God and the Ballot Box

By Kenneth M. Pierce

Each candidate makes his case on church and state

"What I am doing here today is something that, in 25 years of public life, I never thought I would do: I have never before had to defend my faith in a political campaign."

-Walter Mondale

"The ideals of our country leave no room whatsoever for intolerance, anti-Semitism or bigotry of any kind -none."

-Ronald Reagan

Just three hours apart last Thursday morning at the cavernous Sheraton Washington Hotel, site of the international convention of the Jewish service organization B'nai B'rith, first Walter Mondale and then Ronald Reagan trooped to the podium to speak on the hottest issue to develop so far in the political campaign -not war or taxes or the deficit, but rather the proper relationship between politics and religion.

It was a debate of an emotional intensity that neither side had anticipated, and it worried both candidates, since neither could predict its ultimate political impact. Having boiled up during and immediately after the Republican Convention, particularly in remarks in which Reagan asserted that religion and politics are "necessarily related" and characterized opponents of his school-prayer amendment as "intolerant of religion," the issue did not subside last week. Indeed, it intensified and widened, involving politicians and pundits across the nation, including a full range of religious spokesmen. But most of all, it provided a theme that for once found Reagan backpedaling to preserve his credibility with mainstream Americans, while Mondale was able to take the offensive with a thoughtful and hard-hitting attack.

"No President," Mondale told the B'nai B'rith delegates, "should attempt to transform policy debates into theological disputes. He must not let it be thought that political dissent from him is unChristian. And he must not cast opposition to his programs as opposition to America." He took issue with a letter addressed to Christian leaders by Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt, a close friend of the President's and chairman of his re-election campaign. The letter, Mondale said, "had defined Mr. Reagan's supporters as 'leaders under God's authority.'" There was laughter and applause as Mondale wryly noted: "Most Americans would be surprised to learn that God is a Republican."

Mondale portrayed the Laxalt letter as part of a pattern of "moral McCarthyism," instigated by "an extreme fringe poised to capture the Republican Party and tear it from its roots in Lincoln" -with Reagan's encouragement. "Listen to Jerry Falwell," he urged his audience, "whose benediction at the Republican Convention called Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush 'God's instruments for rebuilding America.' Or read the so-called Christian Voice report card, which flunks Geraldine Ferraro on 'moral/family issues' because she supports the nuclear freeze. Or scan something called the Presidential Biblical Scoreboard, which as much as brands me antifamily and un-Christian." And he cited one other example: "It is troubling that the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who insists that Catholicism is a 'false religion,' and that Jews are damned to go to hell, is a welcome policy adviser at the White House."

Reminding his audience that he was a minister's son and that his father-in-law is also a minister, Mondale said: "I have never thought it proper for political leaders to use religion to partisan advantage by advertising their own faith and questioning their opponent's. But the issue must be joined. Religion, Mr. Reagan told a prayer breakfast in Dallas, needs defenders against those who care only for the interests of the state. His clear implication was that he welcomed such a role for himself. The Queen of England, where state religion is established, is called the Defender of the Faith. But the President of the United States is the defender of the Constitution, which defends all faiths."

Mondale appeared tired and read his 25-min. speech in a lackluster singsong. ("The speech was typed better than it was read," groaned one of his supporters.) Nevertheless, the force and eloquence of the language prompted his obviously sympathetic audience to interrupt him with 24 ovations. The speech struck hard and often at Reagan's remark about intolerance. "B'nai B'rith is opposed to Mr. Reagan's [school-prayer] amendment; I would not call you intolerant of religion," said Mondale. "Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and other church groups also oppose his amendment. And they are also not intolerant of religion ... Instead of construing dissent from him in good faith, Mr. Reagan has insulted the motives of those who disagree with him -including me."

Mondale had decided to confront Reagan's blend of politics and religion after becoming angered by the Laxalt letter and the partisan appeal to religious value that he saw as he watched the Republican Convention on television from his home in North Oaks, Minn. He asked about two dozen scholars and theologians to contribute ideas for a speech on the subject, and he conferred by telephone with New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Roman Catholic who has done much soul searching on church-state issues. In daily sessions with Chief Speechwriter Martin Kaplan, Mondale reviewed ten drafts before he was satisfied with the speech as a definitive statement of his position and a sufficiently strong challenge to Reagan. As one senior aide put it, "He decided to lay down his marker."

It was a marker that Reagan loftily ignored when he moved to the same B'nai B'rith podium. Seeking to appear above the battle, the President devoted half of his address to his record, emphasizing improvements in the economy, support for Israel and heightened respect for the U.S. among other nations. He spoke of a "new spiritual awareness" in the U.S., saying, "As we welcome this rebirth of faith, we must even more fervently attack ugly intolerance. We have no place for haters in America." He added: "As Americans of different religions find new meaningfulness in their beliefs, we do so together -returning together to the bedrock values of family, hard work and faith in the same loving and almighty God."

