Wedge Issues: God in Society

One of the hallmarks of the "Religious Right" is that they are, by and large, a fundamentalist Christian wing of the Republican Party. That's not to say that members of other religions can't be conservative - one merely has to look at militant Islam to find hyperconservatism. Nor is that to say that religious Americans can't be progressive - one merely needs to look as far as the Quakers.

But the American (strict interpretationist) religious right is the single one that wields the most political power. Roy Moore comes to mind; you'd never find a supreme court justice who builds monuments to nonsectarianism and puts them in a state supreme court building.

In the schools, the religious right does everything they can to foist the idea of fundamentalist Christianity on the next generation of United States citizens. This does such a great disservice to the children that I really ought not need to point it out - however, think of the uproar there would be if someone tried to force a call to pray to Mecca on our schools.

While it's all well and good to point out the hypocrisy of the religous right, and to point out their power, that's no the purpose of this weblog.

The purpose, as noted in the header, is to point out ways that the Democratic Party can gain ground on issues that Americans pay attention to.

The Republican Party has admitted that they mailed out literature implying (although not implicitly saying) that Democrats in West Virginia and Arkansas intended to ban the bible entirely. This is both patently untrue, and powerful propaganda, especially in areas where the religious right holds so much sway. Consider for a moment - if you're dumb enough to believe this, and you're a conservative Christian, wouldn't it mean a lot to you to support candidates who support the Bible?

At the same time, a California school has banned the Declaration of Independence, because they've banned a teacher from handing out documents that mention God.

This is where the liberals give the Democrats a bad name - because of somebody's idea that secularism should take precedence over both history and intelligence. Because a large portion of the American public constantly confuses political parties with liberal or conservative ideologies, the Democratic Party is going to take the heat for the decision a hyperliberal idiot principal at a California high school made.

And, of course, there's the Pledge of Allegiance flap from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Democrats have a hard enough time convincing swing voters, and potential conservative voters, that the party is not out to completely secularize the country. Moves like the three above merely confuse voters whom the Party needs to connect to.

Solving these problems is a multi-step process.

• Firstly, the party must release a statement recognizing that this country was founded on Judeochristian ideals.

That's not to say that the party should post the 10 commandments on the headquarters' front doors; instead, the party's statement should be unqualified and, for the sake of brevity, unclarified.


• Secondly, the party must maintain a strong stance on opposing organized prayer in schools.

Just because this country was founded on a particular set of values doesn't mean that we have to impose the religious overtones of said values on students who may not share them. The Party must attempt to have it both ways - supporting the idea of Bible study groups, as well as study groups for other religions, and it must stand against prayer over the intercom, or even prayer minutes. Forcing someone to pray does not bring them closer to God, even if it's just "time for silent reflection." All it does is make them fake religious ferver to fit in.


• Thirdly, the Party must push its legislators to release statements opposing the sanitization of education.

Again, there are references to God in the Declaration of Independence - there are references to God in a lot of books by great Americans. Whooptee-do. Opposing prayer and supporting whitewashing are different things, and it's time the Party did its part to make sure that the public knows that, and to make sure that the public knows that the Party knows that.

Just because the religious right has political power doesn't mean they're the only ones qualified to talk about God, or religion's place in society. It just means they're louder than the Democratic Party. It's time to fix that.