Katha Pollitt: "Practice What You Preach"

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The Nation Subject to Debate by Katha Pollitt May 16 issue

Pharmacists think they have the right to deny women birth control and the morning-after pill. Senator Frist thinks God wants more ultraconservative judges on the federal bench and if you disagree, well, you know where you're going. Forget common ground, it's time to divide up the country. The red-state blue-state map is too crude--too many blue pegs in red holes and vice versa. In the great tradition of American individualism and modern in-depth polling procedures, let's make everyone respond, in writing, to a detailed questionnaire on hot-button "values issues" and then be legally compelled to live by the answers they give. It's a glorious blend of academic right and left--rational choice theory (people make decisions in their own best interests) meets postmodernism (there is no one truth).

Consider what happened in Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona, where engaged couples can opt for a more restrictive form of marriage. Despite its popularity among conservative pundits and preachers, covenant marriage--which allows only a select few grounds for divorce, like infidelity--has attracted less than 2 percent of marrying couples. That tells us something important about the way people want to live as opposed to the way they think other people should live, and what people choose when they have to live with the results. Let's apply that principle more broadly. For example:

1. Stem-cell research. According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 22 percent of the population thinks extracting stem cells from pre-embryos frozen in fertility clinics is unethical. These tender souls have prevailed upon the Bush Administration to restrict federal funds for stem-cell research. This has resulted in a bidding war among states eager to lure researchers, which nobody sees as the best way to do the science. Why not split the difference? Bring back federal funding, but those who oppose it can take the appropriate tax cut. The catch is, they agree to forgo any cures stem-cell research might yield: They'll have to live with their Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's or cancer, which, since they believe stem-cell research is wrong, is surely what they would want to do anyway.

2. Creationism. According to NBC, 44 percent of Americans believe that the biblical account of Creation--God, six days, species created individually in the forms that now exist--is literally true. According to Gallup, 45 percent believe the Earth is at most 10,000 years old. A CBS News poll found that 65 percent believe these versions of events should be taught in school alongside evolution, and that given the opportunity 37 percent would ditch Darwinism altogether. Under the new plan, creationists could continue their efforts to wreck science education and dumb down their kids--but first, they would pledge to abstain from any real-life benefits of evolutionary theory. Flu vaccines, for example, rely for their effectiveness on yearly reformulation to account for the evolution of the influenza virus. No evolution? Achoo for you!

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