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Commentary - Feb 23, 2010 - Printable Version
- Down the Rabbit Hole
by S.K. Eleton - Theocracy Watch
Sometimes it’s easy to believe that we’ve passed a tipping point on insanity, and have moved into a world where ridiculous has become the norm, and sensible has become pathological. Lately, I find myself looking over my shoulder a great deal of the time, fully expecting to see Allen Funt standing behind me. The craziest part of it all, to me, is that so many people seem to be going about their daily lives in the same old routine, as though unaware that anything out of the ordinary has just occurred, oblivious to the bizarre farce being played all around them. Recently, a judge in Kentucky proudly returned his Ten Commandments poster to his courtroom wall, with the blessing of the appellate court. The appellate court, it seems, had determined that this was not a religious display, it was secular. Excuse me? The first four commandments deal solely with the identity and worship of God, a particular God, one Yahweh, also known as Jehovah. To deem this not a religious document is to rewrite the very meaning of religious. And what sort of pyrrhic victory is this for the religious? They get their commandments, but they lose the meaning of them. Fortunately, there are a few on the religious right who see the implications of this, and are howling just as loudly as those of us who are secular. They don’t want the commandments returned because they are not religious, and they consider that an insult. They want the commandments returned because they ARE religious, and the right religion, and therefore, they belong in the courthouses to tell us all how to behave. They don’t consider this a victory. They, too, retain enough of their sanity to see this as some sort of bizarre, upside down decision that has little to no bearing on reality.
Meanwhile, the State of Illinois is being sued under the establishment clause for allowing an atheist, winter solstice display in the courthouse. The individual bringing the suit is alleging that allowing this non-Christian sign to be displayed in a public place is an establishment of religion, especially since it was displayed in close proximity to the crèche that was being displayed throughout the month of December. The crèche, however, is not an establishment of religion, at least so the argument goes. After all, December is a sacred month, and the atheist signs should not be displayed during such a sacred, holy, blessed season, and allowing free expression of other opinions is tantamount to establishment of religion. Now, my head aches. Allowing a crèche, which is exclusive to one particular religion, is not establishment, but allowing other displays in order to balance that out and include other points of view to be freely expressed IS an establishment of religion. Weird, and still weirder. So, to sum it up: having religion in the state capitol is not an establishment of religion, and does not violate the First Amendment, but having no-religion alongside it IS an establishment of religion, and IS in violation of the First Amendment. This seems to make perfect sense to some people…I’m still trying to figure it out.
And the weirdness continues in North Carolina. Cecil Bothwell, a man who does not believe in supernatural powers, as he put it, ran for City Council on a progressive platform. Following his election, some of his opponents couldn’t accept the ascension of a progressive to a position of power, and began to call for his removal, stating that he wasn’t eligible for office. The reason? As stated above, Bothwell does not believe in God, and the constitution of North Carolina bars atheists from holding public office. This provision, which was not uncommon in state constitutions in the early years of our republic, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1961 in the case of Torcaso v. Watkins, in which a similar provision in the constitution of the State of Maryland was declared unenforceable because it was in conflict with the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution. This decision immediately removed all remaining legal bars to atheists holding public office, though several state constitutions still contain the restrictive clauses. This decision was reiterated in 1997, when Herb Silverman brought suit in South Carolina when he was barred from being a notary public because he was an atheist. Once again, the law was declared unconstitutional. In spite of that, such clauses still remain on the books in Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. The Pennsylvania constitution gives specific protections for religious people, and you could spend a year in jail in Massachusetts for taking the lord’s name in vain or criticizing religion. So, a disgruntled Republican who doesn’t feel a progressive should have won a seat on the City Council is going to bring up all this ugliness again. How many times must we go through this before the states get with the picture, and simply remove the laws off their books? It would save them a boatload of money by not having to be constantly paying for court cases they can’t win.
But wait! The weirdness continues, and intensifies. Let’s move to Afghanistan, where the United States military is busily sinking billions of dollars and thousands of lives in a futile effort to bring peace to the world by killing everyone who disagrees with us. It was recently revealed that the guns being used by US soldiers had Bible verses inscribed on them. You heard me right…Bible verses inscribed on military weapons, specifically, on the gun sights. These inscriptions included verses from Matthew, John, Revelation, and First Corinthians, including “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”. The company that manufactures the gun sights said that these verses had always been on the weapons, and that there was nothing illegal about this. The issue was being raised, according to the company spokesperson, by a group that is “not Christian”. He might be right about that; after all, these guns were being used to shoot Muslims, who might find something a little offensive about that, and they are “not Christian”. In addition, the atheists, the Jews, the Wicca, and many other “non-Christian” groups who were paying taxes to have Christian guns used by the military were certainly not particularly happy about it, either. Major John Redfield, spokesperson for the Pentagon, stated there was no violation of the military rules which forbid proselytizing, because, after all, we are using money which has “In God We Trust” printed on it (right…and that should go, too…or at least be reworded to say “In God Some of Us Trust”). The Pentagon did decide, however, to remove the Bible verses from the gun sights. The company that manufactured them will begin providing Bible-free gun sights, and is also providing a kit for removing the verses from the existing gun sights. The Pentagon assured us that there was nothing illegal about the verses, they are just removing them to counter accusations that we are engaged in a holy war against Islam.
