When I first encountered this bizarre idea, I honestly thought it was a joke. I mean, really, who would seriously think that members of a religion which can honestly claim some 85% (or more) of America as adherents could be oppressed in a democratic system?
The answer, sadly, is the Religious Right.
I still have a hard time wrapping my head around some of these ideas, but I'll try anyway. Someone has to keep this blog alive. The name is entirely too cool to just let it die on the vine.
First off, these folks don't like the First Amendment. They simply cannot stand the idea that for the purposes of governance, all religions are to be considered equal, equivalent, and to be treated the same. This is the 'secularism' or occasionally 'humanism' some figures like to rail against. Occasionally, this secular government gets labeled atheistic. After all, it doesn't profess an overarching belief in God, so it must be atheistic, right?
Of course, the answer to this is simple: that's just not right. By that logic, my socks are atheistic, as they do not profess a belief in God. So, I should probably be worried about the salvation of my soles.
I refuse to apologize for the horrible pun. Despite being bad, I think it illustrates my point reasonably well – being secular does not reasonably equate to being atheistic. So, it's simply not true to claim that the US is an atheistic state. At best, the claim is very misleading, and more realistically, it's a malicious lie.
Second, these people believe that having things like evolution instead of creationism in public schools is a form of oppression. Somehow, they simply cannot grasp that one is science and the other religion. I won't go into just how wrong these people are, as that's several other rants worth of material, but it never fails to amaze me how so many people can be so utterly blind to reality.
Third, somehow not granting special privileges to Christians is a form of oppression. Things like openly religious displays on government property, prayer in public schools, prayer in government ceremonies, and similar things must all be overtly Christian. Otherwise, it's a form of oppression, in some magical and mysterious manner. Having none of the above is bad enough. Should someone not Christian (usually a Jew, as it happens) run into and object to one of the above, this same mysterious logic dictates that said person is evil, unamerican, unpatriotic, and waging war on all of Christianity.
Of course. As we all know, making people who do not share your religion welcome is the same as oppressing those who do share your religion.
Ugh. The fires raging within my brain are beginning to drive me past coherence, so I'll conclude. These people are insane. They literally have lost touch with reality and are living in a fantasy land where history, science, physics, and basic human rights all don't line up with what the rest of the world knows. These people are literally theocratic, and don't understand the most important effect of such: it makes them unpatriotic. It makes them unamerican.
It makes them everything this country rightly stands against. Saudi Arabia is a theocracy. Iran is a theocracy. At no point in history has religious rule ever worked out well. It always results in oppression and the ruled being deprived of their basic rights. Thomas Jefferson was right:
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
As I am unable to let it be at that, one more:
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
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