A Meta Article for Touchy Social Topics - Religion

I’m not going to lie, I often form opinions based on hypothetical realities and not practical realities, but what’s so far-fetched about that? I suppose if all humans weren’t, for some reason, predisposed to be giant douches we could live in a land where no one fights, we contribute our collective resources to scientific development and quality of life, and maybe one day overcome the Fermi paradox so we can all agree that we aren’t all doomed to eventually just die off as a human race, regardless what we do to prevent it. Yet there is always a conflict within society that keeps us occupied with infighting rather than collective resolution. I fear there is a general lack of common sense, coupled with denial, a dash of arrogance, and 3 ounces of stubbornness in the societal “let’s all get along” cocktail that keeps us from achieving great things in life.

Let’s start with Religious objection to secular equalities. You know what I’m talking about – social equality for homosexuals. I understand that not all people of faith reject social equality of homosexuals, but unfortunately in our society vocal minorities are effective at both ends of the moral spectrum. Vocal minorities have been good for our society in the past to broaden social equalities, but unfortunately this also applies to the suppression of social equalities. This is in large part due to the structure of our legislative system, and political polarity in our justice system. For example, a state with high opposition to same sex marriage like Alabama compared to California, with a near equivalent support for same sex marriage are treated equally in the Senate. Alabama has a population of around 4.9 million while California has a population of around 38.8 million – 8 times that of the former state. Yet both states get equal representation in the Senate, who has power over the passage of laws. So it is extremely plausible, if not easily confirmed, that there is a minority population in the US that opposes same sex marriage, and a majority of lawmakers that oppose it per their constituents. This is corroborated with the national support of marriage equality at around 55%.

Then there is the judicial opposition. Despite the overturn of Article 2 in the Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 in which the Supreme Court ruled in an extremely divided 5-4 decision that the federal government had no constitutional authority to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and despite the fact that some of the dissenters in that ruling admitted that this ruling would pave the way to total legality of same sex marriage, they will still vote against requiring states to at least recognize same sex marriage from those states that allow it. This will show a lack of credibility in the dissenting justices ability to interpret the law. The dissenting justice must consider the previous ruling, whether they voted in favor or not, as established constitutional law in similar cases that expand on the law – yet through testimony you can still see the polarity of the justices that could lead to their decisions. Seems illogical to me, yet there it is.  Justice Scalia is expected to vote against marriage equality in the upcoming supreme court decisions, and he not only has personal opinions against same sex marriage (which is not controversial or something that demands recusal), he also attends conservative political fundraisers for candidates that would legislate against marriage equality.

Then there is Justice Thomas – quite possibly one of the worst Supreme Court justices on the panel, in recent history, and maybe the history of the US judicial system. He has strong opinions – personal and legal, against marriage equality, the strongest supporter of ending campaign contribution limits, and while he is a strong supporter of the first amendment, he has also voted against cases of free speech that seem contradictory: In one case supporting the rights of those to burn crosses, yet limiting free speech of students. Thomas is literally in bed with opponents of marriage equality, gun control, and generally anything from the “leftist tyranny” of President Obama. I’m talking of course about his wife Virginia Wolf, who is currently the head of lobbyist and activist group Liberty Central, one that routinely associates with Tea Party Congressmen. During the vote on the Affordable Care Act, it was expected of Thomas to recuse himself from the case due to the fact that his wife’s firm was actively fighting against the law and receiving donations to do so. How would it look if her husband, a Supreme Court Justice, were to vote in favor of the law? That could very well have been the end to their campaign contributions. Did I mention Roberts forgot to disclose nearly five years of his wife's income that shows contributions to her firm from donors that wanted her to lobby against the Affordable Care Act and the overturn of Citizens United? You know, they are only married to each other, I'm sure they don't talk much about conflicts of interests between their two polarized careers.

So who are these vocal minorities that fight so hard to keep marriage between a man and a woman? This group consists of a mixture of staunch religious conservatives, and some less staunch religious conservative homophobes (people literally afraid to be around gay people), that cite religious text as testimony against the integration of homosexuality into marriage. The arguments for this are rife with hypocrisy and general ignorance to their own religion. Case(s) in point:

-“It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” Of course it’s not - Steve was not a biblical character in the book of Genesys. However, if you want to use this as a literal defense to the “unnatural” lifestyle of homosexuality, you have to ask yourself why, if there were originally one man and one woman, who gave birth to two males, how do you think procreation occurred? A large part of conservative objection to homosexuality is its absence from the traditional family of one man and one woman – that all children deserve a mother and father and that’s how a family unit should be defined. Yet our society does and has for quite some time, disregarded incest as a traditional family unit, and in many cases made it illegal. Yet incest was common and accepted in the bible.

