Liberty in Religion and Medicine

Today's Denver Post published a letter from Kaye Fissinger titled, "Church and medicine." She argues that Catholic churches should not be able to practice "Catholic doctrine on birth control, sterilization and abortion."

Following is my online reply:

I advocate the separation of church and state. I also advocate freedom and individual rights -- a free market -- in medicine. Kaye Fissinger's position violates both ideals.

Women have the right to get an abortion -- from willing providers. Patients do not have the right to force hospitals or doctors to offer abortions -- or any procedure -- against their judgment.

Likewise, customers do not have the right to demand that any business provide some good or service. You have no right to require that a car dealer sell the truck you want to buy, or a grocer particular produce, or a book store a particular book. If you walked into a Marxist bookshop and demanded to purchase Ayn Rand, for instance, that would be a violation of the bookstore's right of free speech. You do, however, have every right not to shop at that store.

The ones who properly set policy at a hospital are its owners. If a church owns a hospital, the church properly decides policy there. The owners do owe potential patients full disclosure regarding their faith-based policies. I would choose to do business elsewhere.

Doctors who disagree are free to work elsewhere. If you work for a bookstore, you agree to sell the books the owners wish to sell. The principle is no different when it comes to medicine. If you wish to sell different books or perform different medical procedures, get a job someplace else.

Hospitals should not need to rely on "conscience clauses" to protect their rights of property and contract. Likewise, a bookstore owner who dislikes pornography or some other sort of publication should not have to pass some "conscience" test to abstain from selling such works. Yet the logical implication of Fissinger's view is that somebody should be able to walk into a Christian bookstore and demand a book praising abortion, atheism, Satanism, or whatever (or into an atheist bookstore and demand a copy of the Bible).

Fissinger's interpretation of the First Amendment is completely wrong. The First Amendment prohibits state establishment of religion. It does not guarantee lack of dominance of some doctrine. For example, 75 percent of Americans are Christian. The First Amendment does not require mass conversion to other religions in order to prevent Christian "dominance."

The fundamental problem in medicine is that there is no free market in health care. Governments spend more than half of all health-care dollars. Tax-funded hospitals, like tax-funded schools, should not be able to impose any faith-based practice. The solution to this problem is not to expand political control of hospitals, but to return to liberty in medicine.

No Tax Funds for Religious Schools

David Card, "president of Escuela de Guadalupe, an independent Catholic, dual-language school in northwest Denver," made a series of astounding comments in an article for the Denver Post today.

Card argues that some religious schools "are effective in developing Colorado standards-based academic proficiency in subjects like math, reading and science, and in producing high school graduates." No doubt. But then Card adds, "Clearly, the state has an interest in this."

Clearly, Card has lost his faculties. The government's job is to protect people's rights, not dictate education policy for private schools. Many parents flee to private schools precisely to get away from political interference. Card would extend that interference to schools that are currently private.

Card argues that the state -- i.e., politicians -- should finance religious schools (presumably including his own). He pretends that politicians can force other Coloradans to finance only "non-sectarian efforts" by religious schools. The division is impossible. A religious school of necessity infuses its entire program with its ideological premises.

I left the following comments online:

"No person shall be required to attend or support any ministry or place of worship, religious sect or denomination against his consent." -- Colorado Constitution, Article II, Section 4

Forcing a person to finance a religious institution, against his will, violates his freedom of conscience and right to property. Moreover, no conscientious religious school would willingly accept the political interference that inevitably follows political funding.

Colorado GOP Self-Destructs

It was just Monday (February 23) that Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe, on the Senate floor, quoted scripture that demands the death penalty for homosexuality, called homosexuality an abomination, and said it is equal to the sin of murder in God's eyes.

Today (Wednesday, February 25), Colorado State Senator Dave Schultheis argued against a bill encouraging pregnant women to get tested for HIV on the grounds that the bill would "remove the consequences" of "sexual promiscuity."

These two cases illustrate the fundamental problem with Colorado politics. The Republican Party is, to a large degree, the Party of God, complete with Bible readings on the Senate floor. Such Republicans declare homosexuality a sin, attempt to completely ban abortion, and generally try to promote their religious faith by force of law. The Democrats, on the other hand, want to expand political control of the economy. Because the Democrats are the less crazy of the two, they win by default. (Ayn Rand's 1973 essay anticipates the state of modern Colorado politics.)

I am still waiting for the Colorado Republican Party to condemn Renfroe's remarks. Now the party needs to condemn the remarks of Schultheis as well.

Schultheis's Statements

I have not been able to find a complete recording or transcript of Schultheis's statements. The most complete remarks I've found come from the Rocky Mountain News.

During the Senate debate, Schultheis said, "This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part and I just can't go there. We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. Sexual promiscuity we know causes a lot of problems in our state, one of which obviously is the contraction of HIV."

Later, he told the Rocky:

What I'm hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that.

The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.

We can't keep people from being raped. We can't keep people from shooting each other. We can't keep people from jumping off bridges. There are a lot of things we can't do that have negative consequences in our society. People drink and drive and they crash and kill people. Poor behavior has its consequences.

HIV is spread by blood transmission, and sex is the primary means of that. Schultheis conflates "promiscuous sex" with sex at high risk of transmitting HIV, though of course most premarital sex is at low risk of HIV infection. Moreover, some monogamous women get HIV from their partners.

Schultheis is arguing that an HIV-infected baby constitutes punishment for women who get HIV through promiscuous sex. Schultheis does not wish to "remove the consequences" for such sex. The notion that any woman should be so punished is grotesque. But what about the infant? Isn't the HIV-positive infant the one being punished the most?

David Harsanyi is on target in his critique of Schultheis:

The Republican Party, no matter how many fresh or smart ideas it may have, isn't going to get anywhere in this state -- or nationally -- if it continues to spew the hateful gibberish we've heard from Scott Renfroe and Dave Schultheis the past couple of days. ...

Are these [remarks of Schultheis] the words of a person who should be representing anyone?

The Republican Party has to get rid of these people, pronto. They aren't conservatives; they're nihilists. Can anyone imagine a Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater claiming that a child should live with AIDS to teach the mother a lesson? (If that is what Schultheis meant. And I still hold out a slim amount of hope that this was a matter of incoherence.)

