"Values" as a Code Word: God, Gays, & Guns?

During both the 2004 and 2008 election campaigns, "values" was the most used high-level abstraction "code word" suggesting a variation of "God-on-our-side." In context, this tactic is part of a very emotionally-intense "Cause" rhetoric seeking much more than a simple one-time vote. Values often seems confined to the sexuality of Other People, rather than the traditional virtues of love and compassion. Other than lust, the popular vices of our consumer society (most of the traditional 7 Deadly Sins, including greed and gluttony, pride and envy, sloth and anger) are seldom mentioned

Here are some useful sources related to the current use of the term "values":

A definition by the conservative Traditional Values Coalition: "A moral code and behavior based upon the Old and New Testaments. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that the Lord has given us a rule book to live by: The Bible."

" 'Values' Become Key Campaign Issue: "Polls show that one of the best indicators of how Americans vote is whether they attend church weekly. Those who do overwhelmingly vote Republican; those who do not back Democrats. If Democrats make even slim inroads into this demographic, it could alter the election, analysts say."

"Faith and Values may decide Election." As the presidential race heats up, the debate over the "religion gap" has intensified. A Time magazine poll published June 21 found that 85 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters said his faith makes him a strong leader. Nearly two of three Kerry supporters in the poll said Mr. Bush's faith made him close-minded.

"The Politics of Piety"" Because some less-religious Americans prefer Democrats, does that mean that the Democratic candidate is insufficiently religious? That's what Republicans would like you to believe."

"'Values' is a Slope politicians slip and slide around on"
By now, in fact, adjectives like "mainstream" and "traditional" aren't really necessary -- the bare word "values" alone evokes all those hot-button cultural issues that are summed up as "God, guns, and gays."

By now, in fact, adjectives like "mainstream" and "traditional" aren't really necessary -- the bare word "values" alone evokes all those hot-button cultural issues that are summed up as "God, guns, and gays."
'Values' is a slope politicians slip and slide around on
Geoffrey Nunberg | San Francisco Chronicle | July 25, 2004 This commentary first aired on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" program.

With the presidential election looking as if it will depend on the votes of nine welders in Cleveland, it was pretty much inevitable that the V- word would rear its head sooner or later. Out on the hustings last week, President Bush said that Senator Kerry is "out of step with the mainstream values that are so important to our country." And John Kerry was reminding voters of the importance of "relying on the values that made this country great.''

A foreigner listening to those claims might think that this election was simply a question of who has better values, like Wal-Mart versus Costco. But it goes deeper than that -- it's really about what the word "values" means, and what role it should play in political life.

"Values" is a word that's made for political mischief, as it slithers from one meaning to another. Sometimes it simply refers to cultural preferences or mores, and sometimes it suggests religious principles or morals, the sorts of things that some people have more of than others do. Or often it blends mores and morals together. That point was nicely made in a line from the recent movie "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton." Nathan Lane plays a Hollywood agent who's trying to persuade his dissolute movie star client to dump the small-town West Virginia girl he's smitten with. "Your values are different." Lane tells the actor. "For instance, she has them."

Actually, you could say the same thing about conservatives and liberals. Their values are different; for instance, conservatives have them. At least that's the conclusion you'd reach if you went only by the way the word "values" is used in the press. Even in the political coverage of supposedly liberal papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post, the phrase "conservative values" is four times as frequent as "liberal values" is.

But "values" hasn't always been the property of the right. Like that other modern buzz-word "community," it began its life 100 years ago as the translation of a term from German sociology. And it didn't really enter the general American vocabulary until the 1950s, when it was picked up in progressive circles along with other social-science terms like "alienation" and "peer group."

In those days a sentence like "I share your values" was the sort of thing you'd expect to encounter in a Jules Feiffer cartoon or a Mike Nichols-Elaine May routine. The political connotations of "values" were limited to a vague association with progressive education and liberal anti-communism. Back in the 1950s a lot of universities were setting up chairs and interdisciplinary programs in "American values," where the phrase suggested only the democratic ideals that made America different from totalitarian regimes.
It wasn't until the Vietnam era that Republicans seized on "values" as a convenient word for contrasting the mores of middle America with the alarming antics of the hippies and anti-war protesters and the effete pretensions of the East Coast liberal elites.

