Absurdities into Atrocities
In March of 2012, Pew Research
Forum released the results of a poll that showed 38% of Americans believe that
politicians are laying it on rather thick in regards to religion. In a similar poll in 2001, that figure was
12%. Surprisingly, 52% of Americans also
say that religion needs to stay out of politics.[1] While I personally tend to take most polls
with a Buick-sized grain of salt, this is a refreshing trend, especially when
noting that 38% of then Rick Santorum voters agreed with the sentiment. However, this atmosphere of common sense is
difficult to see when analyzing the big picture of legislation and politics.
Karl
Marx’s oft-paraphrased quote, “Religion is the opiate of the masses” is one of
the basic truisms of mankind. Church
attendance rises during wartime and other times of great strife, as though God
would stop war and divert that tsunami if only more people decided to forego football
in favor of Mass. The day Rick Santorum
and Newt Gingrich dropped out of the presidential race was a day of celebration
for me; but there are dozens more zealots to take their place. I watched with real terror when Mr. Santorum
seemed to be a real contender to the GOP throne. The irony of every word he spoke in favor of
what amounted to a theocracy was obviously lost to him, but what frightened me
was that it seemed to be lost to the mass of his followers. During one campaign stop, Santorum said one
of the most horrifying statements since Queen Mary I told England they all had
to be Catholic now: “We have civil laws, but our civil laws have to comport
with the higher law”.
One
only has to look to countries like Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to see
how well it works out when the government decides to legislate based on
biblical codes. The fact that Santorum
was proposing Sharia Law here in the United States while in the same breath saying
“…it is evil. Sharia law is incompatible with American jurisprudence and our
Constitution” didn’t give any of the true-believers even a moment’s pause. It is important to note that when these types
of politicians talk about the importance of religion, they of course mean the
importance of their religion; all
other religions that are not Judeo-Christian in nature should be deemed the
work of the devil.
Rick
Santorum is no longer slouching towards Bethlehem, fortunately, but the GOP’s
heir apparent, Mitt Romney, is only marginally better. Romney has said “In recent years, the notion
of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its
original meaning. … It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion
in America — the religion of secularism”.
Even ignoring the oxymoronic nature of the statement, his words bring
forth the religious right’s most offensive misinterpretation- that they, rather
than historians and everyone else, know what the Founding Fathers intended when
they designed the Constitutional right to freedom of religion. They deliberately ignore not just the history
of the men themselves, but also the spirit in which the document was forged;
the Founding Fathers knew the importance of not merely freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion. They clearly understood the danger inherent
in having those in power believe they had the right to promulgate the integrity
of man.
Despite
the fact that the nation’s attitude is seemingly swinging in the direction of
sense, the religious right are not ones to give up a war just because the
battle isn’t going well. In researching for
this essay I came across something even more terrifying than Rick
Santorum. The war on secularism and free
thought is one that has always been waged, and may still be for the foreseeable
future. It is a war fought in
increments, and one of the more popular incremental battles is that fought
against women’s rights. No other form of
“morality” is more fiercely legislated-or attempted to be legislated- and has
more potential for dangerous consequences than that of abortion. Roe v Wade was won almost thirty years ago,
and for thirty years the religious and conservative right has battled to
overturn it. All of the 2012 potential
Republican candidates swore to make abortion illegal in the event they were to
win the Office. 35 states have laws that
have led to hundreds of women’s prosecution for the crime of stillbirth and
miscarriages. A woman in Alabama was
recently convicted after her infant died 19 minutes after birth. In utero it was determined that the fetus had
Down’s syndrome and she was advised to terminate; which she did not because she was against abortion. Yet she faces ten years for being the mother
of a dead child.[2]
This
is what happens when a government has the ability to legislate morality. When politicians ignore the rights and beliefs-or
lack thereof- of the citizens of this country, and are not driven back by the
sense of the mass of common man, we are merely a step away from a dystopia
worthy of George Orwell. It is our duty
in every election year to ensure we safeguard our freedom of free-thought, and
fight in the spirit of our Founding Fathers.
Republicans are fond of saying (ad naseum) that there can be no morality
if there is no God. That without an
amorphous higher being in the sky telling people the difference between right
and wrong, there will be chaos and anarchy; the ethical center will no longer
hold. I contend that the most powerful
of principles arise from those who have no one to answer to but
themselves. After all, no one has ever
been able to see the Almighty when they look in a mirror. Unless, of course, you happen to be Rick
Santorum.
