McDonnell's reaction to Robertson's hate

JUST LAW AND RELIGION

Michael Kessler

A friend's Facebook link took me to a CNN article that I thought would infuriate me. The headline was "McDonnell won't disavow Robertson's Islam remarks." What CNN failed to articulate was, to my surprise, that Virginia Governor-elect McDonnell sounded more Madisonian than Robertsonian.

You'll recall that in response to Nidal Hasan's shooting rampage at Ft. Hood, Pat Robertson sounded off in his typically ignorant and vicious way by recategorizing all Muslims as violent political actors, not faithful, religious seekers of God's mercy. He asserted:

"Islam is a violent--I was going to say religion--but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of governments of the world and world domination...They talk about infidels and all this. But the truth is, that's what the game is. You're dealing with not a religion. You're dealing with a political system. And I think you should treat it as such and treat it's adherents as such. As we would members of the Communist party and members of some Fascist group."

So at a press conference this week a savvy reporter, knowing McDonnell would be hard-pressed to disavow Robertson, put him on the spot, asking: "people in Virginia are buzzing about Pat Robertson's comments about Islam after the Fort Hood shooting. He called it...I believe 'not a religion but a violent political system bent on world domination.' He's given money to your campaign, [you've] been asked about him a lot this year, you attended his law school; you've appeared with him. Are those comments appropriate?"

Now, truth be told, I would have cheered had McDonnell said something like: "Look, I appreciate everything Pat has done for me, but these comments are wrong. I do not share them. I repudiate them."

Instead, McDonnell initially deflected the question: "You know, I've got probably 15,000 donors to the campaign. And I can't, I can't, stand to defend or support every comment that any donor might make."

Well that certainly seemed like a punt (or a refusal to acknowledge the controversy at all). What a weak, sleazy politician, you might say, who can't or won't stand up to a powerful donor when that donor has gone off the deep end.

And thus CNN's Political Producer Peter Hamby wrote that "McDonnell on Wednesday would not disavow Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson's recent claim that Islam is not a religion, but "a violent political system."

As much as I feared that McDonnell would turn out to be a right-wing theocrat, at least in this instance, he went on to give a strong statement of inclusivity that directly refuted the claim that Robertson had made. At least in the realm of theological pluralism, McDonnell appears to have flunked out of Robertson's Regent University:

"What I said is that, uh, I believe and I've reached out to the Muslim community during the campaign, went to several mosques, engaged members particularly of the Pakistani community who supported me during the campaign. Uh, I've told people before and after the campaign that I intend to have people of all faiths and all political persuasions to, uh, be part of helping me to rebuild the economy in Virginia. And that includes people of the Muslim faith who were very instrumental in helping me, particularly in northern Virginia. So, look, I think people are entitled under the First Amendment to express whatever opinions they may have. But I can only say that as governor of Virginia, I intend to have an inclusive administration where we bring people across the political and religious spectrum into the administration to help us govern."

Notice McDonnell's subtle but extraordinary refusal to engage Muslims in the way that Robertson did. While Robertson asserted that Muslims are wholly political actors, and not authentically religious ("it's not a religion" and therefore not a faith), McDonnell chose to say "people of the Muslim faith." This is precisely the manner in which he would have said "people of the Christian faith." (One example: see this conversation with reporters in which he was distancing himself from some of his earlier views in his Master's thesis and said: "...this was a 20-year-old paper that informed a lot by the readings that I had done at the time. I do believe -- again, based on my Catholic teaching, that the institution of the family goes back to the dawn of time. I think most people within the Christian faith, that's sort of an accepted understanding from the Garden of Eden"). This change of phrase is too muted, perhaps, but nonetheless using "people of the Muslim faith" clearly signals that McDonnell does not publicly view Muslims in the way Robertson does.

Wanting to press McDonnell, the reporter pushed: "But you don't believe that it's a violent political system...Islam?"

Here, McDonnell refuted Robertson more directly: "No, I think there are--no. I think that there are people in various religions that do some violent things and they ought to be judged according to their acts. Uh, but...I have believed that there are people of all the great religions that can be enormously helpful and are...[sic] multicultural Virginia to help them to benefit us in the state and I intend to bring them in and have them help us just like they did during the campaign."

It's a bit hard to fathom how some can contend that this doesn't refute Robertson: a reporter asks if McDonnell agrees with the proposition espoused by Robertson and McDonnell says that he does not, and then he goes further and makes the crucial distinction between a minority of violent adherents and the majority of the religions' adherents who are people of good will and acts. (This is, after all, precisely the kind of claim President Obama made in his Cairo speech: "Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims").

In the end, McDonnell's "non-disavowal" actually looks like a strong, albeit subtle, refutation of Robertson, and conjures up images of James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, a text that all good Virginians (and Americans) should study in our pluralistic age. As Madison put it, "the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature. If we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us." It seems that McDonnell affirms that basic proposition, in spite of his past affiliations with Robertson.

While CNN might have thought that only a clear refutation on the order of a smackdown is what would have constituted a "disavowal," I would rather put my stock in someone who truly believes--and acts on the belief--that all religious adherents who don't harm others are part of the peaceful religions that give life and breath to many people of goodwill. I hope Governor McDonnell is true to his words.

By Michael Kessler |  November 20, 2009; 12:45 PM ET

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