If Schultheis apologizes for his remarks and explains that he really believes something else, we can follow up on Harsayni's slim hopes. As of 11:38 p.m. on February 25, Schultheis has not issued a media release on the matter.

Schultheis: Bad for Liberty

Schultheis has a track record of assaulting our liberties. He has tried to restrict the right to get an abortion. He endorsed the 2008 measure that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person, laying the groundwork for banning abortion. He opposes embryonic stem-cell research.

Schultheis wants for forcibly prohibit employers from hiring workers by mutual consent, on protectionist grounds.

Schultheis is fiscally conservative, but often he is antagonistic toward free markets and individual rights.

Renfroe's Sorry Appeal

Meanwhile, Renfroe said in defense of his comments: "Our First Amendment allows freedom of speech and I should be allowed to say what I want on any issue." He sounds remarkably like Ward Churchill.

Renfroe's invocation of the First Amendment is off point, because nobody is threatening his First Amendment rights. At issue is not what Renfroe has a right to say as a private citizen; everybody agrees he has every legal right to his bigotry. The point is that what he said is wrong, the fact that he said it as a state senator on the senate floor undermines the separation of church and state, and his critics also have a First Amendment right to condemn his statements and call for his resignation.

The Republican Party of Colorado is at a cross-roads. It can shake off the leash of the religious right, or it can remain the justly ridiculed minority party.

Renfroe Should Resign Over Bigoted Remarks

In a just world, State Senator Scott Renfroe's constituents would rise up and throw the bum out of office. If he had a lick of sense, he would resign. Of course, if he had a lick of sense, he wouldn't have called homosexuality an abomination and a sin comparable to murder on the Senate floor in a blatant attack on church-state boundaries.

I have seen no sign of Renfroe's repentance, however, and so I call on the Republican Party of Colorado to publicly condemn Renfroe's remarks. It's the right thing to do, and it's also the prudent political move, if the GOP wishes to be taken seriously as a political force in Colorado.

At issue is a "bill to allow gay and lesbian state employees to share health benefits with their partners," reports the Denver Post. Here I do not wish to discuss the arguments for and against the bill, but only to condemn Renfroe's tirade against it.

Mike Littwin has written about the sorry affair for the Rocky Mountain News. And my good friends over at Progress Now Colorado, having actually discovered a wolf this time, have posted the entire speech on YouTube. Following is the complete transcript:

Transcript of State Senator Scott Renfroe's Speech to the Senate on February 23, 2009

Thank you madame chair. Members, I also come down here to oppose this bill. Look at some of the declarations in the bill, some of those arguments used here to do this, I guess.

Number One, is that there are employers that offer this are at a competitive advantage over those employers that do not offer such benefits. And, number one, employers, that's the private sector, and I believe in that choice, and the private sector should be allowed to do that. And businesses should have that opportunity to choose how they run their business and what they want to do.

The state, on the other hand, we are here to represent the people of Colorado, and do the state's business. And like Senator Brophy said, the state did actually speak almost directly to this issue two years ago, and the last three years we've had bills that contradict what the people of the state of Colorado voted on directly in 2006. So with that, I think that part of the declaration should be considered, in that what the will of the people was.

And, for me personally, I guess I oppose this bill because of what the vote of the people was. And then I also oppose this bill because of what my personal beliefs are. And I think that what our country was founded upon was those beliefs also.

You know, in the beginning, God created our Earth, and the structure for creation, when you have God, you have the Son, and then you have the Holy Spirit, you have that trinity. You also have that same trinity, which is in my opinion a mimic over to what we have within the family. You have the father, the husband, you have the wife, and then you have the children. And I think when you look at that scenario, that is what we were created for. And I think that's what the Bible says.

Through the whole beginning of Creation, it talks about how things were created, and that it was good, it was good, it was good. It says over and over, that it was good. Then we get to verse 18 in Genesis 2, "The Lord God said it is not good for man to be alone. And so he made him a helper, suitable for him. And that was woman."

And then if you go on, and talk about that, God blessed them and said, "Then be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds, over the sky, over every living thing that moves on the earth."

And then in Genesis 9 he said to Noah again, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." And I think that that goes back to this whole picture of family, which God created us for. And we need to honor that.

Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural, created order. And it is in a sense to God, the creator, who created men and women, male and female, for procreation.

Leviticus 18:22 says, "You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female. It is an abomination."

Leviticus 20:13 says, "If there is a man who lies with a male as though to lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act, and they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them."

Then Romans 1:18: "For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness."

And that's what we're doing here. We're suppressing the truth. The truth is what the family was created for in the beginning. That is the a husband, a wife, and children. And that is why we are here, and this goes against that. And this is just a continuation of the traction of the family.

And I say all that to back up my beliefs in where we're going with this. I believe government is here, we are here, to create the laws of our land, and when we create laws that goes against what Biblically we are supposed to stand for, I think we are agreeing or allowing to go forward a sin which should not be treated by government as something that is legal.

And that is what we are going to do with this, and what we've done in the past. We are taking sins and making them to be legally okay, and that is wrong. That is an abomination, according to scripture.

And I'm not saying that this is the only sin that's out there. Obviously we have sin, we have murder, we have all sorts of sin. We have adultery, and we don't making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal.

But what I'm saying that for, is all sin is equal. That sin there is as equal to any other sin that's in the Bible, to having wandering eyes, to coveting your neighbor's things. Whatever you do, that sin is equal, and it can be forgiven because of that.

So with that, I think I need to go back and say that I stand in my belief, that this is wrong, and we should not condone it as a government. And I think the verses that I quoted you in Leviticus back that up in a strong way, and I'd ask you to vote no on this bill.

Renfroe here explicitly calls for the laws of Colorado to be based on Old Testament scripture. This, obviously, violates the separation of church and state. The proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights, not enforce religious dogma, whether or not the majority agrees with it. Murder and theft are properly illegal because they violate individual rights. Homosexuality between consenting adults does not. Moreover, many Coloradans reject Renfroe's religious views or his particular interpretation of Christianity.

For Renfroe to quote a religious text calling for the murder of homosexuals is outrageous, and it is wrong. It is no more appropriate than if a member of some other religion took the floor and read different texts calling for murder.

