How religion warps U.S. political discourse…
In this post, I’ll commit the cardinal sin of discussing religion and politics. Maybe you never were invited to dinner where the host tells you, “Mr. and Mrs. X are also attending. They are Y religion, so don’t discuss religion. In fact, don’t discuss politics either.” If you were, I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to sit down at a dinner table and avoid the topics of religion and politics, because most other Americans just can’t resist them. Where European, Latin American, and many other countries are obsessed with just politics, people in the U.S. are often obsessed with both. In fact, I venture to say that religion warps our politics in ways that are often as sad as they are humorous.
First, as much as we pretend to be the melting pot par excellence, our cultural stereotypes still often depend on religion as much as national origin. The Irish are Catholics, the Blacks are Baptists, Indians are Hindus, and other Southeast Asian people are Buddhists. A Wall Street banker is Jewish and, if you’re sick, you’ll need to find a good Jewish doctor. Terrorists are Muslims and the Chinese are evil capitalists. Black singers are roll’em-in-the-aisles gospel music lovers and country and western singers are born-agains. The list goes on and on and is evidence for our collective insanity.
Second, as a consequence, the practice of political parties and politicians of pandering to these perceived stereotypes means our political discourse is rooted in pure fantasy. People are complex. It is the epitome of naivete to believe that a person’s voting record is determined solely by his or her religion. Of course, some fundamentalist mentalities are one-issue voters, crippled participants in the national dialog who, nevertheless, distort it so much that people outside our country can’t understand where we’re coming from (for that matter, I don’t understand it either).
Let’s take gay marriage. Polls show that most young people don’t give a rat’s ass about it—they worry about more serious things than semantics—like jobs, for example. All marriages are civil unions. Even in a country as predominantly Catholic as Colombia, priests still have to fill out those government forms. You may or may not be married in the eyes of the Church (if you’re divorced, your second marriage is “living in sin,” unless you can afford that costly annulment); for legal matters, you have to be married subject to the laws of your state and country—your religion is irrelevant. Call it civil union or marriage—I don’t care. All I ask is that a lesbian or gay couple have the same rights as heterosexual couples, that society treats them no differently. I’m really in the minority, though, since both sides of this issue heatedly argue about semantics, although the counter-gay marriage movement tends more to older demographics, not young people. Of course, part of the problem is associating the word “marriage” with religion—here we go again.
Abortion issues—pro-lifers versus pro-choicers—is another issue connected to religion. Rather, the religious aspect warps the national discourse. In the Catholic Church, as well as in many Protestant sects, this issue is tied to birth control and abstinence from sexual intercourse. I suppose that back when the Romans were feeding Christians to the lions, it was necessary to make many little Catholics—it was a numbers game. Nowadays, born-agains, Muslims, and certain other religions share this fixation on numbers. In South America, the number of Pentecostals is increasing at an alarming rate when you consider government institutions’ abilities to keep up with the required services. The curious thing is this sanctity-of-life argument doesn’t carry over to saving a mother’s life when it’s in danger or, in extreme cases, the murder of an abortion doctor because he or she’s “murdering innocent children.”
Religion doesn’t belong in politics. I mention some issues above—and there are many others—only because we Americans are stupid enough to let it play a role. One of my theorems about human behavior? If you believe that religion trumps politics, you’re a fundamentalist, plain and simple. Deny it all you want. In fact, the more vehement your denial, the more I know it’s true. You’re a myopic person who can’t see that political issues are not religious issues, especially in this country where freedom of religion—any religion, including the right not to practice one—is written into the Constitution (Article VI) and its amendments, the Bill of Rights (First Amendment) and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Rick Santorum’s criticism of Barack Obama’s religious beliefs is over-the-top and uncalled for, just as is the Obama campaign’s response. I don’t care if a candidate believes in witchcraft (one past candidate did), although the more a candidate uses religion to push his or her agenda, the less I heed what that candidate has to say. I wrongly dismiss most of the ultra-conservative right, in fact, as just a collection of religious nuts. That this is wrong is clear when I consider that one’s conservative beliefs don’t necessarily stem from or cause religious beliefs, but cut me some slack. I stereotype; you stereotype; he, she, it(?) stereotypes; we stereotype; they stereotype!
On the international front, the extreme fundamentalism of Muslim radicals and their desire for a new Islamic empire is well known. Sharia law often trumps secular law even in moderate Islamic countries. At least Christians can tolerate a cartoon of God or Jesus Christ (e.g. The Simpsons) and even laugh about it, whereas Muslim doctrine in that respect seems like something ripped out of the Dark Ages. Religion is so intertwined in the mind of a Muslim jihadist that logic and reason are impossible—so, it would appear, is humor.
On the other hand, the Vatican continues its centuries-long struggle with secular law. The Italians were wise to exclude it from their country, but it still has reduced that country into a schizophrenic mess. Most of the new cardinals are, in fact, Italian. However, the struggle continues in any country with a large Catholic population. I’ll bet that our Cardinal Dolan has speedily ascended the Catholic hierarchy as a reward for his political stands here in the U.S. Don’t get me wrong—as a person he’s likable and probably fun to have a Guinness with, a jolly Dr. Jekyll to the Pope’s serious Mr. Hyde. However, we all know which side Dolan’s on. I remember when JFK was campaigning and the GOP went after him for being Catholic. He practically had to renounce his faith as they accused him of serving Vatican interests over U.S. interests. However, isn’t that true of every American cardinal, archbishop, or bishop? The adage that men of God serve a higher authority than that of their country is a tired cliché.
As long as we in this country permit religion to play such an important role in our politics, we will be rightfully perceived as politically immature, in spite of all our bloviating about freedom of religion and separation of church and state. We will forever be just another version of Iran or Israel, with the difference that our plethora of religions that make a theocracy impossible will in fact tear us apart, in contrast to the theocratic governments of these two countries in the Middle East.
We are not the melting pot to the world. We are the pot of many simmering fundamentalist creeds, each with its own agenda often working against the interests of the others and the interests of our country. Just as we have to rise above our ethnic and racial differences, we must rise about our religious differences. In a modern, sane society, religion shouldn’t matter. In our society, insanity is just around the corner. Welcome to the cuckoo’s nest!
And so it goes….