Whatup son you got some condoms? It’s about to get all orgy up in here. What’s that? You want a woman too? Alright but only one and I’m gonna give you a tiny penis and tempt her with a giant talking snake lol, good luck getting her into bed loser.

-“It’s not natural!” We use more unnatural goods on a day to day basis than those that are natural. I don’t see many hardcore anti-gay religious conservatives riding their mule to work.

-“It threatens the sanctity of marriage!” The definition of “sanctity” is “the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly.” There are several contradictions here: I have not heard of equal magnitude in the opposition of marriage to those that have married out of wedlock, those who have lived together before they marry, those who have married the person they cheated on their spouse with, those who have remarried after divorce, those who want to get a divorce, those who have had sex before marriage, those who have not paid a dowry to the fathers of those they marry, and my personal favorite – Atheists who get married. Why would opponents of marriage equality due to the threat it has to the sanctity of marriage only isolate homosexuals? Atheists don’t even believe in their God but they still apply for marriage licenses. Surely there could be more to “marriage” in this country than just the word as it applies in a religious capacity. It couldn’t possibly be for the hundreds of federal and state benefits and rights given to those that choose to marry.

-“Homosexuals can’t reproduce!” For starters, gay people do not lose the ability to reproduce when they realize they are gay, much less after they get married. Also, we are over populated, and homosexuals account for about 1% of our population (in the US), there are thousands of parentless kids in need of a family (which ironically enough, allowing homosexuals to marry would allow them to provide them with a family)… I think we will be just fine.

Then we get to the one sided argument of the first amendment – that ultra religious conservatives believe that allowing homosexuals to marry, along with many other secular ideologies, is a direct attack on their first amendment rights. It is very clear that the first amendment protects everyone from prosecution to practice their faith. It is also equally clear that the first amendment protects everyone from laws designed to respect any establishment of religion. In fact, the establishment clause comes before the free exercise clause! That seems lost on religious conservatives.

Let’s go through some examples of the outlandishly ignorance of the claim that our nation should act in a way more consistent with Christianity, and that many of the bad things that happen to us is the result of us ignoring Christianity and its God. I single out Christianity because it is not only the largest religious affiliation in the country, but it is also the base to most of the religious denominations, and the largest vocal critic of same sex marriage (and equality to other things they find dangerous to their faith).

If we aren’t a Christian Nation…

Arguments often start with “If we aren’t a Christian Nation (or a nation founded on Christianity), then why…

-“… were our founding fathers all Christian (or mostly Christian)?” It is true that the faiths of our founding fathers were mostly Christian, although many were also deists – of those practicing or observing multiple faiths and religions, and one of the oldest secret societies of America in which many politicians were a part of, the Masonic Temple, required members to practice deity. This does not make our country a foundation of Christianity. For starters, if our country had a basis of Christianity, we surely would have provided freedoms to Christians above those of other religions, and the first amendment would not be all inclusive. Second, the word God appears once in the Declaration of Independence, and references the “Natural God”, and a total of zero times in the Constitution and the subsequent amendments. Third, and here is the smoking gun, the Treaty of Tripoli.

The Treaty of Tripoli is a document between the United States of America and Tripoli of Barbary ensuring peace between the two countries. While it may not seem significant, the era in which it was signed and a particular article cements the argument that the US was not founded on the basis of Christianity. The first part – the era in which it was signed: the Treaty of Tripoli was signed on November 4, 1796, just 8 years after the US constitution was ratified, and it is safe to assume that most of the founding fathers were not only still alive but active in politics in the federal and state governments. The second part is the text from Article XI of the treaty which states:

• As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

While the article was intended to ensure that no interruption of harmony between the two nations based on past, present or future religious objections, it is that first sentence that really drives the fact home that “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” You can’t get any clearer than that. This treaty was signed by President John Adams, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, Unitarian, and Federalist.

