[Vision2020] Religion and government remain a dangerous and volatile mix

[Art Deco]

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   Religion and government remain a dangerous and volatile mix By Rick
Wingrove<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rick-wingrove/2011/07/28/gIQAorRdiK_page.html>,
Published: October 11

*Rick Wingrove is the CEO of *  Beltway Atheists,
Inc,<http://beltwayatheists.org/>
* the Virginia State Director of * American Atheists<http://www.atheists.org/>
*, and a contributor to The Washington Post’s * local faith leader
network<http://www.washingtonpost.com/2010/07/08/gIQAyIUWFJ_page.html>
.

Christopher Hitchens<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/christopher-hitchens-a-vanity-fair-writer-was-a-religious-skeptic-and-acerbic-master-of-the-contrarian-essay/2010/12/17/gIQAtiBHxO_story.html>famously
said that “religion poisons everything.” While a thorough search
might turn up technical exceptions to this rule, one of the things
religion<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/politics-and-religion-of-voters/2012/10/08/ec3f3a66-11bb-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_graphic.html>certainly
does poison is politics. Poison politics leads to toxic
government.

Religious types have been leaning on government and meddling in elections
since they were thanked for their input and given nice parting gifts by the
authors of the Constitution. The problem for religious ideologues is this:
despite some pretty extraordinary and self serving claims about
mandates<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/birth-control-mandate-beyond-our-god-given-rights/2012/02/14/gIQAMhnSDR_blog.html>and
dictates received directly from a micromanaging Bronze Age deity, the
Constitution simply provides no role for religion in the government of the
United States.

Official endorsement of any religion is prohibited. Religious tests for
elected office are prohibited. The result of our constitutional
non-establishment of religion has been a system of government that is
nominally neutral on religion and which, by design, provides equal rights,
protection, and access to all citizens regardless of their opinions on
religion<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/how-to-tell-if-youre-an-atheist/2012/05/30/gJQADy561U_blog.html>.
What could possibly be fairer than that?

The worst elements of religion, however, don’t consider this matter
settled. Rabid fundamentalism, based on biblical literalism, is rampant in
our politics.  It would be a tremendous redistribution of the facts to
argue that religious adamancy resides equally on the left and on the right.
The imbalance has grown so great that the right genuinely believes that the
god and creator of the entire universe is a Republican, that they are
entitled to govern, that whatever it takes to install them permanently in
power qualifies as “democracy,” and that compromise is the work of Satan
and entirely out of the question. Claiming a mandate from a supreme deity
is the ultimate untrumpable hand.

The result of this intractable ideology is legislative
paralysis<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/13/13-reasons-why-this-is-the-worst-congress-ever/>at
a time when we could really use some rational solutions. Instead,
democracy is being commandeered and driven into a ditch by those who would
inflict faith-based social
legislation<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/in-missouri-clergy-in-the-fray-of-akin-race-seeing-it-as-start-of-a-battle-for-the-soul-of-gop/2012/10/08/500ab2c4-0eff-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html>taken
from Leviticus and whose science comes from Genesis.

Doubling down on mean and ignorant is neither a recipe for success nor the
character of greatness. Science denial will never result in greater
understanding of the workings of the universe. Science
denial<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/god-particle-discovery-is-a-win-for-science-over-superstition/2012/07/11/gJQAQT8NdW_story.html>and
its siblings math denial, fact denial, and utter disregard for logic,
feed a disturbing resurgence of anti-intellectualism. History instructs us
well on this matter.

The religion-based denial of equality and rights for women is a remnant of
a life-crushing morality devised by men who thought the earth was flat.
Such cultural misogyny<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/will-the-war-on-women-get-women-into-office/2012/04/27/gIQARFidlT_story.html>is
a declaration of war against the very notions of Life, Liberty, and
the
Pursuit of Happiness.

Religion proposes equally dire outcomes for gays, people who get tattoos,
men who get haircuts, anyone who works on Sunday, or who eats shellfish.
But the cafeteria religious believers are focused like a laser on
gays<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-leadership/post/chick-fil-a-president-dan-cathy-bites-into-gay-marriage-debate/2012/07/19/gJQACrvzvW_blog.html>and
find prescriptions for hate in their ancient texts.

It may or may not be unfair to blame every failure of government on
religion when some are likely the outcome of plain vanilla ignorance. But
the right, currently and openly awash in rapturous faith, is providing a
home and a pulpit to the most toxic, coercive, and repressive elements of
religion.

Government should be a solution engine, populated by the informed people,
focused on outcomes beneficial to all. The government of the U.S. must
never become a tool for the imposition of religion on the unwilling and the
unconvinced. Done by others, we call it
sharia<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/muslim-without-sharia/2012/01/19/gIQApEbIBQ_blog.html>.
And Hitchens had exactly that in mind when he called it poison.



* *




-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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