Like many of you, I was a bit stunned to learn that the Secular Coalition for America had hired a former Republican operative as their new executive director. Considering the extent to which the Republican party is and has been decidedly anti-secular, the appointment of a party insider to this position struck me as strange. However, I decided to keep an open mind and extend the benefit of the doubt. After all, her political savvy and connections could be useful, and an unorthodox choice like Ms. Rogers would certainly shake things up. So she used to work for the wrong people, so what? People change, right?
Yeah… then I read this:
People are going to do a double-take when they hear a Republican strategist is now the leader of an organization working on behalf of atheists… what do you hope the public reaction will be?
I hope it will be a positive reaction and one that gets everyone thinking about the right direction for the secular movement. Often times, problems are arising from the conservative side and that’s one reason why it’s important to include both sides. The majority of the gubernatorial positions and state legislatures are controlled by Republicans. The Religious Right is a segment of the Republican Party — but it’s not a majority within the party and it certainly does not represent a majority of Americans. It’s a very active, vocal part of the Republican base, but it’s a minority.
I do think that for the vast majority of conservatives and Republicans, they are true believers of secularism — the majority of Republicans believe in the separation of church and state. Many of them are simply laissez faire about the issues, which gives us an opening to recruit them to the movement. Just within the last few months, talking to all my Republican conservative friends, the majority of them are in line with our thinking. They can be recruited, they just haven’t been active.
Hoooo boy.
Let’s backtrack for a bit. Ms. Rogers claims that while she worked for the W. Bush Republican party, she was only interested in economic policy issues, and did not get involved in the social side of things. Here’s my response: the Republican economic policies are batshit insane. If you tell me that you worked for Exxon Mobil, but you were only involved in exploring new places to drill (as opposed to all that nasty ‘massively destructive oil spill’ stuff), I’m still going to think you’re an absolute failure as a human being. The Bush policies were, in addition to being a complete antithesis to anything that humanists would agree on as beneficial to anyone besides the wealthiest segment of American society, deeply flawed and contributed to a global financial meltdown. If I had been in any way responsible for that debacle, I’d run as far away from my “accomplishments” as possible.
Ms. Rogers’ claim that the religious right is a fringe movement of a much more centrist, moderate Republican party is absolutely laughable. She notes that a majority of state governors are Republican. Yes, they are. And they’re trying to dismantle the entire social contract in their states, and have spent more time legislating against abortion than they have on anything that could be described as ‘moderate’. Republicans at federal, state and even municipal levels are constantly courting religious voters, and pay absolutely no price for their anti-secular behaviour (unless you count being elected into office as a ‘price’). So we have two possible explanations for her comments here. Either a) she is completely oblivious to the serious, anti-humanist damage that the Republican party is doing at all levels of government, or b) she is lying about the level of influence the religious right has on her party. Neither of these possibilities makes me think particularly highly of her capabilities as a spokesperson.
I can certainly sympathize with those who caution against demonizing her simply because she worked for the Republican party. After all, she’s a hired lobbyist – they work for whoever pays them. If we start requiring people to pass ‘ideological purity tests’ to work for us, we become no better than… well, Republicans. I am part of the atheist movement, and we have our share of decidedly unsavoury characters – would it be fair for me to get lumped in with people who make misogynistic, homophobic and racist comments on atheist comment threads? Am I forever disqualified from commenting on race because Sam Harris is an idiot? Surely not. However, if someone asks me straight up “hey, what’s the deal with the misogyny in the atheist movement” and I respond with “oh, that’s only a fringe group – most atheists are totes cool”, then I have deeply damaged my own credibility. So too has Ms. Rogers – if you want to be a pro-secular Republican, you’ve got to have a stronger answer to that question than “there are a bunch of Republicans who share your ideals, but who just don’t care about them enough to say anything.” Neutrality in the face of immorality is no virtue.