By Renfroe's account, the divine purpose of marriage is procreation. Never mind the fact that many heterosexual couples choose not to have children or cannot have them. Are their marriages similarly tainted in Renfroe's account?

Renfroe's claim that the 2006 election had anything to do with the bill at hand is nonsense. That year, voters banned gay marriage and voted against domestic partnerships. I think the majority was wrong on both counts, but that has no direct connection to extending benefits to the partners of state employees.

Renfroe's tirade illustrates why the Republicans are the minority party in Colorado. In attempting to impose their religious doctrines by force of law, such Republicans undermine individual rights and alienate mainstream voters.

Again I call on the Republican Party of Colorado to publicly condemn Renfroe's remarks. Whether the party does so will say a great deal about whether the party wishes to win competitive elections here again. And, more importantly, whether it deserves to win.

With Palin, McCain Ignores Colorado Warning

The following article has been offered as a non-exclusive op-ed by the Coalition for Secular Government.

With Palin, McCain Ignores Colorado Warning

by Ari Armstrong

"I have to win here if I'm going to be the next president of the United States," John McCain told a Colorado crowd in July. The fact that the Democrats came to Colorado for their convention also proves the presidential importance of the Interior West, a region known for its independent streak and partisan upheavals.

However, McCain seems not to have learned the political lessons of the Interior West, despite the fact that he's from Arizona. By selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate to attract the evangelical vote, McCain risks alienating the independent voters and non-sectarian Republicans he needs to win.

Recent polling results from the Pew Research Center indicate that most Americans now think churches should keep out of politics. Even half of conservatives share this view. The Interior West is particularly leery about faith-based politics; Pew results from 2005 examined by Ryan Sager suggest that 59 percent of residents think "government is getting too involved in the issue of morality." Yet faith-based politics is one of Palin's signature issues.

Palin endorsed the teaching of creationism in tax-funded schools before softening her stance on the issue. She ardently opposes abortion, describing herself as "pro-life as any candidate can be," apparently even in cases of rape, incest, or health problems. Speaking to a church as governor, Palin said that it's "God's will" that she help build an energy pipeline; she added that the Iraq war is "a task that is from God." Political reform, Palin argued, "doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God."

Given McCain's desire to win Colorado, he might have examined why this once solidly Republican state is currently governed by Democrats. One central reason is the domination of the Republican Party in the state by the religious right.

Democrats captured the final branch of state government in 2006 when Bill Ritter defeated Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez in the governor's race. Ritter was accomplished in his own right as the Denver District Attorney but lacked high-level political experience. While Beauprez's campaign suffered a variety of failings, Beauprez's own commitment to faith-based politics, and his selection of a running mate of the same cloth, hurt him badly.

Beauprez himself opposed abortion and favored faith-based welfare. His running mate, Janet Rowland, shared those views and had also come out in favor of teaching creationism in tax-funded schools. When asked about the separation of church and state, Rowland replied, "We should have the freedom OF religion, not the freedom FROM religion." Such expressions rubbed independent-minded Westerners the wrong way.

Yet McCain is following a similar path. On his official web page, McCain says that his ultimate aim is "ending abortion." His running mate, like Rowland, shares that view and favored tax-funded religious education. Palin, like Rowland, would leave Americans without freedom from religious law. Will the team's commitment to faith-based politics be too much for voters in the Interior West to swallow?

The McCain-Palin ticket has a lot going for it that the Beauprez-Rowland ticket did not. McCain is a decorated military veteran with a lengthy career in the Senate. Palin is credible on energy, appealing to low-tax conservatives, and friendly toward gun owners. She has a record as a reformer, and she's an attractive, vibrant, and poised speaker.

Moreover, the left's shrill personal attacks against Palin may serve only to evoke public sympathy for her and energize her supporters. The left's complaints about Palin's lack of experience may underscore their own candidate's inexperience, as Barack Obama tends to come off as a glorified motivational speaker. Yet the Obama-friendly left, in its attempt to itself cozy up to the evangelical vote, shies away from criticizing the McCain-Palin ticket over the issue of separation of church and state.

Nevertheless, as independent and traditionally Republican voters evaluate McCain and Palin on their own merits, rather than merely as the alternative to Obama, many will grow concerned over the pair's commitment to faith-based politics. This will cost McCain votes and other forms of support.

McCain may have energized the religious right, but in doing so he has brought faith-based politics to the forefront of his campaign, leaving freedom-minded independents and secular Republicans without a candidate they can support. The question remaining is which presidential candidate will make them more fearful.


Ari Armstrong is the editor of FreeColorado.com and a co-author of "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life" at SecularGovernment.us, a paper criticizing the Colorado proposal to define a fertilized egg as a person.

ARC: Let Doctors Protect Conscience by Contract

A few days ago, I criticized efforts to force hospitals to abandon their faith-based practices, however much I disapprove of those practices. Now the snazzy new Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights (ARC) has produced a release that aptly explains the reasons for my view. Thomas Bowden said:

[T]he law should recognize each individual's right to deal, or refuse to deal, with others on a voluntary basis.

For example, a doctor has the right to refuse an employment offer from a Catholic hospital that forbids contraceptives and abortions. But if he takes the job, he has no right to force the hospital to abandon its religious taboos and allow him to perform abortions. Likewise, a hospital has the right to hire only those doctors willing to prescribe contraception and provide abortions. If one of those doctors refuses to perform such services on moral grounds, he must take the contractual consequences.

Patients have the same rights as doctors and hospitals to set their own terms of trade. A pregnant woman contemplating abortion has the right to seek treatment at a hospital whose doctors are unencumbered by religious superstitions about ensoulment at conception. But if that hospital denies her admission, she has no right to demand that the Catholic hospital down the street abort her fetus.

The correct path out of the "conscience controversy" over abortions and contraceptives is not to adopt new regulations creating "provider conscience rights." The solution is for government to recognize and protect the individual rights of all participants in the health-care system. Doctors, hospitals, and patients should be allowed to deal with each other by voluntary agreement, with government's only role to enforce contracts and prevent fraud.

However, I would again point out that implicit contractual understanding could require patient notification. If I walk into a hospital, normally I expect to be offered the full range of medical information and treatment options. If a hospital refuses to offer some information or treatment on religious grounds, I need to know that. At least a hospital has an obligation to relate its relevant policies so that patients can make informed decisions.

