c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Pamela Brubaker is a Christian feminist ethicist who teaches religious studies at California Lutheran University.)

UNDATED _ As Congress releases documents and videotaped testimony from Ken Starr’s investigation, the American people are being asked to make judgments about President Clinton’s conduct.

Political commentators speculate on how the”scandal”will affect voters’ behavior in the November elections. Randy Tate, executive director of the Christian Coalition, claims”morality, integrity and honesty”are the standards by which”pro-family activists”will make their judgments.

Let’s take a look at both the”pro-family”campaign itself and the religious right’s formula for making moral judgments.

Two important strategies in the religious right’s current”pro-family”campaign are to ban a certain type of late-term abortion and to”convert”homosexuals to heterosexuality.

After the Senate barely failed to override President Clinton’s veto of the ban on the late-term D&X abortions in mid-September, religious right groups uncharitably dismissed as myth testimony from and data about married women with wanted pregnancies whose lives or fertility were saved by this rare procedure, according to television news reports.

Empirical studies documenting the near impossibility of changing one’s sexual orientation are also dismissed by these groups as myth. Rather than challenging empirical data or offering a persuasive alternative interpretation,it is more convenient to simply dismiss it as myth.

This lack of sound argument turns up among religious conservatives in other ways, too. One is the attempt to support their positions with biblical proof-texts _ passages of scripture taken out of context. This is what the Southern Baptist Convention did this summer when the majority amended the group’s faith statement to state that wives must”graciously submit”to their husbands.

But many passages of scripture make clear that love and justice are at the heart of Christian ethics. Where is the love _ or justice, for egalitarian families, or families who have faced tragic pregnancies, or families with a loved gay or lesbian sibling or other family member?

Some religious right spokespersons like to point to what they see as the hypocrisy of feminists who have defended Clinton in the past. However, these conservatives lack awareness of contradictions in their own position. For example, they insist that the family consists of a man and woman _ in a lifelong, exclusive marriage _ and their offspring. At the same time they idolize leaders like Ronald Reagan, a divorced, remarried man whose relations with his children are quite strained. One does not need to approve divorce and remarriage oneself to see the irony here.

Another contradiction is the religious right’s obsession with sexuality. Although scripture speaks of sexual matters, these are not its primary concerns. Love and justice are; and, in the prophetic traditions which Jesus continues, social justice for the poor and oppressed.

However, religious right groups seldom speak on economic matters. When they do, many seem to have uncritically accepted the free market, laissez faire capitalist beliefs of their secular conservative allies. For instance, the Christian Coalition supports abolishing progressive taxation policies and replacing them with a flat tax or national sales tax, both of which would harm poor and low-income people.

The religious right’s concern for corporate accountability also is limited to sexual concerns. For instance, some boycott Disney for extending employee benefits to non-married partners or for the sexual content of its movies, but never mention its use of sweatshops to produce Disney products. Isn’t corporate treatment of workers a family issue, too? It should be, as it certainly affects the health and well-being of families.

If we are to make judgments as to personal, social, or corporate morality, what should our standards be? From a biblical perspective, we are cautioned against a rush to judgment _ whether in the Sermon on the Mount or Jesus telling the crowd ready to stone the woman caught in adultery that the one without sin could cast the first stone.

Yet if we are to do justice, as well as to love, we do need to make judgments. If we look to scripture for guidance, we find a parable about the”Last Judgment.”The standards there are striking: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison. Nothing about sexuality.

Am I suggesting sexuality is not important as a moral issue?

No, of course not; even consensual sexual conduct can harm families and communities. Rather, I am insisting that concern for social justice must be central for those of us who claim scripture as foundational to our faith and life. I am advocating acceptance of a variety of families grounded in love and action that enhances the well-being of all families, particularly the most vulnerable. These judgments matter.

DEA END BRUBAKER