by Dan Masterton
In high school, coming off of an engaging freshmen year in which many of my friends and I survived the rigors of Honors Western Civ. class with the (in)famous Mr. Tom Nall, we were discovering our intellectual prowesses, our ideological and political interests, and happening upon the causes and principles in which we believed.
As I sat at lunch at a round table of my friends, political debates would arise - inasmuch as they can among 15-year-olds. As we debated ecology and environment and role of government (probably with much less eloquence than I’d like to admit) it became clear as I looked around the table where people stood on the ideological spectrum: liberal - liberal - liberal - liberal - liberal - liberal - liberal - conservative. Fittingly to my right, one of my male friends held his conservative line while the rest of the table hammered him with the fervor of their bleeding hearts.
I didn’t immediately or readily identify with either side. I found myself concurring with elements of both sides’ points while I also found myself internally, and maybe even physically, rolling my eyes at parts of their arguments. To me, it felt like there was definite compromise available.
As I continued to learn and grow, my politics, my ideology, and my disposition only further identified with the middle. I am not a moderate because I am lukewarm or because I abstain from investigating issues and taking stances. I land in the middle because I find two-party approaches to be faulty dilemmas - they are a representation of the logical fallacy that problems have only two solutions of which we must choose one. Politically, I always sympathize with more conservative Democrats like Indiana’s Joe Donnelly and more liberal Republicans Illinois’ Mark Kirk (two dying breeds), not because they matched my opinions but because their seemingly incongruous identifiers correspond with what I think political and social issues need.
This reality fits how I approach politics and citizenship as a Catholic, too. As I wrote and spoke about Catholic Social Teaching and American politics, I mentioned many times how a faithful Catholic seeking to apply Catholic Social Teaching conscientiously cannot fully identify with either party.
However, recently, I’ve felt uneasiness and hesitancy in giving voice to what I believe to be right. For whatever reason, I’ve been more sensitive to the small-talk and conversation in everyday life. People I’ve been around have brought up same-sex marriage, drag queens and transgender/gender-fluid people, the Ohio abortion bills, using IVF in response to infertility, and treatment of immigrants and minorities.
As I listen, I know where I stand. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and acknowledgement of same-sex couples’ commitment must be careful, supporting their commitment and their service of others and the church, and not called marriage. I believe sexual reflection is important but must stop short of gender reassignment surgeries and biological transformations. I believe life begins at conception and abortion should be eradicated while support for mothers, families, and adoptions grow. I believe immigrants and minorities deserve full, equal dignity and must not be discriminated against.
Yet as I’ve listened, I have found myself in these most recent instances almost always holding my tongue. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to assert what I believe to invite a dialogue. I fail in asking a leading question or posing another point of view that makes new space in the conversation. And I couldn’t figure out why.
It took sitting here and not knowing what to write and not knowing where to start to pick this issue apart and get to its core: when I mentally react to these issues, I don’t feel moderate. As I hear others praise the protections and formalization of gender reassignment, I feel like criticizing it paints me as an extremist. As I hear about criticisms of Gov. Kasich vetoing a strict bill while signing a more moderate one, I feel like upholding the life of the unborn portrays me as an unfeeling hardliner.
It’s weird to realize this because, for most of life, and definitely since my teenage years, I have not really based my actions and decisions on what others think of them. I have long been a steadily and strongly self-confident person, a proactive initiative-taker, an earnest instigator, unafraid of difficult questions or unpleasant answers. I’m worrying more about people’s reactions than about exposing them to truth. So I am patently uncomfortable with this development in myself.
In my ministry, in my faith life, in my relationships, and across the board, I pride myself on being a consistent person. I want to be the same person to my family as I am to my students as I am to my co-workers as I am to my friends. I don’t want to have modes that make me a different person to different people.
I’m not sure what the way forward is, other than to find - to pray for - deeper resolve, restored confidence, willingness to take a risk and engage people with patience and compassion. An episode from one of my all-time favorite shows, The West Wing, comes to mind as possible inspiration.
In “The Supremes,” one of the US Supreme Court Justices dies, and the Democratic administration begins searching for a nominee for his place on the bench. As they formulate a shortlist and invite in candidates, a very liberal woman and prominent judge, Evelyn Lang, comes in to interview; however, she knows she’s just “window-dressing,” a bluff to the Republicans that the administration is considering a judge who is unpalatable to them, hoping to soften them up to more quickly confirm their moderate nominee.
As the administration settles on their moderate candidate, they cannot shake their love of Lang, who is excellent for the job despite her far-left reputation. In an unorthodox and probably unrealistic move, they devise a compromise strategy: they invite the aging, far-left Chief Justice to retire, vacating his seat for Lang, and leaving the seat of the late justice for a hand-picked, far-right candidate. The Republicans pick an equally extreme, far-right judge to counter the leanings of Lang, and President Bartlet presents these two polar opposites as his two nominees for the bench.
The real power of the episode comes when the senior staff stumbles upon the two potential nominees conversing in a holding room. While they think they’ve seen the candidates at their most extreme - debating from their perches at the extreme ends of the ideological spectrum - the candidates reveal that they’re simply baiting one another, practicing their legal arguments in extreme role play to sharpen their minds and study legal principles. It turns out that the two deeply respect each other, despite their polar opposite understandings of the same laws, and relish the opportunity to square off in showdowns of legal precedents, interpretations, and judicial opinions.
While the temptation is for the administration to nominate a vanilla moderate who all sides can stomach, the more fruitful debate emerges from putting forth two intelligent, principled, thoughtful people from diametrically opposed ideological points who will strive to engage in spirited dialogue.
Fearful as it can be to stick my neck out, I know that the significant gains come when people who disagree can take the time to listen to each other. I am a moderate. I am an independent. I am a Catholic. I believe in the consistent ethic of life. I need to believe I can share this.
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