Religion in Public Life

While I do not believe that government should in any way sponsor or promote religion, or that government officials should make decisions based solely on religious beliefs, I do believe that it is appropriate for the religious beliefs of elected officials to inform and influence the decisions that they make and shape their ethics and morality. How could it be otherwise? Just as a person's parents influence their character, so does a religion. The challenge for a deeply religious candidate or elected office holder is to translate those positions that for him or her are based on faith into a plan that is based on what is demonstrably best for the people he serves.

During the Republican primaries earlier this year we were treated to several candidates who were very vocal about their religion and how they would use their faith-based beliefs to shape public policy, as if it were self-evident that what they believed was Truth (with a capital "T") and that anyone who disagreed was anti-God and therefore bad for America. The one exception was Mitt Romney. Just as John Kennedy sought as a candidate to defuse suspicion that he would be a stooge of the Pope, Romney has had to deal with worries about the "weirdness" of his Mormonism and that Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would finally achieve Joseph Smith's dream of political ascendancy. However, in a recent New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/us/politics/how-the-mormon-church-shaped-mitt-romney.html?pagewanted=all it was shown how Romney, rather than preaching how he would make certain decision "because the Bible (or the Book of Mormon) says so", has endeavored his whole life to translate his religious convictions into secular policy. In my view, this makes Romney the least scary of the Republican candidates in that he has a sincere and deep faith, but he is not attempting to push that faith on the whole country; but at the same time is not suggesting that his faith isn't influencing him. A good example for religious politicians, although I probably won't be voting for him!

Government Sponsored Prayer

Prayer has never been outlawed in the public schools. There is nothing to prevent a student or teacher (or even an administrator) from silently beseeching or thanking the deity of their choice for whatever reason that they want, or for that matter non-silently doing so. I would imagine that the minutes before a test starts are the most prayer-dense times of the day anywhere! What was outlawed in 1962 and 1963 was government led prayer, with teachers and other school employees being viewed as government representatives.

The section of the Constitution that governs religious expression is the first amendment, included in what is called the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court in its interpretations of the First Amendment has ruled that government must be neutral in its treatment of religion, not favoring one or the other, but that private religious expression is protected speech and cannot be curtailed or regulated. For many years, when prayer and bible readings in public schools were the norm, the assumption was that virtually everyone belonged to some sect of Christianity, which meant that they all worshiped the same god, albeit in different ways. A prayer was neutral in this regard as long as it didn't mention the pope or any other person or belief specific to a particular denomination. Of course, this wasn't entirely true, there were Jews (who technically worshiped the same god anyway) and a large number of native Americans and small communities of other religions, but the vast majority were Christians of one sort or another.

In the early sixties, when the push to abolish school prayer succeeded, the main advocate for ending it was the head of an atheist organization, which for many people, associated outlawing school prayer with a lack of godliness and hence a deficit of morals. While there is no evidence that atheists are any less moral or ethical, worse parents or poorer citizens than religious people, the association remains. (That's the subject for another blog entry). But the false dilemma that is presented, that it's a matter of godly versus ungodly people, believers versus unbelievers, ignores the fact that there are more than one kind of believers. So, ignoring the atheists for a minute, if prayer is to be had in the public schools, what kind do we want to have? Let's for arguments sake set aside for the moment the more physical kinds of prayer, dance, song, trances and the burning of various substances and sometimes smoking them and just look at who we are praying to.

It may come as a great surprise to some that not everyone who isn't an atheist believes in the same god. Believers in the god described in the bible sometimes make the mistake of assuming that everyone is worshiping the same god under different names (others of course believe that some who claim to be worshiping the same god are really worshiping devils or demons if their theology is a little bit off center) when the reality is that there are many who explicitly reject the notion that their gods and/or goddesses are identical to the biblical god (or even some generic, cultural "God"). So would it be okay to offer prayers to Odin, or the Voudoun loa, or the Celtic god Lugh? Most would say "no".

My opinion is that the now fifty year old law outlawing school sponsored prayer was and continues to be a good thing.

Something to Believe In

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a co-worker about "belief". I'd have to scour my brain to recall exactly how we got on the subject, but this individual told me that she saw no reason to pick something to believe in. That statement got me thinking. I've always been someone who "picked something to believe in", whether it was the Catholicism of my youth, the Gnostic flavored fundamentalism of much of my adulthood or my current ever-shifting paganism. And when you look around you, most people choose to believe something that cannot be objectively demonstrated, a mythos to explain the unexplained. That mythos might be a pre-constructed doctrine or dogma of an established church or school of philosophy, or it might be something you cobbled together yourself in order to make sense of the world (and that's really what the doctrines, dogmas and holy books really are, the cobbling together of a worldview by other people who lived a long time ago). Even atheists, for all their assertions of rationality, make a definite point about defining their world, at least in part, as believing that what others believe is wrong (or at least can't be objectively supported). So can you go through life without having an opinion one way or another about gods, demons and the afterlife? It is my thought that the answer is a rousing "of course". Though many would disagree with me, the existence or nonexistence of a supernatural world has no effect on day-to-day, ordinary life. Sure, there are rules, regulations, ethics and morals that are taught by religions, but the ones that give guidance on how to live a "good life" can be followed quite easily even if there is no spiritual being standing behind them. Even prayer can be conducted without any god out there, in there or over there to hear and answer those prayers. So why does someone who simply opts out of any incorporation of religion into her life become the oddball, the one who has to explain herself to others? As with most things, it has nothing to do with logical, rational thought, or even a deep devotion to a set of beliefs, but a cultural, even human, fear of "the other". People distrust those who are different, marginalize those outside the tribe and demonize the truly different.

Gay Marriage

I suppose I could say that if you're opposed to gay marriage then the simple solution is to not participate in one. Don't become gay, and if you do, don't get married! Somehow the support in some quarters for legalization of marriage between same-gendered couples has been interpreted as an attack against "traditional" marriage. Before I go on I should disclose that I have personally officiated at a marriage between two people of the same gender. I should also disclose that my record, and my family's, regrading "traditional" marriage has been mixed. While I'm extremely happy in my current marriage, my first marriage ended in divorce. Three out of my four siblings have either been divorced before their current marriage, or their spouses have. One out of three of my children/step-children who have been married is now divorced. Heterosexual unions have had a mixed track record in my family.

I guess the question to ask is what negative effect on society will accrue if gay people are allowed to marry? (each other - they can already participate in sham marriages to members of the opposite sex) One objection that I heard on NPR the other day addressed the issue as one of freedom - not for the gay couples, but for those who are against homosexuality. When the New York legislature legalized gay marriage last year, the law contained a provision that no clergy would be forced to perform a gay marriage if they opposed it. I don't know how they operate in the Empire State, but in all four of the states in which I have officiated at wedding ceremonies, no one required or forced me to participate. In fact, I regularly perform weddings where a denominational minister has declined to perform a wedding due to religious beliefs or church guidelines. The other issue was where owners of bed & breakfast inns did not want to have a gay couple cohabiting under their roof. I sympathized with this until I thought of a time when mixed-race couples were frowned upon and landlords and innkeepers desired the right to refuse service to them. Om further thought, I'm not so understanding of others' bigotry.

While I suspect that President Obama's avowed support of gay marriage (while averring that it is a states' issue) was politically motivated to secure moderate and left-leaning independents, I applaud his stance and hope to live to see the day when any couple can benefit from legal recognition of their union, no matter what their gender.