Faith-based Fascism

If you assume that the goal of the new "Religious Liberty Task Force" recently announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be to find new and better ways to discriminate against the LGBT community, you probably are underestimating the Attorney General and the administration he serves.  Rest assured that the Task Force also will investigate new ways to justify restricting women's reproductive rights, expand federal funding for religious schools, and aggressively erode the separation of Church and State.

Political authoritarians and religious hierarchies enjoy a natural partnership.  Both are essentially conservative, demanding that followers  accept the immutable rules and mythologies they hand down.  Neither can tolerate opposition based on anything so heterodox as rational thought, and both perceive those from outside their networks of believers as threats to be resisted, repressed, and demonized.  Working together, they keep their followers unquestioning and compliant.

Such partnerships may be as old as human civilization, but there are plenty of contemporary examples.  Conservative Islam, either Sunni or Shi'a, dominates the autocracies of the Middle East.  The Orthodox parties in Israel recently cooperated with Netanyahu's Likud to enact legal changes that make Muslims and Druse second-class citizens.  In India, Modi's Hindu nationalists stay in power by persecuting Muslims, and the generals of Myanmar have solidified Buddhist support by doing the same.

Of course, the relationship that most resembles Tr*mp's alliance of interests with Evangelicals is Putin's alliance of interests with the Russian Orthodox Church; and in Russia, too, the effort to strengthen church-state solidarity began by attacking homosexuals.  Perhaps "moral" considerations motivate religious conservatives to endorse and facilitate authoritarian political leadership, but the process is inevitably corrupt.

Church and State

Franklin Graham, son and heir to evangelist Billy Graham, says that "progressive" is just another word for "godless;" and that what godless progressives want most is to take away the tax-exempt status of religious organizations.  In the real world, of course, you're unlikely to find any politician willing to endorse ending religious tax breaks; but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

Religion and politics are inseparable.  Both are systems of social control, evolved to limit certain individualistic behaviors by defining them as deviance: the immoral and the illegal largely overlap.  It follows that every sermon is political speech: no clear line ever has separated Church and State.  Religion has been integral to American politics since the arrival of the Puritans, entangled in every major political debate.  Inevitably, a contribution to a church is a political contribution.

Property tax exemptions for religious organizations deprive local governments of revenue, subsidizing church members at the expense of everybody else, irrespective of need; and the deductibility of donations lets individuals use government funds to advance sectarian ideologies.  Granted, the only feasible path to reform is to make all charitable contributions non-deductible, but given the political abuse of 503(c) corporations and similar manipulations, the time for genuine "tax simplification" has arrived.  Donors will have to give out of genuine altruism; religious donors, perhaps, to avoid joining godless progressives, and anybody else who doubts their "truth," in Hell.

Shariah Law Advances in US

The anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks seemed like a good time for an update on religious extremism.  Even without those emails from your crazy uncle, you should know that fanatics are working tirelessly to warp the American legal system with their primitive beliefs.

Okay, it's not exactly "Shariah" because the religion involved isn't Islam, but the chief objectives of all those Abrahamic preachers are the same: the subjugation of women and the de-eroticization of sex.  Leading the American jihad are Evangelical Christians, aided and abetted by conservative Catholics and orthodox Jews.  With the ascendance of the Tr*mp Administration, they have attained unprecedented prominence and power.

Much like the rulers of Saudi Arabia, they know that women are temptresses who lead men into moral peril, and hence must be denied birth control and abortions as a means to regulate their unbridled lust.  Babies will keep them at home, ready to satisfy the physical needs of their husbands and unable to tempt upstanding men like Mike Pence into the sin of adultery.

Speaking of Mike Pence, homosexuals are even more threatening than women because their only motivations for sexual activity are animal lust and immoral gratification.  Worse yet, the transgendered may be especially adept at enticing Mike Pence good Christians into carnal sin.  The Holy Warriors are determined that vulnerable members of the armed forces and bakers of wedding cakes will be spared temptation.

