Ah, the Religious Right. The only people left in America who actually like Sarah Palin (the real Sarah Palin, not the Tina Fey version). The folks who have held sway over this government for the last eight years, and had considerable pull for the preceding eight. They’re scary, yes. But I have a feeling their days may be numbered.
We here on the left have been terrified of the Religious Right for a long time, and with good reason: They hate our freedoms. That may sound alarmist, but I really don’t know how else to phrase it. They hate our freedom to marry whomever we choose, the reproductive freedom of women and freedom to dissent – unless they’re the ones dissenting.
And, of course, they hate that pesky “Freedom of Religion” thing. Specifically, they hate the fact that the government isn’t allowed to screw around with religion (funny, considering government screwing around with religion is just as dangerous to religion as government; ask a Puritan, assuming you have a ouija board handy).
Their favorite argument is that the United States is a Christian nation, based on their ability to, I don’t know, read the minds of a bunch of guys who died 200 years ago. They even try to deny that separation of church and state is implicit in our form of government. Don’t believe me? Here’s some tripe from everybody’s favorite lunatic asylum, Focus on the Family:
"Separation of Church and State" Absent From the Constitution
The U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787. The Bill of Rights followed in 1789, during the first Congress following the Constitution's ratification. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the "wall" metaphor, was in France during this period acting as our ambassador, and he didn't participate in the drafting or debate of either document. Neither document contains the phrase "wall of separation between church and state."
The phrase was first used in January, 1802, by newly elected President Jefferson in a private letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut.
Actually, the phrase was first used in 1644 by Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, who – though a dedicated, even fanatical, Christian – had these crazy ideas like “We shouldn’t force Jews to convert” and “We shouldn’t burn people for being Catholic” and “Maybe we oughtta ask the Indians if we can have some of this land.” What a whack-job. Anyway, the point is that even when Religious Right nutters try to present a rational argument, they get their facts wrong.
There are a couple of other flaws in this argument. Number 1: If I’m trying to explode an argument, I’m probably not going to say it’s invalid because Thomas Jefferson made it. “Oh, Jefferson? Forget him, he’s a douche!” Number 2: While it’s true the phrase “separation of church and state” doesn’t appear in the Constitution, the effing First Amendment does! Remember that, Religious Right? First Amendment? Or do you guys skip straight on down the second?
Oh, and there’s also this little quote to explode their theory. Emphasis is mine, old-timey spelling and capitalization is from the original:
"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 tranquillity, 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."
That’s from the Treaty of Tripoli, signed in 1796 by George Washington. I think, Founders’-intentions-wise, we can trust George Washington.
The sad thing is that in the 19th Century, the Christian church was a driving force behind many social justice issues, from charity to women’s suffrage to the abolition of slavery. Somewhere along the way, something happened. As Judge Edward Cowart said when sentencing Ted Bundy, “You went the wrong way, partner.”
It’s also frustrating how disproportionate the power these freaks have wielded has been to their actual numbers. But there’s hope that those numbers are getting smaller. Young Christians, calling themselves “post-evangelicals” or “emergent Christians”, are leaving Right-dominated churches in droves and forming their own communities. My brother was one of them. From the time he was 19, he was a youth pastor at an evangelical, hard-right church. After a few years, he got fed up and resigned his God Squad membership. He’s now a tattooed liberal music journalist, who goes to church with several hundred other tattooed liberals – young Christians who don’t think digging Jesus requires you to hate gay people, or Muslims, or anyone really. That's just one liberal church in a city full them - and the movement is growing.
Those kids give me hope – hope that evangelicalism as we know it is a dying force, something destined to be replaced by a more “love everyone and judge not” type of religion. We used to have a religion like that around these parts. It was called Christianity.
I’m glad to see young Christians taking it back.