Now I don’t know anyone in the SCA, nor do I have any dog in this fight. I live in Canada, where strange things like this happen. That being said, I do have two questions that I think have largely gone unanswered (and unasked, as far as I can tell). First of all: who the fuck was in charge of this ? If you’re going to make a decision like this that you know is going to be controversial, you line up a bunch of opinion leaders and get them to lend their full-throated support. You put the reasons why you made this choice front and centre. You go on a full media blitz (which, in this case, would mean getting guest posts up on Skepchick and Pharyngula and RDF and CFI and anywhere else you have a bunch of people looking), defending your choice and explaining the myriad of reasons why you found the best person for the job. You have all this put in place before you make the announcement. You know why? Because you have the good sense to realize that a choice like this is going to piss off a bunch of people, and at the very least have a metric fuckton of heads scratching.
Second question: who got turned down in favour of Ms. Rogers? In what possible universe is there not a single person better for this job than a former adviser to the biggest anti-secular force in America? Whose résumés did you reject while you were drawing up the contracts for Ms. Rogers? While I am sure she is insanely ‘qualified’ in the sense that she can exploit close relationships she’s garnered with political insiders in Washington, she has done (perhaps irreparable) damage to the credibility of your organization. Unless your intention is to tack to the right and try to pick up more of these mythical disengaged pro-secular Republicans than you lose from the left (by the way, America, what you call “left”, the rest of the world calls “centre”. Just so you know), then you’ve done nothing more but tell your base that you don’t really care about them. I can’t imagine there weren’t any applicants out there that had political connections and wouldn’t be this alienating.
I don’t know what the process was, and neither do most people who are hearing the news. Those who do know are being very quiet about it, aside from a couple of puff pieces on their website that barely scratch the surface. They would very much like us to believe that there exists a large, untapped well of secular support to be had on the political right, and that Edwina Rogers is just the person to mobilize it. I hope that pans out for them, because they’re at serious risk of losing their momentum and support through a stupid decision that was handled badly.
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Other FTB responses:
Introducing Edwina Rogers
Attempting the Impossible?
Controversy comes with the new Secular Coalition for America Executive Director
I won’t comment
A Republican to Head the Secular Coalition for America?
Who is going to be our spokesperson on Capitol Hill?
Despicable Right-Wing Political Hack New Director of the Secular Coalition for America
Secular Coalition For… The Right Wing GOP?
Edwina Rogers vs. Michael J. Fox
The Pros and Cons of Hiring A Republican to Represent Secularists
I posted (some of) this over at Blag Hag earlier.
My thinking on this goes something like: let’s try to see this from her perspective. She has done a lot of work with the republicans (there’s a wikipedia page on her if you want more info) and taking this position may well disqualify her from pursuing some jobs in that universe in the future. It signals commitment to me, at least if I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I also think that people are being far too quick to tar her with a brush that invokes the entire range of republican thought. Everyone says they are trying to avoid this, or that they have considered it, but to me it rings more than a bit hollow. Most of your post is exactly this critique.
I also don’t think that simply noting that many republicans stand with secularists on some issues is some kind of deeply flawed statement. Are you seriously saying that one of her first actions in the position should be to completely blast the party she has connections in and hopes to garner support from?
And I don’t buy your argument that every pro-secular republican is complicit with the fundies simply for being a member of the party. Would you apply this critique to an atheist for not taking their employer to task on religious matters at the risk of losing their job? And where are you going with the neutrality is no virtue thing? By your lights, isn’t joining an organization like the SCA exactly what she should be doing if she believes in secularism and wants to critique the negative elements of her former employers and encourage others to do the same?
I have no idea if she is the right person for the job, and frankly, I could care less. Hired guns working in a sleazy back-scratching government are kinda distasteful no matter who they are. I just think that the whole immediate outrage to anyone with republican connection who wants to work for secularism is really sloppy binary thinking.
Thank you for using the technical term.
Yeah, the whole last minute “Go to grocery store, stop by bank, stop by post office, announce Republican, pick up dry cleaning” quality to this is not reassuring. Paging Mr. Chamber, Mr. Star Chamber, red courtesy phone.
The other component that greatly concerns me (concern troll is concerned) about this is not just her selection over other possible excellent candidates (though that’s glaringly big and, like you, I’m boggled and would love to see the short list), is also some of the justification offered for her qualifications.
She’s a beltway insider, she knows the ropes. O.k., fine, I can see that as some potentially useful skills, but then her basic job description is, essentially, “mercenary.” Lobbyist-for-hire.
