“This world will never be right until Jesus returns to rule with an iron hand …”
Whenever I hear right-wing Republicans talk about a Christian America, I’m always reminded of Maudiebelle Smith.
Twenty-five years ago, one of my duties working for a Southern California newspaper was to verify and edit letters to the editor from our readers. Ms. Smith was an elderly Upland resident who wrote frequently. Some of her letters had humorous errors in them, such as referring to Nazi propaganda minister George Gobel.
Others were more serious in a very strange sort of way, such as her thought about the only way truly to solve the problems of the world. I thought of her above comment when I saw an exchange from Monday night’s Ohio Senate debate between Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance.
What exactly is religious liberty as we define it?
Certainly so-called “gay marriage” would be a violation of religious liberty if it were made mandatory. It becomes a little more fuzzy when a baker says she should not be required to sell a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage reception.
But I fail to see how codifying such marriages — in other words, allowing them legally to exist — violates anyone’s religious liberty. If it violates your religious liberty just knowing that sometime, somewhere two men or two women are living as spouses, it seems to me it’s only one step from there to saying Jews or Muslims violate your liberty.
I have a friend who cited the old-fashioned idea of community standards to say that if most people in a community don’t want something, it shouldn’t be allowed. He was speaking of pornography and dirty bookstores, and he eventually conceded that if they were limited to a particular part of town it would be all right.
Lots of towns have red light districts.
Does that means we should limit gay marriages to lavender light districts?
The sad truth is that these people wouldn’t be completely happy until there were no gay people, or at the very least until they didn’t have to know that gay people existed. They cite the Old Testament book of Leviticus and Paul’s letter to the Romans in the New Testament in calling homosexuality an abomination, but once again they miss the point.
Our founding documents may have been written by religious men, not all of them Christians, but they were not based on religious law. The fact is, our Constitution was based more on the Iroquois Confederation than on any religious documents. One of the primary reasons people immigrated from Europe was to avoid the centuries of religious discrimination and out-and-out warfare of the Old World.
No one has the constitutional right not to be offended. If we did, I would certainly be offended by the people I see brandishing arms in public.
In some states that allow open carry, the legislatures have actually passed limitations to prevent people from taking their guns into church on Sunday mornings.
If there’s a great irony in all of this, it’s that the motivations of many of these folks on the right is that they should be allowed to do whatever they want, but that people of whom they disapprove should not have the same rights. It’s all a part of fundamentalist religion, which along with rabid nationalism is as big a problem as we have in the modern world.
Arizona’s Barry Goldwater, pretty much the father of American conservatism, may have said it best.
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”
Barry Goldwater died in 1998, and I don’t know if he was ever a fan of the British humor troupe Monty Python, but I certainly think he would have been amused by one of their more famous lines.
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
Better start expecting it, America.
It’s coming.