Examining the Diminishing Separation of Church & State

There is a great post on American’s United for Separation of Church and State, which is a GREAT read.  Here’s an excerpt:

Old-style Religious Right leaders have already signaled that they intend to assume a confrontational stance. In a recent interview with the Baptist Press, Religious Right attorney Mat Staver blasted Obama with florid rhetoric, branding him a “threat.”

“I would consider him to be the biggest threat to religious liberty we’ve ever had because he will push the homosexual agenda,” said Staver, who runs a legal group affiliated with the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. “I think churches and pastors will be very negatively affected by Obama’s policies.”

I also found a MUST READ FOR ALL on the Siren Chronicles entitled Undermining the First Amendment By Creeping Christian Prostelyzation.

Here’s a excerpt:

This is all terrifying to freedom loving, individual Americans, who rightly fear the establishment of any religion as “the state religion”.  Religion has a place in each individual’s life at a time and a place of each individual’s choosing, but it has no place being forced upon anyone.  The recent brouhaha on these pages about Rick Warren performing an invocation at the presidential inaugural maybe be viewed as a bit over reactive by some, and when it comes down to it, I can ignore that small interlude, as I have done so in similar situations for my entire life, but why should it be foisted on me in the first place during an act of state ceremony, and it does make me fear what else religious extremists might want to force upon me, will I, one day be forced to wear a religious insignia on my clothing, have all of my worldly possessions seized, have my friends and family torn away from me, and find myself marching to a gas chamber, all in service to some one’s skewed belief that their God is God and is the only God?

Click on the links to both to read the entire posts.  It’s well worth the time!

Nuts, Guns, Fear & God: What the Right is Made Of

I run across Right-Wing blogs on a daily basis.  Some are filled with hate and intolerance, some are just plain funny.  Many of them seem to feed on fear.  The Right in general has this connection to fear.  Fear of God, fear of the Left, fear of change.  As I’ve said before, hate is caused by fear, fear is from the unknown, the unknown is ignorance and ignorance is bliss.  Now before you start screaming that I’m simply calling those who are part of Right-Wing society blissfully ignorant fear and hate mongers, I do want to point out I am speaking in general terms, which typically I avoid doing.  After all, I think in terms of the Right and Left (and almost anything else in life) as part of a continuum. Some will fall as far right as possible, and in turn, a few will land over on the extreme Left, but 95% of the population will fall somewhere in between with some leaning Right, some leaning Left and some Right in the middle.

But I will say I have found many parallels in Right Wing blogs. Those consistent elements that appear time and time again (which make me glad I’m l left leaner).

There is a great deal of intolerance from the Right. If you believe in a woman’s choice, you condone murder. If you believe sexuality is not a choice, and all people should have equal rights, then you are an atheist (let’s not forget about the priest who refused communion to anyone that voted for Obama because of these issues).

If you believe in any type of gun control, your unpatriotic (including keeping illegal semi-auto and automatic weapons off the street) and if your anything other than Christian (let’s keep in mind Christianity is NOT the majority religion, nor has it the longest history) then you are definitely a threat to the world (I wonder how the world made it before Christianity?).

Yet, it’s the Right, who loves to point the finger at the Left accusing the other side of intolerance, hate and bigotry. Now I realize no one wants to be wrong, but, the more I read from the right, the further away from the Right I tend to lean.

One site I found, called Political Pistachio, is a great representation of what the Right is and stands for, as it is a truly inclusive site.  That is it includes all the elements of the right and what makes the Right….well, WRONG!

On this site, you’ll find a great deal of fear and intolerance. Not only for the LGBT community, but for those of different faiths, including Jews. You’ll find a blatant prejudice against Muslims, and basically anyone that doesn’t live in America (or was born here). You’ll find prejudice against those who don’t speak English. You’ll find guns, many references to God and Jesus, and you’ll find a virtual war against liberals or anyone who doesn’t live in fear of things different from them. You’ll find links to sites such as “Christians against Leftist”, “Gunz Roll Call”, and “The Liberals are Wrong” (you get the picture), and you’ll also find a great deal of rhetoric about “The American Way”.

For me, the “American Way” is tolerance, inclusion, and the understanding we all come from somewhere. Let’s face it, if you’re not Native American, you came from somewhere else. I never understood how the Right is able to equate being American to being a white Christian.

I firmly believe in learning from those things I encounter in life, whether positive or negative, so here I take away a lesson. The lesson here, what I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be intolerant, so I accept the Right as part of the population, but I don’t “hate” them because I don’t agree with them. I’m not straight, but I don’t want to oppress straight people…and yes, the thought of straight people in the bedroom is unsettling to me as well, so I don’t think about what straight people do in bed.

I don’t want to change the Constitution to prevent consenting, law abiding, tax paying adults from having equal rights, (whereas the Right, who claims to fight for the preservation of the Constitution, advocates changing it to do just that) so I don’t want to be a hypocrite.

I don’t want people to, and I don’t want to live in fear…of anything.

