History furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.
–Thomas Jefferson
Today is July the Fourth, the birthday of our nation. On this day, myself and other bloggers have decided to take time out to stand up on our soapboxes and decry a creeping evil that is growing in this country. Our American shores have long been the destination of those seeking freedom from oppression. More than two hundred years ago, a group of intellectuals and reformers fled from the religious and social tyranny of Victorian England to create a new democracy. In this new democracy, authority would flow from the people and our leaders were to be elected. Before then the Kings and Priests would rule over the people through divine fiat. Now it would be Vox Populi Vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of god. On that note I will join with others today to blog against theocracy on this, the anniversary of our glorious revolution.
In the decades of the 60’s and 70’s our nation experienced a grand liberation. Father figures were replaced with community atmospheres. Free love, free drugs, and free speech surged orgiastic. Perhaps in response to this, starting in the late 70s and gaining power in the Reagen era, a fringe group of radical social conservatives began to pour millions of dollars into a campaign that ran utterly contrary to the American ideal. I am speaking of the group known as the Religious Right. Doomsayers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell picked up causes like “Family Values” and Christian morality and succeeded in putting them into play in the political arena.
You may ask why should this be troubling? Well, first let us look at history. One of my favorite quips is that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. The middle ages set the stand for the worst era of theocracy the world has ever seen. The “Holy” Roman Empire was practically run by the pope. No king could be crowned without papal consent. The reformation only caused wars between “protestant” and “catholic” nations. The crusades led to horrifying slaughters of innocent men, women, and children whose lives were taken because they were the wrong religion. In west asia, a massive empire came and brought with it the legal requirement of conversion. Even after the ottoman empire fell Shi’a and Sunni and Kurd and Hindu all fought bloody holy wars. The british empire forced it’s sense of catholic decency on every colony. State led religion caused the oppression, culture-death, and murder of countless peoples in Africa, India, and South America! The Nazis sought to establish a white Christian germany by killing millions of jews, blacks, and homosexuals. More wars have been waged and people killed on the basis of religion than almost any other reason. So you see that allowing religion to influence politics has, historically, only ended in sorrow.
Let’s put the history lesson aside and take a look at why letting religion become a political force is a bad thing. Organized religion has brought the world nothing but pain. Spirituality and individuals of faith have brought comfort and joy to the world, but religions as bodies of action serve only to harm humanity. In the past, Christian extremism has led to the bombing of abortion clinics, the beating deaths of gay men and women, mass murder and genocide of Turks and Persians, the near extermination of the Native American people, and millions of women were tortured and burned alive as witches at the hands of fanatic tribunals. These are just fanatics, you say. Yes, but by giving a religion a preferred status by law, or giving it power by law only opens the doors to atrocity. Religion teaches that those who do not believe are sinners, and your enemy. How can a message like that be sponsored by a democratic and free society?
Now Let us take a look at the message of the Christian right. They want to make homosexual love illegal. They want to take away a woman’s productive rights. They want to destroy free speech in favor of sanitized speech. They want to have Christian ethics made into state enforceable law. What about all the non Christians? What about different Christian sects that disagree with their interpretation? That doesn’t sound like a free society to me. The founders of this nation and the voices of liberty throughout the ages have decried state sponsored or favored religion. To give one group some special power is to dehumanize all other groups. To force a religious doctrine on a populace by law is not only counter to liberty and the united states constitution, but disgusting by any standard of freedom.
For decades the Christian Right and the NeoConservative movement have been pushing a radical religious agenda onto the public stage. Freedom and liberty are undermined by such actions. The democracy of America is the voice of the people doing what is best for the people. We are not some small nation with a tiny minority of non-christians. We are a vast nation that is a melting pot of cultures, peoples, and philosophies. So to use politics and the law to force a religious doctrine on even one man is both vile and un-American. So when you look up at that American flag and see the fireworks flash, remember that gallant revolution over 2 centuries ago to free us from religious tyranny and ensure our right to liberty.