by Iowa's Ted Remington



We try
to keep a level head about Mark Hyman at “The Counterpoint.” Believe it
or not, we try to give him the benefit of every doubt. Sure, we
disagree with his politics, we find his arguments poorly constructed,
and we resent the fact that he forces himself on millions of news
viewers without allowing any significant countering voice.



But we try not to believe the worst about him. We try to see this as a
project of responding to a fellow citizen who has very mistaken views
about the world, but who isn’t a bad human being.



This continues to become more difficult as time goes on.



The latest case is an astonishing commentary on the role of religion in
the previous election. Hyman draws a line between those on the “Angry
Left” who he claims deride religious belief and the red-staters who
think it’s an important part of life. But as factually inaccurate as it
is to claim that Republicans are religious and Democrats are not, this
distinction is not nearly as ugly as the second boundary Hyman draws
that parallels this one along ethnic lines.



While spouting off statistics about the link between religious belief
and voting patterns, Hyman makes a point of announcing not only that
the majority of evangelical Christians and white protestants more
generally voted for Bush, but that overwhelming majorities of Jews and
African Americans voted for Kerry (in fact, Hyman lumps Jews and
non-believers into the same demographic category — apparently for him,
this is a distinction without a difference). Just to underscore this,
Hyman quotes three newspaper columnists who he believes have expressed
intolerance toward Christians since the election. Of the three, two
(Ellen Goodman and Thomas Friedman) are Jewish. The other, E.J. Dionne,
is Catholic. Coincidence?



So, we have a commentary in which Hyman bemoans religious intolerance
and division, yet in which he himself draws clear distinctions between
the believing Red states and the “elitists in the nation’s coastal
pockets of blue states” (note to Mark: what about us Midwestern
elitists?), between conservatives and liberals, and between white
Protestants and Jews, African Americans, and nonbelievers. Hyman will
likely say that he was simply reporting the facts on voter demographics
and didn’t mean anything by it. But given the obvious good/bad
dichotomy Hyman sets up in this piece, the association of certain
religious and ethnic groups with “goodness” and “badness” is
inescapable and certainly intentional.



We’ve seen in the past that Hyman dabbles in racism and religious
bigotry, and we’ve called him on it. But we’ve tried to avoid invoking
dialog-crushing invective likening Hyman’s stance with Nazism or
lynch-mobs. This kind of hyperbole is unfair and diminishes the true
evil of people like a Joseph Goebbels or KKK members by domesticating
it and using it for rhetorical point-scoring. But we can avoid using
this language and still call Hyman’s rhetoric for what it is: bigotry.



Beyond the ugliness of Hyman’s words, he’s simply wrong. Most of the
liberals we know are not only believers, but have political beliefs
that are rooted in their spiritual convictions. What the columnists
Hyman cites are criticizing is not the religiosity of voters; it’s the
equation of religious belief with an extreme and narrow set of
positions on a handful of issues



Hyman and his ilk should keep this in mind: of the sentences in the New
Testament, fully 10% are saying something about helping the less
fortunate. Jesus never said anything about gay marriage. He did say we
should help the poor. Jesus never advocated tax cuts for the wealthy at
the expense of the middle class. He did say it was harder for a camel
to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into Heaven.
Jesus didn’t talk about prayer in schools or posting the Ten
Commandments in public spaces. He did say we shouldn’t parade our faith
in front of others but practice it privately. Jesus didn’t say
homosexuality was a sin, that illegal immigrants should be punished, or
that the death penalty was a good idea. He did say “judge not lest ye
be judged.”



We believe, based on what the Bible tells us, that Christ would
probably think universal healthcare was a good idea. He’d probably want
us to spend more money on schools, particularly in poverty-stricken
areas. He’d probably want us to help drug addicts, not throw them in
jail. He’d likely be against starting a war against a country that
wasn’t at war with us. He’d favor a progressive tax code that ensured
that the wealthiest contributed to the well being of the least
fortunate. He’d be for protecting the environment. He’d want to take
care of the homeless. He’d be for taking better care of veterans. He
would be for taking care of the mentally ill, the physically
handicapped, and the developmentally disabled. He’d likely be more
concerned for the welfare of the unwed teen mother than for the
stockholders of Halliburton. And he’d have no time for divisive bigots.
Jesus really would be a uniter, not a divider.



We think Jesus would have voted for Kerry.



And that’s The Counterpoint.