Ecumenism/'Identity Politics'/'Single-Issue Movements' (Re: religion)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Michael Eisenscher wrote:
>Ecumenism does not mean ignoring or glossing over violations of human rights
>in an opportunistic effort to maintain alliances or working relationships.
>It seeks to find common interests approached perhaps from different
>directions between those who may disagree on other issues and who many not
>entirely agree on long-term objectives but whose common ground is
>substantial enough to permit working together on the struggles and issues
>about which they can find some room for agreement.  Ecumenism is also
>another way of say "tolerance" for differences and testing one's own belief
>systems against those of others by paying close attention to what others do
>believe as opposed to characterizations or caricatures of their beliefs.
>Ecumenism is also the way to create space for dialog.

A couple of points. First of all, aren't we doing this already? I mean the
atheist left--you and I included--have been working with the religious left
on many issues in the USA. Do you have in your mind some specific examples
where such wasn't the case?

Secondly, doesn't your definition of ecumenism above end up asking
determined pro-choice women to maintain our own separate fight--not only
for a legal right but also _access_ (i.e. state funding, insurance
coverage, doctor training, actual service provisions, etc.) to
abortion--outside the 'common ground,' since there may not be consensus on
the need for such a fight under ecumenical tolerance for differences?

What I am saying is this: even if many on this list decry 'identity
politics,' wouldn't ecumenism of this kind--which many here seem to also
desire--in fact encourage 'identity politics' even more, in that a fight
for substantial--not just legal--reproductive freedoms + rights can be only
waged outside the above definition of ecumenism?

Aren't 'identity politics' and 'single issue movements' the other side of
ecumenical politics?

Yoshie