Subject: How Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's VP, Defies the Religious Stereotype - The Daily Beast
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2016 09:02:27 -0400

How Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's VP, Defies the Religious Stereotype - The
Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/22/how-tim-kaine-hillary-clinton-s-vp-defies-the-religious-stereotype.html?via=ios

How Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's VP, Defies the Religious Stereotype

According to conventional wisdom, Hillary Clinton’s VP pick, Senator Tim
Kaine
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/20/maine-sen-angus-king-to-hillary-no-pain-choose-kaine.html>,
is the boring, safe choice: uninspiring to progressives, a white dude, but
a competent centrist from a swing state. Kaine said so himself on *Meet the
Press*
<http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/sen-kaine-boring-is-the-fastest-growing-demographic-713071683576>:
“It’s true. I am boring.”

In a text message to her supporters just after 8 p.m. on Friday evening,
Clinton wrote: "I'm thrilled to tell you this first: I've chosen Sen. Tim
Kaine as my running mate. Welcome him to our team"

Not quite. In fact, Kaine’s old-school, social-justice, Jesuit-trained
Catholicism is a refreshing break from the usual association of religiosity
with conservatism. As such, especially if Kaine does attract moderate
Republicans disenchanted with the extremism of Donald Trump
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/features/2016/donald-trump.html>, he has the
potential to be a transformative figure.

Like his potential predecessor, Joe Biden, Kaine reflects both the past and
the future of the Catholic Church
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/can-pope-francis-unite-american-catholics.html>—but
not the recent past. For a long time, mainstream Catholics emphasized the
Church’s social gospel: caring for the poor, opposing war and the death
penalty, and so on. And with the series of reforms known as “Vatican II,”
it seemed as though the Church would keep pace with the times and moderate
its doctrines on sexuality, gender, and birth control, while maintaining
its basically liberal social justice outlook.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the sexual revolution caused the Catholic
Church to turn rightward, retrenching on conservative teachings on
sexuality and gender, and placing opposition to abortion at the top of the
Church’s American political agenda. Weirdly, Catholic teachings on life
beginning at conception became adopted by American evangelicals (who had
once bitterly opposed them) and the right-wing alliance between
conservative Catholics and Protestants created the contemporary Christian
Right
<https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/where-did-indiana-law-come-brief-history-religious-freedom>
.

Not all Catholics went along, however. The Jesuit order, in particular,
remained focused on service, justice, and issues of poverty, deemphasizing
(while not opposing) issues of sexual purity. Not surprisingly, Pope
Francis, the first Jesuit pope, has followed this pattern, much to the
chagrin of traditionalists.  While not changing Catholic dogma, he has
spoken of the need to apologize to gay people, and has washed the feet of
poor people around the world.

That is Tim Kaine’s tradition, too. In particular, he has spoken often
<https://charlierose.com/videos/18985> of the year he spent with Jesuit
missionaries in Honduras, telling Charlie Rose in 2008 that “the
transformative event in my life, next to being a husband and father, was
this year that I spent as a missionary in Honduras, not only informing my
views of our country, but giving me a sense of mission in life at a time
when I lacked it. That was a powerful faith experience for me.”

Since then, Kaine also has been outspoken about his faith, sometimes
rivaling his counterpart, Governor Mike Pence, in the number of times he
invokes it. This has not been without controversy. For example, Kaine has
said many times that he is personally pro-life but politically
pro-choice—in other words, that he is anti-abortion himself, as a matter of
conscience, but believes the government should not coerce that moral view
on women.

Oddly, some have called this view
<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/tim-kaine-abortion-predicament-225053>
a “predicament.” But, in fact, it is what a majority of Americans believe:
that they personally may be against abortion, but that it’s not the state’s
business to force those views on anyone, especially against women who
should make such decisions for themselves. As senator, Kaine maintained a
100 percent rating from NARAL, and spoken many times in favor of
protecting *Roe
v. Wade—*though as governor, he backed consent restrictions and a
“partial-birth” abortion ban. While some in the pro-choice community are
unhappy with this ambivalence, it’s not a predicament for Kaine; it’s an
asset.

Indeed, the mirror image of Kaine’s position on abortion is his position on
the death penalty: personal moral opposition, but a concurrent belief that
the state should not impose a moral view on others. As governor, he allowed
executions to proceed as sentenced. “I take an oath to uphold the laws of
the commonwealth,” he said in 2008. “My church doesn't make me cross my
fingers when I do.”

Kaine’s Catholicism also represents the demographic future of the Catholic
Church, and of America. His parish in Richmond is mostly non-white, and
according to one report
<http://www.newsweek.com/tim-kaine-vice-president-boring-480693>, Kaine has
even sung in the mostly-black gospel choir. Both as a matter of daily
reality and ethical commitment, Kaine’s religiosity includes a commitment
to racial justice.

More broadly, as we’ve seen with Pope Francis, the social justice teachings
of the Church are not to be underestimated. Like Pope John Paul II (though
not Pope Benedict) before him, Pope Francis has criticized untrammeled
capitalism, pushed for swift action on climate change
<http://religionnews.com/2015/06/19/pope-francis-environmental-encyclical-even-radical-appears-commentary/>,
and personally demonstrated what concern for the marginalized looks like.
If any of these views were to be put into practice, the results would look
more like Bernie Sanders than Clintonomics.

Now, it remains true that on some issues important to former Bernie-backing
progressives, Kaine is a disappointment. He’s basically a free trader, and
has often sided with Wall Street in various debates. He has often cozied up
to financial elites, accepting a lot of gifts
<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/tim-kaine-virginia-veep-mcdonnell-clinton-224888#ixzz4D3g6VHrj>
and free vacations. And, yes, he’s a fifty-something white guy.

But Kaine’s quintessentially Catholic yet stereotype-defying brand of
religious liberalism has the potential to disrupt the voting patterns and
assumptions that most people have about religious Americans. According to
conventional wisdom, religious Christians are supposed to look like Mike
Pence: hardline on abortion and homosexuality, but pro-business and
anti-social-safety-net when it comes to economic policies.

A lot of Christians, though—especially non-white Christians—look more like
Tim Kaine.  The American Catholic Church, in particular, is far less white
and far less conservative than most people think, with Hispanic Catholics (34
percent of the U.S. Catholic population
<http://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-one-group-pope-francis-will-largely-miss-on-u-s-tour-hispanic-catholics/%5D,>
and growing) regularly polling to the left
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/can-pope-francis-unite-american-catholics.html>
of non-Hispanics on a wide range of social issues
<http://www.prri.org/spotlight/white-hispanic-catholics-disagree-on-issue-of-climate-change/>.
They don’t get as much press, but they are the future.

“There's what we are today and there is what we ought to be. I think both
religion and politics are both about that,” Kaine said on *Charlie Rose *in
2008. “We can take the conditions we're in and say, shoot, that's just the
way it's going to be. But, boy, every human being I've ever met of whatever
background, they recognize there's a gulf between where we are
individually, where we are as a people, as a culture, and where we ought to
be. Politics and religion are both about … breaking out of our own
selfishness and our own limitations and saying what is and isn't necessary.
We can be better than that.”

That is a quintessential progressive religious vision, and it is not
something we’ve heard much on the presidential campaign trail this year, or
most years, especially from someone who goes to mass every week. Don’t
believe the hype that Kaine is the safe, boring choice. He could be a
game-changer.

Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

Sent from my iPhon