You could date that shift in meaning from Aug. 7, 1968, when the Republicans opened their national convention in Miami Beach with a round of inspirational songs from the preternaturally clean-cut "Up with People" chorus -- "not a hippie among them," as the speaker who introduced them said. Over the next few years, that newly divisive sense of "values" was tirelessly promoted by Vice President Spiro Agnew, who really deserves credit for being the Johnny Appleseed of the culture wars.

From then on, "values" was the word you used to turn every election into a referendum on lifestyles. By 1988, George H. W. Bush could make the word a literal mantra of his presidential campaign: "I represent the mainstream views and the mainstream values. And they are your values, and my values, and the values of the vast majority of the American people."

By now, in fact, adjectives like "mainstream" and "traditional" aren't really necessary -- the bare word "values" alone evokes all those hot-button cultural issues that are summed up as "God, guns, and gays." During last fall's Democratic primaries, Joe Lieberman could say "(the Republicans) can't say I'm weak on values," and everybody understood that he was talking about his religious convictions and his campaign against sex and violence in the media, not his views on Enron, the environment, or the Iraq war.

And when you run into an organization with a name like the American Values Coalition or the Institute for American Values, you can be confident that the American values in question aren't things like "different strokes for different folks" or "a fair day's pay for a day's work" -- nor for that matter, "pick up after yourself," which is how my mother used to sum up her position on environmental policy.

This time around, the Democrats have made it clear that they're not going to cede the V-word to the Republicans. But when Kerry and running mate John Edwards baptized their campaign a "celebration of American values," they weren't referring to the issues on the Republicans' hit list -- for them, "values" doesn't have a lot to do with what Howard Stern can say on the radio. As Edwards puts it, values are a matter of "faith, family, opportunity, responsibility, trying to make sure that everybody gets a chance to do what they're capable of doing."

That's a notion of "values" that would have been more familiar to Dwight Eisenhower than to Spiro Agnew -- a word for the beliefs we have in common, rather than the ones that divide us. Except that by now the word "values" has been so polemicized that it can't help but suggest an implicit challenge -- "You want values? We'll give you values." It says something about what we've come to that a word that ought to be a bland political bromide has turned into a battle cry for both sides.
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Geoffrey Nunberg is a linguistics professor at Stanford University and the author of "Going Nucular: Language, Politics and Culture in Controversial Times." This commentary first aired on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" program. © 2004 San Francisco Chronicle Top

NPR Audio program on July 12, 2004 -- What's more important when it comes to casting your vote: jobs and the economy or the values held by candidates? Join NPR's Lynn Neary and her guest, author John Kenneth White, to discuss the electoral importance of political and cultural values. Guests:
John Kenneth White, author of The Values Divide: American Politics and Culture in Transition
Jim Vandehei, national political reporter for The Washington Post
Scott Keeter, associate director of the Pew Research Center

" Because some less-religious Americans prefer Democrats, does that mean that the Democratic candidate is insufficiently religious? That's what Republicans would like you to believe."
The Politics of Piety
Are Kerry's expressions of faith subpar?
The Republicans would have the electorate think so.
By Rick Perlstein - author of "Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus."
Los Angeles Times July 11, 2004

CHICAGO—A herd of independent minds has come forth in recent months with a theory. On the Op-Ed pages of newspapers, pixelated across the blogosphere and in prestigious political journals, pundits have decreed that John F. Kerry will lose unless he joins mainstream America and gets more religious. It's not so surprising that Republicans, like the New York Times' David Brooks, are raising the holy cry, but lately, liberal Democrats have joined the choir too.

They're all wrong.

For one thing, the electoral numbers don't add up. As Ruy Teixeira and John Judis concluded in their statistical study, "The Emerging Democratic Majority": "Trends among the religious do not favor Republicans over Democrats. If anything, they favor Democrats." Americans who attend church one or more times a week indeed favored George W. Bush in 2000. But the Americans who don't — a clear majority — favored Al Gore. The vaunted "Christian right" is, demographically speaking, a stagnant pool: 17% of voters in 1996 and shrinking. The really dynamic voting bloc is made up of those who darken a church's doorstep once a year or less. In 1972, they were 18% of voters; in 1998, 30%. And they don't like Bush.

Does that make Kerry/Edwards the Ticket of the Damned? Because some less-religious Americans prefer Democrats, does that mean that the Democratic candidate is insufficiently religious? That's what Republicans would like you to believe. But it's a fantasy. The day in which any major-party presidential nominee is not a professing person of faith is not likely to come in our lifetimes. That's just a fact of political life. It's certainly a fact of Kerry's political life. God-talk peppers his speeches: "We are all God's children" … "Our prayers are with their families" … "All of us fighting under the same flag, praying to the same God."

