It's Too Late Baby - But I'll Blog Against Theocracy Anyway

I just revisited the Blog Against Theocracy site and realized it says that no posts will be accepted after April 5th. Unfortunately I was unable to get to writing about this important subject until today. I will try to link to it anyway.

As some of you know, I have become the caretaker of my 91-year-old mother, Marge. She's a great lady and is doing much better since she's been home rather than in an instutional setting. However, her frailty does make her care a fairly time-consuming and and relatively exhausting job. Thank goodness for the aides that come to keep an eye on her at night. During the day she is pretty with-it and we have a good time chatting. Her sense of humor is still there and we are doing well. But it doesn't allow me much time or energy to blog.

Where shall I begin about the issue of theocracy in this country? I've written about this before but it seems as if the situation is getting worse. What with the Texas School Board trying to change the textbooks to go along with their version of reality, which is based on religious beliefs rather than science, and those who refuse to vote for the health care bill if the insurance companies cover abortion, "theocracy" is everywhere these days. Where do people get the nerve to say they won't let their taxes fund an abortion paid for through a private insurance company? After all, my taxes pay for wars, and I don't believe in them either. If everyone got to choose exactly what their taxes pay for I don't think much would get done.

We have moved from the silliness of lawsuits over whether or not to allow religious statues on public property or plaques of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in front of a town hall, to more important issues. Now it's coming down to whether our children will be educated properly or not; it's come down to arguing over what someone's taxes cover or not. The religious people in this country are overwhelming the secular side of our society.

What really gets me is, it is the Christians, who outnumber any other religion in this country by a huge majority, that claim their rights are being trampled every time something isn't done their way. They don't understand that freedom of speech and religion means that you are free to practice your own religion without infringement. It does not mean that you have the right to force YOUR religion on other people.

The whole issue of gay marriage is a good example of why we need separation of church and state. There is no logical reason why gay couples shouldn't benefit from the blessings of the government in terms of joint property, laws of inheritance, visiting privileges at hospitals, and all of the other rights that heterosexual married couples take for granted.

The only reason to deny same-sex couples these rights is found in the Bible, where believers claim that "God" doesn't approve of same-sex couples. This is a religious context, not a civic context.

The solution would be to allow any couple of consenting adults to marry in a civic ceremony. If religion comes into it, then they are welcome to also be married in the church of their choice. Some churches may choose to marry same-sex couples, some may not. But that is a private, religious context. The civic context should not be consigned to the same rules.

Interestingly, just today I had a chat with one of my mother's aides who comes in to help out for two hours twice a week. She is of Mexican descent and I had assumed she was Catholic. However, we got into a discussion of religion and it turned out she had been "saved" in a Protestant religion in 2001 before 9/11. As a result, she believes the Bible is the word of God and everything in it is true.

She brought up the idea of gay marriage and I said I was in favor of it since I believe God would want people who love each other to be able to pledge their lives to each other. She said that the Bible doesn't allow for that, it's not natural and that with God, all things are possible, so anyone who is gay could change if they believed.

Naturally I didn't get into a big argument about this (I do need her to take care of my mother), but it made me think. There are a lot of people out there who really believe that the Bible actually is the word-for-word "Word of God" and because of that they are willing to consign a whole group of people to second-class status. If these people continue to gain power in our government and our civic organizations such as school boards, our country is going to fall further and further behind, what with rejecting evolution, believing gay people are "unnatural" and many other beliefs that are not consistent with science or good sense.

Organized religion in general has a tendency to become corrupt, or at the very least, the participants tend to protect the organization rather than the beliefs on which it is founded. Look at the scandals in the Catholic Church. I'm sure none of those in charge feel good about the terrible things that some priests have done to young children. But rather than expose those priests and the church to public scrutiny, they hid this behavior and just transferred the priests elsewhere. As a result, there is now a sitting Pope who may have conspired in this cover-up and the church is in crisis.

If even a church cannot stay pure, how could incorporating religion into government have any better result?

Moving Right Along

Well, here it is, the first week of June already - time for our annual trip to Cape Cod, along with my mom. As always, we have rented Cottage #4 for her and Cottage #5 for us, at our usual spot, Gibson Cottages in Eastham. And of course, Miss Diva will be accompanying us, and Friend #2 will be taking care of Baxter. I'm sure he will be Disgruntled about being left home alone again!

While we're at the Cape I am determined to create a post for my long-neglected travel blog, Marvelous Meanderings. It is way overdue for another post, considering my last one was in March of 2007!

