Time for some more complaints about the US political system. C’mon, what did you expect, with the 2008 presidential election only a few months away?
Today, I’m going to rant about the religious test. It’s nearly impossible to be elected to high public office in the US unless you’re religious; specifically, Christian or Jewish, as those are the most popular belief systems in the country. We see evidence of this constantly; look at the candidates on TV expressing their faith, or our current president’s history of claiming that God speaks to him. The fact that you’re essentially required to adhere to an archaic belief system just to serve at the higher levels of government is shocking. If you’re not religious, you might as well give up any campaign dreams.
Don’t believe me? Let’s create a hypothetical presidential election. One candidate promises to vastly increase US military presence around the world, even though that would spiral the national debt out of control. This candidate would also reduce environmental protection, cut down on social welfare, restrict women’s rights, and reduce taxes for the wealthy. Oh, and the candidate is a born-again Christian who makes no bones about proclaiming their faith to all that will listen.
The second candidate plans to consolidate US military presence to hotspots where they’re needed most, boost veterans’ benefits, balance out the tax code, reform social welfare, increase environmental protection, focus on education, enact plans to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, and cut surplus spending in government in order to lessen our national debt and raise citizens’ quality of life. But…this candidate is an agnostic, who prefers not to speak of religious matters in public.
The Christian candidate would win in an absolute landslide, based solely on his or her faith. Not only that, his or her opponent would be relentlessly and brutally attacked by the Christian Right. We’re not talking minor disagreements, here; I mean full-on character assassination of the candidate, his or her family, and everything they’ve been connected to. And why? Because they’re not religious.
You can practically count the number of non-Christian and non-Jewish members of Congress on one hand. (In fact, it’s easier for a Christian to get elected, as there’s sadly still plenty of anti-Semites in the US.) Also, while it’s not legally required, it’s strongly recommended that members sworn into Congress place their hand upon a Bible. (Nice to see that the whole “separation of church and state” thing is working.) Can you imagine if someone ever tried to run for office an on atheist or agnostic platform? He or she would be railroaded out of town!
As we’ve seen in the past few elections, so-called “moral values” top voters’ lists. Ridiculous non-issues like gay marriage, “intelligent design,” and abortion are the forerunners, while issues that are actually important (like the national debt, war, or the energy crisis) mean next to nothing comparatively. This is a severe problem, because the issues that these “moral values” voters are overly concerned with are nothing but religious tenets, many of which are downright bigoted and hateful. Religious zealots unfortunately have a long history of sticking their noses where they don’t belong and causing problems for the rest of the populace, and when candidates with similar views get elected on those platforms, we run into problems.
Just look at the issue of gay marriage; that’s incredibly prejudiced, as marriage is a legal status in the US, not a religious one. You do not need a church to get married, and even if you choose to use one, you need a legal marriage license first, otherwise, it’s null and void. The anti-gay marriage complaint is a religious argument, nothing more. Therefore, it should have no place in American politics whatsoever. If a parish does not want gays to marry in its community, that’s their choice, and the government has no business saying otherwise. But at the same time, since marriage is a legal status, the churches should have absolutely no say as to whether a gay couple can procure a marriage license and seek to be married by, say, a Justice of the Peace.
Another big one is the push to teach “intelligent design” in science classes. I put that in quotes because like anyone else with a brain, I know that it is not a scientific theory, and therefore does not belong in science class. Leave it in philosophy or religious classes, where it belongs. After all, you don’t see the National Academy of Sciences demanding that evolution be taught in Sunday school, do you? Yet many Americans, including our president, believe that this thinly veiled creationism should be ramrodded into public schools’ science classes. (Before you yell at me, yes, I know evolution is a theory, but it’s a scientific theory; that means it’s been tested by the scientific method, and bolstered by facts. “Intelligent design” completely fails those tests.) The fact that our president supports this appalling break from reality means that plenty of upcoming candidates who admire him will run on the same non-issue religious platform.
Last but not least: abortion. This one’s actually very simple: the government ruled a long time ago that women have the right to an abortion. If your religion forbids it, then don’t get one yourself, but leave other women’s rights alone. It is not your place to tell other women how to handle their medical health, so get down from your arrogant holy pedestal and back the fuck off. It’s between the woman, their doctor, and the father. If one of those people isn’t you, then go home.
Let’s move on. I’m an agnostic, myself. That means I don’t follow any particular religion, nor do I believe in any of the deities that humans have outlined, but I accept that there may be some kind of higher power out there. I just don’t know what it is, and I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to use my limited human perceptions to define it. I won’t deny that I’ve got some rather severe problems with organized religion; I was raised Catholic, and “escaped” the moment I turned 18. However, I still know that as a decent human being, I should respect other religions and their adherents, even thought I don’t share their beliefs. Religion itself is never a problem; it’s when its practitioners twist it and descend into radical fundamentalism that things take a turn for the worse.
According to popular opinion in the US, agnostics (along with atheists) are the least trusted group. Yes, even less trusted than Muslims, and you know what ignorant America thinks of them. How disgusting is that? Because someone chooses not to believe in a religion, they’re automatically untrustworthy? A lot of this has to do with the outdated prejudices found in the Bible and other religious texts, and the associated misconceptions brought on by millennia of hatred for those who believe differently. I’d like to think that we’ve evolved as a species; why can’t our interpretations of holy texts evolve as well? I mean, a majority of people still think atheism and agnosticism are anti-religious, which is completely false. I’ve even known people that think both modes of thought were the same thing as devil worship! Try wrapping your brain around that lack of logic. I bet there’s people out there who firmly believe that agnostics like me eat squirrels as part of some dark ritual. I should also point out that I enjoy reading about other religions. There’s some really thought-provoking stuff in there, especially amongst the Buddhist and Hindu texts. And when you really go back to the ancient religions from the dawn of civilization, you can discover where many of the Bible stories originally came from. To quote Mr. Spock: “Fascinating.” As such, I’d consider myself to at least have a working knowledge when it comes to religious thought.
As you may have gathered after reading my long-winded diatribe, I firmly believe that the religious test simply should not exist. In fact, I don’t think it should be anyone else’s business what a political candidate believes. Who cares if they attend church every Sunday? Who cares if they meditate for an hour each night and practice yoga? Who cares if their mind is firmly rooted in rational, logical thought with no interest in spirituality? Their candidacy should be based solely on their political skills, as that’s what they’d be using if they were elected in the first place! Respect for others’ religious beliefs is naturally important, but having beliefs yourself should never be a requirement. Our country needs to get out of the Dark Ages, and try to be a little more open-minded.
As radical as it may sound, a non-religious Congress and president would probably be the best thing that happened to the United States in a long time. Instead of wasting time debating abortion and other such nonsense, they could actually focus on the real issues that plague our nation.
You often hear this in the United States, where sports like baseball, basketball, and American football are extremely popular. So what’s my beef? None of those sports’ championships include teams from around the world. (The Toronto Blue Jays hardly count.) Most sports fans would default to the usual claim that US athletes and teams are automatically the best in the world, which is both arrogant and ignorant. If you’re not playing against worldwide teams…then how do you know? You can make up any excuse you want, but at the end of the day, it’s still circumspect, as you’ve got no real proof. It’s not the US is sweeping the Olympics, so that should tell you something.
99.99999% of my music collection is on CD or in digital file format, but I do own a few vinyl LPs. Some music just sounds better than way (especially classic rock and metal), and considering that you can nab old records at tag sales for a dollar or so, what’s not to like?