The Ten Commandments

I did a Tapped post the other day on some Pew data that I think is worth discussing further. It confirmed the bit of conventional wisdom that the Democrats could reap some major gains by taking a more conciliatory stance toward traditionalist sentiment in America. The "Christian right," for example, polls as broadly popular and is even popular among one non-trivial segment of the Democratic coalition. At the same time, it indicates potentially broad-based support for a progressive economic agenda. Minimum wage hikes, more spending on health care (even if it means higher taxes), government regulation of business in the public interest, and repealing large portions of the Bush tax cuts all garner fairly wide support. Nevertheless, the same data undermines the oft-heard suggestion that a softer line on abortion is crucial -- or even useful -- in trying to implement the strategy under consideration. None of the Democratic base groups and neither of the swing groups think it would be a good idea to make it harder for women to get abortions. Generally speaking, not making it harder to get abortions has solid, though non-overwhelming majority support.

Now the poll doesn't directly state what about the Christian right is well regarded if its stance on abortion isn't. It does, however, provide at least two examples of Christian right caucus that, unlike abortion restrictions, really are popular. One is letting public schools teach creationism along with evolution. Another -- and this one, unlike the evolution thing, is really wildly popular -- is putting the ten commandments up in public buildings. You should look at the data yourself and see exactly how popular this is, because I think a lot of readers will have trouble believing it. Public support is totally overwhelming, opposition is very much a marginal view. But opposition is highly concentrated in a single politico-demographic group that Pew rather unhelpfully labels "liberals." These liberals don't exhaust what we normally think of as the category of liberals. Rather, it's people like me -- white, reasonably prosperous, highly educated, secular folks. That describes me, the vast majority of people I know, and probably describes the vast majority of my readers and the vast majority of the people we know. Our views on lots of stuff are perfectly mainstream and, even where not always held by most people are at least broadly present in America. But not about the ten commandments. It's just us. Other sorts of Democrats are against us. Swing people are against us. Republicans are against us. Overwhelmingly.

If you ask me this and related issues would be fruitful areas for compromise. I wouldn't say posting ten commandments on public buildings is a good idea. It strikes me as slightly silly, mildly wasteful, and vaguely offensive. But it's honestly not a big deal. Abortion and reproductive rights matter. A lot. So does trying to maintain forward motion on the gay rights front. So do the basic economic issues, so does foreign policy. Ten commandments? "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance? Taxpayer dollars financing Christmas displays in the town square? That stuff doesn't really matter. I'd be happier were it otherwise, but if that kind of token gesture toward the concept that this is a Christian (or, as they say, "Judeo-Christian," whatever that means) country is what it takes to get support for a progressive political agenda, then sign me up. And I think most liberals will agree with me on that. The location of stone slabs is, like the precise number of bullets you can put in your ammo clip, not something that's worth losing elections over. Now where I'll probably lose your support is when I say that I don't even really care about the school prayer question, but speaking from experience I was forced to engage in sectarian Christian prayer in my (non-public) school and it was fine.