Republican Majority for Choice

Recently I learned about a national group called the Republican Majority for Choice. From first appearances, this group seems to be headed in the right direction. The organization writes, "We are deeply concerned with direction of our Party if it continues to endorse a social agenda that is both intrusive and alienating."

The group even has a Colorado affiliate headed by Amanda Mountjoy (whom I don't know). Here's what Mountjoy had to say against Amendment 48 (which would define a fertilized egg as a person):

Making changes to our State Constitution is a serious matter that should not be manipulated by special interest groups with a single issue agenda. This is not the place or the vehicle to debate private healthcare decisions. This initiative is a thinly veiled attempt by an extreme minority to impose their views upon the people of Colorado and will lead to big-government control of some of the most complicated choices facing our families.

Consequences of the initiative would be far-reaching and would not only include a ban on abortion, but also a ban on many commonly used forms of birth control. If the proponents of this initiative were truly concerned about reducing abortion in Colorado, as they claim to be, then they would work to forward proven effective, common sense measures like prevention and education. In the past Coloradans have defeated initiatives that interfere with personal freedom, and the Republican Majority for Choice is confident that Colorado voters will again vote to ensure that reproductive healthcare decisions remain between a woman, her family, and her doctor.

The group's newsletter offers a more detailed case against the measure. (Of course, I recommend the paper by Diana Hsieh and me on the subject.)

Unfortunately, the group seems to veer into unprincipled pragmatism at times. For example, the Colorado chapter claims that Amendment 48 "simply goes to far," following the line from the main campaign against. For reasons that Diana and I explain, that's a horrible position. Also, the group notes, "Thanks to the years of hard work and dedication from the members of RMC Colorado to providing complete and compassionate medical care for survivors of sexual assault, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 60 in to law Thursday, March 15 to mandate hospitals to provide information about emergency contraception (EC) in the emergency room." However, the government has no business dictating policy to hospitals. That said, if hospitals intend to practice faith-based medicine, they should clearly inform their patients of that. So there is some role for the law to play in the matter -- as in any case of contract.

Yet, despite some problems with the RMC, the group represents a positive step for the Republican Party, which, under the guidance of the religious right, has become an enemy of liberty and handed Colorado government to the Democrats.

Faith-Based Politics Is a Losing Strategy

MEDIA RELEASE: COALITION FOR SECULAR GOVERNMENT

Faith-Based Politics Is a Losing Strategy

Sedalia, Colorado / August 27, 2008

Contact: Diana Hsieh, founder of the Coalition for Secular Government and co-author of "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life," Diana**AT**SecularGovernment**DOT**us

The wholehearted embrace of faith-based politics by Democrats is the big news of the Democratic National Convention. "It's a losing strategy, particularly in more freedom-minded states like Colorado," said Diana Hsieh, founder of the Coalition for Secular Government.

A recent Pew survey showed that Americans are growing more wary of the persistent attempts of politicians to inject their private faith into public policy. A majority of Americans of all political stripes oppose the mixing of politics and religion.

In Colorado, the Republican Party's determination to enact laws and policies based on sectarian Christian values has resulted in stunning defeats in recent elections. Colorado was once a solidly red state, but now it's purple, and turning blue.

"Despite these losses, the religious right is still on the warpath in Colorado," Hsieh said. "This election, they're attempting to force God's law on the state via Amendment 48, the ballot measure which would grant fertilized eggs all the legal rights of persons in the Colorado constitution. If passed and implemented, the amendment would criminalize abortion as murder and ban the the birth control pill. It would be a disaster for the men and women of Colorado." See "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life," a Coalition issue paper by Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh, available at http://www.SecularGovernment.us/docs/a48.pdf.

Now the Democrats are imitating this losing strategy by infusing liberal politics with religious fervor. They're holding interfaith prayers, opening their platform to religious opponents of abortion, and supporting faith-based initiatives. Ironically, they're doing so in Colorado, the very state that was handed to them as a result of voter disgust with the religious right.

"It's political suicide. The Democrats will only alienate the majority of Americans committed to the principle of secular government," Hsieh said. "Who can those voters support, when both Republicans and Democrats seek to govern by their personal faith rather than rational principles?"

"To protect freedom of religion and conscience, Republican and Democratic leaders must embrace the separation of church and state on principle. Politicians should govern according to the secular principles of individual rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, not religious scripture," Hsieh said.

The Coalition for Secular Government (www.SecularGovernment.us) advocates government solely based on secular principles of individual rights. The protection of a person's basic rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness -- including freedom of religion and conscience -- requires a strict separation of church and state.

How Obama Lost Another Vote

The following article originally was published by Grand Junction's Free Press on July 21, 2008.

How Obama lost another vote

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

We write as a father-son team. We almost always agree about fundamental issues, yet sometimes we look askew at each others' strategies.

For example, last month Ari wrote on his blog (FreeColorado.com for June 6), "I deem that McCain is the worst evil in the race, and therefore I've decided to mark my ballot for Obama as the strongest possible vote against McCain." Such a position is sacrilege to much of the family.

What's so bad about McCain? Ari's post reviews three main flaws. McCain snubbed the First Amendment with his campaign censorship law, saying he wants to violate our "quote, First Amendment rights" for his version of "clean government." We wouldn't want politics mucked up with all that liberty.

He pushes for faith-based politics and declares his support for "ending abortion." And he humbly requests that you "sacrifice your life" to the state. (Where this involves military conflict, we're reminded of Patton's advice about which side we should get to sacrifice their lives.)

We agree about McCain's flaws. We may disagree about what to do about them, but we now agree that voting for Obama is not the answer. Why the change? In brief, Obama proposes new political controls over our lives and the economy at an astounding pace.

Obama wants socialized medicine, more wage controls, more corporate and personal welfare, higher taxes, and more energy restrictions, to mention just a few highlights. How does he compare with McCain on the issues of speech, faith-based politics, and sacrifice to the nation?

Obama didn't vote on the McCain-Feingold campaign censorship law, because the law passed in 2002, while Obama didn't take his Senate seat till 2005. We were hopeful about a headline from Broadcasting & Cable claiming that Obama "does not support" the Fairness Doctrine, which is a euphemism for censoring radio.