That’s worth considering. Does the organization really want a mercenary in that role? Someone invested in the job for the after-tax numbers on the check, rather than someone genuinely invested in the job out of interest, intersecting identity, and desire to forward the goals of the organization as a representative body (and, also, hey, paycheck, that’s cool, too)?
Plus, she donated to Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. Seriously. I still cringe during jogs around Austin when I see the occasional Perry for President sticker on automobiles. Really? You’re proud of that, fellow Austin resident? That didn’t warrant careful rumination after Perry dropped out of the race, followed by a quick trip to the driveway with a razor blade and some industrial cleaner?
Note to self: send interested email reply to that nice former Interior Minister from Nigeria about the millions of U.S. dollars he is holding in escrow which he would like to transfer to my account . . .
Still learning,
Robert
I also think that people are being far too quick to tar her with a brush that invokes the entire range of republican thought.
Um, no, we’re tarring her with a brush that “invokes” her own past actions.
And those are, specifically? Can you give me anything that isn’t just a bunch of guilt by association? Or that have ANYTHING to do with secularism?
So, just to be clear: you care more if she’s the right person for the job, correct?
Or is that you have no idea if she is the right person for the job, and frankly, you couldn’t care less.
Because if you couldn’t care less whether she’s the right person for the job, why are you even interested in this issue at all?
Many other people actually do care whether she’s the right person for the job or not, and that’s central to this whole issue. But if you couldn’t care less, then why the comment?
Still learning,
Robert
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo well spoke….
…nice sprinkling of explicatives too.
(applause)
Why the comment?
It’s at the end… I think a large part of the ginned up outrage is sloppy thinking that has relatively little to do with secularism, and even less to do with the actual process of lobbying for secularism. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction to the republican political label, which I happen to think is short-sighted and limiting.
I’m sure others disagree. But it bothers me that many of the otherwise well thought out posts pay lip service to not judging based on the label, and then go right back to doing it.
Daniel has some interesting reason for why she may not be the right person for the job: http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers/2012/05/04/the-pros-and-cons-of-hiring-a-republican-to-represent-secularists/
@ Timid Atheist
From that post: “She has taken a commendable risk by associating herself so prominently with secularism and by outing herself as a non-theist. She is burning the bridge back to her former career as a Republican party hack. Mitt Romney just fired a gay foreign policy adviser with impeccable right wing credentials because the modern Republican party has no room for gays. I doubt it will have much room (at least outwardly) for Rogers now that she has formally aligned herself in favor of secularism.”
I find this to be somewhat convincing.
The Michael J. Fox video (in the next post) is definitely not a good sign. Thanks for pointing me in that direction. That is definitely a secularist issue that she sort of waffled around on and came down on the wrong side.
As for the “hired gun” idea that motivates his post… As I said in my first comment, I find it distasteful, but I have no idea if that sort of strategy is effective or not.
I suppose it really is a matter of whether or not people trust the SCA… all the criticism of Rogers’ connections to the republican party seems beside the point compared to that question.
The fact that she didn’t speak up for fear of losing her job is one thing. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with this scenario. If I worked for Haliburton, and then decided to get a job for Amnesty International, I’d better fucking have a better answer than “oh well they weren’t all bad guys” when someone totally justifiably asks me why I was there. She doesn’t just have “a Republican connection” – she’s a Republican. Their entire political platform is anti-humanist. I’m not criticizing her for being cool with the anti-gay shit – she says she wasn’t, and I believe her. The problem is that the parts she did work on are antithetical to any view of the world that I would describe as coherent in a secular framework. Remember, part of Bush’s domestic financial policy is reduction of the state involvement in social services, leaving it up to the churches and other “faith-based initiatives”.
So yes, I am seriously saying that anyone leaving an anti-secular organization in favour of a pro-secular one had better have some pretty fucking compelling answers to obvious questions. If she does, I haven’t heard them yet.
Ender, the problem is the current Right Wing does an excellent job of targeting social movements and voices for silencing. They do this by buying up radio stations when they pick up the Stephanie Miller radio show (and then change format to kill airing her). They also wave big donations around toward those who say what they want to hear (Templeton) and then they coopt other entities by entering Manchurian candidate (with or with out behind the scenes promises of donations).
