[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S3498]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SPLIT OVER MORALITY

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, people are concerned about what is 
happening to our country and they are not simply concerned about 
economics. They are concerned about many issues that reflect our 
culture in ways that are not healthy.
  E.J. Dionne, Jr., one of the most thoughtful journalistic observers 
of our scene, recently had a column in the Washington Post titled, 
``Split Over Morality,'' which I ask to be printed in the Record after 
my remarks.
  For those of you who saw it originally in the Post, it is worth 
rereading, and for those who did not, it should be read and clipped and 
saved.
  The column follows:

                          Split Over Morality

                         (By E. J. Dionne, Jr.)

       It is remarkable how quickly political talk these days 
     turns to the question: What does the religious right want? 
     Variations on the theme include: How much must Bob Dole do to 
     get the votes of Christian conservatives? Can't President 
     Clinton help himself by hanging the religious right around 
     Dole's neck?
       All this might be taken as a great victory by Ralph Reed 
     and the Christian Coalition he directs. The obituary of the 
     religious right has been written over and over since the rise 
     of the Moral Majority in 1980. Yet none of this has stopped 
     the Christian conservative movement from expanding its 
     influence.
       Reed and his troops have already gotten a lot of credit for 
     help Dole stop Pat Buchanan's surge dead in the South 
     Carolina primary. That is the very definition of political 
     power.
       Reed and his followers have every right to do what they are 
     doing. Religious people have the same rights as union 
     members, environmentalists, business groups and feminists. 
     President Clinton himself has spoken at hundreds of black 
     churches. The president is often at his most effective from 
     the pulpit, an exceptionally good venue for his favorite 
     speeches about the links between personal responsibility and 
     social justice, crime and unemployment.
       Democrats thus have no grounds for challenging Reed's 
     argument that his people deserve ``a place at the table'' of 
     national politics. What does need real debate is more 
     important. It has to do with how moral issues should be 
     discussed in politics, and also how they should be defined.
       A lot of Americans--including many who want nothing to do 
     with Ralph Reed--have a vague but strong sense that what's 
     going wrong in American life is not just about economics. It 
     also entails an ethical or moral crisis. Evidence for this is 
     adduced from family breakdown, teen pregnancy, high crime 
     rates (especially among teenagers), and trashy movies, 
     television and music.
       But unlike many on the Christian Right, these same 
     Americans see strong links between moral and economic issues. 
     Their sense that commitments are not being honored includes 
     family commitments, but it also includes the obligations 
     between employer and employee and the question of whether 
     those ``who work hard and play by the rules,'' as the 
     president likes to put it, are getting just treatment.
       Democrats, liberals and other assorted critics of the 
     religious right have no problem in discussing these economic 
     matters. But they have made the reverse mistake of Reed and 
     his friends: The religious right's foes have only rarely (and 
     only relatively recently) been willing to understand that 
     many American families see the moral crisis whole. It's 
     possible, and reasonable, to be worried about both trashy 
     entertainment and the rewards that go to the hard-working. 
     Human beings are both economic and moral creatures. But 
     liberals often cringe when the word ``morality'' is even 
     mentioned.
       Giving the Christian right a near monopoly on moral 
     discussion has narrowed the moral debate. This narrowing 
     needs to be challenged.
       To hear leaders of the religious right talk in recent 
     weeks, for example, one of the preeminent moral issues of our 
     time is whether gay marriages should be sanctioned by state 
     or local governments. But surely this is not even the 10th or 
     the 25th most important issue for most Americans. The 
     resolution of this question one way or the other will do 
     virtually nothing about the moral issues such as crime or 
     family breakup that actually do trouble lots of people.
       It's easy enough to recognize why tradition-minded 
     Americans are uneasy with this broadening of the definition 
     of ``marriage.'' But turning this question into yet another 
     political litmus test will only push the political debate 
     toward yet another ugly round of gay-bashing. Is that what 
     1996 should be about?
       What needs to be fought is a tendency described movingly by 
     Stephen Carter in his new book, ``Integrity.'' It is a 
     tendency Carter quite fairly discerns all across the 
     political discussion.
       ``I must confess that the great political movements of our 
     day frighten me with their reckless certainties and their 
     insistence on treating people as means to be manipulated 
     rather than as the ends for which government exists,'' he 
     writes. ``Too many partisans seems to hate their opponents, 
     who are demonized in terms so creative that I weep at the 
     waste of energy, and, as one who struggles to be a Christian, 
     I find the hatred painful.'' So would we all.

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