However, Obama did not take a principled stand for free speech; instead, his spokesperson said that the proposal was a "distraction" from imposing other controls such as "media-ownership caps." In other words, Obama believes the national government should be able to forcibly prohibit some people from owning certain media outlets.

Both McCain and Obama believe that the phrase "Congress shall make no law" actually means "Congress shall make a law" imposing speech controls.

Obama had nothing but praise for President Bush's national faith-based welfare, which forces you to hand over some of your money to religious groups.

Obama promised that "federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs." However, not only is it immoral to force people who disagree with a particular religion to fund practitioners of that religion, but it is impossible for explicitly religious groups to spend tax dollars in a strictly secular way. The national government has no business forcibly redistributing people's money to any religious outfit.

The First Amendment also states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." While faith-based welfare does not sanction a single creed, it forcibly transfers funds to particular religious groups in violation of religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

If you're a Christian, you shouldn't be forced to fund a Muslim organization, and vice versa. If you're an atheist or "other," you shouldn't be forced to fund either. And churches shouldn't bow to Caesar to stick their noses into the government trough.

What about the issue of sacrificial service? When Obama came through Colorado earlier this month, he outlined his plan for forcing students to serve politician-approved goals. The Rocky Mountain News reports that Obama wants to make "federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs." In other words, Obama first wants to take your money by force, then blackmail your local school district with your money to force students to take time away from their studies, work, and other interests to "serve" whatever it is Obama deems appropriate.

And we always thought the Thirteenth Amendment prohibited involuntary servitude. True enough, people can pull their children out of government schools in protest, which means that they merely have to perform involuntary servitude to fund the school they're not using.

McCain and Obama are not merely bad candidates. Their policies are profoundly evil, and they violate the principles of liberty on which this nation was founded. They also violate at least the spirit, and we believe the letter, of the Constitution.

So whom are we voting for this year? We doubt that any of our regular readers need some newspaper columnists to tell them how to vote. We'll probably vote differently, anyway.

However, Ari feels free to mention that he's seriously considering writing in John Galt for president. With so many political "leaders" blaming liberty for the problems caused by political controls, and promising as the answer more severe controls, this election is starting to feel a lot like the world of Atlas Shrugged.

Republicans Alienate Western Voters

As Ryan Sager has pointed out, the Interior West isn't as friendly toward faith-based politics. That goes a long way toward explaining Republican losses in Colorado. Are Republicans listening? Consider:

"It is impossible to protect our religious liberty as well as all of our individual rights unless we endorse the strict separation of church and state. ... I have been a Republican for my entire voting life, but cannot endorse the GOP currently because of it's explicit endorsement of religion in government."

"As a Republican since 1976, I am disillusioned, largely because of the party's abandonment of individual liberty in favor of religion in politics."

"My family has always voted Republican. The Party has changed in recent years. The important issue: the Republican Party must stand for strict separation of church and state. But the Party has now allied itself with the religious right, with such pet issues as anti-stem-cell research, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage."

"The Republican Party must promote the strict separation of church and state. I used to support the Republican Party because I believe in individual rights, free markets, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms. However, the Republican Party alliance with the religious right on 'social issues' like stem cell research, abortion and gay marriage has turned off many former supporters such as myself."

"15 years ago, the GOP attracted me for its commitment to free markets and fiscal responsibility, even if only half-hearted. Today, the GOP has lost my vote due to its dangerous entanglement with evangelical Christianity."

I used to display a Bush (the First) yard sign in the window of the truck I drove. Since then, I've voted for Kerry. I intend to vote for Democrat Mark Udall for U.S. Senate. I refuse to vote for McCain. Just as soon as Republican candidates explicitly endorse the separation of church and state -- and mean it -- I will again consider voting for them.

Can't Republicans Just Get Along?

Reviewing a March 27 forum in Denver, I sounded a pessimistic note regarding the alliance between fiscal conservatives and the religious right. Now various other writers have weighed in on the matter. (Jon Caldara, one of the speakers at the forum, noted all of the following sources in a recent e-mail, except an article by Reason.)

Ryan Sager, a New Yorker who also spoke in Denver, reviewed the politics of the Interior West in his book, The Elephant in the Room. In a March 28 column for the New York Post, Sager explained why Democrats are likely to continue to find success in the Interior West. Sager writes:

The GOP is already well on its way to losing the West. ...

It's been clear for years the interior West, once reliably Republican, was becoming a swing region. ... In 2000, none of these eight states [Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming] had a Democratic governor. Now five do, including Colorado. ...

In fact, Colorado now looks bluer than a half-drowned Smurf. It's got a Democratic governor, House, Senate and high court. The GOP lost both houses of the Legislature in 2004 after spending a session on such issues as gay marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance and the liberal biases of college professors -- while the state faced a massive fiscal crisis. ...

As Caldara put it: "Colorado is, in fact, the test tube of how to export liberal expansion to the Western states." A moderately conservative state has been turned Blue, Caldara says, because of "the absolute demolishing of what the Right stood for, how the Republican Party turned into something it was never meant to be and went away from Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan ideas."

Of course, Democrats have worked hard to capitalize on the Republicans' carelessness. Liberal groups funded by folks like billionaire Quark founder Tim Gill have turned discontent into votes. And now they have a model to use in the rest of the region.

It's no coincidence that Democrats chose Denver for their convention. When they converge on the Mile High City in five months, they'll be staking their claim to what was once a solidly Red region.

Sager gets one point wrong: the state was not facing a "massive fiscal crisis." We were facing a crisis of political leadership. As I have reviewed, various Republicans, including Governor Bill Owens, were in fact leading the charge to declare a "crisis" and increase net taxes. While the Democrats were more than happy to support the plan, it gained its momentum precisely because much of the Republican leadership pushed it. Indeed, Bill Owens could be considered the most successful Democratic governor in recent Colorado history.

The Republicans' problem in Colorado is two-fold. One large faction of the GOP is an extension of the religion right. The top two priorities for this faction are to ban abortions and disparage homosexuals. While Coloradans on the whole have not expressed sympathy for gay marriage, neither are they particularly intolerant toward homosexuals, as is the religious right. Having received numerous mailers beating up Republicans over abortion, it's clear to me that the religious right has alienated a great many independent voters.

