We'd like to think so. In Iran, a woman faces death by stoning for the crime of adultery. She was already flogged for her actions - you know what that means: Lashed with a whip that leaves your flesh draped in pieces from your back. The good news is that she may not be stoned. She may just be hanged. Gee, thanks.
In Pakistan, a Christian woman faces death for supposedly blaspheming the name of Mohammed. All over a catty argument about drinking water. It's the law, you see, and although officials of Pakistan's central government, including the president, have said it appears the charges were unwarranted, and although leaders around the world, including the pope, have spoken on her behalf, the forces of hatred are determined to have her head, literally. In fact, one Pakistini religious leader has said that he will give $5,800, a small fortune in that country, to anyone who severs her neck should she be released. And Christians make up only two percent of the Pakistini population, so those who think their God is too much of a wimp to defend himself don't have much to fear from those who have different ideas of God.
OK, time for fanatics who call themselves patriots to wave the flag and strike up the band, and blather about America being the greatest land on earth, because we know that kind of thing just can't happen here. Ironically, this is also an opportunity for another kind of fanatic to start sermonizing about how religion is the source of all evil, or at least organized religion. That one is full of too many holes to address here, so let's just talk about the "America Uber Alles" theme.
Of course I love my country, but I believe it is irresponsible, dangerous, in fact, to forget that democracy is a fragile flower, to convince ourselves that we are invulnerable to the tragedies that have brought down other great nations. Does God bless America? I hope so. But America is not God.
Attitudes toward homosexuality are a convenient microscope to see malignant religious and political thinking in America. It may no longer be routine for them to be imprisoned simply for acting on the drive that nature gave them, but it is not rare for them to be bullied, beaten, and murdered. Those who persecute them get moral support from our own "radical clerics," the Christian preachers who think they understand Jewish law and who rant about the destruction of Sodom. Just like the Islamist hypocrites, they're OK with laziness, greed, gluttony, and withholding help from the poor and the needy, the very sins which the 16th chapter of Ezekiel says were the real reason for Sodom's death sentence.
There’s a preacher from Kansas – I won’t honor the son-of-a-bitch by telling you his name – who shows up at the funerals of military men and women, cheering for the death of soldiers, praising it as God’s just punishment for America. And what is America’s great sin? I guess the fact that around five percent of our population are OK with being out-of-the-closet homosexuals. As a psychologist, I must wonder if his real problem is the homosexual urges that are tormenting his own psyche. That does not keep him, and people like him, from being dangerous.
"America is a Christian nation!" some declare belligerently. Fortunately, the founders of the nation didn't make it one, and equally fortunate, so far the Supreme Court hasn't over-ruled them. But our religious zealots regularly and loudly blame every social problem we have on the fact that we no longer force school children to say a Christian prayer at the beginning of their day.
Remember that it was a local court in Pakistan that sentenced the Christian woman to death? And the central government that wants to spare her? What's the role of the central government in America? It's not surprising that the federal government is more relevant than in early post-colonial times. Pretending that we're a loose alliance of independent states, and that what happens in one isn't the business of people in the others, just won't fly. So why do some apparently intelligent Americans want it that way, want to "starve the beast," and even threaten to take up arms against the government to prevent it from actually governing?
Simple. So a powerful group can take control of an individual state, using storm-trooper tactics if necessary, with no strong federal government to intervene, and shape society to their own often twisted views. Based on history, that powerful group might be religious zealots, or Caucasians whose names don’t end in vowels and who have some money, or followers of some crackpot politician. Public schools could teach, not merely Christianity as a required subject, but fundamentalist Protestantism, regardless of the wishes of Jewish, Episcopalian, Catholic, Moslem, Hindu, or atheist parents. Teachers could be forbidden to teach evolution. Any form of sex education could be illegal. Contraception could be made a crime.
Citizens could be charged a poll tax, to keep the unemployed and working poor from exercising their right to vote. Normal human beings could be imprisoned for normal and commonplace sexual activities, such as oral sex, even within marriage.
Sound crazy? All of this has happened before. Yes, here in America, and not that long ago.
So please think hard about what I'm telling you: The same kind of diseased thinking that courses through the Islamists of Iran and Pakistan courses through Americans, from sea to shining sea. Sinclair Lewis supposedly said “when fascism comes to America, it will be wearing a flag and carrying a cross.” Some have complained that only liberals and secular humanists like that quote. But a Pentecostal preacher friend of mine, may he rest in peace, said he feared it was true. An Evangelical Christian Bible teacher I knew used to say “if you ever meet the devil, he’ll probably have a Bible under his arm.”
Please understand that this is not about religion. I personally believe it has value. On the other hand, there are good hearted people who, themselves, have great value for the world, who do not subscribe to any religion.
And there are those with putrid, evil attitudes, who cloak them in religion and call themselves patriots. In Iran, Pakistan, and America.