During the course of the past decade, religious leaders8212;who owned the agenda8212;lobbied for policies that led to political stalemates among competing groups. Now, however, there are progressive voices in America’s many religious groups that want to redefine policy issues that were top priority during the Bush administration.
The conversation is being shifted to include positions on universal issues that enjoy wider support such as the environment, social justice and poverty. These issues are mostly agreed upon as problems that need to be addressed8212;the disagreement remains on how to go about the process. In contrast, issues such as stem cells, abortion and same-sex marriage, which are all deeply divisive issues, had monopolized the agenda and fomented political deadlock.
Stem cell research has been an ideological double-edged sword8212;stifling capitalists with limits on potential for growth or alienating pro-life adherents.
George Q. Daley, from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, said, “(Bush’s) policy has severely curtailed opportunities for U.S. scientists to study (stem cells).” On the issue of same-sex marriage in the United States, he said, “a majority continue to support allowing either same-sex marriages or legally recognized domestic partnerships for gay people,” but the sound of the opposition is deafening.
Abortion might be the issue that causes the greatest chasm in viewpoints between Americans. Not only is this issue fiery domestically, but also internationally.
“Successful HIV prevention and public health care have been handicapped because of Mexico City Policy and the Bush administration’s hostility towards contraception, condoms and abortion,” Daley said. There is a wealth of information that backs up the viewpoint that it is inadequate to solely use moral imperative to make decisions that affect an extremely diverse group of people.
The issues that progressive religious leaders are advocating are universally accepted as problems that need to be addressed. No one argues that poverty is in short supply and that we should summon some more. The voices that want to escalate environmental degradation to increase profit could not out-shout a mouse. Those who think social justice is irrelevant are usually cast aside and labeled as supremacists. After a decade of using church to push unpopular policies, there is an open space in our political life for using church to solve policies that create division.
This issue hits home in Utah. After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took so much criticism for its role in funding Proposition 8 in California, Elder Whitney Clayton said the LDS Church does not oppose “civil unions or domestic partnerships.” Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., a devout Mormon, is advocating civil unions. Some have questioned what the governor could possibly gain by making this move now. The director of the U’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, Kirk Jowers, said that Huntsman is “a governor first and a politician second.” The wave of rational, pragmatic thought that is washing over America is contributing to solving problems, instead of picking fights. The evidence is right here in our state.
Ideological barriers and agendas stymie our country’s ability to reach goals that share wide consensus. Burning political capital on dead-end issues does not help America move forward. In considering the wide array of viewpoints in this country, seeking and acting upon the issues that are universal creates the opportunity to encourage compromise on the sharper issues.
Kiyan Sharifan