When my home town debated and adopted a sanctuary city ordinance this past Spring, its advocates insisted that the law be thought of as affirming our town as a "welcoming city" rather than a "sanctuary city." Sanctuary, they explained, connoted a person hiding from prosecution. A sanctuary city is a place that shelters criminals, but a welcoming city is a place where people can go about their daily lives and raise their families without fear of harassment.
This terminology, I soon learned, is actually rather widespread. Most advocates of ordinances that limit cooperation between municipal law enforcement and federal immigration officers prefer "welcoming city" to "sanctuary city." Critics of these policies from Trump on down decry sanctuary cities, but I had not detected in their use of the term the criminal connotation that the advocates do.
Religion does not play a defining role in the debate over immigration policy, but nonetheless I find here an apt symbol for the relationship between religion and current partisan discourse. The Left is not comfortable with the sacred. They perceive or imagine negative connotations in religious language and consequently avoid it. The Right, meanwhile, willingly employs religious terminology, but they are willing to attack and defile what is holy in service of their political aims. The Left traffics in secularism, the Right in sacrilege. The Left is embarrassed by religion, the Right is an embarrassment to it.
This terminology, I soon learned, is actually rather widespread. Most advocates of ordinances that limit cooperation between municipal law enforcement and federal immigration officers prefer "welcoming city" to "sanctuary city." Critics of these policies from Trump on down decry sanctuary cities, but I had not detected in their use of the term the criminal connotation that the advocates do.
Religion does not play a defining role in the debate over immigration policy, but nonetheless I find here an apt symbol for the relationship between religion and current partisan discourse. The Left is not comfortable with the sacred. They perceive or imagine negative connotations in religious language and consequently avoid it. The Right, meanwhile, willingly employs religious terminology, but they are willing to attack and defile what is holy in service of their political aims. The Left traffics in secularism, the Right in sacrilege. The Left is embarrassed by religion, the Right is an embarrassment to it.
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