Blog Against Theocracy

So the next couple days are Blog Against Theocracy weekend. There's a neat website called First Freedom First (which has lots of interesting information, a great petition you can sign in seconds, and some pretty neat t-shirts), which is how I found out about the blogswarm.

I've touched on a few subjects related to this in some past posts. I mentioned neo-Fundamentalism and religiously-based discrimination back in October, and religious bigotry's presence in the voting booth back in November. And last August on my other blog, I wrote about separation of church and state in the public school system.


But in celebration of Blog Against Theocracy weekend, I thought I'd take a different approach. It seems to me that the general issue here (theocracy = bad; separation of church and state = good) is pretty obvious, and should be almost automatically agreed upon by all reasonable people. I mean, you don't hear almost any Americans, Christian or not, Republican or not, defending the wonderfulness of concepts like militant Islam or Sharia law. When we, as a culture, look out on the world and see laws or cultural rules that have no basis at all outside of faith-based religious commitment, we don't think twice about the inherent idiocy and intrinsic unfairness of such systems. For example, we do not hesitate to question and criticize the severe oppression of women, up to and including rigid (and often violently enforced) dress codes (such as Taliban-mandated Burqas) and barbaric punishment, reminiscent of the Old Testament and the Inquisitions, for breaking the rules.

When it comes right down to it, in our culture 100% of us seem to agree that religious discrimination is wrong, while a full half of us then turn around and embrace it fully when it agrees with our own religiosity. How does this, in so many of our minds, not trip the breaker of intellectual consistency? How can so many in our nation affirm that theocratic public policy is wrong in other cultures and religions, while gladly (and hypocritically) embracing it in their own?

One of the great things about our country is that people are free, within certain constraints of course, to believe what they want. So if a person wants to have a view of certain topics (such as politics in general, or homosexuality in particular) that is decided solely by their religious faith, they can. But another one of the great things about our country is that just because you have a religious belief about a certain subject, that doesn't mean that I have to believe it too. And it is this, precisely, that seems to be the trouble lately. An astonishing number of people in our country seem to have come to believe that their religious faith is, all by itself, a good enough reason to make rules and laws that discriminate against and deny the rights of others. Somehow the idea that a religious opinion only shared by some should then be forced on all others (others that perhaps prefer to have opinions that are informed by more than faith-based commitment to ancient religion) has avoided the criticism it so richly deserves, in a startling amount of our population.

So the question becomes, why? If we as a culture want to make laws that declare something wrong and illegal, like rape or fraud, for example, we should be able to give many sound reasons why. Not surprisingly, we find that this is exactly what we have done. Grand theft auto is not illegal because a minority religious viewpoint desires it to be. It's illegal because we, as a society, have used our reasoning minds to figure out what things we don't want people to be doing, with the general principle of freedom in mind to constrain us. We allow individuals to pursue their individual freedom and happiness, up to the point where such pursuit would infringe on the rights of other individuals. What this means is that if a group of religious people, small or large, wants there to be a certain law, they must be expected to give sound reasons why. In the absence of good reasons and in the presence of statements like "I just believe" or "my holy book says," it should be exquisitely clear that theocratic rules that discriminate against others based on nothing but religious conviction should be dismissed as worthless. No Christian would want to be told how to live their life based on the faith of a different religion. It is high time that our society leaves theocracy and religious bigotry behind us, back in the dark ages where it belongs.

(If you would also like to participate in Blog Against Theocracy weekend, click on over to the home page to find out what to do and how to let them know you're involved in the blogswarm.)

What Upsets Me About The Recent Election

While I was quite happy to attend John Yarmuth's election (and victory) party on Tuesday evening, and while it is encouraging to see such local progress reflected in the nationwide tide of Democratic victories, there are still a few things about this week's election results that are troubling to me.

For instance, Bob Corker defeated the Democratic candidate Harold Ford, Jr. in the Tennessee Senate race. Shame on the non (or disgruntled) Republicans in that state who didn't turn out to vote for Ford. But what is more upsetting is that so many people would vote for Corker, considering that he is known to have been involved in shady land deals where protected wetlands were sold to Wal*Mart. Yes, Wal*Mart. How anybody could vote for somebody who would sell such an important natural resource, to Wal*Mart, is beyond me. Furthermore, Corker is known to be willfully ignorant in the face of the scientific evidence regarding global warming. That such a candidate didn't result in an additional victory for Democrats is astonishing.

Also, it is startling that John Shimkus so easily defeated the Democratic candidate Dan Stover in the Illinois Congress race. Again, any Democrat voters who stayed at home on Tuesday should be ashamed. But it is surprising that Shimkus won by such a wide margin, when it is known that he kept his fellow Page Board members in the dark concerning his knowledge of Foley's impropriety, back in late 2005. At best, such behavior is extremely suspicious, and I wouldn't have anticipated so many people voting for Shimkus in spite of it.

I find both of these instances troubling, but it's obvious that we are blind to the local circumstances, issues, and campaign advertising (except for that smutty, racist anti-Harold Ford attack ad), and their effects on the outcome.

However, the import of both of these examples is exceeded by other voting results, not for candidates, but for initiatives. In seven out of the eight states where such an issue was on the ballot, people voted to ban same-sex marriage. While the new Democrat majorities in both Houses of Congress is surely cause for celebration, such a victory is quickly tempered when we consider the passage of these marriage bans. It may be true that people across the country have voted in favor of fiscal responsibility, scientific integrity, accountable governing, and sensible foreign policy. But the sobering reality is that many people are also voting in favor of bigotry and religious discrimination.

Progressives and moderates will do well not to take too much solace in the congressional switch-over, knowing that there are still very important issues requiring serious attention and diligent effort in the years to come.