Health and Human Services and the Justice Department have attracted the most attention so far, but the fanatics are in all departments: the drive for "school choice," for example, is a campaign for publicly funded religious education.  Religious extremists are pervasive in the Republican Party, at all levels of government, working to deprive the rest of us of out civil rights.

No local stonings nor autos-da-fé have been reported from Kansas or Alabama so far, but religious extremists enjoy close cooperation with the NRA.  They are extremely well-armed.

The Perils of Religious Extremism

Religious extremists are threatening our American way of life.  They are not immigrants: they are homegrown.  They are Christians.

Supreme Court candidate Neil M. Gorsuch found in favor of the Hobby Lobby plaintiffs, allowing private employers to claim religious beliefs as justification for denying the legal rights of their employees.  He can be counted on to let business owners discriminate against any customers who don't meet their "moral standards."  Opposition to abortion, of course, was a precondition for his nomination.

Betsy DeVos, nominee for Secretary of Education, supports school vouchers — long a goal of religious institutions seeking government subsidies for their indoctrination of the young.  She supports taxpayer funding for "Christian Academies" that disparage science, nurture authoritarian mindsets, and provide a convenient escape from integrated public schools.  Just add Jerry Falwell Jr. to direct the accreditation of for-profit colleges, like the vast online cash cow milked by his own Liberty University, and the educational Apocalypse is complete.

At yesterday's National Prayer Breakfast, Tr*mp promised to overturn the Johnson Amendment, which has forbidden political activity by churches since the Eisenhower administration.  Granted, the churches already actively endorse candidates without much government interference, but overturning Johnson would free those tax exempt organizations to spend tax deductible contributions on political campaigns.

Tr*mp's moral compass points unerringly up his own ass, but he has Pence to show him the way.  Religious bigots are much too important a segment of the bigot population for any right wing demagogue to ignore.

Kim Davis

It occasionally happens that I agree with Lindsey Graham, and this is one of those times.  He says that if Kim Davis feels she cannot carry out the responsibilities of County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, she should resign.  (Personally, I don't mind if she uses up her vacation days while she's in jail — it's the kind of thing vacation days are for.)

Her mother was county clerk for thirty-seven years, and Kim Davis worked under her mother.  Her son works in the office now, and probably expects to be elected to his mother's job when she's ready to retire.  That's small town politics.  It's extremely likely she ran unopposed, or against some token Republican candidate.  (Yes, Kim Davis is a Democrat.)

Some states are enacting legislation which would allow public officials to refuse to perform their duties when those duties conflict with their religious convictions.  We can be quite certain that such laws will be invalidated by Federal courts, but the process is likely to drag on and on, and get pretty boring before it's over.

Catholic judges can't refuse to issue divorce decrees, and Muslim postal workers can't refuse to deliver copies of Playboy because the centerfold isn't wearing a hijab.  As Donald Trump says, this is a nation of laws.  I hope Ms. Davis enjoys her moment of celebrity, but the chief significance of this particular instance of conscientious objection is that it is further splitting the Republican party.

Religion and Ethics

I like to watch the Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS.  In the real world, though, there seems to be far too much of the former and a paucity of the latter.  If there ever might be a better time for mass conversions to atheism, I can't imagine when it might be.

For starters, Pakistan is a sinkhole, all on its own.  With honor killings, prosecutions for blasphemy, persecution of the Ahmadi sect, and more, its efforts to get control over extremists in North Waziristan don't count for much.

It seems likely that the perverts who captured and killed the three Israeli boys actually were not members of Hamas, but that didn't stop the Israelis from conducting a pogrom against anybody associated with Hamas on the West Bank, primarily to prevent a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation.  Bibi needs an enemy to stay in power.  On the other hand, the killers of that Muslim boy certainly were religious fanatics.  That (in addition to the pogrom and the need to improve their reputation for political purposes) inspired Hamas to launch their rather inept rocket attacks on Israel.

