Laws made by legislators must be rooted in constitutional values and reasoned analysis, not someone's personal take on scripture. Put bluntly, if your representative in Congress can't explain a vote on abortion or the environment without "proof-texting" it to the Bible, he or she has failed to do the work of a legislator in America.
He asks, "Is Lynn suggesting all speech in Congress must be stripped of references to religious moral arguments?" He thinks, "Legislators should be able to frame their positions in any way that speaks to their constituents, even 'proof-texting.'"
Bob's discomfort over what Lynn is saying could be quickly cleared up if he followed a suggestion put forward by Dr. Barbara McGraw, who is on the National Advisory Board of Americans United. In her recent book, Rediscovering America's Sacred Ground: Public Religion and Pursuit of the Good in Pluralistic America, McGraw suggests that there are two tiers in America's public forum and she identifies a morality that is appropriate to each. The morality of the civic public forum preserves by force of law the "sacred ground" that is necessary to preserve a just and equitable pluralistic society with religious liberty for all. The morality of the conscientious public forum is preserved by persuasion, not by force of law, as diverse individuals and groups promote their competing visions of the common good. Using this distinction, Lynn's comments would refer to the civic public forum. The work that Jim Wallis is doing, which Bob is trying to preserve, is properly part of the conscientious public forum.
I suspect that Barry Lynn has something like McGraw's distinctions in mind as he speaks and writes. I know that he has read McGraw's book and he has interviewed her on his radio program. I recently posted my own radio interview with her in two podcasts (here and here). Here's a link to a blog that I wrote last summer reviewing her book.
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