[Vision2020] When Politics Get Trumped by Religion

[Art Deco]

  When Politics Get Trumped by Religion
Posted: 09/18/2012 12:40 pm
 David Macaray


 Although we regularly hear people (commentators, politicians, citizens)
refer with pride to our Founding Fathers, it's unclear whether they're
familiar with the relevant dates. Because if they had done the arithmetic,
they surely would've noticed that every one of these illustrious "founders"
had been born more than a century after this country was already formed.

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, was
established in 1607, and Plymouth, the second settlement, was established
in 1620. By contrast, George Washington was born in 1732, John Adams in
1735, Thomas Jefferson in 1743, and James Madison in 1751.

Technically, these men didn't "found" us. What they did was engineer our
independence from England and invent our federal government, two
magnificent achievements that set us on the successful course we've
followed ever since. But let's be clear: this country's ethos -- its
customs, social rituals, religious beliefs, rural economy, national
character -- had been in place for 150 years (that's six generations)
before Jefferson, Madison, et al, ever hung out their shingles.

We were taught in school that the pilgrims came to America in order to
practice "religious freedom." While that statement is more or less
accurate, what they fail to mention is that the Puritans were 17th century
England's version of the Taliban. These religious zealots wanted to
"purify" Christianity (hence "Puritans") in much the same way that the
Taliban wants to purify Islam.

Indeed, if we wished to be brutally honest, we could say that America was
founded by a bunch of religious fanatics, and that it was the framers of
the Constitution (educated products of the Enlightenment) who, bless their
hearts, saved us from them.

How fanatical were they? Fanatical enough, in 1660, to execute the first
female in the colonies. Her name was Mary Dyer. She, along with three male
associates, were hanged by Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities for the
crime of being Quakers. Dyer and the men had repeatedly ignored warnings
not to set foot in Massachusetts, where Quakerism was outlawed, and when
the warnings went unheeded, the Colony hanged them.

One can think of many religious people who deserve to be hanged, but
Quakers aren't among them. In fact, Quakerism, with its pacifism and
equality for women, seems like one of the more enlightened, dignified
religions. But in 1660, the good citizens of Massachusetts chose to kill a
group of settlers whose only crime was belonging to another faith. And they
killed them in the name of Jesus Christ.

As far as theology goes, our neighbors to the north are, by all accounts,
nowhere near as demonstrably religious as we are. A few years ago, I saw
Kim Campbell (former Prime Minister of Canada) on Bill Maher's HBO
television show. The panel was discussing the comparative role that
religion played in the politics of Canada and America.

Reminded of the fact that George W. Bush had declared, prior to announcing
his candidacy, that he believed God wanted him to run for president,
Campbell observed that if a Canadian politician had said the same thing,
people would think he was "mentally ill."

Our history is filled with paradoxes. We embrace founders who didn't
actually "found" us, we applaud the pilgrims for seeking religious freedom
when, in fact, they were vehemently intolerant, and we assume we were
established as a reverently Christian, God-fearing nation even though the
framers took careful steps to ensure that we would never become a theocracy.

In this post-New Deal, post-industrial milieu we find ourselves, we have
both kinds of voters: the kind who vote for candidates on the basis of
their positions on specific issues (health care, tax reform, trade policy,
etc.), and the kind who ignore the boring nuts-and-bolts stuff and simply
vote for the candidate they regard as the "most religious."

And when the Tea Party says that they "want their country back," and
evangelicals say that we will never again be the nation we once were until
"we put Jesus Christ back into our lives," we're reminded of not only how
polarized we are, but of how the ghost of Mary Dyer -- the first woman in
Colonial America to be executed -- still haunts us.

*David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and author ("It's Never Been Easy:
Essays on Modern Labor"), was a former labor union rep. He can be reached
at dmacaray at earthlink.net*


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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