Then, turning briefly to the question of church and state, Reagan voiced sentiments that would please any civil libertarian: "The unique thing about America is a wall in our Constitution separating church and state. It guarantees there will never be a state religion in this land, but at the same time it makes sure that every single American is free to choose and practice his or her religious beliefs or to choose no religion at all. Their rights shall not be questioned or violated by the state." There was no reference to the school-prayer amendment, nor did Reagan once mention Walter Mondale.

It was quite a contrast to the speech that ignited the debate, which Reagan had given at a prayer breakfast for 17,000 evangelical ministers in Dallas on the day after the Republican Convention. There Reagan had seemed to challenge the motivesand even the religious faith -of opponents of his school-prayer amendment. As he put it, "Those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and open-minded-ness. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives."

That speech was in keeping with Reagan's longstanding courtship of the well-organized Christian Fundamentalists and Moral Majority types. On every major issue, including school prayer and abortion, Reagan has sided with these groups and shown a willingness to use Government authority to impose sectarian views on the population at large.

Coming as it did on the heels of Laxalt's letter and the appearance at the Republican Convention of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, the prayer-breakfast speech stirred an outburst of anti-Reagan sentiment from editorial writers and columnists, including both conservatives and liberals. Anxious to undo the damage last week, Reagan at first sought an oft-used political refuge, claiming that his talk in Dallas had been poorly reported. When journalists asked him about the fuss over his religious remarks, he offered an aw-shucks reponse: "Well, I was only talking about it because I was speaking at a prayer breakfast, and then what I said was greatly distorted ..." But he declined to argue the case in detail. When asked how the distortion had occurred, he replied: "I guess it just lost something in translation."

The President next attempted to soft-pedal the issue in a speech on Tuesday to the national convention of the American Legion in Salt Lake City. There he voiced a more traditional defense of the separation of religion from Government mandated by the Constitution, acknowledging that the nation's founding fathers had erected "a wall in the Constitution separating church and state." Curiously, though, the President repeated his earlier argument that some unidentified people were hiding antireligious sentiments behind that constitutional wall. Said he: "I can't think of anyone who favors the Government establishing a religion in this country. I know I don't. But what some would do is to twist the concept of freedom of religion to mean 'freedom against religion.'" That muddied the waters again, since it was by no means clear just how freedom causes religious problems that Government should redress: the usual reading of the First Amendment is that Government and the President are supposed to be officially neutral about religion, neither aiding nor hindering it.

While Reagan grappled with such theoretical concepts, it was left to Vice President George Bush to launch a partisan counterattack to Mondale's criticism of the President. Said he: "I would say to Mr. Mondale, 'When you were serving with Jimmy Carter, a Fundamentalist Baptist, a man of deep convictions, I never heard this criticism. I don't recall, Mr. Mondale, your criticizing the National Council of Churches when they involved themselves, usually on the liberal side of most of these concerns.' This is a born-again concern of Mr. Mondale's. I don't think it's fair."

Throughout the week, the debate reverberated widely. In New York City an interfaith group of national religious leaders called a news conference to decry the "serious erosion" they detected in the principle of church-state separation. Disturbed for months by the school-prayer discussion and then alarmed by Reagan's Dallas speech, members of the group nevertheless phrased their joint statement in nonpartisan terms: "The state should not behave as if it were a church or synagogue. It should not do for citizens what, in their rightful free exercise of religion, they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves. For Government to intrude itself into religious practices, or to seek to impose certain beliefs or values on citizens who do not share them, is a clear and present danger to Americans of all faiths. The state should be neutral, not partisan, in matters religious." The interfaith group urged politicians above all "to oppose any and all efforts, whether direct or subtle, to tamper with the First Amendment."

As if to underscore just how complex the religious crosscurrents in the campaign are, Boston Archbishop Bernard F. Law stepped into the fray last week, saying abortion is "the critical issue of the moment." He announced that 17 New England bishops had joined with him to proclaim "irresponsible" the view (taken by Democrats Ferraro and Cuomo, among others) that officeholders should not impose on others their personal opposition to abortion. Said the statement: "To evade this issue of abortion under the pretext that it is a matter pertaining exclusively to private morality is obviously illogical." New York Archbishop John J. O'Connor had voiced similar views last month, but softened them somewhat after being challenged by Governor Cuomo. This week Cuomo is scheduled to give a long-planned address on abortion and other church-state issues at Notre Dame.

After listening to both candidates, B'nai B'rith delegates voted unanimously to oppose all forms of organized prayer in high schools, and called on Government to be "neutral" in religious matters. In an obvious swipe at Laxalt's letter, the resolution also voiced "opposition to attempts to claim 'God's authority' in campaigns for political office." Many of the delegates contended that Reagan had stirred new fears at least among Jews, who, as members of a religious minority, are extremely sensitive to the possibility of Government interference in religion.

Fearful lest they further inflame divisive sectarian passions, aides to Mondale and Reagan said last week that the candidates were hoping to turn their campaigns back from the brink of religious division. But, as both men pointed out, Americans just now seem to be searching with deep urgency for stable values and deeper meanings to their lives. That stirring could prove emotional enough to keep matters of faith at the forefront of the 1984 campaign.

With reporting by Kenneth W. Banta, Hays Corey