The upside down world has also invaded the US Post Office, which has announced it will release a commemorative stamp honoring Mother Theresa. This is a problem, since it is in direct violation of the Post Office rules. Although they do have rules against putting people on stamps who are not American citizens, that isn’t a problem with the nun from Calcutta, because President Clinton made her an honorary US citizen in the 1990s. The rule that is being violated states that the post office cannot issue stamps to “honor religious institutions or individuals whose principle [sic] achievements are associated with religious undertakings or beliefs”. Some are arguing that this issue isn’t really in violation of the rules, because Mother Theresa is being honored for her humanitarian work, but many of us would argue that it is, in fact, a violation, since her humanitarian work was deeply entrenched in her religious practices, and cannot be separated from her Catholic beliefs. In fact, she rarely spoke of her work without mentioning that she was doing it for Jesus, or that it was related to Christ in some way or other. In fact, she specifically stated on many occasions that she was bringing souls to Christ, and she had a habit of baptizing dying patients without their consent, and sometimes, without their knowledge. There are some suspicions that the US government may be helping the Pope in his quest to complete her beatification and get her well underway to sainthood, so they can get her out of Purgatory quicker. While one can argue the value of the postal service rules (and I think they are essential, since putting someone on a stamp implies government endorsement of whatever that person stood for), it is certainly disheartening that the government thinks so little of their own rules that they will just toss them aside so cavalierly. This isn’t as big a problem as it might seem, however. I have a solution. If the post office would, at the same time, issue a stamp honoring Colonel Robert Ingersoll, a civil war hero who is best remembered today as “The Great Agnostic”, and spent many hours rejecting and refuting religious beliefs, then I would be wiling to accept the Mother Theresa stamp. Of course, once they did that, they would also have to honor famous Baptists, famous Presbyterians, famous Jews, famous Wicca, famous Scientologists (L. Ron Hubbard stamp, coming soon to a post office near you), famous Hindus, famous Muslims, and on and on ad nauseum. Isn’t it better just to reject any appearance of favoritism and follow their own rules? Not in a weird, upside down world.
In other news of the weird, Haiti figures prominently. We’ve all heard the infamous comments of our own, home-grown Reverend Pat, once again putting his foot in his mouth (usually through his anus). There are other weird things going on over there, however, some of which aren’t making as much news as the always quotable Pat Robertson. For instance, there have been lots of groups collecting all sorts of humanitarian aid to send the desperate Haitians, but none of them so useful, perhaps, as the contribution of one Christian group that decided what the Haitians most needed was a large supply of solar-powered laser Bibles. Wow! Why didn’t I think of that? Silly me…I thought the money would be better spent on Doctors Without Borders and Red Cross. I clearly lack imagination and vision. Of course, if I truly had vision, I would have joined the contingency of Scientologists that descended on Haiti, improperly dressed for a disaster-stricken Third World country that is without lights, running water, and food, in order to administer much-needed relief in the form of “touch therapy”. Coming in ill-prepared for what they would find, they eventually descended on the UN compound, where they were able to get permission to set up shop, and began “healing” the sick, the injured, and the dying. Their help was so effective, in fact, that Haiti citizens were expressing their gratitude by requesting that these people “in the yellow shirts” be kept away from them. No doubt these were people who had benefited so much from the Scientology treatments that they didn’t want to be selfish, and they wanted to make sure someone else got the full benefit of the wondrous cures. Yes, well…moving right along.
Yes, the world has truly turned inside out and upside down while we weren’t looking. While one group of believers held the health care bill hostage until an amendment was added to ban any government funding for insurance that covered a perfectly legal medical service (i.e. abortion), still another group was opening up a Creation Museum in Kentucky where kids are treated to spectacular exhibits of stone-age kids riding dinosaurs (can someone say “Flintstones”?). Still others are protesting the movie Avatar, because the religious ideas it contains don’t jibe with the “correct” religion. Others are rewriting the history curriculum in Texas, so that Texas high school children will be taught a view of history that fits nicely with the religious right viewpoint of what it should have been, and will grow up understanding that our nation has freedom of religion – for Christians, as long as they’re the “right” sort of Christians. Some of our upside down inside out folks are cheering the recent bill in Uganda to make homosexuality punishable by death, and are advocating that this should now be brought to our shores…along with the death penalty for at least 20 other “crimes”, including fornication, feminism, juvenile delinquency, failure to be a virgin on one’s wedding night, and witchcraft(?!?)…yes, I said witchcraft. There truly are individuals, in this modern democracy in the 20th century, who want to include the death penalty for witchcraft in the federal law code. A state representative in Iowa is trying to get a law passed that all public officials must swear an oath to God at their swearing in (and she’s very specific about WHICH God…hers). The Oklahoma State legislature has also been busy, spending valuable time in the important task of issuing resolutions condemning an invited speaker at the University of Oklahoma, one Richard Dawkins, a world-famous biologist from Oxford who agreed to speak at OU during a tour of the American Midwest, and was treated shabbily by the legislature. Why? Because he’s also an outspoken atheist, and, of course, the presence of an atheist in Oklahoma could manage to corrupt the whole state, I suppose (of course, I’m sure Oklahoma has no atheists already…after all, it’s a wholesome, family-oriented, conservative state). And the parade goes on….day after day, week after week, month after month, eroding not just our civil liberties and our Bill of Rights, but managing to wreck havoc on our very sanity. Smile, you’re on Candid Camera….
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