One of these days I need to leave my job at the Big Corporation and just blog and read blogs full time. Because right now I don't have time to read all the wonderful blogs that I enjoy. I hope to make up for some lost time next week, although it won't be all that easy - our cottage does not have wi fi! But there is always the library and a cute little cafe' in Orleans that has access.

Before I sign off for now, I do want to mention one politically-related thing.

What is UP with the pastors at that church Barack Obama attends? I support him and don't really care what kind of church he goes to as long as he doesn't let it interfere with governing. But I couldn't believe it when I heard the news that this priest, who was a guest speaker at the church, went off about Hillary Clinton and said she was crying because Obama was "stealing her show" and related it to race.

I haven't been to church in quite a few years, so maybe I'm out of date, but back in the day when I attended church, the pastor didn't talk all that much. He did one major prayer - which was about God and religion and that sort of thing - and then a sermon. And the sermon usually was a gentle tale, often opened with a humorous little anecdote that led into a spiritual lesson. There was no politics, no mocking, no hostility to anyone. The idea was to leave the parishioners with a sense of peace and a wish to be better people, fleeting though it may have been. It even worked on me for the time I was listening.

Now admittedly, we did tend to have activist ministers at that church, which happens to be the same denomination as Obama's. I believe the minister we had back in the early 70's organized those in the congregation who were interested, to participate in a protest at the local supermarket. The purpose was to boycott lettuce in support of the labor movement led by Cesar Chavez. I remember my parents both participated in the boycott and marched around outside our Pathmark.

I have no problem whatsoever with the leaders of a church getting involved in boycotts and social issues as part of its ministry. But politics should not be preached from the pulpit, especially with such a mean-spirited tone.

Hopefully Obama has realized that the type of religion practiced at this church is not consistent with his message of unity and peace. He needs to not only distance himself from the words of these preachers but from the church itself; not just for political reasons, but because the messages being preached there do not appear to be positive and uplifting. And I'm sure any candidate for President needs as much uplifting and positivity as they can get. Just my two cents.

I know this is probably once again one of those things that is blown up out of all proportion and not worthy to be "news." But given that the Trinity Church pastors (and their guest speakers) must know by now that the media will be all over anything they say, you would think they would be more careful with their words, especially if they support Obama and want him to succeed.

A New Link in the Blogroll

If you enjoy thinking about some of the deeper subjects in life, from science to philosophy to religion, check out All That Is, a new blog being written by Two Crows of Preserve, Protect and Defend, and Mary Ellen of The Divine Democrat.

I've added it to my blogroll under "Arts/Philosophy" and hope you'll go there if you haven't already, and start delving into it! There will be lots of food for thought and some great discussions.

Moving right along...

Now that the Pennsylvania primary is (blessedly) over, we can finally move on to...Indiana and North Carolina. No end is in sight, since Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania as expected, and by a margin of just over 9%. It wasn't enough to be the blowout that would have really revitalized her candidacy, but was a comfortable enough margin that Obama is still not able to say he put her away. So on we go...

And now some haiku!

Hillary has won
Obama couldn't close it
Indiana's next.

The undecideds
Broke for Hillary Clinton
At the last minute.

Obama's comments
About "bitter" and "clinging"
Didn't go down well.

Indiana's next
Obama has to win it
Or it won't look good.

He is still ahead
But needs to gain momentum
As we go onward.

Clinton has a point
She wins with the good ol' boys
But at what high cost?

Now she loves hunters
And guns, shots, and lots of beer
Who is she really?

Maybe she could win
But who are we voting for?
It is hard to say.

Barack has issues
He had to go negative
So where is the change?

The Dems are worried
McCain is getting stronger
While this fight drags on.

Not much we can do
But wait and see what happens
Pray it ends by June.

"This is a Christian Country."

These words, or similar ones, have been used frequently during this too-long election season; even John McCain recently said that the country was founded on Christian principles, justly earning criticism from non-Christian groups.

Unfortunately, these words were also used during the commission of what was apparently a hate crime on the Avenue Q subway in Brooklyn, NY over the weekend.

According to reports, four passengers were beaten after exchanging Hanukkah greetings on the train, with the attackers blaming them for the death of Jesus Christ and saying “This is a Christian country.”