The other faction of the GOP consists of the pragmatists, the "me-tooers" who approve of the Democratic agenda with "moderate" restraint. What Sager and others fail to see is the connection between the religious right and the pragmatists. By Sager's analysis, the two groups are distinct factions within the GOP competing for dominance and struggling to "fuse." But, in reality, the big-government pragmatists gain intellectual and practical support from the religious right. As I noted in my last article on this matter, the religious right is increasingly supportive of the welfare state, and it is also picking up environmentalist themes. The religious right is slowly merging with -- and morphing into -- the religious left. That is because the redistribution of wealth is a Christian theme. It is but a short hop to the political redistribution of wealth. The pragmatist wing of the GOP, though it distances itself from the religious right rhetorically, in fact builds upon a partially secularized version of the Christian ethos. In this sense, the religious right establishes the foundation for the big-government right. It is no coincidence that Bush massively expanded the federal government in the name of Christian "compassion."

Matt Welch, the new editor of Reason, indirectly lends support to this thesis in his recent article, "When Coalitions Dissolve." Welch is even more pessimistic than Sager:

In Comeback, one of several new whither-the-party books by traumatized Republicans, former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum points out that the very Bush policies that fiscal conservatives like him despise -- the prescription drug entitlement, the No Child Left Behind Act, campaign finance reform -- were overwhelmingly popular among the American people. "On issues from Social Security to healthcare to environmental protection, conservatives find themselves on the less popular side of the great issues of the day," Frum writes.

The solution? Surrender: "There are things only government can do, and if we conservatives wish to be entrusted with the management of the government, we must prove that we care about government enough to manage it well." Republicans should cave on new spending and regulations, says Frum, in exchange for tax cuts. "This is not 1964," he writes. "The ideal under threat today is not the nation's liberty, but the nation's security, its unity, its effectiveness, and... its equality and beauty.”

As Sasha Issenberg wrote in a perceptive Boston Globe story last November, "With Republicans no longer preaching suspicion of Washington, a new consensus has emerged, as both parties have come in their ways to stand today for a more robust, aggressive federal government. As a result, Goldwaterism is without a natural home in the two-party system."

As far as these Republicans are concerned, we're all welfare-statists now.

The Republican party, then, has actively alienated those who advocate free markets, voluntarism and individual rights, restrained political spending, and personal freedom within the context of rights.

Yet some continue to hope for a renewal of "fusionism" between the fiscal conservatives and the religious right.

Jessica Peck Corry writes:

A leading conservative sat down with a libertarian Republican to begin building a bridge toward a united future.

The duo, Jim Pfaff and Sean Duffy, represented opposite ends of the debate on one of 2006's most contentious ballot issues -- the ill-fated Referendum I that sought to strengthen legal rights and protections for same-sex partners. Duffy was the public relations guru behind the campaign... Pfaff, president and CEO of the Colorado Family Institute, served as the effort's lead opponent. ...

And Pfaff, while frequently identified by his ties to Focus On The Family's Dr. James Dobson and his commitment to "life" issues, says he wants to work with Duffy and other libertarian Republicans to begin rebuilding the Republican Party in the West after years of Democratic gains. ...

Over pints of Guinness, the two tell the story of the mutual admiration for each other. If this was your snapshot of the Republican Party's two leading ideological factions, you'd have to wonder: What's the problem?

The problem is huge. Republicans are facing an identity crisis of immense proportions. And social issues like gay rights and abortion are only the beginning. With George W. Bush at the helm, the federal government has maxed out our collective credit cards to continue funding the expansion of entitlement programs and an unpopular -- but difficult to end -- war. ...

Bob Schaffer, a former Republican Congressman from Fort Collins, is taking on sitting U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs. ... [Schaffer] fought consistently for a balanced budget, introducing a constitutional amendment to require such. Also a strong supporter of innovative education reform, Schaffer had the courage to vote against the unfunded mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act...

Conservatives and libertarians should follow the lead of Pfaff and Duffy, putting aside their differences on social issues to elect viable candidates dedicated to protecting the working families and small business owners who suffer most when government spending expands.

Yet, as much as I appreciate Duffy's commitment to personal freedoms, the religious right is not simply going to "put aside" its political support for banning abortion, restricting homosexuals, imposing censorship, and controlling personal behaviors. Indeed, much of the religious right is currently trying to define a fertilized egg as a a person.

And as much as I appreciate Schaffer's commitment to restrained federal power in some areas, the fact remains that even in these areas he's fighting against the Republican current. Moreover, while Udall has clearly endorsed the separation of church and state, Schaffer has failed to do so.

Indeed, as the Rocky Mountain News summarizes, "Schaffer regularly voted to restrict abortion rights and gay rights, and promote religious themes..." OnTheIssues.org lists a number of Schaffer's congressional votes, including the following:

* Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000)
* Voted YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. (Jun 1999)
* Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
* Supports anti-flag desecration amendment. (Mar 2001)
* Voted NO on... medical marijuana in DC. (Oct 1999)
* Supports requiring schools to allow prayer. (Jan 2001)
* Supports a Constitutional Amendment for school prayer. (May 1997)

I do not see how these issues can simply be set aside.

Writing for Backbone America, John Andrews's conservative forum, Krista Kafer writes:

[Caldara observed] that big-government Republicans... are the real enemy of conservatism, not social conservatives. I hope other libertarians were listening. ...

[O]n our differences (gay marriage and drug legalization just to pick two), I actually have some logical reasons for my beliefs. We could discuss them and possibly find common ground or at least an appreciation for each other's reasons. Calling me a bigot who wants to deprive people of civil rights isn't exactly a thoughtful response to my concerns about the impact of gay marriage. My primary objection to same-sex marriage is a libertarian one -– it suppresses dissenting views. The state of Massachusetts shut down a Catholic adoption agency because it did not adopt to same-sex couples (the agency does not even receive government money). The same thing has happened in England. In Colorado, gay couples are free to call themselves "married," live together, have children, etc. Their status is recognized by those who agree with their lifestyle. State intervention in favor of these unions would force anyone who does not agree to shut down their business or organization. That doesn't sound like freedom to me.

On drug legalization, I sympathize with cancer victims and believe strongly that if marijuana helps them they should have as much of it as they need. ... The average pot smoker is... the guy who is unemployed or underemployed who uses me, the taxpayer, as his health insurance provider. ... How much of my taxpayer money goes to health care, food, housing, treatment programs, and other services for potheads, meth addicts, junkies and crackheads?