Boko Haram is yet another crazy Islamic cult, making an unstable part of the world even less stable.  Then again, in the Central African Republic, the Christians may be more bloodthirsty than the Islamists.  Moving up to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the crazy animists are attacking medical relief workers trying to address the the Ebola epidemic.  Well, their shamans can't be too much less effective than Doctors Without Borders as far as cures go, but MSF probably stands a better chance of containing the outbreak.

The Eastern Orthodox Church is solidly behind Putin.  Buddhists (yes, Buddhists) are killing Muslims in Cambodia.  Let's not even mention (okay, I'll mention it) relationships between India and Pakistan.  Back here in the USofA, the "Family Values" crew seem to be losing on gay marriage, but the 2011 post-census redistricting has offered them definite advantages, not least in states like North Carolina and Virginia.

What the hell.  I'm old, and pretty soon I'll be dead, and Jesus won't be there to welcome me home.

More Short Subjects

 Ukraine

Russian troops at the border!  NATO jets patrolling the Baltic states!  The Donetsk People's Republic!  Be afraid!  Well, don't be that afraid unless you're an Ukrainian who soon will be living with IMF imposed austerity measures while paying more for Russian natural gas.

All I see is a lot of posturing.  There is no way in hell Russia and NATO will slug it out physically over some antiquated manufacturing plants and wheat fields.

India

It looks like Narendra Modi's BJP party will be pushing the Gandhi family's Congress party aside in the current election cycle, despite Modi's previously undisclosed wife and that little matter of the slaughter of Muslims up in Gujarat back in 2002.  Will Modi govern as the consummate capitalist, the Hindu nationalist, or some combination of the two?  We'll wait and see.

Speaking of Gujarat, I like to point out to people that Muslims often are victims as well as perps (and not only to each other.)  In the Central African Republic, the Christians seem to be the real crazies, for example.  Then there's Cambodia, where the Buddhists are the bad guys.  Then again, there's Palestine.  'Nuff said.

Flight 370

I've read that the missing Malaysian airliner has done more for CNN's ratings than anything since Bush bombed Baghdad.  I will admit I'm curious to know what actually happened (my personal crazy hypothesis involves hacking the airliner's software), but sometimes it happens that you just don't get to know what you want to know.

Religion

This morning I read that Pope Francis has taken the brakes off the the beatification of Oscar Romero. I'm not entirely sure what the requirements are for martyrdom, but Romero certainly met my requirements.  Perhaps you are old enough to remember Pope John XXIII, and the Second Vatican Council.  Perhaps you are old enough to remember Liberation Theology.

Perhaps not, but every once in a while the Catholics remember what Jesus and Christianity once were all about.  Francis seems to have remembered it was about helping the poor, but  the rest of Christianity may take a long time to catch up.

In the meanwhile, Coptic Christians in Egypt are being exterminated by Salafists; Sunnis in Lebanon are being suicide-bombed by by Shi'ia; Muslims in India and Cambodia are being exterminated by Hindus; (who knows what kinds of) Christians and (who knows what kinds of) Muslims are exterminating each other in various former colonial fiefdoms of Africa; and the Sunni-Shi'ia conflict is playing itself out all over the Middle East.

One nice thing about the USofA is that we atheists are far less likely to be suicide bombed than in other parts of the world (unless we work at abortion clinics.)  Maybe it feels good to feel so fucking sure of yourself, but that's no excuse.

Tell your god to go fuck himself.  Take care of all those orphaned children, and all those refugees.  Probably there's no reward after you're dead, but that shouldn't matter.  Do it for now.

Short Subjects for Early April

The National School Shield
The NRA's idea for putting armed guards into every school is, of course, absurd.  The organization, sponsored by gun manufacturers, had to come up with something — and, needless to say, their solution had to involve more guns.  The NRA has offered to "train volunteers," but the cost of just insuring against the risks of some yahoo with a semi-automatic wandering around a school building probably would have to be offset by firing two teachers.