But apparently Kerry is supposed to be something more: more than a former altar boy who once considered the priesthood, more than a weekly churchgoer (Bush rarely goes to church), more than a man possessed by the deeply Catholic conviction that actively supporting political programs that advance compassion count as much in God's eyes as the faith one holds in one's heart.

And that's a disturbing thought. It's especially disturbing that some Democratic commentators have bought into the notion. "Kerry's Democrats" have been acting "like the Party of Secularists," wrote Beliefnet.com editor and former Clinton staffer Steve Waldman in Slate. "Most folks in national Democratic politics are completely tone-deaf when it comes to religion," said Amy Sullivan, who writes for the liberal Washington Monthly. Nick Confessore on the website of the even more liberal American Prospect noted "Kerry's unwillingness to reach out to religious constituencies in a meaningful and respectful way." What is going on here?

Democrats are letting themselves be hustled. They have become accomplices in a strategic attempt by Republicans to convince the public that the religious experience that liberals tend to favor is not "really" religion, and that the real measure of religiosity is conformity to certain Republican policy positions. That was certainly the approach of New York Times columnist Brooks, whose June 22 piece "A Matter of Faith" defines the "secular left," in part, not by its lack of religious faith (he relied on a study that counted secular Democrats by the number who expressed displeasure at religious fundamentalists — something that many deeply religious people do) but by its "strong antipathy to pro-lifers." What kind of religions, implicitly, don't count?

Unitarian congregations are one obvious target. Despite a long and rich history of Unitarianism in the United States — Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were both Unitarians — the Republican comptroller of Bush's Texas recently tried to strip a Unitarian congregation of its tax-exempt status, claiming it "does not have one system of belief." Some Catholics — the kind that question aspects of the authoritarian social dictates of the Vatican (that would likely be most American Catholics) — don't count. And neither, apparently, do African Americans. Although they are among the most religious ethnic groups and a majority of them are evangelical Christians, they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Democratic candidates love to join the joyful noise that their congregations make, but still, somehow, the Democratic Party is seen as slighting religion.

Democratic pundits would, of course, insist that they respect these kinds of worship, but they'd also point out that Republicans don't. Shouldn't that be the Republicans' problem? But by getting caught up in a debate about what true religious expression looks like, Democrats are willingly stepping onto a wedge devised and promoted by Republicans. When Confessore writes that Kerry's failure to connect with religious constituencies in a meaningful way "is one of his biggest strategic errors so far," he ignores that it is Republican propagandists who have been successful in defining "meaningful" religiosity for much of the public.

In fact, there's something quite immoral about the whole discussion. Linger on Confessore's language about "strategic errors." Note the question Brooks asks in his June 22 column after pointing out that people don't think Kerry's all that religious (which is really only to point out that Republican propaganda has been successful): "Can't the Democratic strategists read the data?" These people seem to seriously believe they honor religion by advising candidates to be exactly as religious as polls say they should.

That's creepy — as a presidential candidate named George H.W. Bush once understood. The current president's father brought dignity to the White House by refusing to make grandstanding displays of piety that didn't comport with the feelings in his heart.
But such grandstanding is exactly what some Democrats demand of Kerry — even though it's not necessarily in his political interests to do so.

A more morally sound strategy — and also, quite possibly, a more politically sound strategy — would be for Kerry to point up the way the president fails to honor the faithful and trifles with them by turning them into cogs in a political machine. Remind Americans that Bush has lectured Catholic cardinals like they were precinct captains — complaining to one in Vatican City, "Not all the American bishops are with me." Point out how he has arranged privileged White House briefings on Mideast policy with apocalyptic Christians who are more interested in fulfilling the divisive conditions they say will hasten the Rapture than actual peace in this world. Put on display the way the Bush campaign has walked the razor's edge of campaign law by instructing conservative churches to send their membership rosters to Bush/Cheney headquarters.

Or, if that's not what Kerry feels in his heart, he can just keep doing what he's been doing: rehearsing the same familiar invocations of the Almighty that presidential candidates always have (even if it isn't really fair to nonbelievers, who hardly deserve the implied second-class citizenship).

Give me that old-time religion: the quiet kind, the respectful kind. It was good enough for our fathers. For November, Democrats, it is good enough for us.
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Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times | Top

As the presidential race heats up, the debate over the "religion gap" has intensified. A Time magazine poll published June 21 found that 85 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters said his faith makes him a strong leader. Nearly two of three Kerry supporters in the poll said Mr. Bush's faith made him close-minded.

