Christian Supremacism
I grew up listening to the Focus on the Family radio program, and continued listening several years into adulthood. Both there, and in the church I attended in Warren, Michigan, and at Pensacola Christian College, I was exposed to Christian Supremacism. Phrases like "taking back America for God" or "putting King Jesus back on the throne" were commonplace. This is an interpretation of religious freedom identical to that of Islamic Supremacists. The shared idea of these movements is that since their nations have traditions from one particular religion, "freedom of religion" means that other religions are free to practice in privacy as tolerated guests. In this interpretation, the public sphere is a place on which a majority religion can plant a flag as the sole basis for legitimate authority, as Judge Moore did in Alabama.
Christian Supremacists are not a fringe group. If you think I'm being histrionic, read the headlines:
Faithful say their votes carried the day - San Diego Union Tribune
'Moral values' agenda proves edge - Chicago Tribune
Election reinforces U.S. religious divide - Los Angeles Times
Polls show faith, morality issues drew voters to Bush - Newsday
Conservative social values helped forge Bush re-election - San Jose Mercury News
A victory for 'values,' but whose? - Washington Post
Which would you rather have? A nation under attack by Islamic violence because we hold fast to a principle of separation between church and state? Or would you rather defeat Al Quaeda abroad while succumbing to James Dobson's American Taliban in our laws, because we're too afraid of hurting the feelings of Christians? Which one is, and already has been, a greater threat to the personal first-hand experience of you and me?
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From The Day The Enlightenment Went Out by Garry Wills in the New York Times:
This [election] might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).
Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.
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From The Red Zone by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.
Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."
John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.
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From Two Nations Under God by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times:
... what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president.
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Please consider adding your voice to the secular civic constituency, The Brights.
Christian Supremacists are not a fringe group. If you think I'm being histrionic, read the headlines:
Faithful say their votes carried the day - San Diego Union Tribune
'Moral values' agenda proves edge - Chicago Tribune
Election reinforces U.S. religious divide - Los Angeles Times
Polls show faith, morality issues drew voters to Bush - Newsday
Conservative social values helped forge Bush re-election - San Jose Mercury News
A victory for 'values,' but whose? - Washington Post
Which would you rather have? A nation under attack by Islamic violence because we hold fast to a principle of separation between church and state? Or would you rather defeat Al Quaeda abroad while succumbing to James Dobson's American Taliban in our laws, because we're too afraid of hurting the feelings of Christians? Which one is, and already has been, a greater threat to the personal first-hand experience of you and me?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From The Day The Enlightenment Went Out by Garry Wills in the New York Times:
This [election] might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).
Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From The Red Zone by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.
Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."
John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Two Nations Under God by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times:
... what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please consider adding your voice to the secular civic constituency, The Brights.