On Moral Monday, and the voice of faith in progressive politics

Dorothy Day's quest for social justice for working folks was deeply grounded in her Roman Catholic faith.  The Civil Rights movement marched with banners of righteous Christianity and Jewish justice.  But then faith got co-opted by the right wing, the fundamentalist Christians grabbed the label of "Christian" for themselves, and religion got a bad name.

But maybe that's changing.  

In the march-no-one-told-us-about in North Carolina this weekend, 80,000 people came together to protest injustice and politics that hurts the least amongst us.  Voices of faith were speaking out. And those on the left need to get used to that--and work together.

Progressives are not used to so much religion in their politics. I met someone who planned to avoid Saturday’s protest because of the God talk, and it’s clear that for many liberals, it’s easier to speak openly about one’s relationship with a sexual partner than a relationship with God or spirituality. But there are a lot of liberals who live on the seam between faith and politics. And one of the core messages of Moral Mondays is that ceding all talk of faith and morality to the political right in this country has been disastrous for the left. Or as Barber put it when he spoke, those who dismiss these protesters as “violent, and losers, and leftists, and socialists” fail to understand that the great prophets of the Bible and the founders of American constitutional democracy were “violent, and losers, and leftists, and socialists,” too.

As discomfiting as it may be to hear the Bible quoted alongside the Federalist Papers, the truth remains that for most people of most faiths, kicking the poorest and most vulnerable citizens when they are down is sinful. Stealing food and medical care from the weakest Americans is ethically corrupt. And the decadeslong political wisdom that only Republicans get to define sin and morality is not just tactically wrong for Democrats. It’s also just wrong. This is a lesson progressives are slowly learning from nuns and the new pope. When we talk of cutting food stamps or gutting education for our poorest citizens, we shouldn’t just call it greed. We should call it what it is: a sin.

  

A broken justice system as a reflection of bad theology?

I often am surprised that so many so called "Christians" are hell-bent on punishment and retribution, rather than forgiveness and reconciliation.  For example, in the immigration debate, the conservatives feel that even the "Dreamers" (the kids brought over illegally by Mom and Dad) don't deserve a path to citizenship, because that would be "rewarding" them for breaking the law.  Liberals are more likely to want to forgive a transgression for which they bear no responsibility, and see them fully enfranchised as productive citizens.

Similarly, I remember being shocked that then-Texas Governor George W Bush smirkingly denied clemency for a woman convicted of murder and sitting on death row, who had turned her life around into service and faith.  No, "justice must be served" by killing her,rather than recognizing the potential of redemption.

It's a revengeful, elemental view of right and wrong that is willing to put the cross on another's back rather than lift it and share the burden.

An article in Sojourners puts this same divide between those who seek revenge versus reconciliation, and puts it as "bad theology".

For 500 years we have focused our understanding of God and God’s justice as the need for punishment instead of the need for reconciliation, and this has led to a broken framework in our country in regards to justice. When we allow this broken framework to influence the application of justice (as we have) we see criminal acts in terms of “need to punish as justice” instead of “need to restore as justice” (a poor theological understanding that I also feel has led to an evangelical culture of spanking). Yes, there are many criminal acts that require a person to be removed from society for their protection and for ours, but this theological framework has caused us to view “justice served” when a person receives what we feel is an appropriate sentence instead of seeing “justice served” when both the offender and the offended (even if that’s just society in general) have had their lives reconciled (perhaps not with each other, but in a general sense). 

Justice becomes punishment, not healing and restoration. 

And so, our prisons are overflowing. Why? Because our theological framework has told us that justice can only be satisfied when someone has been properly and fully punished, instead of telling us that justice is most fully satisfied when a life has been restored . The justice we seek in society today all gets traced back to how we view the justice of the cross.

WHat do you think?

On justice and the NRA

I herewith wade in on the Zimmerman case.

George Zimmerman was found "not guilty" of manslaughter and second degree murder of Trayvon Martin.

That is because the prosecution did not prove its case sufficiently to over come the "lethal force" law in effect in Florida.  The law states that you are entitled to use deadly force if you feel threatened.

Personally, I feel that Zimmerman deliberately provoked Martin.  Zimmerman took a gun and went in pursuit of Martin, whom he clearly racially profiled.  An altercation ensued.

