Are these debates useful?

Until this week’s presidential debates in both parties, I paid little attention to the actual back and forth of the events, because they’re so staged and prepped and artificial. They told us little more than the marketing highlights of each candidate, and even those were packaged carefully and already pretty well known by anyone following the news.

Speaking of which, the media involved in these things have been talking and talking about…talking. Nothing substantive seems to be said, either up on the stages or in the newsrooms afterward. It’s so early, they keep churning over the same arguments, and there are just so darned many of them running. And they’re not even all in the race yet, because prevailing thought is that Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich will enter the Republican race and rumors are floating that Al Gore may turn up in the Democratic one, and so the news analysts are deliberating over the higher stakes of all that.

What’s the use? Here’s the use….it gives us a baseline of information against which we later check the arguments for consistency as we go. It prepares the voters with all the issues and arguments they need to mull over, to determine who among the pack has character and leadership qualities. And it does push some major concerns to the central spotlight in the mainstream media for all these news shows to investigate better than they have before now. Like abortion. And religion.

This morning, several callers raised good questions during our discussion of these issues on Relevant Radio’s Morning Air, things a lot of people are wondering. Like how do you respond when someone throws out the “separation of church and state” as an argument closer? That’s a good one to engage, an opportunity to draw out the full meaning of the Establishment Clause (which I’ve posted on separately here). Ask the person, in the spirit of goodwill debate, what they understand that ‘separation’ to mean. Chances are, their premise is wrong. One of the CNN moderators raised that tired sounding argument in the presidential debate last night, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had a refreshingly good answer. He said “we should re-read the Constitution, that Congress shall make no law” (establishing one religion for the republic), but “we should be writing a lot fewer laws prohibiting the practice of religion”. The problem is, said Paul, “all these laws against religion” are getting written, and he’s right.

Paul also made a lot of sense when he was asked about the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of homosexuals in the military. Actually, Wolf Blitzer surprised me by his sometimes tendentious questioning. Like “Is it time to end this and let gays serve openly in the military?” Rep. Paul emphatically argued that we are all covered by the same rights and obligations, “woman or man, homosexual or heterosexual” and that individuals are judged on the merit of their conduct. The uniform code of conduct spells that out, and if anyone violates that, they face the consequences. “It’s about conduct and rights for everyone, and if we understood this, we wouldn’t be arguing about this question.”

Romney fully agreed with that assessment, and Giuliani chided that it’s a “disruptive issue” in a time of war. And all the while, I’m thinking about the origin of the problem and why nobody up there was challenging the ‘openly gay’ issue in the service. What these men were saying is true, as it is in all of our civil rights. For activists to push for “openly gay” men and women serving in the military is just unnecessarily aggressive on an otherwise personal aspect of a person’s life. I wonder why men or women who have same-sex attraction need to flaunt that “openly” while other folks keep their sexuality where it belongs, in their private life. At root here, I think, is this question: Why do gay activists need to be identified by their homosexuality? Why can’t they be people who use whatever gifts and talents they have, and be recognized for their individual achievements and the “content of their character”, to borrow the concept from Dr. Martin Luther King?

Wolf Blitzer provoked all the candidates on this, to the point of exasperation. He finished off with one final shot, asking if there was any one candidate up there on stage who favored gays openly serving in the military. When no one raised their hand, I stood there thinking ‘but that’s not the right question.’ As it stands now, the Defense Department does not ask, and if an elistee exercises the discretion called for in the first place about matters of sexuality and does not tell, gays are already serving. The question for the media and activists is…what’s wrong with the existing policy?

One of the CNN correpondents asked Mike Huckabee about his beliefs on evolution vs. creation, and Huckabee said: “I can’t believe that you’re even asking me this question in a presidential debate.” Good response.

This debate took place at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. Sen. Sam Brownback used the occasion of the creation/evolution question to invoke the legacy of St. Anselm and the noble pursuit of “faith seeking reason.” Brownback said: “We put faith and reason at odds with each other”. Too bad the time ran short on that one. It’s good for another debate.