Faith and values may decide election
Hopefuls seek high ground for polarized 'culture war'
Pastor Tony Scott says the U.S. is under attack because it is a Christian nation.
By JAMES DREW Toledo Blade July 11, 2004

When Jeff Baker thinks about the presidential race, he thinks about religion.

"I try to concern myself with what concerns God," said Mr. Baker, a 50-year-old pharmaceutical representative who lives in Newark, 40 miles east of Columbus.

Based on what the Old and New Testaments say about morality, Mr. Baker said he will vote for President Bush, who is anti-abortion and has embraced a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

"God will allow us to choose one of these men. The economy is improving. The war in Iraq is what it is. The issue of this nation's moral conscience is most important to me. If this nation turns its back against what God stands for, He could pull his hand of protection away from it and this nation would face the consequences," said Mr. Baker, who attends a Southern Baptist church.
In 1990, the Rev. Pat Robertson told the Christian Coalition he had two goals. He said he wanted to help elect a "pro-family" Congress by 1994 and a "pro-family" President by 2000.

In 2000, two-thirds of voters who said they went to a church, synagogue, or mosque at least weekly voted for Mr. Bush.
Now, sixteen weeks before election day, some experts say that religion and the nation's debate over cultural issues - often referred to as the "culture war" - could prove crucial if the race remains close between Mr. Bush and U.S. Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat.

The contrast is not solely between a born-again Christian who frequently invokes religion as President and a U.S. senator who is Catholic and has appeared uncomfortable tying faith to public policy.

It is also the latest chapter in the nation's debate over abortion, gay rights, feminism, and indecency in popular culture.
"We are polarized on so many issues," said Diana Dwyre, a political science professor at California State University-Chico. "When [GOP] strategists need to find ways to make people feel comfortable to vote Republican, that is when we hear a lot of the social issues."

Over the past 25 years, the number of evangelical Christians has reached 70 million Americans and they have amassed political power. Many want to keep one of their own, Mr. Bush, in the White House.

Democrats have charged that the Bush White House has blurred the constitutional line between church and state. But other Democrats say that their party must do a better job of reaching out to people of faith.

"It is true that very, very religious Americans vote Republican and those who don't go to church vote Democrat, but the group in the middle doesn't break down that way and that's where the majority is," said Amy Sullivan, a former legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota.

As the presidential race heats up, the debate over the "religion gap" has intensified.

A Time magazine poll published June 21 found that 85 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters said his faith makes him a strong leader. Nearly two of three Kerry supporters in the poll said Mr. Bush's faith made him close-minded.

Of 1,280 citizens that Time polled, 70 percent of Republicans said a president "should be guided by his faith when making policy," compared to 63 percent of Democrats who said that should not happen.

But Ms. Sullivan, a doctoral student in sociology at Princeton University, questioned whether the nation has a "religion gap." She cited a July, 2003, poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that showed twice as many people saying they would like Mr. Bush to rely more on his faith to make decisions than to avoid it.

"It wasn't a majority, but a surprising number said if he had the right religious beliefs and if he listened to them, he would come to different conclusions that were right. It was not a blanket rejection of intermingling faith and public policy," Ms. Sullivan said.
In 1980, evangelical Christians played a key role in Ronald Reagan's victory over a born-against Christian, Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

In 1985, George W. Bush, with his marriage in jeopardy because of heavy alcohol use and his business career collapsing, joined an evangelical Christian bible study in Midland, Texas.

Three years later, Mr. Bush's religious faith helped his father, then the vice president, to gain support among evangelical Christians to win the GOP nomination for president.

During his own battle for the GOP nomination for president four years ago, Mr. Bush was asked during a TV debate for his favorite philosopher-thinker. His reply: "Jesus Christ."

"When you turn your heart and life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as a savior, it changes your heart and changes your life. And that's what happened to me," Mr. Bush said.

The outcome of this year's presidential election may be shaped by a "third wave" of the Christian right, said John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

The first wave arrived in the late 1970s, as evangelical Protestants started a movement to restore "traditional values" around morality, sexuality, and the family, Dr. Green said.

The Christian right mobilized in response to Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision which upheld a woman's right to choose an abortion, the gay rights movement, and the push to amend the federal Constitution to grant equal rights to women. The campaign for the ERA amendment ultimately failed.

