{"id":1126,"date":"2020-08-19T04:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T04:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1126"},"modified":"2025-09-29T13:51:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T13:51:01","slug":"princeton-professor-short-7-paragraphs-essay-running-for-office-as-devout-catholicsecular-progressiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1126","title":{"rendered":"Princeton professor short (7 paragraphs) essay: Running for office as Devout Catholic\/secular progressive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robert<\/a><\/p>\n

Robert George<\/a> – pretty well-known author and speaker. After all, you make "your own truth." That's him with Cornel West.<\/p>\n

Imagine that I am running for public office\u2014say, president of the United States\u2014and I claim to be a \u201ccommitted secular progressive.\u201d You say, \u201cBut Professor George, you're no such thing. You're not secular\u2014you\u2019re Catholic; you're not progressive\u2014you\u2019re conservative.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

I reply, \u201cHey, but I was educated by secular progressives. I went to Swarthmore, then Harvard, then Oxford: All secular institutions dominated by progressives. I teach at Princeton\u2014super secular and progressive. I learned the secular progressive catechism. I know it by heart. I can quote it to you verbatim. My secular progressive teachers largely shaped who I am. I'm grateful to them every day for the fine education they provided. That's part of my life, man.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you know what else? It\u2019s in my family! My maternal grandfather was a secularist. He was an anti-clerical Italian. He was even a freemason. I loved and adored that man. He was a big influence on me!\u201d<\/p>\n

You say, \u201cBut professor, you don't believe the doctrines of secular progressivism. You're pro-life! You believe that marriage is the conjugal union of husband and wife. You think that Jack Phillips shouldn't be forced to design and bake cakes for gay weddings and that the Little Sisters of the Poor ought not to be forced to provide or facilitate contraception. How can you claim to be a committed secular progressive?\u201d<\/p>\n

I reply, \u201cHey, like I said, man, it's who I am! It\u2019s who I choose to be. It's my self-definition. My personal opinions are one thing, but they don't necessarily dictate what I think public policy should be. And you're just picking out a few issues. Look, I believe in helping the poor. I'm for reforming the criminal justice system. I'm against the death penalty. I believe in welcoming refugees and being humane in the treatment of immigrants, including the undocumented. Those values, to me, are at the heart of what it means to be a secular progressive. I don't want to get hung up on abortion, and gay marriage, and baking cakes, and that stuff. Being a secular progressive is really about fighting poverty, and being for criminal justice reform and other things that really matter in the lives of ordinary people. And, by the way, who are you to question my secular progressive faith? I define who I am, not you.\u201d<\/p>\n

You say, \u201cBut if you can just label yourself as a \u2018committed secular progressive,\u2019 despite your opposition to central planks of the secular progressive platform like \u2018reproductive rights\u2019 and \u2018marriage equality,\u2019 then what does it even mean to be a secular progressive?\u201d<\/p>\n

I reply, \u201cHey, it means what it means to me<\/em>. Look man, if other politicians can attach to themselves labels like \u2018devout Catholic,\u2019 even though they support same-sex marriage and abortion\u2014even government-funded abortion\u2014and forcing Jack Phillips to bake gay-themed cakes and the Little Sisters to provide contraception, then surely I can label myself a secular progressive, even though I'm on the other side of those issues. If folks in the media decide to help them out by playing along with the claim that they are \u2018devout Catholics,\u2019 then what possible excuse could they have for denying me my self-identification as a \u2018committed secular progressive\u2019? If it works one way, then surely it works the other way, too. I mean, it's a two-way street. Right, man?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert George – pretty well-known author and speaker. After all, you make "your own truth." That's him with Cornel West. Imagine that I am running for public office\u2014say, president of the United States\u2014and I claim to be a \u201ccommitted secular progressive.\u201d You say, \u201cBut Professor George, you're no such thing. You're not secular\u2014you\u2019re Catholic; you're […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7528,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions\/7528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}