So, lesson learned from the Right? Thank you for showing me what I don’t want to be. Thank you for providing me with motivation and inspiration to be a better person, accepting all differences, and thank you for showing my the ugliness of injecting race and religion into politics…and thank you mostly for reminding me we are the human race, and we all share this world together.

Letter: Leave the judgments to Jesus

The passage of Proposition 8 was bigotry. I suggest the zealots reread their Bibles. If homosexuality is a sin, as judged by God alone, Jesus would have been the first to extend his hand, sit for dinner, and commune with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Judgment does not belong to petty men and women who base their views on man’s biblical interpretations, religious dogma, preconceptions or bigotry.

The passage of Proposition 8 denies equal protection and rights. The Supreme Court will strike down Proposition 8 as such.

Read the rest at Chicoer.com!

“Not A Clean-Cut Division” Between Religion And Science

A Philadelphia Inquirer profile of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson this weekend reveals that the chief steward of our environmental protection is unwilling — or unable — to separate religion from science. The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson notes that, when questioned by reporters, Stephen Johnson admitted he does not see a “clean-cut division” between the two:

It’s not a clean-cut division. If you have studied at all creationism vs. evolution, there’s theistic or God-controlled evolution and there’s variations on all those themes.

Read the rest at Gay Religion.

Why the Christian Right is Really Wrong

I am not one to fault anyone for having views of faith. Who and how you worship is a very personal thing in my eyes and I do not believe there is a right or wrong God, faith or style of worship. I do feel very strongly however we should maintain a separation of church and state, but not perhaps for the reason you may believe. I recognize that many “Christians”, especially many evangelicals do not like, approve of, or condone in anyway the GLBT community. I stand behind the freedom of that choice. Unlike being gay however, acceptance and understanding is a choice. So, it is my opinion those who chose not to accept those different from themselves are actually dealing with much greater issues than we know. Hate is caused by fear, fear is from the unknown, the unknown is ignorance and ignorance is bliss. There is so much going on in the lives and minds of those who hate that it just may be impossible for those persons to change.

So, what is the reason I believe in separation of church and state? It’s simple really, I’ve already stated it. There is no right or wrong when it comes to religion. It is not my place, or anyone else’s to say that Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Taoism or any other religion is right or wrong. Therefore, if you interject religion into government, you are pushing one particular faith onto the people as a whole, and that is wrong.

I would like to take the opportunity however to address the group who most often pushed their religious agenda onto the governing bodies of this great nation…Christians. I have found it simply appalling how the so called “Christian Right” finds it necessary to continually medal in the political realm. There again, it’s not because they are Christian, and I don’t agree with their faith, for it’s not for me to judge. However it is those very people who teach biblically how their savior (Jesus Christ) was wrongly judged and hung on a cross to die that want to do the same to the GLBT community. They judge us, they hold us in contempt, they treat us they same way Jesus was treated by his enemies…they persecute us.

I also find it very odd how so many Christians feel they are qualified to speak, if not for Jesus, for God. There is not a day go by that I don’t read a blog, hear a radio voice, or see it on cable TV. Even in the mainstream media you’ll find those who feel they are the authority on God and what God likes, dislikes, loves and hates. Somehow by claiming to be a Christian, you are automatically qualified to run the world. You automatically know what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad.
You have the Fred Phelps’ of the world who claims that God hate fags. You have the Janet Porters who spew hate toward people of differing races, nationalities and sexual orientations on a daily basis. You have the James Dobson’s and Donald Wildmon’s who claim to have a personal enough relationship with God that he (or she) has made them the next messiah, the bearer of God’s will.
Then you have those who will stand up in your face and tell you that being gay is wrong because the bible, Jesus or God (or all three) says so.

One problem here, I would be willing to bet that most of those who so freely toss out religious rhetoric haven’t even completely read the Bible. They have taken certain passages and have run with them not knowing, or understanding the true meaning behind what they are saying. Show me one person who personally knows anyone who made an actual contribution to the Bible, and I will be willing to listen. Perhaps the Bible is the word of God, but let’s not forget, if it is, it’s the word of God written through other people in a time before any of us walked the earth, and we all know how things get lost in translation. When the Bible was written, the word virgin meant a woman who had not yet given birth, not one who had not had sex. The word abomination meant something out of the norm, not a deviant passage to hell.

The fact is, people, especially Christians use religion to control. They are smart enough to realize how difficult it is to disagree with the ultimate authority, but not smart enough to realize they are not the authority. If God disapproves of my life, the life he gave me, the person he created and placed on this earth, then let him decide. There is no one person who is qualified to make that call and those very people who feel qualified to cast that judgment are the same ones who have used the Bible to oppress and control for generations.

Christianity, whether wrong or right, is not the majority religion. Christianity also has been around for thousands of years less than many other religions. Again, I’m not saying its wrong or right, but I am saying Christians, who ask not to be judged by anyone other than their God, who they do NOT know, are the ones who are the first to judge anyone who doesn’t believe exactly as they do…irony at it’s best, and the best reason to keep church and state separate!

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