This is what happens when the media and the politicians bring religion into the public arena instead of keeping it in the personal realm where it belongs. It makes the country safe for bigotry. Why, in the 21st century, do we still have Jews being beaten just for being Jews? Because there are a passel of politicians out there pandering to the far right Christian movement, and falling all over one another to prove they are the most Christian of the bunch.

Jesus himself said that his kingdom is not of this world. Why, then, do so many in politics want to make it part of this world?

My guess is it’s a distraction from the real issues, issues that Jesus, were he here today, would have been addressing with gusto: poverty, disease, misery, war. Oh no, that’s too much trouble. Let’s just have a pissing match about who is more Christian instead!

I hate to break it to those who profess this is a Christian nation, but it isn’t. The Constitution doesn’t mention it, and there is actually a document, the Treaty of Tripoli, that spells this out explicitly.

“…a little known but legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the United States to a foreign nation. Officially called the "Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary," most refer to it as simply the Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:

'As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.' "

If there is any doubt about what the Founders meant by the First Amendment, they followed up on its meaning in their correspondence and autobiographies (from the same link):

"Thomas Jefferson interpreted the 1st Amendment in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in January 1, 1802:

'I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.'

Some Religious activists try to extricate the concept of separation between church and State by claiming that those words do not occur in the Constitution. Indeed they do not, but neither does it exactly say "freedom of religion," yet the First Amendment implies both.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom:

'Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.'

James Madison, perhaps the greatest supporter for separation of church and State, and whom many refer to as the father of the Constitution, also held similar views which he expressed in his letter to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822:

'And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.' "

So there you have it, in their own words. I am so sick of the politicians pandering to the “Christian” right and perpetuating the myth that we are a nation founded on any kind of religion.

When will a politician have the nerve to stand up and say "I will not discuss my personal beliefs as religion has no bearing on the ability to govern." Probably when pigs fly, or when the polls show that the American public is now sick of this hypocrisy.

UPDATE:

Just read an excellent post on the Daily Kos which covers a lot of similar themes: Check out With God On Our Side. (Hat Tip to Balls and Walnuts for pointing out this post.)

Mother Teresa's Doubts: Loss of Faith or Clinical Depression?

A compilation of letters written by Mother Teresa is being published this month (Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light), and a number of publications have featured articles about the book's contents. The longest one is in Time Magazine, which has the rights to the serialization of the book.

As an agnostic who has always struggled with the concept of faith (how can anyone be sure of this kind of thing?), I found it fascinating to learn that, for nearly the entire time she ministered to the poor in Calcutta, Mother Teresa did not feel the faith she professed.

According to the article, "The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, 'neither in her heart or in the eucharist.'"

According to her reports, the future Mother Teresa had a vision of Christ while on the road to Darjeeling for her annual retreat in 1946. In the vision she reported that Christ told her He wanted her to "abandon teaching and work instead in 'the slums' of the city, dealing directly with 'the poorest of the poor' — the sick, the dying, beggars and street children. 'Come, Come, carry Me into the holes of the poor,' he told her. 'Come be My light.'

Two years later, in 1948, she received permission from the Church to start this ministry. And at that point, shortly after finding a space for her mission's headquarters, she suddenly lost the beacon of faith and was plunged into a spiritual darkness.

Acording to her letters, she sometimes doubted the existence of God or Jesus, and felt she was in a place of darkness and despair. As the article states:

"In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the 'dryness,' 'darkness,' 'loneliness' and 'torture' she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. 'The smile,' she writes, is 'a mask' or 'a cloak that covers everything.'"

For five weeks in 1959 the despair and darkness lifted, only to come down again. It lasted to the end of her life.

Everyone, even her detractors, admits that Mother Teresa was dedicated to her cause. She continued on the path she started, working directly with the poor until the end of her life at 87. She continued to project to the world the image of a faithful follower of Jesus. She advised others to belief in Him and to follow His path. And yet all along, she felt bereft and alone, without the feeling of joy and comfort her original belief had given her.

The question is, where did the joy go? Why did it leave her? The Time Magazine article explores a number of theories, none of which are completely convincing.

Of course, as an agnostic, I can easily say, as do many other critics of religion, that she lost that feeling because she realized, upon seeing the misery around her, that we are truly alone here and there is no God, but that having based her life on ber belief, she couldn't admit it.

Another theory is that her darkness was her trial, that she had to undergo the same agony as Christ on the cross, when He felt abandoned by God. I'm not quite buying that either. One would think the least God could do, after sending her on such a mission, is be there when she needed support. If Mother Teresa couldn't depend on God's help, who among us can?

