In concrete terms, Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” constituted a promise to empower private religious and community organizations and thereby expand their role in the provision of social services. This “faith based initiative” became the centerpiece of his campaign. In his address to the 2000 Republican National Convention, Bush heralded the work of Christian charities and called upon the nation to do what it could to support them. After his inauguration, Bush moved swiftly to make the proposal a reality. Indeed, the longest section of his 2001 inaugural address was an expansive reflection on the idea. “America, at its best, is compassionate,” he observed. “Church and charity, synagogue and mosque lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and in our laws.” Bush promoted the initiative at his first National Prayer Breakfast as well. But it was ill-fated. Hamstrung by a lack of clear direction during the administration’s first months, it was quickly overshadowed by a new emphasis on national security after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Bush continued to advance his vision of a godly nation. Soon after 9/11, he made a special trip to the Islamic Center of Washington, the very same mosque that had opened its doors to celebrate the Eisenhower inauguration a half century earlier. No sitting president had ever visited an Islamic house of worship, but Bush made clear by his words and deeds there that he considered Muslims part of the nation’s diverse religious community. He denounced recent acts of violence against Muslims and Arab Americans in no uncertain terms. “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America,” he said; “they represent the worst of humankind and they should be ashamed.” Referring to Islam as a “religion of peace” and citing the Koran, he closed his address with the same words of inclusion he would have used before any audience, religious or otherwise: “God bless us all.” The president was not alone in enlisting religious patriotism to demonstrate national unity after the attacks. On September 12, 2001, congressional representatives from both parties joined together on the Capitol steps to sing “God Bless America.”Meanwhile, several states that did not already require recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance in their schools introduced bills to do just that.
But the efforts to use the pledge as a source of unity were soon thrown into disarray. In June 2002, a federal court ruled that the phrase “one nation under God” violated the First Amendment prohibition against the establishment of a state religion. The case Newdow v. Elk Grove Unified School District had been filed in 2000 by Michael Newdow, an emergency room doctor who complained that his daughter’s rights were infringed because she was forced to “watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God, and that ours is ‘one nation under God.” In a 2-to-1 decision, the court agreed. It held that the phrase was just as objectionable as a statement that “we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion.” The reaction from political leaders was as swift as it was predictable. The Senate suspended debate on a pending military spending bill to draft a resolution condemning the ruling, while dozens of House members took to the Capitol steps to recite the pledge and sing “God Bless America” one more time. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced that the president thought the decision was “ridiculous”; Democratic senator Tom Daschle called it “nuts.” The reaction was so pronounced, in fact, that the appeals court delayed implementation of its ruling until an appeal could be heard.
As the case made its way through the courts, the nation had to reckon anew with the meaning of “one nation under God.” According to Newdow, an atheist, the language of the amended pledge clearly took “one side in the quintessential religious question ‘Does God exist?’” The Bush administration, defending the pledge, asserted that reciting it was no more a religious act than using a coin with “In God We Trust” inscribed on it; both merely acknowledged the nation’s heritage. A separate brief filed by conservative religious organizations, however, argued that the pledge was “both theological and political.” Reviving claims of the Christian libertarians, it asserted that the words “under God” were added to underscore the concept of limited government. They were meant as a reminder that “government is not the highest authority in human affairs” because, as the Declaration of Independence claimed, “inalienable rights come from God.” In June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that Newdow technically lacked standing to bring the suit and thus dismissed the lower court’s ruling, dodging the issue for the time being.
Having survived that challenge in the courts, the concept of “one nation under God” thrived on the campaign trail. Seeking to rally religious voters for the 2004 election, Republican strategist Karl Rove advocated a “play-to-the-base” plan to exploit the concerns of the religious right for electoral gain.The president passed two major pieces of pro-life legislation and then joined the campaign for a Federal Marriage Amendment to ban homosexual unions. Many on the right saw the coming campaign as the kind of”religious war” that Pat Buchanan heralded a decade before. The Bush campaign worked to capitalize on “the God gap” in the electorate, mobilizing religious conservatives in record numbers. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, one backer erected a billboard that summed up the unofficial strategy of the Republicans: “Bush Cheney ’04-0ne Nation Under God.” The Democrats, meanwhile, gave the politics of religion comparatively little attention. John Kerry’s presidential campaign relegated much of its national religious outreach to a twenty-eight-year-old newcomer who had virtually no institutional support, not even an old database of contacts. “The matchup between the two parties in pursuit of religious voters wasn’t just David versus Goliath,” the journalist Amy Sullivan wrote.”It was David versus Goliath and the Philistines and the Assyrians and the Egyptians, with a few plagues thrown in for good measure.”
by Kevin M. Kruse, Salon | Read more:
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