Northman's Fury

I simply can't get away from the topic of religion today, it seems. Despite my considerable interest in the US election race, I didn't watch last night's "Compassion Forum" on CNN. Jazz Shaw was kind enough to spell out why I think the whole thing was a crock:

The press is already dutifully lining up to report on last night’s “Compassion Forum” in Pennsylvania, where Senators Clinton and Obama allowed themselves to be thrust into a “Dog and Pony Show for Jesus” contest to see who could “out-God” each other. At the end of this column I’ll get to some more specific observations from the event, as promised in my short summary last night, but first I would like to address a broader question. Was this really necessary - or even desirable - in an American election.

While a few important topics in the political arena - such as poverty - were raised last night, let us make no mistake. This was not a forum on compassion. This was a forum on religion, plain and simple. This issue I place before you today is whether or not this is a valid criteria for selecting our leaders and one which the media should be enabling.

. . .

The point is that the media are ready and willing enablers of a process which systematically eliminates any and all possible candidates who don’t pass “the god test” with a high enough score. This is the one area which really should not be a “test” to be president and, in fact, could readily be described as as unfair religious bigotry to which the press and the public are willing to give a wink, a nod and a smile and just let it pass. Mitt Romney seems to have learned the hard way that Main Street America is not about to vote for a Mormon. Should a candidate raise their head who was otherwise qualified in all areas, but was an agnostic, atheist, Muslim or Hindu, it seems that they would quickly be hounded from the stage, and our media would be leading the whip-wielding pack.

I'm trying to imagine any other democratic nation where such a forum would be considered a matter of course, or even allowed? The US is a very strange place indeed, where regardless of the fact that there isn't supposed to be a religious test for the presidency, faith in God has become a prerequisite. Of course, that really shouldn't surprise me.

In a nationwide poll last year by University of Minnesota researchers, Americans rated atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants and other minority groups in "sharing their vision of American society." They also associated atheists with everything from criminal behavior to rampant materialism. According to a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll, more than half would not vote for an atheist for president.

I missed Slate's rather interesting take on Pope Benedict earlier. It's more generous to him than I would probably be, but it does show that the Christian right hasn't been too fond of him either.

Conservative distress began almost immediately after Pope Benedict took over, when in May 2005 he named San Francisco Archbishop William Levada to fill his old job as the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a position that amounts to being the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog. Levada had been suspect to conservatives since 1996, when he worked out a compromise on same-sex partner benefits with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Under Levada's proposal, employees at Catholic institutions could designate anyone with whom they were legally domiciled as their beneficiary: an aunt, a cousin, a same-sex partner. The proposal avoided the culture war that some Catholic conservatives were hoping for.

. . .

The next year, when Benedict had to appoint a new archbishop for Washington, D.C.—his first major stateside appointment—neocons hoped he would redeem himself. They championed three archbishops who had publicly urged denying communion to pro-choice politicians during the 2004 election . . . Instead, Benedict chose Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl, a moderate who has opposed turning the communion rail into a political battle station. Benedict further disappointed conservatives hellbent on denying communion to pro-choice politicians when he named as cardinal Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley, who refused to order Sen. John Kerry out of church. Benedict's choices shouldn't have surprised anyone, though. According to one American present during a spring 2004 Vatican meeting with U.S. bishops, then-Cardinal Ratzinger laughed when he heard of denying politicians communion based on their political views.

. . .

Pope Benedict shares virtually none of the core political beliefs of American neocons. In his book Jesus of Nazareth, he warned against "capitalism that degrades man to the level of merchandise." He has consistently spoken out against the Iraq war. And the whole reason Benedict is coming to America is to address the United Nations, which is not the neocons' favorite organization. Even when Benedict has endorsed a part of the conservative agenda, he has done so with none of the rigidity that characterizes the writings of American Catholic conservatives.

The important part of the story to me is this:

One of the problems with most press coverage of the Catholic Church is that the left-right template doesn't fit very well.

The Catholic Church is an institution that represents a large fraction of the human race. Like all of the other major faiths, there are parts of it that are intolerant and hateful, and parts that are the polar opposite of that. As leader, the Pope gets to straddle those contradictions, and so absolutists on either side have reason to dislike and distrust him.

I still don't like him much, but it is nice to see that he sticks in the craw of the ultra-conservatives who thought he was one their own.

Or, how a seemingly reasonable proposal can lead to more trouble than you probably thought.

Mindelle Jacobs wants to save us from religious wingnuts. A laudable goal in my mind, though I probably have a broader definition of the group. Hers seems focused on a particular sect in the news recently.

[I]f Canada doesn't take a strong stand against the polygamous commune in Bountiful, B.C., every fringe sect will interpret our passivity as a green light to engage in whatever behaviour they like under the umbrella of charter rights, warns the Calgary lawyer.

Far-fetched? Maybe not. In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada made the astonishing ruling that religious beliefs are protected regardless of whether those beliefs are supported by recognized religious doctrine.

. . .

This week, in a report for the B.C. government, lawyer Leonard Doust concluded what another legal investigator declared last year - that laying polygamy charges would probably fail because of the charter right to freedom of religion.

Now there is a limitation on religious freedom when it causes harm to others, but apparently that’s not enough for some people.

. . . the harm test isn't good enough, says Marshall. "If a person is seeking to justify their behaviour in a religious context, the reasonableness of that religious belief should also be a matter determined by the court,"

“The reasonableness of that religious belief should be determined by the court. Hmmmm,” he says as he taps his fingers on his copy of Dawkins, “The God Delusion”.

“Let the courts decide whether or not religious beliefs are reasonable . . . make people present evidence for their beliefs?”

Sorry, zoned out there for a second.

Seriously, people should think a lot more about consequences before proposing such foolishness. If religious beliefs are only protected for those whose beliefs are supported by “recognized religious doctrine”, who do you think benefits?

Who determines what a recognized religious doctrine is? Do you think any pagan sects would qualify? Scientology? Mormonism? Certainly the article suggests pruning a few branches from that last belief system.

And there’s where things get really tricky. Even if you’re a catholic, will you be allowed to deviate even slightly from what the Vatican lays down as dogma?

The whole point of Freedom of Religion is so that people aren’t forced to worship in state-approved ways. The fact that there are close to 40,000 Christian sects alone in Canada is a sign of health, not the opposite.

Some sects do promote harmful practices, but fear-mongering about such sects to limit the rights and freedoms of everyone else who doesn’t believe as you do just doesn’t fly.

Letting gays marry doesn’t lead to people marrying their pets, and allowing worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t lead to Satanic cattle pedophilia.

Faith is personal. Doctrine leads to coercion and abuse. Let’s not encourage the latter.

Cross-posted to In The House and Senate

Did you hear about the state legislator who last week blasted a Lutheran minister during a committee hearing for spewing dangerous religious superstitions, and then attempted to order the minister out of the witness chair on the grounds that his Christian beliefs are "destroying what this state was built upon"?

Of course you didn't, because it didn't happen and would never happen. Not to a Christian, not to a Jew, not to a Muslim or to anyone who subscribes to any faith.

Well, maybe Scientology

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) interrupted atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield and told him, "What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!

"This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God," Davis said. "Get out of that seat . . . You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."

Remember, Atheists are dangerous! The mere fact that your children may here about people who don't believe in gods could ruin them for life and destroy the very foundation of the State! Which I suppose only exists because of Divine Right?

Nice to see such tolerance on display.