One possibility that no one has suggested (that I am aware of) is that Mother Teresa suffered from clinical depression. There was no Prozac in 1948 when she arrived in the streets of Calcutta to administer to the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor. Surrounded every day by death, despair and disease, surely she couldn't help but be affected by it. This would be a worthy trigger for depression in one who may have been predisposed to the condition.

Her descriptions of the darkness and the depths of her despair sound very much like the descriptions of the darkness that victims of depression describe; the feeling of hopelessness, the lack of any light at the end of the tunnel.

We will never know why Mother Teresa suffered as she did. But that does not take away from her efforts. Most of us, having lost the faith that initially led us to a Herculean task such as hers, would have asked for a transfer back to a nice, cozy convent post-haste. But she stuck it out. Perhaps that is the true definition of faith - following the path even when you don't know where it leads.

It's Patriotic to Blog Against Theocracy

This is the second time I've participated in the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. This time the participation dates were July 1-4 in honor of this country's independence, to show that being against theocracy is a patriotic stance to take. Since it is 9:43 on July 4th, I'm getting this in under the wire.

Today, as is traditional, the New York Times published the Declaration of Independence in full. My husband read it out loud, and as always we were touched by the bravery of the men who signed it, knowing full well that if the British caught them, they would be hanged as traitors.

The document is written so beautifully, spelling out one at a time the various transgressions that King George had perpetrated against the colonists. Interestingly, many of these actions are being taken by the government we have today. It makes me wonder whether it is time for a new revolution.

Those who favor the intermingling of religion with our government love to use the Declaration of Independence to prove that the Founding Fathers believed in God and were religious and assumed all of the people in the country would agree with them on this point. They point to Jefferson's use of "Creator" in the document and use it as a point in favor of allowing religion to permeate all aspects of the government.

But they are wrong. It is not the Declaration of Independence, important though it is, that spells out the rights and privileges of United States citizens. No, it is the U.S. Constitution that has this task.

I found a full copy of the Constitution on the internet. I searched in vain for a mention of "God," "Creator," "Lord," or "Jehovah." Each time the search came up with nothing. The only mention of religion is in the First Amendment, where it says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The Founding Fathers didn't want the government messing with people's religions. They didn't want the government to be in the God business one way or the other. If they wanted to put God in the Constitution, they easily could have mentioned it. On the contrary, they obviously went to a great deal of trouble to leave God out of it entirely, since his name in any of its forms is not in the document.

Many of their ancestors had come to America for religious freedom, escaping from countries where there was one state religion and if you didn't follow that one, you were out of luck. They didn't want the same thing to happen in this new republic that they were founding. They didn't want people who practiced a less common type of religion to feel left out, persecuted, or uncomfortable because they were not in the majority. It was one of the principles on which this country was founded: the freedom to be yourself without fear.

Despite the clear directive of the Constitution, Christianity has been the mainstream religion that permeates our lives, whether we believe in it or not. In recent times, more efforts have been made to try to eliminate religious expression from government-related events and locations in order to prevent minority religious groups from feeling excluded from the public discourse.

And who howls in protest about this, claiming their right to religious expression is being denied? You guessed it: Christians. The largest religious group in the country, with countless churches, millions of members; the group with television and radio shows proclaiming their beliefs; the group whose holidays completely take over the public scene. Yes, them. They say their religious expression is being denied because their town won't put a creche scene on the town hall lawn at Christmas. Never mind that the town has a Christmas tree lighting and Santa Claus greeting the kids. Gotta have that creche scene or else their rights are being denied.

The problem with these people is, they don't have any conception of what it's like to NOT be the mainstream religion. They don't know what it's like to be the only Jewish kid among a group of kids celebrating Christmas. Or be a Hindu person at a Democratic fundraising breakfast who has to hear someone say a prayer that invokes "Our Lord Jesus Christ," with the smug assumption that Jesus Christ is the Lord of everyone in that room.

They have no idea what it feels like to not be the majority, to have to roll with the punches and smile as someone else's culture and beliefs are shoved down their throats. They don't know what it's like to be a Muslim in this day and age and hear the sly comments and whispers, or feel the prejudice.

Freedom of religion means you are free to worship the way you see fit, in the church, mosque or temple of your choice. It means no one will cart you away in a railroad car to a concentration camp for being Jews. It means that you don't have to hide your Catholic mass in someone's attic as they did in Amsterdam when the Protestants were in charge. It means you don't have to worry that someone is going to burn down your church. It means that you don't have to worship at all if you don't want to.