But like it or not, Zimmerman legitimately felt his life was endangered, Florida law allowed him to do what he did.  If the jury found reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case, they had no option but to acquit.

That does not make it right.

That does not make it just.

It simply makes it legal.

And no one should confuse the law with justice.

Under Florida law, Zimmerman is "not guilty" of the charges.  I don't like it, but I understand it.  But remember he  is NOT  innocent of taking another human life, and he is not innocent of killing an unarmed boy.

 From Andrew Cohen:

Criminal trials are not searches for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They never have been. Our rules of evidence and the Bill of Rights preclude it. Our trials are instead tests of only that limited evidence a judge declares fit to be shared with jurors, who in turn are then admonished daily, hourly even, not to look beyond the corners of what they've seen or heard in court.
....
So the murder trial of George Zimmerman did not allow jurors to deliberate over the fairness of Florida's outlandishly broad self-defense laws. It did not allow them debate the virtues of the state's liberal gun laws or its evident tolerance for vigilantes (which we now politely call "neighborhood watch"). It did not permit them to delve into the racial profiling that Zimmerman may have engaged in or into the misconduct and mischief that Martin may have engaged in long before he took that fatal trip to the store for candy. These factors, these elements, part of the more complete picture of this tragedy, were off-limits to the ultimate decision-makers.

Of course, just as we saw with the O.J. Simpson case, things are not over: 

And what comes next, surely, is a wrongful death civil action for money damages brought against Zimmerman by the Martin family. That means another case, and perhaps another trial, with evidentiary rules that are more relaxed than the ones we've just seen. And that means that a few years from now, after Martin v. Zimmerman is concluded, we'll likely know more about what happened that night than we do today. That's the good news. The bad news is that no matter how many times Zimmerman is hauled into court, we will never know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what happened that terrible night.

The law is an imperfect tool in our society. As Ta-nahesi Coates writes,

[T]rials don't work as strict "moral surrogates." Everything that is immoral is not illegal--nor should it be. I want to live in a society that presumes innocence. I want to live in that society even when I feel that a person should be punished.

But just as we celebrate the times when the law brings justice, so must we soberly accept the times when it doesn't work.  We don't get to change the workings of the law to suit our desired outcome, any more than the supporters of Prop8 get to ignore the results of the SCOTUS decision.  We all are bound by the law, whether we like its outcome or not, so let's target our moral outrage appropriately.

As  Andrew Cohen concludes,

This verdict would not have occurred in every state. It might not even have occurred in any other state. But it occurred here, a tragic confluence that leaves a young man's untimely death unrequited under state law. Don't like it? Lobby to change Florida's laws.

That's the thing.  If you want to protest this verdict, you must gird your loins for political battle.  Because to the NRA, this is a triumph.  The battle here isn't over what George Zimmerman did.  It's over why he could.  This is a battle over gun rights and vigilante laws, that legally empowered George Zimmerman.    If you want justice for Trayvon, then that is the battle you must engage.

Update:  I agree with Brian Sims, State Representative in PA.

I’m angry because there’s a justice system that somehow says that the killing of an unarmed boy by an armed civilian who defied police orders and pursued him, got in a fight, and then killed him when he was probably losing that fight is ok.

We have to change that system.

From the decision

It's 2-1.  THe opinion is narrow, applying specifically to the unusual situation in CA where a right was given and then taken away. This probably makes it a sturdier decision. From the opinion (my emphases)

….all parties agree that Proposition 8 had one effect only.  It stripped same sex couples of the ability they previously possessed to obtain from the State, or any other authorized party, an important right--the right to obtain and use the designation of 'marriage to describe their relationships.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Proposition 8 therefor could not have been enacted to advance California's interests in childbearing or  responsible procreation, for it had no effect on the rights of same sex couples to raise children oron the procreative practices of other couples.  Nor did Proposition 8 have any effect on religious freedom or on parents' rights ot control their education: it could not have been enacted to safeguard these liberties.

All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation of 'marriage' which symbolizes state legitimization and societal recognition of their committted relationships.  Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite sex couples  The Constitution simply does not allow for "laws of this sort" (Romer v. Evans.)