It seems that a good many of the folks on this board come honestly and independently to be concerned.
Why do you think the concern is a knee-jerk response when you yourself say that most of the folks here are good thinkers with honest hearts?
I’ll suggest you have a dog in the fight on nothing other than your posts in this comment thread. (Is that fair?)
For the record, I don’t think she’s a secret Fox News/GOP mole aimed at undermining organized secularism. I believe that her stated reasons and the SCA’s stated reasons are honest – I just think they suck.
My main point is that I see a lot of (deserved) criticism toward republican party policies being transferred to her, especially when she has taken a position that (it seems to me) represents a sharp break with that world.
Some criticisms of her past actions may be deserved, but other than the video timid atheist posted, much of it is directed at abstractions and guilt by association. Others won’t agree with this, but I think that her work with health care and with economic policies (with which I have not yet seen her role spelled out in detail) are not particularly relevant.
I guess when it comes down to it, I am just saying: she hasn’t done anything yet. Give the (high-powered mercenary lobbyist) woman a chance… Any long enough career spent with the one of the two U.S. political parties is bound to put you on the wrong end of some issues. If she would have been working for Clinton in the nineties she might have come up with DADT, or “welfare reform,” or economic deregulation. I could be wrong about this, but I happen to think that she might have gotten a pass from this crowd, based purely on the label.
This. Time will tell if the gamble results in a net gain.
Yes. Republicans ignore the overwhelming evidence that their economic policies are based on a model of human behavior that is terrible at representing actual human behavior and that, as a result, the policies have never, ever worked how they’re *supposed* to work. This is not a good sign for someone who is in charge of the biggest lobby supporting evidence-based policy. Her claim that a majority of Republicans support secularism is concerning for exactly the same reason – ALL of the evidence, polling data of actual Republican voters, suggests that Republicans strongly favor various laws and policies based on religious propositions (disallowing marriage equality and disallowing abortion, for two).
Those of us on the actual political Left know this. We’re frequently demonized (sometimes literally) by the Right and dismissed as non-existent straw persons by the “Left”.
I think it’s arguable whether a “hired gun” should be brought in. But as I said above, if the SCA decides to do that, you really can’t blame her for not burning bridges on the first day.
I’m curious… What do you think would have been a good answer? I can’t help thinking that any explanation of why she was working for republicans that would satisfy you would have to be a pretty severe critique of the party itself. Which again would defeat the (possibly sketchy) reason she was brought on.
Taking a wild stab at it, my response would have been something like this:
“I worked for years within the Republican party on issues that had nothing to do with church/state separation. At the same time, I recognized my own party’s repeated failure to reign in the segment of its base that wished to see a less secular state. After accomplishing what best I could on domestic issues, I realized that I did not have a home in the current Republican party. While I still believe in the value of limited government and self-determining people, I decided I could not accomplish those goals from within the party. Forced to choose between my secular beliefs and a political party I no longer recognized, I made what I feel is the right decision. I understand the concerns that people have with respect to my past, and I look forward to letting my actions speak for themselves.”
Then again, the work she actually DID in the Republican party is indeed enough to disqualify her in my book. Republican economic policy is absolutely ridiculous.
I don’t get the impression that the FtB community is especially impressed by labels alone. The neo-Liberal economic shift in the Democrats’ policy agenda post-Reagan resulted in our past couple of Democratic presidents being more economically Right-wing than Reagan, and they’re rarely given a blanket pass on that, or on sexism. I certainly wouldn’t be giving Rogers a pass if she were a Democratic lobbyist – I can’t even stomach voting for Obama again, as he’s too Right-wing on too many issues (and the Democrats refused to hold an actual primary in which some of Obama’s many policy failings might have been aired and addressed, even if he had become the nominee again).
Also, had Rogers come up with DADT, I would applaud her for it. It was far from perfect, but it was a big step forward from the Ask and Tell (and ban from service) policy in place at the time (DOMA is a better example – Clinton explicitly opposed marriage equality). Saying that DADT was anti-gay at the time of its passage is like saying that the Emancipation Proclamation was anti-Black because it only freed existing slaves in the Southern states and didn’t completely eliminate slavery and guarantee Black men AND women equal citizenship status. It completely ignores historical context.
