Yesterday, I got a huge surprise. I had written a little response to a diary by rachel191, in which I offered my opinion on her diary and why I was so generally amused about the debate regarding Hobby Lobby. Then, people started recommending it. Then, people started commenting on it! And then, and then, and then!!!! Steven Payne recommended it for top comments (only I didn't realize Steven had recommended my comment, I thought he'd recommended another comment to my comment, which was really well written . . .), followed by Youffraita!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!
The biggest honor was getting top billing last night in Brillig's Top Comments. Then, I reviewed the comments, and saw that more than one person wanted a diary based on my comment. Youffraita also responded to me via message saying that I should make a diary of my comment. I had to sleep on it . . . I was thinking of adding to it, but have decided to just let it stand as is. So, without further ado, my previous comment, in diary form today:
What amuses me the most with this whole Hobby Lobby finding is that religious exceptionalism is the exact opposite of what the founding fathers of this country originally used to separate the US from England. It was because of the violent turmoil between the Church and the Anglicans that drove so many British peoples to our shores and it was because of the violence inherent in all extremist ideals that our founders decided to not have any officially sponsored state religion.
I think, however, that some modern American Protestants see the theocracies and total dictatorships set up in the Middle East as road maps for how to set up their own little Christendom . . . I think some extremist American Protestants have got the idea of a Christian theocracy stuck in their heads as being Utopia. And, this idea is dangerous. Not only because it is highly unAmerican, but because in any theocracy, one loses the best of both government and religion.
I have heard it often throughout my discussions with the general public as well as here on this site that "America was established as a Christian Nation." I cannot fathom how people get to this conclusion, other than a complete and total rejection of early American history -- most of our founders were not Christians. Most all of the indigenous population were not Christians in those heady, early days. And, no imported African slaves were Christians until they landed here and were sold into servitude.
Even The Treaty of Tripoli spells out in Article 11, "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."
I think this whole debacle of the "special snowflake" syndrome is more deeply embedded in a certain segment of the American population wanting to form a White, Protestant Christian Utopia where they are allowed to be as bigoted and un-Christ-like as they please. They look around and are deathly afraid of "losing" to the brown peoples and the gays and Muslims and anyone who is not "like them."
Losing what? I've been told by many of these White Protestant Christians that they have no culture, it's everyone else who has culture (I would agree heartily with them, but I would use a different definition of the word "culture"), who have ethnicity. They see "other people" as having all the societal problems of poverty, unemployment, low education rates, etc. And, they are deeply fear-based in their reasoning -- meaning, everything "different" scares the holy-bejeebers out of them.