Marching to a Theocracy

When the Founding Fathers spoke of Religious Freedom, what they really meant was freedom from religion. They were very adamant about avoiding what was so common in Europe at the time, state sponsored religions. There was a very strong push in the infancy of our country to set up a state church.  Fortunately, we more or less escaped that calamity.

I have always thought of the United States as a religiously diverse country.  This belief arose because there are so many different protestant religions in this country.  The reality is that, according to the Pew Research Center, the United States is around 78% Christian¹.  This puts us in the middle of the pack as far as religious diversity is concerned.

Some 223 years after our constitution went into effect; there is a very strong movement in this country to reverse the Founding Father’s wishes.  Not so much a specific state church, but the religious principles of a very specific and conservative subset of the religious believers in this country.  Many of those beliefs are not the beliefs of the majority of the population.  The GOP, in their cynicism, tapped into the vein of religious unilateralism to gain support while pushing their real agenda of fewer taxes for the rich and bleeding social programs to death. The primary way they are attempting to effectuate this is by packing the courts with conservative judges with strong religious beliefs.  I am strongly of the opinion that a jurist’s religious beliefs should be set aside in deciding cases and interpreting laws.  This seems to be happening less and less.  So much for the conservatives who loudly proclaim they are Constitutionalist, lip service at best.

At the epicenter is the struggle between “Pro-Life” and Pro-Choice over the right to an abortion that most of us thought was settled by the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.  I have multiple issues with the “Pro-Life” position.  Primarily, I believe that is a personal decision for every woman.  Even if it is an ethical, moral or religious decision the various religions and authorities are not in agreement on this issue².  It may be a settled moral decision for a particular group, but it is not for the group at large.  Religious freedom would imply that in this type of situation, the decision should be left to the individual.

Secondly, no one, at least in this country, is forcing anyone to have an abortion.  Why should the converse not be true also?  Why should anyone force a person to NOT have an abortion, especially given the varying religious and ethical opinions about it?  Around 75% of Americans believe women should have legal access to abortion³.

A third argument would be the notion by some religious groups that life begins at conception.  This argument expresses an ignorance of embryology.  It is around the 18^th or 20^th week before an embryo is even vaguely recognizable as human. It is also an area where religions vary greatly, as to when the soul enters the embryo. Of course, this postulates that you believe humans have a soul, a discussion for another time. It is estimated that somewhere between 10% and 15% of known pregnancies end in a miscarriage.  A Danish study⁴ found that more than half of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion often without the woman knowing she was pregnant.  If you believe that life begins at conception then that would make God the most active abortionist around.  And why, if you believe in God, and believe abortion is murder, would God subject so many souls to this?

Lastly, I find “Pro-Lifers” disingenuous.  The two most common ways they are disingenuous are mentioned so much they have become a bit trite.  The first is while they fight to limit the right to abortion; they are so very much against sex education and making birth control easily accessible.  Teen pregnancy is a real issue in far too many places.  I remember the churches in Mississippi railing against any form of sex education that was not solely teaching abstinence.  Teens have been engaging in sex for all of history.  They are not going to stop suddenly in 2020.

The other triteness is that many of these conservatives are against many social programs. Even those programs designed to help mothers and infants.  It seems like once they force the birth of a child that is enough.  The child and parents are to figure things out whether they have the resources or not. They have no problem with the government impinging on woman’s right to control her own body, but are outraged if the same government wants to involve itself in the family post partum.  Can you imagine what a world this could be if all children were wanted, and all parents had sufficient resources or help to raise those children to adulthood?

Another issue dear to the religious right is prayer in school. There are many arguments against this, but I am going to relate a story.  When I lived and worked in Mississippi I had an Egyptian co-worker, a Muslim, who I was friendly with, to the point of outside work activities together and on rare occasions dinner with his family.   He came to work one day and wanted to talk to me.  His elementary school age daughter (4^th or 5^th grade) had started a new school year in a town just outside of Jackson, Mississippi. The classroom teacher was leading a Christian prayer every morning… in the classroom.  The school administration, if not sanctioning it, was at least turning a blind eye to it.  His daughter who was being raised very traditionally Muslim by his wife was very upset by this.  Her parents were too.  There were a few possible responses, but as recent immigrants they did not want to make waves.  I think in the end the parents did counsel their daughter to ignore and not participate in the prayers the best she could. However, she should never have been put into that position.  Mandated school prayers have been unconstitutional since 1962.

I am going to stop with the examples unless this article exceeds the patient of the reader.

I am not sure I ever had any faith to lose, but a while back I decided there was a reason I could not whip myself into a religious frenzy.  If you are curious as to why see my blog article Rev. Joe stumbles. I try very hard to operate by the motto “live and let live”, it strikes me that the religious among us do not, cannot do this.  This has turned me from someone who has been willing to accept the large segment of the population with beliefs absurd to me, to someone who is actively angry about the effect of religion on our society, to someone who wants to avoid the religionist willing to evangelize their beliefs.  Any deep reading of history should leave you with the certainty that religion has not been a good force in our societies.  In many cases it has been pure evil, no need to cite the all too numerous examples.  I see the United States entering into a period of authoritarianism lead by those who want to push their religious beliefs on the rest of us.  And I am even angrier.  Perhaps the greatest absurdity of all this is that the Religious Right have embraced the “imperfect vessel” that is Donald Trump to achieve their aims.  Trump is the least Christian, the least religious man to hold that office in the history of this country. They seem willing to let the country go down in flames as long as they can overturn Roe v. Wade and promote their religious agenda.

God save us all from the religious.

Footnotes:

1. Table: Religious Diversity Index Scores by Country
2. Religious Groups’ Official Positions on Abortion
3. Poll: Majority Want To Keep Abortion Legal, But They Also Want Restrictions
4. New Research Shows Most Human Pregnancies End in Miscarriage

Keep well.

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