Frederick Clarkson whom I deem to be one of the best writers found here on Dkos, just posted his diary commemorating our nations annual Religious Freedom Day. You know, that day you never hear of in the media. I've posted at least once on the subject. Within his post was a quote from Christian theologian Rebecca Todd Peters.
“… refusing to codify traditionalist, conservative religious beliefs into law isn’t a violation of anyone’s religious freedom. In fact, it not only protects a large majority of people in this country from the tyranny of patriarchy, it actually protects their religious freedom.”
Nothing more true has ever been uttered to my mind. Mr. Clarkson's full story paints a model for us to reclaim and perhaps redefine the meaning of Religious Freedom.
To top it all off, today on Religious Freedom day, "President his holiness Cheeto Jesus Trump" has announced that he is going to take big action to promote school prayer. This is a topic that has been ruled on time and again by the Supreme court and is no longer a big issue among any but the holiest of "holier than thou’s" that would have us praising Jesus for minutia and thinking that dinosaurs were on Noah's ark.
“We will not allow faithful Americans to be bullied by the hard left,” Trump said at a rally with evangelical supporters at a Florida megachurch on Jan. 3.
We've had presidents declare that Atheists like myself shouldn't be considered patriots or even citizens.
No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
Honestly, I think most GOP members are savvy enough not to make the mistake of saying this now, but I admit I have no doubt that a good percentage believe it.
We have seen an upsurge of hate and bigotry since the "Orangutan of hate" was elected, but none of this was his fault, he is only the symptom of the deep seated bigotry that this nation was built on. All of the hate that's metastasized in recent years was there before, just under the surface looking for a crack in the dike to burst through.
In my opinion a lot of this hate has its origins in Religion, primarily though not exclusively the innumerate versions of Xianity, many of whom seem to operate on the opinion that religious freedom only applies to their particular sect and everyone else can go hang.
Is it just me, or is anybody else worried about the United States?, and I don't just mean our clod pated excuse for a President but the entire United States. These signals have been there for decades, but upon the election of our First African American President this nation seems to have exploded with hate. It took decades after the civil rights marches of the 60's to tamp bigotry down to something people uttered under their breath or only in certain circles of friends, I expect it will take decades yet to tamp it back down to where it was in the 80's and 90's. Sincerely, I don't believe we will be pushing that genie back into the bottle anytime soon. Even if we did it doesn't eliminate it, it just shoves it back into the dark recesses which with the advent of the internet aren't so dark anymore.
What a glittering dream of expanded knowledge and enhanced connection the internet was at the start. What a nightmare of manipulated biases and metastasized hate it has turned into.
I wrote that sentence down from an article I read earlier this year, I believe it to be true in every way.
I just don't see how we can legislate Religious Freedom, for it to truly exist it has to be from each of us. You just cant write a law telling people “you will respect this” and expect it to happen. Even I have to work on this, its probably clear from the above that I have little respect for capital R 'Religion", I have nothing against the individual faithful provided their faith isn't imposed upon me or anyone else who doesn't want it imposed upon them. We have to be able to accept one another for who we are no matter their religious affiliation or lack thereof, but we also have to realize that not all are going to follow whatever faith, or lack of, that we follow. It's hard and all of us sometimes find ourselves angered by what someone else's faith, or lack of, precipitates.
We fear so many things in this day and age and so much of Religion seems to inculcate fear of the 'other'.
To quote a little green puppet "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering"
I could stand a lot less suffering in this nation, on this planet.