In Defense of Bernest Cain

[Bledsoe]

Because many of us on the left value the opinions of Michael Bates on so many issues, I wanted to let him and the Tulsa community know when we strongly disagreed with him.  One occassion was regarding comments about State Senator Bernest Cain.  I asked Gary Allison to draft the comments below.  It is a sentiment in which I fully concur.

Greg Bledsoe


Recently (April 14), Michael Bates attacked Senator Bernest Cain (Dem. OKC) on Radio (1170 KFAQ) and his blog site (http://www.batesline.com/archives/002512.html).  His attack falsely accused Senator Cain of hating Christians by offering two irrelevant pieces of evidence.  First, he decried Senator Cain's success in keeping Oklahoma's State Senate from voting on laws that would unconstitutionally interfere with women's Constitutional Rights to determine whether to give birth.  Second, he denounced a statement of Senator Cain's that referred to Adolf Hitler being able to get Christians to participate the Jewish Holocaust and expressed Senator Cain's concerns that atrocities are often committed when "you let the right wing of the Taliban come in and try to dictate to the State how we should run our business."  Neither Senator Cain's opposition to unconstitutional restrictions on the right of women to determine whether to be pregnant, nor his historically accurate observations about how some Christians participated in the Holocaust and the dangers of church/state unification reflect hatred toward Christians.


       Almost from our nation's founding, Americans have intensely debated whether women have the rights to determine whether to be pregnant or to give birth once becoming pregnant.  This debate intensified after the United States Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that women have a conditional right to end their pregnancies before giving birth.  As a result, a variety of views have been put forward, including the polar extremes--that all women are entitled to unrestricted access to birth control or that women should never be allowed to have birth control; that women may terminate their pregnancies at any time for any reason or that women may never terminate their pregnancies for any reason--and many variations in between them.  Each of these views has had many Christian supporters and many Christian opponents.  (By Christian, I mean a person who is a sincere adherent of a Christian denomination, regularly attends worship services and supports his/her Church's activities).  Given this diversity of Christian views about birth control and abortion, support for or against any position on these issues cannot possibly be deemed pro-Christian or anti-Christian.  Senator Cain's effective campaign to keep Oklahoma from enacting unconstitutional restrictions on access to birth control and on women's rights to determine whether to give birth shows him to be pro-Choice.  It is not evidence of Christian-hating.

       It is unfortunately true that Christians have participated in many atrocities, including the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust of World War II, and the religious civil war in Northern Ireland.  Statements that remind us of these atrocities reflect a hatred of these sins, not a condemnation of an entire religion.

       Moreover, most such statements are not simply about Christian wrong-doing but rather are a part of a broader warning about the dangers of not maintaining a healthy separation of church and state.  The Cain statement Bates decries is such a statement, because it closes with a reference not to Christians but to the Taliban as a generalized statement of concern over attempts by some religious people to break down the United States' traditional church / state separation.  

As such, it is in the tradition of James Madison's great "Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/misc/remonstrance.htm), which contained the following condemnation of religious establishments:  

"Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries, has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."  

A Framer of our First Amendment's Religious Freedom Clauses, Madison was certainly not a Christian-hater and neither is Bernest Cain.

       In fact, those of us who have followed and revered Senator Cain's public service know that his every act as a State Senator has been guided by Jesus' call for us to help one another and especially to help those in need.  Accordingly, Senator Cain has called on all of us to support policies consistent with Jesus' blessings on those who help the helpless, as stated in Mark 25, verses 34-40:  

"Come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.  I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.'  "Then these righteous ones will reply, `Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink?  Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing?  When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?'  And the King will tell them, `I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!'