Secularism and Its Discontents

The reelection of George W. Bush has provoked extensive debate, if not quite soul-searching, among liberals. For the most part, liberals have not fastened on the way foreign policy played out in the campaign, but on the way moral and religious issues did—even after the idea that the moral issues had a much larger impact in this election than in previous ones was largely debunked, and even though some of the debunkers were liberals attempting to deny any mandate for moral and religious conservatives. Some liberals have suggested that Democrats need to start speaking the language of faith, or at least of morals. More of them have denounced the backwardness of the religious conservatives who supported President Bush.

“The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule,” wrote Maureen Dowd on the day after the election. “W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq—drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or ‘values voters,’ as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.”

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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The reelection of George W. Bush has provoked extensive debate, if not quite soul-searching, among liberals. For the most part, liberals have not fastened on the way foreign policy played out in the campaign, but on the way moral and religious issues did—even after the idea that the moral issues had a much larger impact in this election than in previous ones was largely debunked, and even though some of the debunkers were liberals attempting to deny any mandate for moral and religious conservatives. Some liberals have suggested that Democrats need to start speaking the language of faith, or at least of morals. More of them have denounced the backwardness of the religious conservatives who supported President Bush.

“The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule,” wrote Maureen Dowd on the day after the election. “W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq—drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or ‘values voters,’ as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.”