Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Bonfire of the Vanities


Private morality does not seem to me to be the state’s business unless it compromises the public welfare.

-Bishop Shelby Spong-

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It's not the sort of thing that demands a reasoned response, but a local Catholic priest has been buying a lot of ad space in the local papers to excoriate Humanists, Atheists and free thinkers for being the main reason for the world's wars, persecutions and acts of genocide. Heretics and unbelievers you see are attacking "freedom of religion."

I used to say the ability to feel shame was the first victim of  authoritarianism but the ability to see irony obviously rides the adjacent horse. Religious freedom is under attack from those who would extend it to all, he says, quoting the party line. Why put forth such fraudulent history and demented reasoning, why demand that we persecute good people for their thoughts and beliefs by stripping them of their guaranteed rights and protection under the law? Why now?

The Beast is running scared now that 36 states recognize the right to marry whomever we wish and the fear is that freedom of  worship will be broadened to protect those with any beliefs at all, including the belief in reason alone or a belief in the dignity and freedom of mankind.   It takes a certain kind of mind to see freedom as the enemy of freedom, but as I said, shame and irony, those two things that can lead one towards legitimate morality have left the building -- or left the Church if you prefer.

But here I am, leading up to the obviously useless argument from reason and fact.  As any  historian should know, it takes violence and threats of violence to convert us, there being no valid arguments for what they've been selling for so long. The appeal to the ignorant and tribal mob, to the tinhorn crusaders against the fulfillment of the promise of liberty is of course an attempt to bypass the Supreme Court, which is scheduled today to hear a case that could result in a decision to extend marriage rights to all, regardless of  one's State of residence. I can smell the desperation and fear and it smells like burning witches.

The argument that the Federal Government does not have the right to overturn state restrictions on personal choices would seem to have been rendered moot or at least Stare Decisis after the 1967 Loving V. Virginia ruling but the persistence of ugly, irrational and often vicious tyranny is the nature of churches as Thomas Jefferson and his friends often and emphatically noted. They will not give up if they have to cut a swath through the law and decency itself to get at the devils they see everywhere and the demand that states be able to nullify Federal Law ad libidum  or according to their Bibles will not disappear any time soon.

Religious leaders are urging "liberal" members of the court to recuse themselves from hearing today's arguments in a move that seems unique to me. Asking a judge to refrain from using the law as a basis for decision is arguably bizarre if not shameful and ironic, Demanding that the courts not be able to allow sin and heresy is illegal, shameful and ironic, but as I said. . .

The Restrain the Judges on Marriage Act of 2015 -- The Protect Marriage from the Courts Act: bills to forbid "Liberal" judges from ruling on cases that might lead to decisions unfavorable to the dictates of  certain Christian churches have been introduced in the Senate and the House by the usual religious wackadoodles like Ted Cruz.  Evidently it isn't only the job of President they wish to take over by fiat.

No, I'm not trying to argue with madness, it would be madness again to do so. I'm only begging you to write your senators and congressmen and demand they respect the letter and spirit of the US constitution and vote against turning over the reins of government to would-be tyrants, waving flags, carrying Gospels and shitting on Liberty.


4 comments:

  1. Perhaps the greatest threat to freedom of religion and liberty in general. Ironic indeed.

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  2. Progress report:

    The local newspaper confirmed that the hate screed titled “Religious Freedom?” was a paid advertisement that appeared in two consecutive issues. The editors were unaware of the paid advert until I brought it to their attention. Apparently one hand does not know what the other is doing.

    I have been reaching out to various denominations within my community for reactions and a consensus view – Jewish, Presbyterian, and Unitarian thus far.

    The rabbi of the local Temple suggested contacting the Anti-Defamation League but also offered this advice: Don’t make it personal by singling out the author, by name, of the paid advert.

    My interview (by phone) with the Presbyterian minister was not what I expected. I had read recently that the national organization would sanction gay marriage and allow gay marriages to be performed in church – at the sole discretion of individual parishes. The local pastor confirmed this announcement but then emphatically stated that his parish was NOT one of them. He cited Paul – book and verse – in describing homosexuality as akin to bestiality and therefore an abomination. When I pointed out the inconsistency even within his own denomination, he was undeterred.

    Is atheism synonymous with secularism, I asked? In essence he agreed with the viewpoint of the paid advertisement – lumping godless liberals into the same category as atheists. I mentioned Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President of the Interfaith Alliance and Senior Pastor of the Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, Louisiana as leading advocate for protecting the wall of separation between Church and State. He formed a different conclusion. He claimed the Constitution was not a secular document but based on “Judeo-Christian” values.

    Noting the Reformation, I asked: “Will there ever be peace between denominations?” His answer: “Categorically and emphatically ‘No’.”

    Next appointment later today.

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  3. I have long and steadfastly agreed with Proudhon that God is evil and Man is free, but since God is, undeniably I think, the voice of man and nothing more, It's necessary to speak up in the name of who you want God to be. It takes guts to do that and I applaud you for it. Such people are irrefutably the final proof that there is no God and no devil but man himself. Freedom has never existed in a Theocracy and never can.

    Jewish and Christian "values" of course are at odds and indeed the independent values of each are obviously at odds amongst themselves. It's just a tired trope used to stifle the truth and to claim religious origin for the humanism of the men who wrote our constitution is the kind of evil, the kind of lie that keeps live the Divine Right of Kings and the Divine right of the Pope to appoint and sanction them, the right to oppress, torture and kill doubters, heretics, and humanists..

    I remain viciously and adamantly opposed to every form of tyranny over the mind of man, and so I define religion.

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  4. You triumphed, and no one dared to contradict you, when, after having tormented in his body and in his soul the righteous Job, a type of our humanity, you insulted his candid piety, his prudent and respectful ignorance. We were as naught before your invisible majesty, to whom we gave the sky for a canopy and the earth for a footstool. And now here you are dethroned and broken. Your name, so long the last word of the savant, the sanction of the judge, the force of the prince, the hope of the poor, the refuge of the repentant sinner, — this incommunicable name, I say, henceforth an object of contempt and curses, shall be a hissing among men. For God is stupidity and cowardice; God is hypocrisy and falsehood; God is tyranny and misery; God is evil. As long as humanity shall bend before an altar, humanity, the slave of kings and priests, will be condemned; as long as one man, in the name of God, shall receive the oath of another man, society will be founded on perjury; peace and love will be banished from among mortals. God, take yourself away! for, from this day forth, cured of your fear and become wise, I swear, with hand extended to heaven, that you are only the tormentor of my reason, the spectre of my conscience.

    -Pierre-Joseph Proudhon-

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