Yesterday I received a “Voter’s Guide” from the New Jersey Family Policy Council. This “Guide” is supposed to inform voters about “public policies and cultural trends that impact the family.” I found it simplistic and deeply troubling.
The most troubling aspect of this “Guide” is that it contains zero information about the candidates’ positions on race, poverty, health care, the environment, international justice (e.g., human trafficking), or the Iraq war. Zero. Given that the Bible speaks more about justice for the poor and oppressed than any other topic concerning government, this is disgusting.
At the same time, the “Guide” contains many questions concerning policy positions about which reasonably informed Christians can disagree. For example, it asks the candidate’s positions on a “constitutional amendment to prohibit flag desecration.” In my view, there could hardly be a proposal more contrary to the first amendment and the American tradition of free speech. Free speech is all about the right to criticize the government. I think flag burning is vile, but I think lots of things are vile, and I don’t think the Constitution should reflect my preferences about who gets to express their vile opinions. And what does this have to do with the family? If anything, Christian families should be adamant that nothing impinge on the freedom of speech. In totalitarian regimes that prohibit criticism of the government — say, China — freedom of religious speech also is not tolerated. Today you are silencing flag burners whose message you justifiably may not like. Tomorrow you might find locks on your church doors.
In a similar vein, the “Guide” asks about legislation to permit the display of the Ten Commandments on government property. I’m sorry, but the Ten Commandments are fundamentally a religious text — the first commandment, which is the backbone of the entire Decalogue, is about serving Yahweh alone — and there are good reasons not to display fundamentally religious texts on government property, at least where the display is itself contextually religious. Honestly, I think we discredit the power of the Ten Commandments as directives rooted in worship of Yahweh alone when we try to secularize them. As messy as it is, questions about any particular display are best resolved in the courts on a case by case basis, not by blunderbuss legislation.
One of the more troubling questions, in my view, is this one:
Would you confirm judges to our courts who:
A. Seek to expand the law to include new concepts by redefining its terms, or
B. Seek to interpret law based on the original intent of the writers of the law?
This presents such a simplistic picture of what courts do that it is fundamentally misleading. Personally, I’m a judicial conservative, meaning that I believe courts should decide only the “cases and controversies” before them, and should give primary attention to the statutory language and intent when applying a statute. Often judges go off the rails here and ignore applicable statutes. There are many examples, Roe v. Wade being Exhibit A, in which courts have made policy that should be made by legislatures. That’s bad.
But the idea that judges can easily discern and apply the “original intent” of a statute in every circumstance is ludicrous, as anyone who’s ever actually litigated a statutory case in a courtroom (as I have, many times) knows. Statutes usually are messy compromises, and often are so badly written that no one has any idea what the legislature really meant — if it’s even philosophically possible to find a unified “intent” among a diverse and divided body of individuals. If courts could do nothing but apply the literal words of a statute in light of clearly understood original intent, the justice system would grind to a halt, because very often that’s simply impossible.
Moreover judges have a legitimate, ancient and necessary role in developing the common law when, as is often the case, there are gaps or ambiguities in the statutory law. To me, as someone who practiced litigation in the trenches for thirteen years, who earned two law degrees and who has taught intensely statutory courses such as patent law, a polarized survey question like this reflects either ignorance of the judicial process or something more insidious.
I could go on and on. There are some good things in this “Guide” that families will want to know, such as the candidates’ positions on parental notification requirements for minors seeking abortions. But on the whole, this “Guide” unfortunately has more to do with right wing economics and failed neoconservative policies than Christian ethics. Take it for what it’s worth, but make your own informed choices.