This is the Time
http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2006/12/19/1750/7242
[excerpt]
By Frederick Clarkson
12/19/2006 01:07:50 AM EST
In the life of successful social and political movements, leaders,
elections, and even institutions come and go, but the movement goes on.
This has certainly been true of the religious right. The recent elections,
for example, were a set back, and there is some shaking out going on: but
there is no evidence that the wider movement has peaked.
But I have opened here with a disgression. This post is not about the
religious right. It is about us.
If you are reading this, odds are good that you oppose the agenda of the
religious right. You may also have wondered why more people, including
people you know who share your concerns, are not more animated and engaged.
It is a good question -- for which there is no one simple answer. But
beneath all of the complexity, I suggest that a simple moral clarity is
possible, for those who choose it.
Over at Talk to Action, my colleagues and I have discussed some of the
reasons why we have not been as effective in response to the religious
right as we might have been, given the stakes. One reason has been the lack
of urgency expressed by our leaders; their own lack of knowledge, and their
acceptance of bad advice. One example of the latter, has been the dubious
tactic of calling the religious right and its constituents nasty names as a
substitute for developing a strategy based on gaining actual knowledge
about the subject. Instead, we have had leaders for many years denounced,
(among other things), "religious political extremists" as if that were
appropriate; as if that were enough. History has shown that it didn't work.
(Not that anyone would want to admit it, of course.) More recently, it has
become fashionable to displace the substance of our concerns with
scapegoating "secularists" -- as if these (always unnamed) people had
somehow prevented mainstream and progressive "people of faith" from
participating in public life and therefore allowed the religious right to
seize the limelight. Funny, how no one has ever stepped-up to take any
responsibility for failures of vision and leadership in response to the
rise of the religious right. Finally, too many people simply dismiss the
religious right as a serious problem. In my view, this is mostly born of
ignorance and denial in the face of one of the most successful and
signficant movements in American history.
I could go on, but I want to get to the point.
In fact, many people have sufficient knowledge about the religious right.
They have read some of the basic books. They read The Public Eye or Church
& State magazine. Maybe they have attended lectures and conferences or are
members of The Interfaith Alliance, Americans United for Separation of
Church and State or the ACLU. But at some point, in order for there to be
change in our effectiveness in response to the religious right, we have to
change ourselves.
Barry Lynn, in his must-read new book Piety & Politics: The Right Wing
Assault on Religious Freedom, addresses this point.
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Some years ago, after a particulary tough week, I taped John
McLaughlin's One on One television show. On it as well was a Religious
Right lawyer named Seamus Hasson. At the end of the taping, John said to
me, "Barry, your side isn't as passionate as his side." I thought to
myself, "That's true, and today even I had run out of it." I've never felt
the same way since.
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Passionate. We are described as passionate about things we care deeply
about. But too often, our friends and family are "passionate" about say,
college sports, but not passionate about the survival and advancement of
constitutional democracy. People are often "passionate" about a certain
television show, but not passionate about the meaning and protection of the
first amendment, and its guarantee of the right to individual conscience
and separation of church and state. People may be "passionate" about their
car, or rock concerts, or certain celebrities, but are not passionate about
the errosion of the rights of fellow citizens -- and ultimately their own
-- and have no interest in participating in a movement of any power or
meaning sufficient to counter the religious right.
We all make choices about what we get passionate about, and about how we
allocate our time and committments and resources. Part of the process, of
how we choose not to get passionate about doing something about the
religious right, is that we screen out information that might disturb our
status quo. We have made our choices and we would prefer not to rearrange
our lives. This is a situation that is as typical of progressives and
liberatrians as it is mainstreamers and non-religious right consevatives.
It is also just as typical of religious people as it is non-religious
people, in my experience.
[end excerpt]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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