... We need each other. If we only want to work with people with whom we agree 100% of the time, it's going to be a small crowd, powerless against the proponents of big government control.

The Cato Institute speaker that night predicted a mass of libertarians going over to Obama. Great idea if you want to work with people who are diametrically opposed to everything you've worked for all your life. National health care, high taxes, adding a gazillion more government programs to an already behemoth federal government –- yep, that's compatible with libertarian thought.

If you want to jump ship out of spite, you might end up in the water with the sharks. Or, we can work together. Your call.

Yet Kafer offers no solid grounds for fusionism.

While some on the religious right sincerely advocate limited federal power, most do not. The overlap between "big-government Republicans" and the religious right is huge.

On the issue of gay marriage, I am not familiar with the details of the role of the Catholic church in adoption. If we're talking about parents who entrust the care of their children to the Catholic church, then the church should indeed have the ability to set adoption policy for those children, as agents of the parents. That issue is entirely separable from the matter of gay marriage (and domestic partnership). However, Sager was not merely referring to the religious right's opposition to gay marriage when he applied the term bigotry to the religious right; he was referring to the unceasing condemnations of homosexuality by the religious right.

It is telling that Kafer endorses the drug war on welfare-statist grounds. Her claims about the drug war are the opposite of the truth -- it is the drug war itself that exacerbates social harms -- but even if she were correct in her factual claims she would, if committed to liberty, advocate the repeal of welfare, not the expansion of political controls because of the collectivized costs of welfare.

Finally, Kafer's comments about "national health care" and "high taxes" hardly justify support for the GOP. It is true that many Republicans are marginally better than many Democrats regarding health policy. However, various Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Bob Beauprez, endorse mandated insurance. Republican George Bush massively expanded medical entitlements. And Republican Bill Owens instituted the Colorado Healthcare Commission, which rejected a free-market proposal in favor of plans to massively expand the state's role in medicine. The Republicans merely offer a slower road to socialized medicine. So far as taxes go, the Republicans are the ones who handed us Referendum C, and "President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson."

The problem is not jumping ship to face the sharks. The problem is that the sharks are already in the boat. At least Democratic socialist sharks don't bait the waters with the rhetoric of liberty. And, in a few key areas, some Democrats are actually serious about liberty. The GOP increasingly offers the worst of both worlds: economic controls combined with restrictions of individual liberty. For the time being, I'll take my chances in the open waters, unaffiliated, until the U.S. Liberty sails again.

The Republican Schism

Colorado is a Republican state run by Democrats. Why is that? David Kirby of America's Future Foundation (AFF) organized a debate in Denver to figure it out. Brad Jones of FaceTheState (shown in the photo) moderated the event, held March 26 at the Oxford Hotel. AFF described the event as follows:

Democrats' Strategy to turn the Mountain West Blue, and What Libertarians and Conservatives Can Do About It

It's no mistake that Democrats will be hosting their national convention in Denver. Liberal funders have invested heavily in Colorado as part of a multi-cycle strategy to turn traditionally red states in the mountain west blue. But have Republicans and the Religious Right put more libertarian-leaning mountain states up for grabs? Looking at the primaries, does Huckabee's success indicate the growing or waning influence of evangelicals in the Republican Party? Does Ron Paul's fundraising success indicating a growing influence of libertarians? And what to make of McCain? Join our panelists as we discuss the future of libertarians, conservatives, and evangelicals in the West.

Featuring Jon Caldara, president, Independence Institute; Jim Pfaff, president, Colorado Family Council Ryan Sager, author, Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party; Gene Healy, senior editor at the Cato Institute and author, Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power; moderated by Brad Jones, Facethestate.com.

The four main speakers offered four different takes on the GOP and the problems arising from the "fusionism" of the last few decades between social conservatives (the religious right) and fiscal conservatives. (Caldara and Healy are shown in the photo at left; Sager and Pfaff are shown below.)

1. Sager believes that social conservatives, with their emphasis on outlawing abortion and disparaging homosexuals, along with their increasing friendliness toward big-government programs, have alienated both socially-tolerant fiscal conservatives and younger voters. Sager said that he's sorry to lose social conservatives as political allies, but he didn't express much hope for a renewal of fusionism. Instead, pointing to polling data and demographic trends, Sager predicted continued Democratic success in the Interior West.

2. Pfaff, whose organization is friendly with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, argued that fusionism continues to be a sound basis for an alliance, and that many on the religious right continue to share concerns about limiting the power of the federal government.

3. Caldara suggested that the main problem is that Republicans aren't acting like Republicans; that is, they are promoting higher taxes, expanded political programs, and more government controls generally. This has dispirited the Republican base and made possible Democratic victories. He thinks that Republican "differences... are actually pretty small" and that they can be bridged.

4. Healy said basically that fusionism doesn't matter. Whether Republicans or Democrats have controlled the national government, its power has steadily expanded. However, while Clinton supported free trade, got the deficit under control, and helped reform welfare, Bush expanded welfare and launched a nation-building expedition. "If what you really care about" is limited government, Healy said, then partisanship is the wrong strategy. Instead, our best hope in the near future is divided government.

I suggest that a fifth explanation is the best one. Fusionism is inherently unstable, the conservative split was destined to happen, and a deepening schism is both inevitable and desirable.

Today's liberals of a classical bent, whom Sager calls the libertarians, are primarily concerned with individual rights. Thus, they care deeply about property rights and economic liberty, and they also care deeply about individual freedom. Their concern is fundamentally with the well-being of individual people and the society that they comprise; their basic value is earthly flourishing. Thus, the "fiscal conservatives" are dominantly secularists, even though many of them also hold religious views.

The religious right, on the other hand, is fundamentally concerned with success in the afterlife and with obeying the (alleged) commandments of God. The Bible doesn't lend much support to a politics of economic liberty; it is instead dominated by the ideal of giving away one's money to help the less-fortunate. Most Christians, even most "conservative" ones, endorse a robust welfare state. To the extent that Christians endorse relatively free markets, they usually do so on essentially collectivist grounds: free markets harness capitalist vice to enrich the masses. Capitalism does enrich the masses, but the key political question is whether the rights of the individual to pursue earthly happiness remain inviolable.

