For the last year or so, left-leaning civic minded individuals have been gathering at the state capitol in Raleigh. These gatherings have been dubbed Moral Monday. As of 2012, Republicans gained complete control of the North Carolina state government. In seven short months they managed to undo 100 years of progress. And they're not done yet. They've attacked unemployment, voting rights, women's reproductive rights, education, and even tried to set-up an official state religion. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
I've attended Moral Mondays in solid protest against what I see as my state government run amok. What I wasn't expecting was that the entire affair is led entirely by overly religious sentiment, and that the "moral" part of Moral Monday is apparently supposed to be based solely on the Judeo-Christian definition of morality. I'm an Atheist. In fact, I rate myself a '6' on Richard Dawkins' spectrum of theistic probability. So when I show up to protest against what I consider to be secular issues (with the exception of the state religion, you can imagine how I feel about that), the last thing I want to hear is sermonizing and the protestations of how "just" our side is because God has ordained it, and so-on and so-forth.
I have two major issues with all this. The first is my ambivalence to use religion as a weapon. The quandary is that both sides claim religious providence as arguments for why they're right and the other guys are wrong. History is replete with this. Understand, this isn't two sides of the same coin - this is the same side of the same coin. You can't both flip heads and claim to be the winner. I'm not thrilled with using the weapon of my enemy. Both sides using nuclear weapons ends up in mutual destruction. It needs to be understood that I'm not in this to be in a pissing match with the other side of who can be the biggest religious zealot.
The other issue, is that as far as I'm concerned, there is nothing in the Jewish Torah (that's the Old Testament for you laymen) or the Christian New Testament that really backs up anything I'm protesting for at Moral Monday. The bible is ridiculously misogynistic (we're all sinners because of a woman after all), full of war, and is devoid of anything resembling democracy despite being written well after the Greeks invented it. Look, I just don't think using religion or their respective holy books as a basis for some kind of morality is a wise idea when what is written in those books is hostile to what we're trying to achieve. I know, I know. Jesus was a big hippie, and wanted peace (except for that whole flaming sword bit in Revelations). But I still don't see anything in those religious books that can really help voting rights, unemployment, the economy, education, the environment, and LGBT rights. The fact is, both sides can use various interpretations of various quotes to justify any policy position they want. I'm here to tell you we don't need to justify our solutions to modern day problems with bronze age mythology.
Now before anyone tries to give me a history lesson, I get it. Moral Mondays are led by the Reverend William Barber. And with a title like Reverend, you're gonna obviously get some religiosity. I also get that the NAACP and civil rights in this country have largely been led by religious persons. I understand all this. To counter the current NC government, we're gonna need everyone we can get. But its also 2014. Roughly 16.1% of the U.S. population consider themselves religiously unaffiliated. To say that 16.1% of the population have no morals simply because they don't prescribe to any one faith's sense of moral doctrine is absurd. We're not trying to take over, or hijack the the equation by any stretch of the imagination. I just would like to personally see a little representation. At the beginning of each Moral Monday, the Reverend calls for pastors, ministers, rabbis, and Imams to join him on stage. So while Jewish folks (who make up 1.6% of the population) and Muslims (who make up just 0.6%) get representation on stage (the rest are all representatives of various Christian splinters) there aren't any secularists or humanists involved or even invited.
It's a little insulting, and I think a bit unwise to dismiss that portion of the crowd, of which there are many that attend. Morality is the property of no one. I know what's right and what's wrong without having to be manipulated with the threat of eternal damnation or the promise of 72 virgins. I would like to see policy made through the use of reason, facts, and science. And I damn sure want to fight for that policy with the same tools. It's uncomfortable to go the religious route, and even more uncomfortable to have to go this route because if we don't, the other side will demonize us and slander us for what we aren't. Religion is unfortunately a shield against that.
Previous weeks were touted as unprecedented gatherings. Reverend Barber wanted to form one of the largest inter-faith circles ever. The problem with circles is that they're closed loops. And fighting religious morality with religious morality is a closed loop I fear we can't break soon enough.