The Death of Compromise?

Every student of American history knows the importance of compromise at pivotal points in our nation's history. Now a report from Public Agenda is showing that the chance for compromise on key issues is diminishing.

William Raspberry bases his most recent column on the findings, sumarizing them as:

Take this item: Even elected officials who are deeply religious sometimes have to make compromises and set their convictions aside to get results while in government.

The percentage of Americans agreeing with that statement fell 10 points -- to 74 percent -- from 2000 to the time of the Public Agenda survey, just before the 2004 elections. Those who never go to religious services favored compromise by 82 percent (down slightly from 85 percent four years ago). But for evangelicals and weekly service-goers, the support for compromise was down to 63 percent. This represents a decline in just four years of 16 points for evangelicals and 19 points for regular worshipers.

On specific issues: The willingness to support compromise among weekly service-goers (numbers for the general public are in parentheses) was down 19 points since 2000 (-six) on abortion, minus 18 points (-six) on gay rights and down 10 points (-five) on the death penalty. The pattern for Catholics was close to that of all respondents who regularly attend church.

Raspberry thinks there's room for compromise even on issues like abortion and how our elected officials should vote about it. Look, he says, you can say it's in the Ten Commandments, but no one's going to arrest me and throw me in jail for making a graven image.

Good point. I'm for compromise on abortion if "compromise" can mean slowly whittling away at the worst parts of the law -- parental non-notification, partial birth, etc. But once that's accomplished, for me "compromise" will mean working to whittle away the next most offensive part. And that's really no compromise at all, is it?