Conservative forum

Bennett, Novak Praise Evangelicals' Cooperation

The following letter was sent to Speaker Dennis Hastert:

As Catholics who for many years have been engaged in public life, we have been alarmed and disheartened by recent political attempts to divide Catholics from evangelicals in the public square. We deplore the semi-truths and outright falsehoods recently deployed by unwise persons to inflame passion and to sow acrimony among good people, who during the last 20 years have made extraordinary progress in mutual cooperation and mutual esteem.

Indeed, we would like to go on record in commending many of our evangelical colleagues for the spirit of amity and cooperation they have shown to Catholics over the past two decades, and for their increasingly warm and close cooperation with Catholics on many practical issues of common concem. We have learned to admire deeply the witness to Christian faith and to American civic life demonstrated by our Protestant friends. We do our best to emulate it, but often they have set a very high example.

We think it very odd that evangelicals are sometimes accused of being exclusionary, when in our experience they have gone out of their way to include other Americans of many different faiths in their public meetings and their public efforts. We have noted with admiration that they have often supported political candidates who do not support their entire agenda, but who are willing to go along with them on at least some of those points-regarding the pro-life cause, for example.

In fact, evangelicals have often been more open-minded and more inclusionary than those on the other side, who demand uncritical adherence to their total agenda, including even support for the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion.

It seems to us that the absolutism is all on the other side, and that a sense of compromise and realism is well-practiced by our evangelical friends, who are so unfairly maligned.

Mr. Speaker, we regret very much that expressing contumely and disdain for evangelical Christians is the last permissible bigotry in American public life. People who would be ashamed to utter anti-Semitic comments, and mortified to be found guilty of anti-Catholic expressions, seem to think nothing at all of casting insults at evangelical Christians. Every form of bigotry is deplorable, but especially those forms which still bask in the glow of public approval.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, we commend your efforts to open up the selection of a new chaplain for the House. Normally, we would not comment on a process of the House, but we recognize that there has been a good deal of controversy surrounding this issue. Never before in history has any Speaker opened up the process in the way that you did.

We have learned from participants that at the end of their deliberations, the selection committee composed of nine Democrats and nine Republicans, and co-chaired by both a Catholic and a Protestant, congratulated one another on the amity, friendship, and fairness of their proceedings. They believed they had presented you with a slate of three very strong candidates, any one of whom would make a good chaplain. Many said this was the best bipartisan and amicable effort they had ever participated in.

We find it admirable that in the winnowing process from 38 candidates to 17 at the second stage, all three Catholic priests made the cut. In the next round of cuts, to six candidates, and in the third round, to the final three, a Catholic priest gained the confidence of the selection committee and was proudly put forward as one of the three finalists. We believe all this was evidence of consummate fairness on the part of the selection committee.

We commend you for conceiving of this process. We recognize that it is an important prerogative of the office of the Speaker to take responsibility for the final choice of Chaplain, and we support you in making that judgment as you see fit, undeterred by crassly political considerations.

Our overriding aim in this letter, however, is to put on the record our esteem for our evangelical and Protestant colleagues in the House and in public life generally, and to commend them for their willingness to work with Catholics, to engage in the give-andtake of public debate, and -to- put before us such high examples of civic initiative and cooperation to emulate.

We hope very much that public amity among peoples of different fundamental traditions will soon be returned to American public life, and that efforts to divide the American people on such grounds will come to a speedy end.

-William J. Bennett

Michael Novak

Washington, D. C.

Will GOP Members Stop Backing Down?

How about those "principled" GOPers? President Clinton asks for a two-year, $1.00 hike in the minimum wage with no tax cuts. The Republicans ask for, no, demand, a three-year, $1.00 hike and some timid tax cuts. Clinton barks, and the Republicans back off. They give him the two-year increase, but aye still "insisting" on the tax cuts. How long before they back off on those, too?

This isn't a genuine issue of principle. The minimum wage is a counter-productive, cruel sop to organized labor. If the GOP had any devotion to principle, it would move to repeal the minimum wage.

And those tax cuts? Why bother? They are a pittance, they further complicate the tax code, and they waste political capital and budget "room" that could be used to move toward a flat tax. But this is just another example of the tremulous nature of the GOP and yet another argument for their flaccidity on the political stage. How can conservatives justify continuing to vote for these milquetoasts?

-Mark M. Quinn

Naperville, Ill.

John McCain Is Not Slobodan Milosevic I strongly object to your referring to John McCain as the Slobodan Milosevic of this primary campaign! You have presented the most biased reporting I have seen in a very long time during this Bush/McCain race, always highlighting every sentence you deem negative of McCain and pushing aside whatever half-truth Bush has uttered.

While I don't agree with McCain on all issues, I do believe in fair reporting of events-what the Christian (?) right (?) did to him in South Carolina is totally disgraceful. Should he be expected to roll over and play dead or play kissy face to Bush after this spectacle? I think not!

He was 100% correct about Pat Robertson, this man has forgot his mission is supposed to be saving souls, not lying about people to get a crony elected President. His real concern is that no one stops his cash flow, that which is used to dictate to parishioners how they should cast their votes. It is easy to see that as long as people wish to remain in the "sheep mode" they will not think for themselves, read and study to dig out facts.

Example: John McCain's voting record on abortion is totally pro-life, yet we have people like Alan Keyes coming on TV and stating that he is pro-abortion. Take off the blinders people, think, and read for yourself.

By the way, when my subscription expires this month do not bother to send me a reminder to renew. I do not wish to receive a paper which tells only part of the story.

-Lorene Rutherford

Gunnison, Colo.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Mar 24, 2000
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