Fundamentalism at Home

Candidates of BOTH political parties often attend church gatherings and are sometimes invited to speak from the pulpit; however, when they do, candidates of BOTH parties do not use that opportunity to make a blatant political statement — that is, they don’t attack or advocate one policy position or another. Now, clearly, this is a subtle distinction, since it goes without say that if a candidate of a given party is up at a pulpit, then most congregants can reasonably assume that there’s some sort of tacit endorsement being made. However, as I posted earlier from this article, what some activist fundamentalist Republican legislators are proposing goes beyond merely giving the church the ability to make “tacit endorsements.” Instead, what these Republican legislators are seeking is to completely obliterate the Church/State divide that has served our nation so well for over 200 years — which is what’s made us the most successful pluralistic democracy on earth. More specifically, the proposed Republican legislation would permit the clergy to ACTIVELY endorse candidates, and to ACTIVELY engage in other common political activities.

Now, from our current vantage, it may seem alarmist to suggest that we’re in the brink of a Theocracy; however, as an example, let’s acknowledge, as many have already pointed out, that the only reason why the federal government intervened in Mrs. Shiavo’s tragedy is because Republican politicians deemed it necessary to satiate the demands from the religious fundamentalists base within their party. Again, it’s not just some lone voices in the woods that are opining this; Republican Representative Christopher Shays said as much:

“My party is demonstrating that they are for states’ rights unless they don’t like what states are doing,” said Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. “This couldn’t be a more classic case of a state responsibility.”

“This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy,” Shays said. “There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.”

Additionally, while we fight against Islamic terrorism, we’ve been engaged against fighting fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Iraq; and, too, our nation continually points at the perils of fundamentalism in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, it appears that while we fight abroad, some are perfectly happy and willing to institute our own brand of fundamentalism here are home. I, for one, cannot believe that the parallels are not being widely and publicly discussed. Finally, keep in mind that this is not about denying anybody their free speech right: the fact that our entire nation is enthralled by this tragic case is a clear example that no one’s free speech rights have been obstructed. Instead, the concern here is that adopting the fundamentalist tenets/values of one group puts in PERIL and UNDERMINES our pluralistic representative-democracy — basically, there’s a bunch of us living in our lovely country, with different religions, values, etc. and, if the arbiter between these groups (i.e., government) adopts one group’s fundamentalism over another’s, we run the risk of having a lot unhappy folks (running around questioning the legitimacy of the entire system). I’d hate to live in that type of society, and sincerely hope that we can avoid it.