I’ll grant you DADT was an improvement, and a bad example on my part. But “welfare reform” was simply cuts to social services, and the idea has been bandied about in this thread that these sorts of things are “anti-humanist.”
I’m just saying that there is currently a massive shitstorm on this issue on FTB, and I can’t help but think that large parts of it are pretty unwarranted and motivated by labelling. The best (worst?) example is Physioproffe. His post is nothing but bile against republicans generally without any analysis of the new director individually, or SCA’s motivations for hiring her. Nor does he say anything about secularism other than to paint all republicans as inherently opposed. Working on economic policy is treated the same as trying to get creationism into schools… It’s lazy us v. them thinking.
Anyway, I’m signing off now before I get too tone-trolly.
Excellent post, love the tone too.
Yeah, let’s bring in the Social Darwinists, it’s just what the humanist movement needs… /srcsm
In this thread, ender is demonstrating exactly why “centrism” is a horrible, awful lie: self-described “centrists” conveniently always call on liberals to ignore how horrible the conservatives are, even when the horribleness is put out in plain sight.
I prefer the term “sell out”…though that maybe too strong of the word to use for some.
@Ender,
She was not “associated” with repubs, she is one, and worked for the Cheney/bush regime. She therefore supports torture, war for profit, and the new and wonderful security state.
But it’s all good, because she’s an atheist. Who supports Rick Perry…
I don’t get this at all. but as I wrote in posts elsewhere, I will no longer support this organization or any associated with it.
“She has taken a commendable risk by associating herself so prominently with secularism and by outing herself as a non-theist. She is burning the bridge back to her former career as a Republican party hack.”
No she’s not. She’s getting right on board that Ayn Rand train that’s been so popular among the right lately. Next stop is Just World Fallacy Junction.
I’d be much more ok with it if in that interview she didn’t act stupid (or even outright lie) and say that the religious right is just a fringe element of the Republican party, and that it’s only the religious right that is anti-secular.
If she said anything acknowledging reality, then maybe it’s a decent idea? But as it stands no.
And what Cromm said is right. Republican economic policy is so anti-reality that it’s a massive red flag right there.
Okay, I’m defining my position. She should in no way have been hired. It seems she supported rick perry for president. No person interested in preventing religious nuts creating a theocracy would back perry. Simple. How the fuck can she define herself as a secularist?
Secondly I don’t give a shit if she would lobby well, I don’t want a juke box that will sing whatever song i pay it to.
To the person implying that DADT for gay and bisexual people wasn’t anti-gay due to historical context I call bullshit. Putting a fresh coat of paint on a piece of shit doesn’t change it from being a turd. The policy was discriminatory (anti-gay) for two reasons: gay and bisexual people were expected to hide and some were outed and discharged despite the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. In other words it didn’t work.
The ending of DADT for gay and bisexual people does not go far enough–transgender people are still subjected to discrimination under DADT:
http://outservemag.com/2012/01/the-new-dadt-the-militarys-ban-on-transgender-service/
+1
How could the SCA not know about how the intertubes work? I asked the same question as Crommie over at Ophelia’s…Who were the deciders? And how could they not know the shitstorm that would develope? And why are they silent about this?
Rogers does not know how to connect with a large portion of the atheist community. For example, me. The interview was nothing more that Rogers just blowing happy faces and puppy dogs out her ass and expecting us to be content with that.
One thing about the atheist community is that we tend to call people on it when the are just using empty rhetoric with out using specific examples and supporting evidence. Rogers does not seem to know this — she thinks she is still talking to W. Bush republicans.
She claimed that she spoke with her republican friends and found that they are in line with and supportive of secularist issues.
Really — give me some W,W,W,W,W.
Is she saying that we can just dismiss the religious right because they are a minority? That’s bullshit. They are an incredibly dangerous and powerful force. They can’t be just dismissed as a ‘minority’ they are THE problem.
Look what’s happening in fundie-land — Bryan Fischer, Tony Perkins, David Barton, et. al. they are getting crazier and crazier — trying to out-crazy each other. We are trying to fight a well organized, well funded, politically active and mobilized gang of psycho-fucks-for-jesus.
