[Mb-civic] MUST READ: The Wages of Intolerance

Tue Jul 12 10:02:26 PDT 2005

Thanks to Linda.

------ Forwarded Message
From: Reeeees at aol.com
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 10:56:39 EDT
To: michael at michaelbutler.com
Subject: The Wages of Intolerance

The Wages of Intolerance

By Marci Hamilton,  AlterNet
Posted on July 12, 2005, Printed on July 12,  2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/23468/

The immediate reaction to  Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation was so
strident from both sides  that the President has asked everyone to tone it
down. Senate leaders are  also asking groups to be more cordial. The problem
with silence, though, is  that we need to know what agendas are out there,
and one of the cardinal  problems in American politics is that too many
times religious political  pressure happens behind closed doors.

Before the calls for civility,  though, plenty of groups were able to show
their hands in this emotional  debate over who to choose to replace Justice
O'Connor, a moderate Goldwater  Republican. Litmus tests abound, with
conservative evangelical Christians  claiming an entitlement to have a
Supreme Court appointee who reflects their  singular religious values. In
the end, the President simply cannot choose a  Justice based on their
religious criteria.

This country was not  founded on a single religious viewpoint, as the far
right would have it, but  rather on a wide diversity of religious beliefs.
The current far right  believers are reminiscent of the Puritans who settled
what would become  Massachusetts and who established their religion as the
religion of the  colony (and then the state). The Puritans believed in the
right to believe  whatever one wanted, so long as dissenters left their
cities and  communities. They believed in a religious culture controlled by
the  majority. Rhode Island was founded because of the Puritans' rank
intolerance.

Many of the dissenting Christians in Massachusetts were  Baptists, whose
charismatic preachers, including the Revs. Isaac Backus and  John Leland,
preached the separation of church and state. Backus declared  that the
"notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever"  while
Leland called established religions, "all of them,  anti-Christocracies."

Yet, far right Christians today, many of them  Baptists, have no respect for
disestablishment principles. They are intent  on removing barriers between
government and religion, and, in fact, making  government the servant to
religion. They want their religious messages on  courthouse walls, their
theology in the science classrooms, their prayers in  public schools, and
their values to mandate constitutional policy. They even  argue that
Protestants are a majority and therefore have the right to have  the
government deliver their religious messages. This is their agenda for  the
next Supreme Court Justice.

Not only are they opposed to the  separation of church and state, they are
also opposed to a balanced  government. Right now, they are insistent that
they have a right to dominate  not just the Congress (witness the Terri
Schiavo bill) and the President  (he's harder to dominate, but he
persistently plays to them), but also the  Supreme Court. They say they are
entitled to take the third  branch.

Moreover, their primary criterion for a good Justice is one where  they can
predict how that Justice will vote on every issue that matters to  them. In
other words, they don't think too much of the independent  judiciary,
either. If they could, they would place an automaton in the  Supreme Court
that could be controlled by remote control. I wish that were  an
exaggeration, but their rhetoric is not terribly opaque.

I'm a  conservative, a Republican, and a Christian, and I must say that I
find this  Christian triumphalism scary. Good for the liberals that are
finally  speaking up and saying that their Christianity is just as
legitimate as  arch-conservative Christianity. The voices we need next in
the public square  are the many silent conservative Christians who find it
offensive that any  religious group would attempt to control the federal
government solely by  its religious lights.

The far right has said repeatedly in recent years  that it would like this
country to return to its religious roots and to  judging according to
original intent. One can only hope that this President,  who is not nearly
as doctrinaire as his so-called "base," understands that  the roots of this
current movement are considerably closer to the Puritans  than the Baptists
at the time of the framing.

Marci A. Hamilton is  the author of 'God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the
Rule of Law' (Cambridge  University Press).

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