Any Room for Social Conservatives in the Vital Center?
I want to believe in some new "centrism", really, I do. But there's a certain amount of tunnel-vision to the project, I fear.
In yesterday’s FrumForum symposium on revitalizing centrist politics, contributor Steve Bell wrote:
The emphasis on “social issues” — abortion, values training, sexual policies — that many of my colleagues have seems out of place in a national government dedicated to maximum freedom for the greatest number of people.
Maximum freedom for the greatest number of people? Did Jeremy Bentham enter the pantheon of Founding Fathers while I wasn't looking? No, a country is not about maximizing freedom, or liberty, or any other abstract value. If anything, statecraft is about tempering values, and balancing them against others. That much is obvious -- or should be.
Les Francis added:
I support the right of gays to marry – in fact, I think we should have ‘civil unions’ for everyone and then let various churches decide who to marry – if church 'A' wants to show tolerance and acceptance while church 'B' wants to propagate bigotry, go ahead and let the 'marketplace' decide who and how many will affiliate with either.
I haven't been to Church B recently, but I have heard of one church called the Roman Catholic Church that has traditionally stood opposed to many accepted and once-accepted forms of marriage, and has a well-known history of being persecuted for their beliefs on marriage as well. In the case of America, saying that such a church would be "propagating bigotry" for declining to believe in gay marriage would not seem to be a sound electoral strategy; it didn't work out well for Martha "Maybe Catholics Shouldn't Be Pharmacists" Coakley, after all. And let's not humor believing Catholics with the foolish idea that the state and its educational organs would leave the diagnosis of bigotry to "the marketplace." We are men of action, and so is the state.
John Avlon wrote:
Let’s take that most passionately held culture war third rail, abortion. Roughly 20% of Americans believe that there ought to be a constitutional ban on abortion. And roughly 20% believe there should be no restrictions on abortion. Sixty percent of Americans are in the middle – which is as close to a durable consensus as ever likely to be achieved in a democracy. They believe broadly in reasonable restrictions to reduce the tragedy of abortion (such as a ban on partial birth abortion, parental notification and incentives for adoption), while recognizing that ultimately the woman involved must make this decision, not the government.
That's one possible compromise. But, alas, it requires that pro-lifers just... shut up about things like the right to life and the personhood of the unborn. Or at the very least, it permanently enjoins them from fighting for their beliefs in the courts and legislatures of the country, all the way down to the smallest municipality. Centro locuta est, causa finita est. Like that's possible. Of course, a future Republican Senate could confirm a fifth or sixth or seventh vote against Roe v. Wade, recreating an actual compromise that used to exist on the matter; but goodness knows the country will crash in on itself before that happens. Perhaps, then, pro-lifers should quietly withdraw and tend to their own gardens on cultural matters, like the Amish, or the Orthodox? Good luck electing centrist politicians when that happens!
Or perhaps, centrists should look at that other model of centrism, as modeled by Chris Smith and Joe Cao; "strong" on social issues from a conservative perspective, "weak" on fiscal issues from a libertarian perspective. Chris Smith, of course, was a supporter of the climate change bill, and Joe Cao was the single Republican vote for the healthcare bill, both of which put them under the gun with their conservative supporters. But Chris Smith wins consistently in a union-dominated district. Joe Cao pulled off a thrilling victory in a very Democratic district. It's not like orthodox fiscal conservatism or foreign policy hawkishness are that much more popular than social conservatism. From a Republican perspective, does it not take all kinds? Or are some centrisms more equal than others?