The second wave took shape after the Rev. Robertson failed to win the GOP presidential nomination in 1988 and a year later, the Rev. Jerry Falwell disbanded the Moral Majority.

Ralph Reed, who earned a Ph.D. in history from Emory University, led the Christian Coalition to national prominence. He helped the GOP win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, for the first time in 40 years.

In a foreword to a 1994 book, conservative commentator Irving Kristol said the liberal consensus that Republicans had to distance themselves from the "Religious Right" to attract moderates was wrong.

"The religious conservatives are already too numerous to be shunted aside, and their numbers are growing, as is their influence. They are going to be the very core of an emerging American conservatism," Mr. Kristol wrote.

Democrat Bill Clinton's two terms as president focused the Christian right on winning the White House in 2000, enabling Mr. Bush to campaign as a "compassionate conservative" without facing a serious threat from a Pentecostal Christian, U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft, a Missouri Republican.

The controversy over same-sex marriage may lead to the Christian right's third wave, Dr. Green said.

"The homosexual issue will be the major battleground that the church will have to fight a war over," said the Rev. Tony Scott, pastor of the Cathedral of Praise in Sylvania.

"This was started as a Christian nation, with Christian schools and Christian colleges. That is what our framers of our constitution had in mind. There is no such thing as separation of church and state, legally. The constitution says the state shall not establish a religion,'' said the Reverend Scott, pastor of the Cathedral of Praise.

In November, 2003, the highest court in Massachusetts declared that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry. The 4-3 ruling added urgency to efforts by the Ohio legislature to pass a law declaring that same-sex marriage violates the state's "strong public policy."

Backers said the federal Constitution says state courts are obligated to give "full faith and credit" to decrees and acts of other states unless they violate a "strong public policy."

Gov. Bob Taft signed the bill into law on Feb. 6. Last May 17, Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage.
Although it's unlikely there are enough votes in Congress to pass a federal constitutional amendment, the GOP-controlled Senate has scheduled a vote this week.

Mr. Kerry has said he is opposed to gay marriage, but is against a federal constitutional amendment banning it. He is "pro-choice" on abortion, a stance which prompted the archbishop of St. Louis to say that Mr. Kerry couldn't receive communion in his diocese.
For Ian James, a Democratic political consultant who lives in Columbus, Mr. Bush's campaign is using the same-sex marriage debate to get its backers to the polls.

A gay man, Mr. James said the Christian right has a "radical" agenda to prevent businesses from offering health insurance and other benefits to same-sex and unmarried heterosexual couples.

"Equal protection under the law is an American value that most people hold dear to. What these fundamentalist extremists are trying to do is tear that apart and reweave the fabric of America in a fashion that says, 'This is how your family must be set up, this is who you must love and how you must love,'?" he said.

The Bush campaign is not assuming that it has the religious conservative vote wrapped up.

Four years ago, about 750,000 "social conservatives" in Ohio who were "pro-Bush" didn't go the polls, said Jo Ann Davidson, co-chairman of Mr. Bush's campaign in Ohio.

This year the campaign has set up a statewide network to mobilize social conservatives. The President's backers are recruiting coordinators at churches and emphasizing Mr. Bush's support for providing federal funds for "faith-based" social programs.
"The President has demonstrated in his three and a half years in office a commitment to the same concerns: moral values, and protection of the family," said Ms. Davidson, a former Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives.

Nearly a year ago, Ms. Sullivan, the former aide to Senator Daschle, said Mr. Bush could not win re-election without support from "religious moderates."

They include Muslims, most Catholics, and a growing number of suburban evangelicals, all of whom are devout, but many of whom are uncomfortable with Bush's ties to the religious right, whose agenda - from banning abortion to converting Muslims - is deeply disconcerting to them," she wrote in the August, 2003, issue of The Washington Monthly.

Ms. Sullivan wrote that the Democratic nominee could gain support from "freestyle evangelicals" and "convertible Catholics."
Of the 25 percent of American adults who say they are evangelical Christians, about 40 percent are "free-style evangelicals," according to estimates from Dr. Green of the University of Akron and Steven Waldman, founder of the religion Web site www.beliefnet.com.

They are Christians who have lower levels of church attendance than evangelicals, are less likely to take the Bible literally, and care about the environment and indecency in popular culture, such as Janet Jackson's exposed breast during the halftime show of the Super Bowl.

Although conservative on social issues, they showed independence by backing Mr. Clinton in 1996 and Mr. Bush in 2000, Ms. Sullivan said.

