Edwards CNN Debate:YouTube Reverend Lacked Full Truth

I was a bit confused by the premise of Reverend Longcrier's question addressed to John Edwards on the CNN/YouTube debate this evening. He stated that religion had been used to justify slavery when, in fact, the earliest campaign to end slavery in the United States was largely the work of a small number of Christians who opposed slavery on explicitly religious grounds and who, in their own time, were regularly condemned as fanatical zealots.

Perhaps Reverend Longcrier, who said religion was used to justify keeping the vote from women, didn't realize that it was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) - with Frances Willard at its head in 1876 - who was a powerful force in the women's suffrage movement. Interestingly, one of the most vehement opponents to women's enfranchisement was the liquor lobby, which feared women might use the franchise to prohibit the sale of liquor.

In the framing of his YouTube question, Reverend Longcrier appeared to have mistaken John Edwards' personal faith for what Edwards had already explained to Wolf Blitzer about Presidential responsibility during the CNN Forum on Faith and Politics at George Washington University on June 4. At that time, Edwards stressed that the president of the United States should never use his personal belief system to impose that belief system on the rest of the country.

Unfortunately, as Marc Ambinder pointed out at the Atlantic, John Edwards "seemed on his game, although a noisy audience deprived him of the chance to impress a questioner on gay rights." Reverend Longcrier, who was in the audience during the debate, claimed not to have been satisfied by Edwards' answer and left me with the distinct impression that his own dissatisfaction was because of his own clumsily worded YouTube question. While CNN seemed happy to put such a controversial wedge question to Edwards on gay marriage, Reverend Longcrier's less than theologically/historicallly honest set-up of the question shortchanged everyone involved. On Cooper's live audience follow-up with the Reverend, Longcrier was given a brief chance to expand his question toward the more relevant issue he seemed to have wanted to lead into ...that is to say overall social justice and fairness issues. Alas, Anderson Cooper cut the Reverend off as quickly as he cut most of the candidates off tonight for the sake of fitting in as many YouTube videos as possible.

UPDATE:

Tip of the hat to Chris Johnson for this excerpt from the CNN debate transcript:

COOPER: This next question is for Senator Edwards.

QUESTION: I'm Reverend Reggie Longcrier. I'm the pastor of Exodus Mission and Outreach Church in Hickory, North Carolina.

Senator Edwards said his opposition to gay marriage is influenced by his Southern Baptist background. Most Americans agree it was wrong and unconstitutional to use religion to justify slavery, segregation, and denying women the right to vote.

So why is it still acceptable to use religion to deny gay American their full and equal rights?

(APPLAUSE)

EDWARDS: I think Reverend Longcrier asks a very important question, which is whether fundamentally -- whether it's right for any of our faith beliefs to be imposed on the American people when we're president of the United States. I do not believe that's right.

I feel enormous personal conflict about this issue. I want to end discrimination. I want to do some of the things that I just heard Bill Richardson talking about -- standing up for equal rights, substantive rights, civil unions, the thing that Chris Dodd just talked about. But I think that's something everybody on this stage will commit themselves to as president of the United States.

But I personally have been on a journey on this issue. I feel enormous conflict about it. As I think a lot of people know, Elizabeth spoke -- my wife Elizabeth spoke out a few weeks ago, and she actually supports gay marriage. I do not. But this is a very, very difficult issue for me. And I recognize and have enormous respect for people who have a different view of it.

COOPER: I should also point out that the reverend is actually in the audience tonight. Where is he? Right over here.

Reverend, do you feel he answered your question?

(APPLAUSE)

QUESTION: This question was just a catalyst that promoted some other things that wrapped around that particular question, especially when it comes to fair housing practices. Also...

COOPER: Do you think he answered the question, though?

QUESTION: Not like I would like to have heard it...

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: What did you not hear?

QUESTION: I didn't quite get -- some people were moving around, and I didn't quite get all of his answer. I just heard...

COOPER: All right, there's 30 seconds more. Why is it OK to quite religious beliefs when talking about why you don't support something? That's essentially what's his question.

EDWARDS: It's not. I mean, I've been asked a personal question which is, I think, what Reverend Longcrier is raising, and that personal question is, do I believe and do I personally support gay marriage?

The honest answer to that is I don't. But I think it is absolutely wrong, as president of the United States, for me to have used that faith basis as a basis for denying anybody their rights, and I will not do that when I'm president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

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