Holier-than-thou olympics

The right-wing extremist zealot and the mealy-mouthed moderate got into it over Jesus last week.

It all sprang from that nutty ruling of five males on the U.S. Supreme Court.


The justices declared that Hobby Lobby has corporate freedom of religion. They said Hobby Lobby may deny personal freedom of religion to its female employees.

They said Hobby Lobby may do that by denying otherwise legally mandated health-insurance coverage for certain contraceptive and reproductive health devices.

The right-wing extremist zealot seeking the U.S. Senate from our state, Republican Tom Cotton, gave a full-throated and celebratory endorsement of the ruling.

The mealy-mouthed moderate, Democrat Mark Pryor, issued a statement comically rich for its irrelevance.

Pryor proclaimed that he respected people's religious views. But he said he didn't want to go back to not covering pre-existing conditions and not having the private-option form of Medicaid expansion extending health insurance to 200,000 or so Arkansas citizens.

Pre-existing conditions and the private option were not at issue in the Supreme Court ruling.

A few hours later Cotton gave a television interview. He got asked about Pryor's statement.

Cotton said that Pryor believes faith is to be practiced at 11 a.m. Sunday, meaning during church services. But Cotton said faith actually is something to be observed every day of the week.

So the mealy-mouthed moderate got outraged. Or so he said.

Pryor said his faith was the biggest part of him; indeed, he aired a commercial around Christmas in which he presumed to appropriate the Bible for his campaign.

He called Cotton's comment a "deeply personal" attack.

Then Pryor's campaign added, in a bit of comedic lagniappe, that Mike Huckabee--a weekend talk-show host on Fox News--had vouched for Pryor's Christian authenticity.

So then Cotton said that Pryor did indeed seem to be a religious man.

But he said that, as such, Pryor shouldn't support Obamacare. That's because, Cotton said, the Supreme Court now has ruled that Obamacare advances abortion--meaning through this coverage for a few contraceptive devices that some people consider abortion.

So then the National Review, a right-wing publication that seeks to advance the extremist Cotton, reported that Cotton had not actually attacked Pryor's religion. It said Cotton had merely restated a position of Catholic bishops in seeking to have the contraceptive coverage waived.

That bishops' position is that religious objectors cannot be expected to put aside their beliefs after Sunday and then pay on Monday for what they deem a sin.

So then this very newspaper did an article counting the Bibles in these candidates' offices and asking preachers about the candidates' Sunday attendance records.

Understanding news judgment as I do, I figure the editors decided that it was fair to ask about those matters because the candidates themselves had brought up the genuineness of faith.

So there you have it, except for my advice on what to make of it.

Nothing.

It's all status quo.

Cotton is an uncompromising zealot who will take an uncompromisingly zealous position every time, as here. He also is an unpleasant young man who can't hide his angry disdain when he confronts the mealy-mouthed finesse to which his opponent is prone.

It is true that Cotton was regurgitating a previously stated position of Catholic bishops.

Typically, though, he went too far in his zeal. He applied the principle personally in an ill-advised swipe at the genuineness of the professed Christianity of his opponent.

Pryor, I suspect, was less outraged than delighted to be able to deflect and distract. It was much better for him to make the conversation about a personal attack on his religion rather than a narrow and substantive discussion of certain contraceptive devices.

Pryor went off the tracks claiming an endorsement of his Christianity from Huckabee.

I will not make the same mistake as Cotton and presume to judge and attack Huckabee's genuine religion. I simply will say this much: No mortal person, not Huckabee or Cotton or anyone, can vouch for the genuine religion of another.

The choice in this race remains between a right-wing extremist zealot and a mealy-mouthed moderate.

This religious interlude has been merely illustrative of that, and nothing more.

Let's move on to the next collision of extremist zeal and mealy-mouthed finesse.

Maybe Cotton could accuse Pryor of not saying the pledge of allegiance as loudly as he ought.

Maybe Pryor could have some Fox News talk-show host vouch for the decibels in his heart.

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John Brummett's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 07/08/2014

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