In 2000, Mr. Bush and Vice President Al Gore each received 20 percent of their support from Catholics. Ms. Sullivan said young and middle-age Catholics are "convertible" because they oppose abortion, but they also voted for Mr. Clinton because of his support for the V-Chip and mandatory school uniforms.

Mr. Kerry, a Catholic who in early 2003 learned that his paternal grandparents were Jewish, also has made forays into the religious arena, but not often.

He told Vogue magazine last year: "We've got to prove we're as God-fearing and churchgoing as everybody else."

But last year and during the race for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Kerry rarely discussed his faith or the role that religion plays in the United States.

That changed last March, at a Baptist church in St. Louis, when he cited James 2:14 from the Bible. Without mentioning Mr. Bush, Mr. Kerry said: "The scriptures say, what does it profit, my brother, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? When we look at what is happening in America today, where are the works of compassion?"

Ms. Sullivan said Mr. Kerry's remarks, which Mr. Bush's campaign called a "sad exploitation of scripture for a political attack," resonated with moderates."

People said, 'I am unhappy with Bush and Kerry put his finger on why I am unhappy,' " she said.

But Mr. Kerry has not cited James 2:14 since then. He has begun to talk about "values." At a June 21 speech in Denver, Mr. Kerry said: "You know, working families all across America are living by the oldest and the greatest of American values: hard work, caring for one another, and service. And I am running for president because I believe that our government ought to live by those values, too."

On July 7, in their first public as a ticket, Mr. Kerry's choice for running mate, U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, told a Cleveland audience: "The real reason that John Kerry and I are here together is that we share the same values. I'm talking about the values that I grew up in that small town in North Carolina: faith, family, opportunity, responsibility."

Jim Wallis, executive editor of Sojourners, a magazine popular with Christians committed to social justice issues, has called on Democrats to use moral and religious language to discuss the "deeply biblical issues of economic justice, the environment, or war and peace."

Dale Butland, an former aide to U.S. Sen. John Glenn, an Ohio Democrat, said he is reluctant to pursue "social policy from a religious perspective."

He cited the federal Constitution's separation of church and state as the reason.

"I still believe a majority of Americans understand once we allow religious beliefs and dogma to dictate our public policy, we are on a very slippery slope indeed. It's something our founding fathers rejected," said Mr. Butland, a Columbus-based political consultant.
He will vote for Mr. Kerry.

But Mr. Baker, the pharmaceutical representative who lives in Newark, said he is troubled that Christians aren't taking a stand.

"I had a conversation with a young guy I work with about homosexual marriage and he was saying, 'It's not right to impose our moral judgment' and he's a Christian. But that is what we are supposed to do. If God is against this, we have to stand in the gap," Mr. Baker said.

He will vote for Mr. Bush.

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"Polls show that one of the best indicators of how Americans vote is whether they attend church weekly. Those who do overwhelmingly vote Republican; those who do not back Democrats. If Democrats make even slim inroads into this demographic, it could alter the election, analysts say."
Values Become Key Campaign Issue
Kerry, Bush Show Their Differences
By Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 9, 2004;

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 8 -- Sen. John F. Kerry and President Bush escalated a fight Thursday over values that is increasingly coloring the election-year debate heading into the national conventions.

Kerry and his new running mate, Sen. John Edwards, challenged Bush's values and honesty on several fronts, as the Democratic duo rallied an overflow crowd at an airport hangar here before flying to New York for what the campaign called the biggest presidential fundraiser in Democratic Party history. The star-studded event at Radio City Music Hall raised more than $7 million.

"They can talk about values. They can talk about what they believe in, but it's a different thing to put your life on the line for the men around you," Edwards said at a morning rally here, prompting the crowd to scream, "Kerry, Kerry!"

Kerry is a decorated Vietnam War veteran; Bush served stateside in the National Guard and has drawn criticism from Kerry and others for an undocumented gap in his military service record.

In his fourth campaign rally as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and first of the day, Edwards focused mostly on economic anxiety and what he called Democratic values of social fairness. But the senator from North Carolina also continued his party's assault on Bush's truthfulness about the war in Iraq, the budget deficits and domestic policies. "You can take this to the bank: When John Kerry is president of the United States, he will tell the American people the truth," Edwards said.

