By David Carlin, associate professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island

January 1997 – In the last few years, I have come across countless mentions in the mainstream press of something called “the religious right,” yet I have seen no mention at all of a parallel phenomenon called “the secularist left.”

The religious right, the national media tell us, has come to have tremendous influence in the Republican Party. This is true.

How odd, then, that television, newspapers and magazines hardly ever note what is equally true, that the secularist left has long been a tremendous force in the Democratic Party.

The religious right, mainly composed of conservative Protestants, holds traditional views on moral questions. Religious rightists believe that there is an objective moral law, ultimately derived from God, and that this law condemns such things as abortion, gay “marriage” and euthanasia.

The secularist left, mainly composed of persons having little or no religious belief, holds “progressive” views on moral questions. Persons of the secularist left tend to be moral relativists –that is, they believe morality is a manmade invention.

In the past, moral codes have been invented by societies, but there is no reason why they cannot be created by individuals.

This capacity to create one’s own morality is commonly referred to as “autonomy” and is regarded by secularists as the most sacred of all values. (How any value can be sacred in a philosophy that holds all values to be nothing more than subjective creations is a puzzle secularists have yet to explain.)

The focus of autonomy defines the real difference between the religious right and secularist left.

Religious believers have always held autonomy to be one of the attributes of God. Secularists, on the other hand, having for all practical purposes done away with God, situate autonomy in the individual human being. If God does not exist, each of us has to become his or her own god.

Logically speaking, it is entirely consistent of the secularist to be in favor of such things as a “right” to abortion, a “right” to gay marriage and a “right” to euthanasia. For if there is no objective morality, if we each create our own moral code, then what right do I have to impose my code on you and what right do you have to impose your code on me?

So here we have two philosophies, two theories of life and morality – each very influential in contemporary America, each competing with the other to shape American culture. Is it any wonder that both have become powerful forces in our political parties: secularism in the Democratic Party, religious traditionalism in the Republican Party?

But this returns me to the paradox I noted above: Why does the mainstream press take frequent note of the religious factor in the Republican Party while ignoring the secularist factor in the Democratic Party?

One reason for this has to do with the notion – erroneous, but widely held – that separation of church and state requires the further separation of religion from politics.

From this point of view, the religious right is doing something very naughty – hence newsworthy – by getting into politics; whereas the political involvement of the secularist left is perfectly proper, hence not newsworthy.

Another reason is that the press, like most Americans, fails to note that secularism is a philosophy of life, analogous to religion.

If it is newsworthy that someone is bringing religion into politics, it should be equally newsworthy that someone is bringing anti-religion into politics. Yet, since the press misses the analogy, it also misses the newsworthiness.

Finally, the worldview of the typical member of the national press is much closer to secularism than to traditional Christianity. Churchlessness and agnosticism abound among national media types, as among America’s cultural elites generally.

Thus, in the eyes of the press, the secularist seems to be a normal human being, while the evangelical Protestant borders on the bizarre. And the bizarre is always more newsworthy than the normal.

If a fish could talk and describe his environment, he would mention everything but water, which he so much takes for granted that he doesn’t notice it. The national media are fish, and secularism is the water in which
they swim.