Is Rogers saying that we should just ignore them?
I noticed that Rogers, in that interview, did not say anything specific about any specific issue.
The issues “we” are concerned about — perhaps I would feel better if Edwina would take the time to mention exactly what those issues are.
Hi Ian,
I do not know if this is the right place to submit a question, but could you perhaps comment on this oped in the NYT?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/opinion/sunday/why-black-women-are-fat.html?_r=1&smid=tw-share
As a physician from germany who spent 1,5 years working in the Bay Area I found it rather interesting, although I would be very reluctant to use terms like “black fat”.
I don’t know if the author’s conclusions are true. I wouldn’t dream of speaking on behalf of black women. This is a drop in a very large bucket of bullshit dissecting black women’s bodies. I find it distasteful, but that’s about it.
I actually find secular Republicans more appalling than religious ones; the secular Republican is on board with the party because of an anti-worker, pro-corporate government agenda. Secular Republican are, for the most part just a bunch of narcissistic, me-first everybody else must lose social-darwinists (no offense to Darwin intended and a discussion of Darwin’s views on biology and “social Darwinism” would be hijacking the thread.)
As far as I’m concerned, I have zero capacity to trust the integrity of anyone who was ever affiliated with the Republican party, unless they gave it up at maybe 10. The secular movement must be about truth, and Republican beliefs about economics, the party’s rejection of sound science on climate change and their willingness to lie in order to promote war means that it’s not exactly a party dedicated to truth, and I have serious doubts that anybody who was ever strongly affiliated with them has a capacity to care about truth. If someone tells me I should just an individual and not a group, I do this when it’s a group that one just happens to belong to (race, sexual orientation) but being a Republican is making a statement about what values you hold.
Seeing her in interviews, it’s crystal clear she’s a mercenary hack who gets paid to promote things and who takes the money and promotes regardless of the truth of any issue.
The Republican party likes to find unscrupulous mercenaries like this to add some ‘diversity’ to their brand, all while keeping the same policies going.
You could also easily, IMHO, conclude that the that the economic policy was a part of the social agenda. The plan, well known and understood within GOP circles, but seldom talked about in public, was that the GOP would do everything possible to run up the deficit by cutting taxes and increasing spending in non-entitlement programs. They would then pivot and use this deficit as reason to gut The New Deal and eliminate regulation.
The economics were the setup, using a volleyball metaphor, for the spike.
Like “Pinky and the Brain”, where The Brain has the singular goal of “taking over the world”, the GOP has a one-track mind and they just keep pounding away on it. They never give up, figure out they are fundamentally wrong, or allow any bone-crushing defeat to kill the dream. That is how the conservative mind works.
I live in the deep south and a neighbor takes it as written in the stars that “the South will rise again”. This even as he has little or no understanding of what the south was. He figures slavery was just a minor peccadillo of a small and unimportant subset of southerners. He doesn’t understand how the southern economy ran on slave power. The old south for him is what he sees at theme parks and reenactments, hoop skirts and honor.
It is like being fond of steam locomotives and forgetting that they burned coal, produced smoke, and ran on tracks.
The GOP uses economic mismanagement to precipitate a crisis that will allow them to accomplish their goal. The deregulation of the financial sector was part of this, as is racism, sexism, and religious fervor used to win elections. You can’t separate the parts of the strategy.
“I don’t want a juke box that will sing whatever song i pay it to.”
nice.
I don’t have a basis to think she’s a mole either. The most likely explanation is the hiring decision makers were going through the motions or swayed by some notion of out-reach or moderation.
I did speculate that there is a possibility of 3rd party influence on the choice but that’s based on a broad pattern and may not apply to this particular case. I’m still wondering if it’s there though.
The idea that you can separate social and economic policy like that is insane. Your social polices are going to depend on what you can afford, and your economic polices are going to depend on what social policies your implement.
How for example, can you have a policy on healthcare (a social policy) without also having an economic policy on how healthcare is going to be funded ? That Rogers thinks the two can be separated says a lot about her, and for that matter a lot about what was wrong with the Bush administration.