Marriage Equality
While we wait for the Supremes to act, here's a thought: I've always been in favor of Civil Unions.  If you want your marriage recognized by the state, go to a judge or a JP or some other state official.  If you want to get married by a religious personage, well, go do it — but don't expect the state to recognize that personage's authority.  On the other hand, if you think religious leaders should have the right to approve marriages, just let them decide who can get married — gay, straight, or interspecies.  As an ordained minister, I would hesitate to marry a man to a sheep, but if it looked like they really were in love...

North Korea
Well, it looks like Kim Jong Un is striving to outdo both his daddy and his granddaddy in the craziness category, but I suspect his real problem is nobody takes the North Koreans all that seriously these days.  The boy king with the bad haircut can beat his chest like Kim Kong, and nobody pays much attention.  "Okay," say the Americans, the South Koreans, the Japanese and, increasingly, the Chinese, "let him rant.  If the need arises, we can blow his ass right off the peninsula, and we're pretty sure he knows that."  On the other hand, I think we have kind of a moral obligation to keep some of those undernourished kids alive.

Atlanta Cheaters
Okay, the bail seemed kind of high to me for a batch of school administrators — I mean, where in hell are they supposed to go?  Will they join the Colombian rebels, or the Taliban?  Can they drain the "vast" profits from their administrator bonuses to flee?  I don't think so.  It is no secret that I'm not at all a fan of school administrators, but I suspect the main failure of the cheating assholes was less cheating skill and a little more hubris than other cheating assholes who are doing it in the white neighborhoods.

Sunday Devotions

I just heard on the radio that both Obama and Romney held back on campaigning yesterday and went to church.  Isn't that nice?!

I'm assuming Obama still is going nowhere near the nefarious Reverend Wright, and has found some less controversial place for photo-ops with his lovely family.  Romney's lovely family took some press along for photo ops at a Mormon temple near his lake house in New Hampshire, and stopped off afterwards for a scoop of  ice cream.  Good humanizing, Mitt!

Now, I'm sure Mitt is sincere in his religious beliefs.  Mormons are especially good at imbuing their children with their religion — far better than Catholics and mainstream Protestants, and probably better, even, than Evangelicals.

Barack, on the other hand, was raised by an anthropologist.  I have no doubt he was imbibing cross-cultural relativism with his mother's milk.  Clearly, he would have an understanding of religion as a social force — but an anthropologist is the least likely person I can think of to believe that any one of the hundreds of world religions has any particular claim on truth.

Still, you can't be elected to any national office in the United States without espousing religious beliefs.  (The main reason Barack selected Wright's church in Chicago, I believe, was because of Wright's political muscle.)

Is a sceptic currently occupying the White House?  Don't ask.  Don't tell.

Religious Free(dom?)

While we chew our nails in anticipation of tomorrow's elections in Wisconsin, I thought I might distract you a little by looking at the latest "religious freedom" controversy.  In short, Catholic institutions (as distinguished from most Catholics) don't want to pay for contraception for their various Catholic and non-Catholic employees.  Given that Catholicism in America is a pretty large cartel, there are a lot of women with unwanted pregnancies — both Catholic and not Catholic — who work for that cartel.  The bombastic bishops are being goosed ahead by the evangelical right.

When Obama moved the responsibility for contraception from the religious institutions to their private insurance companies, it was a cop-out, of course.  Our President's 2012 campaign song ought to be Paul Simon's "Slip Sliding Away."  Presumably, he didn't use enough lube, because the bishops are still (sans lube) up his ass (despite the fact that he passed through puberty many years ago.)

Personally, I think there's not nearly enough separation of Church and State.  When the right-wing religious ideologues start yelling about the First Amendment, I am inclined to step back, gather up a few thunderclouds, and shout, "Hypocrites!  Woe be unto you!  Surely, the command from the Lord, thy God, is to go fuck thyself!"

Okay.  Let us zipline down from the mountaintop, and get a little more analytical and less emotional.

Mitt Romney tithes to the Mormon church, and 100% of his tithe is tax deductible (even if he doesn't really need the deduction.  He's got more than ample deductions, rate advantages, and credits just by virtue of being rich.)  How much of his tax-deductible tithe was spent on, for example,

• Baptizing dead people, including dead celebrities, victims of the Holocaust, etc.?
• Converting hapless adherents of other faith systems by sending young missionaries around the world?  (Romney, as you may know, was sent to convert the French.  Sacrebleu!)
• Actions to influence the outcomes of legislative initiatives and/or elections?
• Acquiring real estate and hence making it nontaxable?