It doesn't mean that you can inject your own religion into every part of public life just because you're the majority. As the saying goes, your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. If your desire to practice your religion in freedom impinges on the freedom of someone else then your freedom must be abridged just enough so that both of you are free to worship without feeling stifled.

The only way this can happen in any practical way is to leave religion out of government. Sure, you could include every single religion in an opening prayer, but it would get pretty dicey when you add in the Druids and the Wiccans on top of the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and the various other sects that exist in this country. I really think even the outraged Christians would agree not promoting any religion is the easier solution.

In case anyone wonders, my mother was brought up Protestant, my father was Jewish and converted to Christianity. I was raised Protestant (Congregationalist/United Church or Christ). I now consider myself an agnostic. I don't say I'm an atheist, because, as the New York Lottery says, "Hey, you never know!"

But I do admire people who follow their religion and who sincerely believe. I often wish I had that ability but I'm a born skeptic and although I've tried in the past, I never can get rid of that little nagging voice of doubt.

However, if I had been able to achieve true faith, I still don't think I'd have felt a need for my religion to be included in public events and on public property. I feel religion is a personal thing, to be celebrated in the company of your fellow worshippers, or alone. To me, that is freedom to worship as you please--and it should be enough.

"Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely."

The full statement reads: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton, British statesman). So the more power we give to the religious right in this country, the more times we give in, the more corrupt their leaders will become.

Before I start this essay I want to say up front that I highly respect those who believe in their religion and sincerely try to live by it. I am not talking about those people when I refer to the “evangelicals” or the “religious right.” I am talking about those who profess to believe in the Bible and Jesus, but who are trying to get power in the government and eradicate our separation of church and state to gain power and money for themselves. This is how a theocracy is formed. Religious people who follow the tenets of their religion are not power-hungry. Zealots and hypocrites are.

Originally I had planned to just pick a topic such as gay marriage or stem cell research, and explain why having a theocracy would be detrimental in regard to these subjects.

But I realized that opponents of stem cell research or gay marriage would simply poke holes in whatever arguments I made, because their beliefs differ from mine. They would say that their values, which they feel are the right values, would prohibit either from taking place and that’s why they think combining religion with government is a good thing.

So I took a step back and thought about it from a holistic standpoint. What about a theocracy makes it inherently detrimental to the country? The answer came to me: Power.

Any time one point of view gets all the power, bad things happen. This applies in other countries, and it applies here in the United States. And when these bad things happen, they would affect all of us.

I read an interesting article in the NY Times the other day about a famous experiment that was done in the early 1970’s at Stanford University.

A social psychologist, Philip G. Zimbardo, picked two sets of students and subjected them to a harrowing experiment. Half of the students were told they were in charge of the other half, who were their prisoners. The psychologist refused to interfere in any way and gave the “guards” absolute power over the “prisoners.” The treatment of the “prisoners” deteriorated to such a degree that Dr. Zimbardo was forced to stop the experiment after only five days, although it was supposed to run for two weeks. The “guards” were subjecting the prisoners to torture of various types, deprivation of food, sleep and water, as well as physical abuse.

Obviously, it doesn’t take any imagination to translate these findings to explain what happened at Abu Ghraib.

To take this analogy in a different direction, let’s think about what could happen if religious zealots controlled the government completely. How could too much power affect these leaders?

Right now, although there are those in the government who have been elected with the help of right-wing evangelical religious groups, these leaders are not only beholden to them but also to the other constituencies they represent. And most of those elected because of these evangelical groups are not religious zealots themselves; they actually are using those that are supporting them in order to accomplish other objectives.

So there is a balance of power and the religious right does not get its own way on all of the issues their supporters would like.

But if the leaders themselves are the zealots and truly try to fulfill what they see is the mandate of the religion they profess to believe in, things change. As it is, President Bush has already made as many efforts as possible to shift the balance of power squarely into the Executive Branch, undermining the strength of the other branches of government.

If this process were ever completed, and a president were elected that truly vowed to make all the dreams of the religious right come true, the country could become a very scary place.

I was actually involved in an evangelical church back in the 1970’s (a long complicated explanation that I won’t go into now!). I was attending church faithfully and then one day they were preaching about Anita Bryant’s campaign in Florida to prohibit gay teachers from teaching the children. They were praying for her “success.” That was the last service I went to and I haven’t looked back since.

