Religion’s Role Is to Inform, Not Inflame : The alternative to tolerance is the acceptance of ‘pro-life’ killing and other unsupportable ‘political’ statements.

If religion is necessarily the positive force to which every politician must pay homage, how come it gets so many people killed? Whether it’s a doctor gunned down at an abortion clinic in Florida or a busload of innocent people in Israel, religious fanaticism is clearly a major menace of our time.

It would be convenient to think the problem lies solely with “Muslim fanatics” since the American media have managed to denigrate Islam into a collection of crazies rather than one of the world’s great religions. But there is no shortage of madness arising from other religious quarters--a West Bank settler gunning down worshipers in a mosque, rampaging Hindu mobs in South Asia and religious cleansing in Bosnia. Or intra-religious turmoil: a “devout” Jew killing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the name of God or the endless slaying of Christians by Christians in Northern Ireland’s otherwise pointless war.

This last example reminds one sadly of an irreverent British parody: “Onward Christian soldiers, duty’s way is plain. Kill thy Christian neighbors, or by them be slain.” The historical precedent is ample that when religion becomes the plaything of politics, the result is a debasement of spirituality.

That certainly has been the warning sign of this political season. Rarely have we heard so much meaningless blather about religion as from Republican candidates bowing to the commandments of the so-called Christian Coalition. Slogans of “pro-life” and “traditional values” are tossed about as an offering of divine inspiration, when in fact they represent nothing more than pandering by politicians pursuing the most cynical of secular goals.

In the hunt for “family values” voters, gays are bashed, immigrants denigrated and child welfare attacked. The moral arrogance is astounding. Pat Buchanan, who has reared no children, adopted or otherwise, insists that a rape victim must bring her fetus to term. The child’s father he would execute. Steve Forbes, who evidently was raised well by a gay father, is now compelled by political opportunism to attack the very idea of gay marriages, as have Lamar Alexander and Bob Dole. And since Dole will not commit to picking a running mate who shares the senator’s opposition to abortion, Buchanan is threatening to lead a “pro-life” exodus from the Republican Party.

In Buchanan’s divisive world, “pro-life” becomes a religious compass spun out of control. Although he refers to himself as a “traditional Catholic,” his “pro-life” stance is devoid of the humanity and consistency of the Catholic Church. Both champion the rights of the unborn, but Buchanan’s commitment withers with the birth of the child. The “sanctity of life” position of the Catholic Church is all-encompassing, including advocating a guarantee by the federal government that every child will have the necessities of life, and extending to opposition to the death penalty.

Not so for Buchanan and the Christian Coalition, who wallow in unremitting hostility to children who happen to be poor, immigrants or born out of wedlock. Insist that they be born, ignore them as children, lock them away as adolescents and officially murder them as adults. For the past year, the Christian Coalition even agreed with Gingrich’s and Dole’s request to lay off the abortion issue and concentrate instead on destroying the social safety net.

Whereas the Republican right blasts President Clinton for doing too much for the poor, the Catholic bishops criticize him severely for failing to do enough. For a fetus who makes it, that can be all the difference in the world.

The point is that calling yourself “pro-life” doesn’t make you so. David Bonior, a Democrat from Michigan who is anti-abortion, is pro-life because he has led the fight against the Gingrich cuts in Congress. But so, too, is his ally in that battle, Henry Waxman from Los Angeles, who is pro-choice. Both men take their religion seriously.

My own view is that this is a matter of individual conscience to be determined by those who bear life. But the issue is complicated, and decent people can disagree. For that reason, religious leaders and politicians have an obligation to create an environment in which all are respected, particularly pregnant women, as they contemplate such difficult ethical choices.

Religious conviction should inform rather than inflame. The 1st Amendment does not require that religious expression be irrelevant to the great debates of the day, but rather that it occur in a climate of tolerance. The alternative to religious tolerance is the murder of a doctor or the burning of scores of innocents in a bus. Beware the politician who would lead us down that hoary road.