There's more, of course, but why belabor the point?  I'm not saying that religious organizations never do valuable and real charitable work, nor that the Mormons are worse than any of the others.  Catholic Charities does a great deal of good for the poor, especially children, so donations that go to that aspect of the Catholic Church certainly should be deductible.  On the other hand, donations that go to projects like gilding the cupola, shuffling kiddie-diddling priests around, and suing the United States government over contraception regulations should not.

In other words, I think charity should be defined as money going to do measurable good to those actually in need — and by that, I mean in this life, not some hypothetical next life.

I'm not allowed to deduct my contributions to the ACLU, because they might go to work that is somehow political.  Well, if you think today's churches, synogogues, mosques, etc. are not political, then your head is up your ass.  Isn't it time to take a look at how tax advantaged religious organizations are using the taxpayer money they gain through their tax advantages?

As a totally secular individual paying taxes to subsidize other people's superstitions, I do.

Sexual Politics

CNN informs me that Rick Santorum just won Alabama and Mississippi — albeit the count shows Romney and Gingrich not very far behind. Whatever. It's time to look at the politics of abortion, contraception, and (not yet mentioned in this campaign) masturbation.

For all human groups, throughout history, survival has depended on numbers. When two tribes had to work out who got the river valley and who got the desert, the big tribe got the prime real estate and the small tribe got to wander in the wilderness. It's no different with religions. The more adherents to a faith, the more likely it is to survive. "Be fruitful and multiply," sayeth the Lord. If you don't, those damnable Egyptians or Hittites or whatever will wipe you out.

Increasing your group's numbers depends on keeping your women pregnant. Naturally, it follows that religions competing with other religions for population will have "moral" prohibitions against birth control, abortion, and that "sin of Onan," which "wastes" what could be used to keep the group's women perpetually pregnant (and don't forget to kill the queers.)

In the United States, "mainstream" Protestants, secularized Jews and Catholics, and those with no particular interest in any religion are failing to be fruitful and multiply, perhaps under the impression that they can do more for one or two children than for seven or eight — while traditional Catholics and Muslims, Mormons, and many Evangelicals are breeding like bunnies.

In a democracy, the breeders, eventually, will win.

The Islamic Center

I have a problem with the Islamic Center near "Ground Zero." It's the same problem I have with St. Patrick's Cathedral, Temple Emanu-El, and even the perpetually liberal Riverside Church: none of them pay taxes.

Burlington Coat Factory, the putative but discredited "historic monument" that currently occupies the spot of the new Islamic Center, paid both corporate income taxes and property taxes. The new center, being "religious," will pay neither.

Fully half the tax-deductible "charitable contributions" declared on United States income tax forms are to religious organizations. Some of that money goes to people — people who really need help — but much of it goes to maintaining the institutions, their propaganda, and their denigration of competing religious traditions. (How much of the opposition to the Lower Manhattan Islamic Center, one wonders, is funded by tax-deductible contributions? How much is funded by the tax-deductible ADL, for example?)

Like other religious institutions, the Islamic Center probably will deserve part of its tax-free status. If it provides a food bank, relocation of the homeless, day care, dental clinics, or other non-denominational services, support for those projects ought to be tax-deductible. It is entirely reasonable to give tax preference to organizations that benefit the public at large — but not to those which aggrandize their own agendas at the expense of others.

By the way, as I understand it, the Muslims who are sponsoring the Islamic Center are Sufi — ecstatic, non-political, non-violent Muslims who are pretty much the exact opposite of the Salafists of Al Qaeda. That means nothing to Republican opportunists, Fox News, or Harry Reid (who is in a tough re-election campaign.) For the Great American Public, of course, it's all black and white. Muslims are black. So is Obama.

Too bad.