No More Mr. Nice Guy!

They hate us for our freedom from religion

For the sake of my blood pressure, I should refrain from reading the editorial page of the Arizona Repulsive (and the B.C. comic strip). I know it's going to be full of mindless craw-thumping, ignorant cheap shots and lowest-common-denominator jingoism and pietism as a substitute for thought. But like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, every day my eyes scan over the page looking for the faintest hint of intelligent life, and almost every day I am doomed to disappointment.

Today's page was particularly annoying, as it contained a hackneyed old bromide that always pushes my button: "Our country was founded on the freedom of religion, not freedom from religion." At the risk of swatting a mosquito with a sledgehammer, what are people thinking when they trot out this hoary old chestnut? Do they think it makes more sense than, say, "our country was founded on freedom of speech, not freedom from speech"?

In most cases, I think what they are struggling to express is the idea that "people of faith" have, or should have, a special privileged position in the US over non-religious people. "We have the right to practice our religion on the taxpayer's dime! Everyone else can love it or leave it!" And of course, "people of faith" means fundagelicals - or, if they are trying to appear inclusive and intolerant, they will make mealy-mouthed noises about the USA's "Judeo-Christian heritage." Tough luck to all you traditional Native Americans, Wiccans, Buddhists etc.

Some of the more articulate users of the "FORNFFR" shibboleth are, or appear to be, a little less triumphalist. They mean that the federal government should be neutral to religion, not hostile to it - something no reasonable person disputes. The trouble is, they are far too inclined to interpret neutrality as hostility when their favorite sacred cow is gored. And as for those who assert that church-state separation applies only to the federal government, not the states, or that the framers of the Constitution never intended to have church-state separation, or that they intended the wall of separation to be a "one-way wall" allowing the church to control the state but not the reverse - don't get me started!

It seems to me that a big part of the reason this issue is so clouded and thorny is that people confuse religion in the abstract with particular instances of religion. They try to make out that the clash is between some generic religion - "ceremonial deism", say - and the hordes of godless heathens who want to smash their altars and tear down their sacred images. Of course, this generic religion, if examined in detail, happens to look remarkably like that of the speaker who is promoting religious entanglement in government.

Here's the crux of the matter. How many people do you know who list their religion as "ceremonial deism"? Or claim that they are religious, but whose religion is so generic it has no links with any recognized religion? I would venture to say none. Just like it's impossible to speak intelligibly without speaking in a specific language, it's impossible to practice religion in any coherent sense without practicing a particular religion.

This is why "freedom of religion" and "freedom from religion" are one and the same. No-one has freedom of religion (or non-religion) if we don't have freedom from some other guy's religion being shoved down our throats. Freedom from religion protects everybody, religious or not.

If the RRR (reactionary religious right) had a single functioning neuron between them, they would realize that church-state separation protects them and benefits them. As Barry Goldwater noted, "By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars." Such wars have always been the bloodiest, precisely because religious differences cannot be settled conclusively by evidence or reason.

The theocrats love to spout "FORNFFR" because they identify "religion" with their flavor of religion. In their wet dreams of a religiously-controlled USA, they cannot conceive of any other flavor winning. Needless to say, if the shoe were on the other foot - say, hypothetically, observance of Ramadan were to be declared compulsory in the US - they would be the first, and loudest, to clamor for freedom from that particular religion. But just try making that point to the Jesus-bots - it sails right over their heads.

Oh well, maybe some day I'll succeed in kicking that football...