Certainly the likes of George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney advocate massive state intrusion in the market, often on explicitly religious grounds. Moreover, many on the religious right believe that God wants them to outlaw abortion, gay marriage (if not homosexuality), and pornography. Thus, even social conservatives who endorse relatively free markets -- and they seem to be a dying breed -- typically advocate censorship and highly intrusive state powers. To take but one example, the effort in Colorado to define a fertilized egg as a person would, if enforced, impose severe state controls over our sexual and reproductive lives.

Democrats in Colorado have not won; Republicans have lost. Republicans have pushed for such measures as waiting periods for abortions and controls of book-store displays. They have resisted efforts to moderate the drug war, even for medical marijuana, and it took a Democratic government to repeal the Prohibition-era ban on Sunday liquor sales. So Republicans have certainly been unfriendly toward "socially tolerant" fiscal conservatives -- a large group in the Interior West, as Sager has found. Meanwhile, Republicans have also given us massive tax hikes, the smoking ban, and corporate welfare. While some Republicans do actually push for free markets, Republicans on the whole are only modestly better than Democrats at defending economic liberty, and often Republicans are leading the charge to violate economic liberty.

I myself have renounced "fusionism." The religious right is no friend of liberty. I voted for Democrat Bill Ritter for governor, I have indicated my likely support for Mark Udall over Bob Schaffer for U.S. Senate, and I have pledged not to vote for John McCain, who has trampled the First Amendment as well as pushed for faith-based politics.

Fusionism is dead. Good riddance.

As far as I can see, the only real hope for liberty (beyond the necessary philosophical foundation) is for the civil-libertarian left, the free-trade Democrats, and the free-market right to form a new alliance. The religious right has already started to merge with the religious left, and that process will continue. The ultimate battle is between reason and liberty on one side and faith and force on the other. Of course, some non-Christians, such as rabid environmentalists, will join the side of socialism, their natural home, while various Christians will join the side of liberty. Social tolerance insists on freedom of religion (including freedom from religion) and naturally includes tolerance for religious differences -- so long as religionists don't try to impose their religious dogmas by force.

But on with the discussion.

Pfaff argued that there "really isn't a divide at all;" he called himself a "Christian libertarian" and a member of the "Reagan coalition." He said that, while he is concerned with the politics of "life" and "marriage" (i.e., banning abortion and preventing homosexual unions), social conservatives are "not just animated by family / life issues." They also care about freedom in the economy.

"I have no desire to live in a pro-life, socialist state," Pfaff said. For one thing, under socialism he'd lose the "pro-life" issue, too. (I don't think that point is correct, as Christian socialism is possible.) He added, "To understand social conservatives, you have to understand that life issue." He said the matters of abortion and marriage, as well as fiscal issues, are "rooted in the principles of liberty." By my lights, that only demonstrates that the meaning of liberty depends crucially on underlying principles.

Caldara tried to sprinkle some water on burning bridges. "For the most part, I love social conservatives," he said. However, Caldara made perhaps the most devastating critique of fusionism, even if he didn't intend his comments as such. He pointed out that, in the good ol' days of fusionism, God loved guns and low taxes, so fusionism worked. But now "God is having second thoughts on both issues," and the religious right seems more concerned with telling people how to live. The problem that Caldara points to is that of faith-based politics: Christians who try to justify capitalism through religion ultimately fail to do so, while other Christians successfully sacrifice capitalism to religion (consider, for instance, the rise of Jim Wallis.)

But the GOP has other problems, Caldara noted, such as the "business-development Republicans," whose idea of business development is a combination of corporate-welfare, discriminatory taxation, and political favoritism. I would describe the broader problem here as pragmatism: many Republicans don't even know what principles are, much less seek to apply them in politics.

Healy offered perhaps the most painfully funny talk. "Is it really a shame" if "our side" loses, he asked? Bush has hardly represented a victory for conservatives. He also suggested that, with a Democratic president, at least Republicans might oppose some expansions of federal power.

In line with his new book, Healy offered a more fundamental critique of the American presidency. The modern president has become "the living embodiment of America's hopes and dreams," he said. He quoted Hillary, Obama, McCain, and Bush about controlling the economy, creating an American "kingdom," following Teddy Roosevelt, and having "a heart big enough to love those who hurt."

In other words, the president is supposed to be "America's shrink and social worker and talk-show host," as well as the protector of the entire earth, all in one person. "The president is supposed to be a superhero." However, Healy warned, "With great responsibility comes great power."

Sager began by reviewing the history of fusionism. Bush, he argued, abandoned fusionism in favor of so-called "compassionate conservatism." Sager blasted McCain's campaign censorship law. Citing recent history, he asked, if you are socially tolerant and fiscally conservative, "why on earth would you vote Republican?" The Democratic Party is increasingly the home of free trade plus social tolerance, he suggested.

Sager places the blame for fusionism's demise squarely with the religious right, which seems to care most about "denying civil rights to gay people." Such a position alienates young voters as well as civil libertarians, he added. The message of the GOP insofar as it is dominated by the religious right is, "We are the party of bigotry."

In the question period, Healy noted that, even though he is sympathetic with the "pro-life" position, he no longer sees a basis for a broad coalition. Social conservatives are "no longer part of the leave-me-alone coalition," he said. Instead, they seem to be following the ideals of the Great Society. Pfaff said that he supported Huckabee, whom Healy particularly criticized, despite concerns with Huckabee's economic pronouncements.

Pfaff was obviously feeling a little bit beat up. I think that's because, ultimately, Pfaff cannot establish a basis for fusionism, even though he obviously wants to. To me, Pfaff's support for Huckabee indicates where his priorities rest. While I appreciate Pfaff's concern for economic liberty, he's half-heartedly fighting a battle within the religious right that he simply cannot win.

As the old alliances crumble, people are going to have to make some hard choices. Democrats will have to decide whether they care more about class warfare or a sound economy. Civil-libertarians of the left will have to decide whether they can live with civil liberties such as gun ownership and property rights. Christians of the right will need to decide whether they care more about abortion and homosexuality or economic liberty -- and pick their allies accordingly.

Meanwhile, those who consistently advocate individual rights must fight for their principles and try to bring others on board.