How not to argue with evangelicals: Clay Cane's editorial on Mike Pence

Nothing reinforces the stereotype evangelicals have of liberals as Bible illiterates as much as when some liberal acts surprised to learn what the Bible actually says.

Evangelical: I believe the Bible.
Liberal: Cool, bro.
Evangelical: No, like, I actually believe it's the words of God and stuff, and that you should take it in a literal sense in most parts.
Liberal. Whatever.
Evangelical: So, like, where Romans 1 says that homosexuality is "unnatural" and "shameful," I think that's like, true.
Liberal: Whuuut? How could you possibly believe such a thing? Don't you know it's 2019?

This is essentially how much of Clay Cane's editorial that showed up on CNN's website this week reads. There is, I admit, a decent argument buried in his scatter-brained broadside somewhere. The hidden, good argument goes something like this: Mike Pence says he believes in sexual morality the way the Bible describes it, but while he opposes LGBTQ rights on the one hand, he's more than willing to work with a guy who is a known serial philanderer when it suits his political purposes. So Pence is a hypocrite.

That's not a bad argument, but Cane spends more than half the article running around trying to make a quite different point. What he wants is not to achieve some sort of political point of agreement with Pence and other evangelicals, but to demand they repent and change their beliefs. This is where Cane starts his editorial, unimaginatively comparing a Christian school where Karen Pence works to the dystopian world of The Handmaid's Tale. What is it about this school that makes him compare it to Margaret Atwood's world where women have lost all political agency? That the school requires its students to sign a document pledging to "live a life or moral purity." If there is a Christian going back to Peter and Paul who didn't believe in living a life or moral purity, I'd be very surprised to hear about it. If this school is to be condemned for advocating "moral purity," then Augustine, Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Saint John of the Cross, Sor Juana Ines, and millions of others in history should be condemned along with them. There is nothing unique or novel about this belief. It was also something Quakers who fought to get rid of slavery believed in.

Cane continues to attack the school's pledge document by pointing out that it defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and also defines homosexual acts as the type of immoral behavior that would disqualify someone from working at the school. Three paragraphs in, Cane is nowhere near starting his argument that Pence's easy cohabitation with Trump equates to hypocrisy. Instead, he is attacking what Pence and millions of other evangelicals believe about homosexuality. He claims their belief, as expressed in the pledge's language, is "disgusting and insults millions of taxpaying American citizens, many who have served their country. That it is acceptable to the wife of the man who is a heartbeat away from the presidency should horrify and alarm all Americans."

I don't know if the language from the school's pledge document is "disgusting." I know I believe it's wrong. I don't believe the Bible is the word of God. Absent that, it's hard for me to find a moral reason to object to sex between two consenting adults of the same sex. It would be like objecting to someone liking Thai food.

But let's accept that there are people who are obligated to believe homosexuality is wrong, because they believe the Bible is the word of God. You can't shame them into changing their beliefs by saying those beliefs are "un-American" or out of date. For evangelicals, the fact that their beliefs are no longer in fashion means nothing. Jesus is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" to them, so if their beliefs are now anachronistic according to the weather of the world, that troubles them not at all. You cannot shame an evangelical by calling his beliefs "homophobic," because an evangelical does not recognize the thing you are calling a sin as sin. It's like a Jehovah's Witness trying to shame me for accepting a blood transfusion. When it comes to what "sin" is, we're speaking two different languages. When Cane says Pence is morally wrong because he does not recognize LGBTQ people's identity, it will come across to Pence as circular reasoning: It is wrong to deny who LGBTQ people are because that's who they are. Pence's belief, though, is that this isn't who they are, and you'd have to undermine his entire belief in his Bible to convince him otherwise.

Cane and other liberals aren't going to be able to change the minds of evangelicals, at least not overnight. To convince an evangelical he's wrong about homosexuality, you'd almost have to convince him his whole faith is wrong. That's a long, multi-faceted conversation, and the most important parts of it probably will happen off the public stage. There are much more fundamental issues to deal with than whether homosexuality is right or wrong that have to be confronted before an evangelical is going to budge. I'm not saying it's impossible to change an evangelical's mind. I was an evangelical once, and now I'm not. I'm saying that when we're talking about politics and the effects of politics, we should limit our discussions with evangelicals to right political choices, not morally correct ones. 

