bigotry, plain and simple. Brownback was making it even worse by trying to back it up with social science (with a study that has been thoroughly debunked).

One needn't be a leftist to recognize how ugly such a maneuver is. I'll settle for the words of Randall Terry, with whom I spoke about Brownback's presidential ambition. Terry is the founder of Operation Rescue, one of the most militant pro-life groups in American history. He wants Sam Brownback to be president. He's every bit as opposed to homosexuality. But he bases his opposition on his particular reading of scripture. He may be a religious paleocon, but he's no fool. Without religious conviction, he points out, "There is no reason to oppose homosexual marriage, none. Social science arguments all collapse, just like with racism, segregation."

The irony of the accusations, coming from some conservative corners, that I "mistook" Brownback's use of "fruits" for a slur due to my own biblical illiteracy is that our conversation had devolved to the level of "Beavis and Butthead" because it turned out that Brownback was unaware of the very biblical passages he might have cited as justification for his opposition to homosexuality.... When the Human Rights Campaign, an organization I support, issued a letter demanding an apology from Brownback for his use of "fruits" as a slur, I called them up and explained the context of the conversation. HRC spokesman Brad Luna subsequently got to the heart of the matter when he told the Associated Press "'It's nice to know that Senator Brownback doesn't resort to name-calling from the 1970s, but unfortunately his anti-gay agenda continues to speak for itself.'''

Some lefties continue to maintain that Brownback secretly meant the word. I was there; he did not. In essence, they may be correct, but it's important to recognize, as HRC did, that what matters most here is the substance of Brownback's legislative assault on gay and lesbian Americans, not its expression.

Indeed. The key is not to get hung up on the language. What is important is the substance -- politically; legislatively; electorally. But the fruit flap had the effect of obscuring the importance of Sharlet's article by highlighting a tangent in the national press.

Meanwhile over at The Wall of Separation, (the blog of Americans United for Separation of Church and State), Robert Boston is considering the "rotten fruit" of Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council (FRC).

Boston notes that Perkins had some "laudatory things to say" about the late Coretta Scott King. To Boston, this was rank hypocrisy, given Perkins' political dalliances with white supremacist groups in the years just prior to his taking the helm at the FRC.

Citing Max Blumenthal's investigative report in The Nation last year, Boston writes:

in 1996, Perkins, while managing the U.S. Senate campaign of Louisiana state legislator Woody Jenkins, paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and notorious white supremacist David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list.

Perkins tried to keep the deal hush-hush. But as Max Blumenthal of The Nation reported, "After Jenkins was defeated by his Democratic opponent, Mary Landrieu, he contested the election. But during the contest period, Perkins's surreptitious payment to Duke was exposed through an investigation conducted by the FEC, which fined the Jenkins campaign."

Continued Blumenthal, "Six years later, in 2002, Perkins embarked on a campaign to avenge his mentor's defeat by running for the US Senate himself. But Perkins was dogged with questions about his involvement with David Duke. Perkins issued a flat denial that he had ever had anything to do with Duke, and he denounced him for good measure. Unfortunately, Perkins's signature was on the document authorizing the purchase of Duke's list."

...In 2001, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization that grew out of the White Citizens Council.

The White Citizens Council was formed in the 1950s to protest public school desegregation as mandated by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. The organization was strong in the Deep South, where it was often entwined with the civic and business communities. In some Southern communities, the Council established "whites-only" private schools, which opponents derisively referred to as "segregation academies."

The Council of Conservative Citizens, while less powerful, continues raising the same racist themes today. According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, "Both on its national and chapter Web sites and in its primary publication, The Citizens Informer, CCC's belief in white superiority and its derision of nonwhites, particularly African Americans, are delineated without apology."

Perkins is fond of citing Scripture as he and the FRC labor to impose their narrow version of "biblical law" on America. Perhaps he should read Matthew 7:16, where Jesus told his disciples, "Ye shall know them by their fruits."

Boston is revolted by the "stench... of rotten fruit."

I don't know why Blumethal's and Sharlet's articles have not gained greater currency in politics and the press. But I suspect it has to do with cognitive dissonance and the sense that "it can't happen here."  

But in fact, much is happening here. We are just very slow in coming to grips with it.

No one would dispute that it is important to take Blumenthal and Sharlet's articles seriously.

But how to do that?  

The first task is to find ways to integrate the insights and knowledge gained from these articles into our political thought, and consider how what we learn must affect how we lead our lives.  It is the latter that is the hard part. Because if we take seriously what we learn from these articles, or other disturbing works, we are compelled to consider what we have to do in response. That might mean that we have to change the way we think; change our opinions; change our approach to politics; change how we spend our time; change our relationships with friends and family; and so on.

Perhaps we don't immediately know what it is we should do even if we want to.

The implications are not easy to process and the truth is that there is no one right answer. But the first step is to deal with our own cognitive dissonance, and then to recognize that this also manifests itself in others, and that it will manifest itself in different ways, in different people.

Perhaps most typcially, we need to avoid the tendency to panic -- creating overheated urgencies in ourselves and others when the impact of an article or book or speech really hits us. Conversely, we have to avoid allowing our congnitive dissonance to allow us to dismiss important information by seizing on minutae (or other diversions) and giving them elevated importance compared to the broader themes of the story. The tendency to either panic or to dismiss disturbing information, can be powerful.

The task for all of us is to develop a maturity in processing these things. I believe that it is a necessary prerequisite for moving forward. If we cannot discuss these things without panicking or screening out uncomfortable information, how can we have a thoughtful conversation about what to do?  

Many of us have, consciously or unconsciously,  developed this maturity to varying degrees. By making it more of a conscious project, we can not only improve our own capacity to process disturbing information about the religious right, and our capacity to respond more effectively; but we will also be able to help others to do the same.