Post on Proposition 8

Geoffrey Stone in a post on Proposition 8, the California measure which overturned a court ruling and outlawed same sex marriage, presents statistics that the defeat of the measure looked to be something of a religious affair.

For instance, Evangelical Christians supported the ban 81% to 19% and those who said they attended church services weekly supported it 84% to 16%. On the flip side, non-Christians opposed it 85% to 15% and those who don’t attend church regularly opposed it 83% to 17%.

Stone finds these numbers disturbing and makes the statement “Christian Evangelicals have every right to try to persuade others to accept and abide by their beliefs. But they have no right - indeed, they violate the very spirit of the American Constitution - when they attempt to conscript the authority of the state to compel those who do not share their religious beliefs to act as if they do.”

While I tend to agree with Stone, I’m not certain what one can do about it. How does one separate a “religious belief” from any other kind of “belief?”

While it might be obvious to you and me that an Evangelical Christian is voting based upon a religious belief, I’m not that sure he would agree. As far as gay marriage is concerned he believes he’s defending traditional non-religious values and as far as abortion access is concerned he believes he’s opposing murder.

This brings us back to an ongoing argument that I have with a number of people. To my mind Evangelical Christianity is fundamentally incompatible with American Democracy. In order to support both you have to bifurcate your thinking processes, compartmentalize your beliefs and be able to understand that your religious beliefs should not dictate the laws of a multicultural democracy.

It takes a very sophisticated, fairly well educated and intelligent person to do that. The 19% of Evangelical Christians that voted against Proposition 8 probably fall into that category. The other 81% probably don’t and most likely do not understand that what the preacher preaches on Sunday ain’t necessarily what the sheriff should be enforcing on Monday.

If you consider this a problem, and I agree with Stone that it is, you have one of two options. Option #1 is to try and move more people from the latter category into the former. Personally I think this would be an effort in futility. We are never going to get a lion’s share of Evangelical Christians to understand that their religious beliefs shouldn’t effectively be the law of the land. After all, isn’t this a Christian country that should be governed based upon biblical principles?

Option #2 is to attack Evangelical Christianity itself with the ultimate objective of destroying it. If there aren’t any Evangelical Christians, then they can’t try and use the law to enforce their religious beliefs on the rest of us now can they?

I’ve been a supporter of Option #2 while most folks I know are still are trying to figure out how to get Option #1 to work. It ain’t never going to happen. You might as well try and convince Ann Coulter that she should tell the truth occasionally.

When I say attack I don’t mean physically (although I wouldn’t take that option off the table), I mean intellectually. Christianity in general, and the fundamentalist variety in particular, is wide open to assault on both the intellectual and back alley levels. It has so much absurd dogma that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel if, and this is the big if, we can rid ourselves of the “religion deserves respect” axiom.

There has always been a small cadre of intellectuals attacking religion. What is needed is for us regular folks to pitch in whenever possible. It’s not easy because you will offend people and people don’t like being offended. The Internet helps because you can attack anonymously. When the day comes that folks do it face to face we will have begun to grow up as a species.