At the fundraiser, Kerry praised speakers and performers, some of whom lambasted Bush as a liar, "thug" and killer. Singer John Mellencamp sang an anti-Bush song called "Texas Bandito," in which he called the president "another cheap thug who sacrifices our young." Actress Whoopi Goldberg repeatedly referred to Edwards as "Kid" and made a crude wordplay on the president's name.
Kerry said every performer conveyed the "heart and soul" of America. Afterward, Kerry spokesman David Wade said: "Performers have a right to speak their mind. John Kerry and John Edwards speak their minds and Americans know what they believe."

Meanwhile, the Bush campaign released an ad attacking Kerry for voting against what supporters call the "Laci Peterson Law," which makes it a separate offense to kill or injure a fetus while committing a violent federal crime against a pregnant woman. Kerry, who has rarely flown back to Washington to vote during this campaign, did so to oppose the measure. The ad says: "Kerry found time to vote against the Laci Peterson law that protects pregnant women from violence. Kerry has his priorities. Are they yours?"

Although Iraq and the economy are dominating the presidential debate, Kerry and Bush are increasingly trying to frame the election as a choice between different values. Bush, a born-again Christian, frequently speaks in religious terms and talks of how voters, especially those outside the liberal bastions of big cities and the two coasts, share his deep faith, values and sense of patriotism. The new ad reflects the campaign's belief that on sensitive social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, most Americans share Bush's views.

Kerry and Edwards "are more distanced from the values and priorities of mainstream America than any ticket in the history of the Democratic Party," said Nicolle Devenish, Bush's campaign spokeswoman. Kerry, who only recently engaged in this fight aggressively, touted his values at Thursday's event. "Family, faith, responsibility, service and opportunity," he declared to the crowd.
Starting with his run-up to the vice presidential pick, and intensifying since tapping Edwards, Kerry has made this a central theme, much as Bill Clinton did in the 1990s and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) did during the Democratic primaries. "We have a better sense of right and wrong," the senator from Massachusetts said at a rally Wednesday night in Florida.

Kerry -- a Roman Catholic, rarely talks about his religious faith unless he is speaking at an African American church -- is trying to push the debate toward how faith translates into social action and values. Tad Devine, a Kerry adviser, said Kerry and Edwards, in particular, will make faith a bigger part of their values argument in the weeks ahead.

"They are two men of faith, which is a big and important part of their life, and that will be discussed," Devine said. Kerry is considering delivering speeches outside of churches to explain more clearly how his faith helps guides his values, aides said. A recent Time magazine poll found that most voters did not think Kerry was a man of strong religious faith.

On "Larry King Live" Thursday night, Kerry said faith "guides you. It's your rock. It's the bedrock of your sense of place, of where it all fits."

Kerry has sought to reassure voters that he is not too liberal on key cultural issues. He has allowed reporters and photographers to observe him shooting a gun and recently told an Iowa newspaper he believes life begins at conception, which puts him, at a personal level, on the same page as abortion opponents. Kerry, however, opposes government restriction on abortion.

Polls show that one of the best indicators of how Americans vote is whether they attend church weekly. Those who do overwhelmingly vote Republican; those who do not back Democrats. If Democrats make even slim inroads into this demographic, it could alter the election, analysts say. This is particularly true in the South, a region Republicans have dominated in recent elections, but Democrats are more optimistic about this one with Edwards on the ticket.

Kerry's focus on values, aides said, will be a blend of the spiritual and the secular, pointing to his unwavering message of service, especially in the military, truth-telling and tending to those struggling to make ends meet. During his first two days as Kerry's running mate, Edwards has spent much of his time highlighting his humble beginnings as a poor kid in a small town and touting Kerry's values. "We share a vision and a set of values, the same values that I grew up with in that little town out in the country of North Carolina -- faith, family and responsibility, opportunity for everybody, not just a few who are at the top," Edwards said.

"The thought Bush and/or Cheney will have an advantage in respect to values is something we do not concede," Devine said.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests Devine may be right. When asked whether the statement "he shares your values" applies more to Bush or Kerry, 46 percent said the president and 48 percent said Kerry.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company Top

TRADITIONAL VALUES DEFINED
What Are Traditional Values?

While other pro-family groups may have their own specific definitions of what "traditional values" means, here's what we [the Traditional Values Coalition] consider to be traditional values:

A moral code and behavior based upon the Old and New Testaments. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that the Lord has given us a rule book to live by: The Bible. We are committed to living, as far as it is possible, by the moral precepts taught by Jesus Christ and by the whole counsel of God as revealed in the Bible.