In the 90s, when arguments in favor of same-sex marriages were first picking up some steam in the public arena, those arguing for the change used to emphasize that accepting same-sex marriages didn't mean evangelicals had to agree with those unions. They simply had to accept that whatever marriage means in a legal and secular sense could apply to same-sex couples. They could draw a division in their minds between what was legal and what was moral. They could accept that while sharing a life with someone of the same sex seemed wrong to them, it was a greater wrong to not give someone the legal means to pursue his own happiness in whatever way seemed right to him. This is similar to how sodomy laws against gays were overturned. The argument wasn't, "Gay sex is moral, too," but "Gay sex is not such a threat to the state that the state can make a compelling case to outlaw the actions of free adults in this case." This led some states to change their anti-sodomy laws. Those that didn't were finally forced to change when the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that such laws were unconstitutional. Gay rights moved forward by setting realistic political goals, not unreachable cultural ones.

It might be a minute before you can get some people to even make it to political equality. Let's start there before we go demanding they change their minds about the bigger stuff. 

But now, liberals seems unsatisfied with just arguing for political equality. Cane's editorial is a good example. It ignores its own best point for half the article, because it just can't miss a change to shame Pence for believing something Cane doesn't believe.

This is a bad argument, partly because it's just ineffective. People who believed homosexuality was wrong before the article still will, and those who think homosexual acts are as moral as heterosexual ones will still believe that. Nobody will be convinced by this kind of argument.

But it's more than just ineffectiveness. Liberals ought to be people who believe in sound reasoning. We ought to believe in it like evangelicals believe the Bible. Part of sound reasoning is knowing how much of an argument you actually have to win. If a cop is about to give you a speeding ticket, it's enough to say that the sign you just passed said 50, not 40. You don't have to convince the officer that writing speeding tickets is a bad use of police time and taxpayer dollars.

Cane seems to understand the difference between private and political beliefs. He admits that the Pences "have every right" to believe what they believe about God and sexuality, and that the school has a legal right to believe what it believes. But he no sooner allows for this than he frets over the meaning of these beliefs for a man in his position of power. "The school where Karen Pence will work — and indeed she has taught there in the past, for 12 years -- does have a legal right to its brand of hate. But it is deplorable for the wife of the vice president to work in this space. (One wonders, for example, how the sexuality of the kids there will be investigated?)" . 

This is absurd. It smacks of frustration. "We liberals won this war years ago. What right do the Pences have to go on believing something we've decided people shouldn't believe any more?" There have been private Christian schools teaching this idea for as long as there have been schools in America. But because they have refused to change when others did, this means that America should not elect someone who continues to teach those ideas?

This lacks any kind of pragmatism, which ought to be a liberal hallmark. We ought to be able to distinguish disagreeing with someone over private matters--even deep disagreement, like we have (and ought to have) over homosexuality--and the ability to find political common ground. If you argue that while Christians have a right to teach sexuality how they want in their schools, funding for it shouldn't come from the government, you'll find some evangelicals willing to accept that argument. But to accept Cane's views would mean that no evangelical could be president, even a president willing to separate private views on morality from public policy views of personal liberty. What evangelical will go along with that?

It's true that not every evangelical makes these distinctions. Some really do want their moral precepts enshrined in laws for everyone. But demanding that nobody who holds the views on homosexuality nearly every evangelical holds ever be able to hold public office is exactly what makes evangelicals feel threatened and want to elect more evangelicals.

Evangelicals think homosexuals are sinners. They also think everyone who doesn't believe in the fundamentals of their beliefs is headed for an eternity of torment and suffering in Hell. They believe this punishment will be handed out by a God they call just and loving, one whom they worship. I think the second belief is so much more troubling than the first, the first is almost not even worth thinking about. It's definitely something liberals have to stop acting shocked about and demanding evangelicals change before we can have some kind of political common ground with them. Giving evangelicals no space to cooperate politically gives them no place to go but exactly where they've gone. And where does that get any of us?