-“…does the pledge of allegiance have the term “under God” in it?” If you aren’t convinced from the first section, this is a common argument that our nation is a Christian nation. It is true that the “Pledge of Allegiance” has the term “under God” in it, but that’s all proponents of this argument know. They assume it’s the Christian god, despite ‘God’ being a universal term for many religions. It is in fact in reference to the Christian God, but the founding fathers had no say in both the creation of the pledge of allegiance and certainly not the inclusion of the phrase “under god”. The pledge was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, who was a Socialist Baptist minister, but did not include the term “under God” in his version. He wrote the pledge to include in a publication of a children’s magazine in celebration of Columbus Day. It is thought that Hitler was influenced by the pledge, being a socialist Christian himself. Take a look at this picture:

This picture was taken in 1941 of US school children reciting the pledge using the “Bellamy Salute”. The Bellamy Salute started with the palm facing downward and ended with it facing upward. The following year, due to it’s similarity with the Nazi Salute, it was changed to holding ones hand over their heart. The Bellamy Salute was introduced in 1892 as part of the recital to the raising of the American Flag.

It wasn’t until some dude named Bowman changed the text of the pledge to include the phrase “under God” in a speech on Lincoln’s birthday in 1948. The pledge was officially adopted as the national pledge in its current form in 1954, due in large part to the lobbying of the Knights of Columbus, which is the largest Christian organization in the US.

Furthermore immigrants were forced to recite the pledge as part of their naturalization as a gesture to renounce their former country and pledge allegiance to the United States.

“…does it say “In God We Trust” on our money?” See much of the last section for the answer to this dumb argument. Notwithstanding the irony in including God on currency, it was not added until 1861, and in kind of a sketchy fashion. From the US Treasury: religious sentiment was high during the civil war, and one man – Reverend Watkinson, wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury urging him to include the “Almighty God” on the US minted coins. One passage in particular in his letter is disturbing:

• This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.

“…to which no possible citizen could object.” Forcing those of other faiths to take part in commerce protected by only Christianity. Anyway, this is what a bank note used to look like:

Something I love about linking money with Christianity is what the Bible has to say about credit. For example, Deuteronomy 23:19-20: “you shall not charge interest to your countrymen…” If we are a Christian nation why do we charge interest on loans???

I have nothing against people who practice religion, and people of faith. Some of my best friends are religious (ok most of my family is). The problem lies with the entitlement of religious conservatives. Those that argue that expanding equality to others will disparage their faith, because there are a couple passages in the bible that says doing so is wrong. In the legal world, they argue that marriage equality will lead to the destruction of the traditional family unit, and the traditional establishment of religion. Guess what? That ended a long time ago when your own religion started letting people getting divorced, stopped fathers from selling their daughters, greater personal and legal protections for women, and when, not so long ago, the US said hey guess what, you can’t punish your wife anymore for disobedience (see also: origin of the phrase “rule of thumb”).

Even if you disregard all of that, consider the fact the federal and state governments have been provided crucial protections, rights, and privileges to those that sign a marriage license, that can only be obtained from the county clerk (not a church), and does not have to have a ceremony in a religious institution (which is again a church), and has no requirements on religion (doesn't need approval from a dude in a church), creating a system of inequality amongst peers. Some say marriage has always been defined as one man and one woman, but it took the federal government 220 years to include that in a law, which was then later found unconstitutional. Those that wish to deny the same rights they receive to others do not themselves deserve them. If you feel that allowing homosexuals to marry somehow degrades your religion, then your faith is weak.

This should solve that whole Dinosaur debacle! Come on, Fluffy, let's go bury some fossils!

There is no attack on religious freedoms. There is opposition to religious encroachment. It’s a damn cop out that those with deeply held religious beliefs can blame everything that happens in the world on the absence of faith in their God, and then turn around and praise God when a doctor cures their kid of cancer. No, the perceived increase of adolescent bullying and lack of respect of their peers and elders is not a result of the absence of God from the classroom, it’s the absence of parents holding their children accountable for their actions. Objection to public displays of the Christian faith is not objection to your faith; it’s objection of the perception of proselytization among the secular society. For a religion that worries about falling membership rates, has a history of proselytizing (for an example, read my Santa Claus article), Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, Christians can’t be surprised when secular society wants them to slow down with all the religious stuff in public institutions. You want your kid to pray? That’s cool, I hear they used to do that at night before bed. You want a place where your kid can learn about Jesus riding dinosaurs just after the world was born 4,000 years ago? Go for it, there are churches now that have schools in them – they don’t even have to pay taxes!                                                

And don’t forget that May 7^th was National Day of Prayer, the goal of which is for communities to “intercede for America’s leaders and their families." Also don’t forget Matthew 6:6:

• But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Now, some of you may be mad that I singled out Christianity. I had no choice really. They [some of they] are the only ones with the balls to say there is a secular attack on their religious freedoms, despite not one of their religious freedoms being violated, and despite having the biggest following in the US - nay the world, and despite having the most federally approved holidays and longest observed traditions in terms of duration. In the immortal words of Jon Stewart: