Kerry's gay ploy backfires

The third Bush-Kerry debate may not change the outcome of the presidential election in November. But it may well be remembered as a milestone in the struggle for gay equality and acceptance. Give the credit for that to John Kerry.

Toward the end of the debate, moderator Bob Schieffer asked both candidates if they believed homosexuality was a choice. President Bush said he didn't know. Kerry said that it is inborn, and cited an authority on the subject. "I think if you talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she'll say she is being who she was, she's being who she was born as," he said.

Why Cheney's daughter? Kerry knows lots of famous people who believe - as he says Mary Cheney believes - that they were born gay. He could have cited Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank or New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey. Both are public men who could offer personal testimony about the inborn nature of homosexuality.

But that wasn't the point Kerry wanted to make. He was crying Mary to send a message to presumably homophobic Christian voters: Just in case you hadn't heard, the vice president harbors a practicing lesbian in the bosom of his family.

Despite Kerry's angel-faced sanctimony, this was a piece of premeditated gay-baiting (John Edwards used the same gambit in his debate with Cheney) whose transparent purpose was to keep some of the GOP's evangelical voters from turning out on Nov. 2. This was a miscalculation.

Since the debate, the Christian right has been rallying to the side of Mary Cheney. Well-known political preachers like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson have gone out of their way to defend her right to privacy. Conservative radio talk shows and Web sites have been flooded with denunciations of Kerry and support for Mary.

This reaction doesn't mean that the evangelical community has changed its doctrine, or its mind, on the sinful nature of homosexuality. It does reveal, however, that most born-again Protestants are not nearly as extreme - or as politically one-dimensional - as Kerry evidently imagined them to be.

Why this should come as a surprise to the Democratic candidate is a mystery. Kerry knows from his own experience that many practicing Catholics habitually vote for pro-choice candidates, even if they have been specifically warned by their priests that doing so would be a sin. In Massachusetts and around the country, Catholic liberals vote as liberals, not as Catholics.

The same is true of Jews. Israel is at war, and Bush is the strongest ally it has ever had in the White House. Ariel Sharon has done everything to communicate this short of singing "God Bless America" at the Republican convention. And still the majority of American Jewish Zionists will vote for Kerry. Why? Because they are liberal Democrats first, and politics trumps religion.

The same is true for evangelical conservatives. Would they prefer for Mary Cheney to be a happily married mother of five? Sure. Do they think she is a sinner? Probably. Will that keep them from voting for Bush and her father? Heck, no.

Politically, Kerry won't benefit from playing the Mary card. But that doesn't mean he hasn't accomplished something of value. Many conservative Christians are for the first time publicly embracing an avowed homosexual. This puts them in touch with their real priorities and values - including that cardinal Kerry virtue, nuance.

Mary Cheney may be gay, but it turns out there are worse things. At least she isn't a Democrat.

Does politics trump religion? That's a tough question. In this case, I'd say no. Bush and Cheney aren't gay themselves, and there's little Cheney can do about his adult daughter's sexual choices. Arguably he comes across as more of a Christian by not rejecting her, than he would if he shut her out of his life.

But if a candidate is gay or divorced or has had an abortion, or is doing drugs, or is having extramarital sex, but agrees with you on the issues, do you vote for that candidate? It's a slippery slope, isn't it? Those who oppose divorce in principle will vote for candidates who have been divorced, but a candidate who's currently indulging in activity that one finds reprehensible won't win one's vote.

I don't think one can say that politics trumps religion or vice versa. One can tolerate or overlook or forgive people's conduct up to a certain point but not beyond it. Ask Jack Ryan in Illinois about this.

As concerns Jews and Israel, are Zionism and Sharon really a matter of religion or of another sort of politics? And perhaps there's a feeling that both candidates make the same basic committment to Israel. With many Catholics politics and self-interest do seem to come out on top. It may be because Catholicism isn't so much a religion as an ethnic identity or affiliation with such people.

Protestants pick and choose which denomination they wish to belong to and their religious committment is reflected in their political choices. With Catholics (and Jews and Muslims) the situation may be different. What they are in religion is less a matter of individual decisions and more something they can't avoid or escape (it's the same way with Protestants in Catholic countries and with minorities elsewhere). Also, Protestantism has historically been more individualistic. With other religions there may be more of a social or group concern that leads to different choices in politics.

Does religion always offer one single and unambiguous answer to political questions? Or do religions contain ideas, injunctions, and prohibitions that can give different or conflicting answers? Or if religion does give one clear answer to each question, can those answers be easily translated into politics? In Christianity at least, it may be hard to reconcile the various prohibitions and injunctions, strong moral laws being combined with a call to move above the demands of law in the name of faith and charity.

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