As an outgrowth of our commitment to the Bible, we believe the following:

Right To Life: We believe that every human deserves the right to life—from conception to death—and that we do not have the right to kill unborn children nor to murder the elderly through active euthanasia. We do, however, support the death penalty. The Bible is clear that the government has the responsibility to provide for peace and security for its people. We also believe the government has the power to take the lives of those who murder others and to wage war against our enemies.

Fidelity In Marriage And Abstinence Before Marriage: Based upon biblical principles, we believe that marriage is to be a lifelong commitment. We also believe that fidelity in marriage is essential. We also believe that teenagers and young adults should be taught to abstain from sexual contact until after they are married. The epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases running rampant in our culture is evidence of the failure of the sex education movement. Violating God’s principles on chastity has dire consequences. We support the God-ordained institution of the family, which is a union of a man and woman, with or without children—and is based upon marriage, blood, or adoption.

Homosexuality, Bi-Sexuality, Transgenderism, And Other Deviant Sexual Behaviors: The Bible clearly condemns all sexual behaviors outside of marriage between one man and one woman. Homosexual behavior is explicitly condemned in both the Old and New Testaments as an abomination and a violation of God’s standards for sexuality. We oppose the normalization of sodomy as well as cross-dressing and other deviant sexual behaviors in our culture.

Pornography: The spread of pornography in our culture is a threat to the stability of families and frequently results in family break down, child molestations, and spousal abuse. We oppose this threat because it destroys families and it destroys the person who has become addicted to it. Pornography is a progressive addiction that ruins the conscience of the person. Frequently, this person acts out his sexual fantasies by molesting children, raping girls, and committing other sexual crimes—including murder.

Patriotism, Loyalty To Country, And Political Involvement: We believe that we are to be good citizens. This means we are loyal to our nation (not blind loyalty, however); we are to support our Armed Forces, law enforcement officials, and we should participate in the political process. We live in a free country but we will not remain free if we do not exercise our rights as citizens. We believe in the principles outlined in our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and the writings of our Founding Fathers. We support free enterprise, limited government, low taxes, and personal responsibility. We believe in self government, not self indulgence. We do not believe that the federal government should extend its power over every aspect of our lives. The best government is the one that governs the least.

Religious Freedom: We are advocates of religious freedom. We believe the First Amendment to our Constitution gives all of us the right to freely exercise our religious faith and that religious faith is the cornerstone of freedom in this nation. Our Founding Fathers supported religion, purchased Bibles, established congressional chaplains, and sent missionaries to witness to the Indians. They enacted the First Amendment to protect religious freedom, not to stifle it. We are opposed to any movement in this country that will strip away our constitutional rights to freedom of religion, speech, and association.

Addictive Behaviors: We are opposed to the spread of legalized gambling in our society because this behavior frequently leads to addictions, the destruction of families, and the abuse of children. We oppose the legalization of addictive drugs and support strong law enforcement efforts against this societal scourge. We believe it is self-destructive and destructive of our culture, for individuals to become addicted to such behaviors as gambling, alcohol, smoking, pornography, or the use of drugs.

Discrimination And Tolerance: We are not tolerant of behaviors that destroy individuals, families, and our culture. Individuals may be free to pursue such behaviors as sodomy, but we will not and cannot tolerate these behaviors. They frequently lead to death. We do not believe it is loving to permit someone to kill themselves by engaging in a self-destructive behavior. We believe in “discrimination” in the good sense: choosing between good and evil, right and wrong, the better and the best. We believe in discrimination in the sense of being discerning between good and bad choices. Popular culture maintains that all forms of discrimination are wrong. This is incorrect. A person with “discriminating taste” is one who uses wisdom in making choices. In short, we believe in intolerance to those things that are evil; and we believe that we should discriminate against those behaviors which are dangerous to individuals and to society.

Love And Hate: The Bible teaches us that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us. We believe it is a loving response to oppose behaviors that destroy individuals and families. It is not loving to allow someone to kill themselves or other individuals. It is not “hate” to fight against such cultural forces as pornography, drugs, abortion, and sodomy.

The Summing Up: Traditional Values are based upon biblical foundations and upon the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, the writings of the Founding Fathers, and upon the writings of great political and religious thinkers throughout the ages.

President George Washington, in his Farewell Address in 1796, said that popular government cannot exist without morality—and morality based upon biblical principles. In effect, he defined traditional values in these words: Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports….And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. – Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure—reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

In short, Bible-based traditional values are what created and what have preserved our nation. We will lose our freedoms if we reject these values.

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