Faith, holy writ and social justice - Sherrod Brown

Friday, November 26, 2004
Sherrod Brown

This month, Ohio Democrats took our moral values to the polls. For many of us, our faith guided us, too, and our final vote for president was far too close to declare us - or assail us, as some now do - as a state full of evangelical fundamentalists.

For many of us, moral values are grounded in our religious faith. My Lutheran upbringing instructs me, and my fellow Christians, in the teachings of Jesus to read and to follow as best we can the words of the Beatitudes, to try to live our lives and practice our politics as Jesus would have wanted us to.

For others of us, those moral values take the form of a faith in our country's greatness to solve our most pressing problems of racial inequality, inaccessible health care, the poverty of millions of American children, and the war in Iraq.

For three years, I have worn a lapel pin depicting a canary in a cage. A century ago, miners took a canary into the mines to warn them of toxic gases. Miners were forced to provide for their own protection. No mine safety laws. No trade unions able to help. No real support from their government.

A baby born in 1900 had a life expectancy of 47 years. Today -- because of public health initiatives, worker safety laws, Medicare and Social Security, protections for children and minorities and the disabled - we live decades longer. Every bit of progress in the struggle for economic and social justice - often rooted in the Judeo-Christian beliefs - prevailed over the opposition of society's most privileged and most powerful.

Today, those struggles continue. Our fight for seniors who are forced to choose between medicine and food and our fight against the large pharmaceutical companies' greed is motivated by our understanding of the Holy Word.

Our opposition to tax cuts for America's most privileged adults and Head Start cuts afflicting our least privileged children follow from the teachings of Christ.

Our opposition to the death penalty - George W. Bush approved an execution every two weeks while governor of Texas - is grounded in the Scriptures.

And our belief that government programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid - not privatized imitations of them - should serve all Americans bespeaks a faith in the greatness of our country and its ability and willingness to lift up all God's children.

As we have seen over the last four years, Republicans campaign to their religious friends on their moral values (mostly opposition to abortion and gay marriage), and then govern for and with their corporate allies and contributors.

On the floor of the House of Representatives, in the light of day, we hear much talk about moral values. But in the committee rooms and the cloakrooms, choices are made that run counter to the teachings of Christ and Mohammed and the Jewish prophets, and fly in the face of the values upon which our nation was founded.

This Congress hurts families by underfunding No Child Left Behind and college student loans while giving tax cuts to the wealthiest among us. This Congress hurts the elderly by defeating legislation to bring down the price of prescription drugs and then passing a Medicare bill that further enriches the drug and insurance industries. This Congress hurts God's earth when it caves to the energy and chemical companies. This Congress hurts our communities when it gives tax breaks to encourage the largest corporations to outsource our jobs. And this Congress hurts our grandchildren when it loads huge burdens of debt on future generations.

Tens of thousands of Ohioans worked feverishly for months to elect John Kerry because of their moral values, and their faith in God, and their belief in our nation's history of "Taking care of the least among us."

In no way do I question the faith of my political opponents. But I am weary of the claim by members of the far right that they are the only ones guided by the hand of God. My understanding of the teachings of Christ, and my religious upbringing, call me to walk a different path and to express and act upon my faith in the cause of social and economic justice.

U.S. Rep. Brown, an Ohio Democrat, is the ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee. He is the author of "Myths of Free Trade."