Evangelicals like to say that they “hate the sin but love the sinner.” But when “hating the sin” means they are so ignorant that they think that gay teachers might be an immoral influence (or worse) to children, and want to incorporate job discrimination into the law, then they are indeed “hating the sinner.” This is not what our democracy is about. And if people who believe this way received all of the power in this country, discrimination against people for sexual orientation would soon be the law of the land in certain professions.

Evangelicals believe that they are all going to participate in the Rapture in the End Times, when they are taken up to Heaven when Jesus comes back. They also believe the Bible has given them “dominion” over the rest of the earth. As a result, until very recently, most evangelicals have been anti-environment and were able to reconcile their religious beliefs with those of the business-favorable Republicans who also are against the environment. If all of the government were controlled by this type of believer, you could say goodbye to any semblance of adherence to the Clean Air Act or the Endangered Species Act.

Of course, there is also the ever-present issue of the evangelicals’ battle against teaching evolution in the schools. No matter how much proof they are shown of the age of the earth, they continue to believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis. This is fine; unless they are in charge. As it is, they are in charge in some areas of the country and are starting to teach “Intelligent Design” in the classrooms. If they were in charge of the whole country, you could expect to see this rolled out nationwide. As it is, our kids are growing up learning less than in many other countries, and the United States is falling behind in science. If we start teaching our kids information with no scientific validity, we will only fall farther behind.

Unwanted pregnancies? Say hello again to back-alley abortions and women and girls dying because they try to end a pregnancy on their own; or girls who are forced into bearing unwanted children who will grow up poor and underprivileged. Unwanted pregnancies would increase because people would not be able to buy birth control at their local pharmacies anymore if it is the type of birth control that would offend the conscience of a religious zealot.

Stem cell research? Forget about it. No cure for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease in our lifetime.

Gay people would be marginalized and would have to start keeping their true identities hidden for fear of losing their jobs or even being committed against their will to psychiatric hospitals to undergo a “cure.” Children of gay couples might be taken from the only parents they ever knew “for their own good.” Other children would languish in foster care because there would be fewer couples available to adopt special needs kids, which gay couples are often willing to do.

This would just be the tip of the iceberg. You’d also have more religious wars to look forward to, as the evangelical right is fiercely anti-Islam. I have a friend who is extremely sincere in her beliefs, and I respect them. But she is inundated with propaganda from her church which is anti-Islam. She sends me e-mails all the time with scary pronouncements about the dangers of Islam. And she doesn’t see that her religious group believes just as strongly as those that follow Islam and has the same kinds of prejudice. She doesn’t see that Holy War is an oxymoron.

As someone who has studied the Bible and been a part of the evangelical movement in the past, I see a lot of hypocrisy, a lot of disconnects between what is said by the religious right, and what I see said in the Bible. But they are not seeing it.

Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” He did not say “Try to get leaders elected who will do what I say.”

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He did not say, “Make my kingdom happen here on earth.”

Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” He did not say, “Try to get leaders elected who will give you tax cuts.”

Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” He did not say, “Let big businesses flourish at the expense of little people and help rich people get richer.”

Jesus said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” He did not say, “Rich people should run the government.”

Jesus said, “Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.” He did not say, “Start a preemptive war with an Islamic country for no good reason.”

Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” He did not say, “Even though you want to have a loving family surrounding you, don’t let those gay people do the same thing. They should be miserable because they are sinners.”

Jesus said, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” He did not say, “You have the right to sentence people to death, and to decide whether they are worthy of having the same rights you have."

Yet these are the kinds of people that the religious right are supporting, people who believe in all of the things that were NOT said by Jesus. If the United States became a theocracy, these people would band together and make life as we know it obsolete.

The scenarios I’ve described above would just be the beginning. As the power started to corrupt further, people would become afraid to speak what was on their mind if it didn’t match what the leaders believed. Freedom of speech would be curtailed. Those in power might start a secret police system to spy on people to find out if they are gay and kick them out of jobs. They might start arresting young girls for having abortions or the doctors who provided them. It could get even worse. Neighbors could be reporting on neighbors. Oh, I forgot, they already asked people to do that since 9/11…

I won’t even go into all the examples of how power has corrupted theocracies in the past. I just need to say “Spanish Inquisition,” “Crusades,” and “Henry the 8th” and you get the idea. Don’t let it happen here. Heed the warning.