Heaven Help Us

Donald Trump has decreed that all houses of worship are essential places and that they should all open immediately in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic - and he vows to override any governor who keeps restrictions on houses of worship even though he doesn't have authority.

Even though Trump's ruling applies to all faiths, he is doing this to whip up support from white evangelical churches, whose parishioners would rather back a hedonist like Trump than back a party - the Democrats - who are tolerant of people of other faiths or people who, worse still, subscribe to no faith at all.  The interests of  Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and mainline Protestants like Trump himself don't concern him here.   But Joe Biden, I believe, can get around and possibly even neutralize this issue by re-affirming his own commitment to religious freedom and showing respect for those who practice a faith.  And he's got some ground on which to stand.

In 2007, then-Senator Biden appeared on Bill Maher's show to explain why the Democrats have lost their way with faith-based voters.  He cited his own mother, who regularly went to church and prayed for a brother of hers who ended up missing in action while fighting in the war.  When he told a fellow Democrat about this, the other Democrat said, "Isn't that quaint?"  Biden, a Catholic, said that this unnamed Democrat was trivializing the faith of Biden's mother and the tradition of faith in families like Biden's, and that the Democrats ought to respect the faiths of the voters.  (He wanted to punch the guy who thought Biden's mother's prayer tradition for her brother was "quaint.")  So Biden knows a thing or two about the importance of faith.  He should agree that honoring the right of people to worship in a pandemic is necessary and essential, but he should also urge churches, synagogues, mosques and temples to take the necessary precautions so that parishioners can worship in their houses of God (or gods) so that no one gets sick practicing their faith.  He should also remind voters that it's okay to pray at home while they're at it.

A guy who has been a practicing Catholic all his life should have some more legitimacy on this issue than an amoral person like Trump, who probably can't even remember his denomination.  (For the record, Trump was baptized Presbyterian.)