Yesterday, a favorable vote in the House of the Illinois legislature meant that Illinois will become the fifteenth state (plus the District of Columbia) to permit same-sex (or "gay") marriage.
I am very happy about this, but it brings to mind the debate, which has occurred many times and took place here recently. That is, some religious folks and conservatives have argued against gay marriage and, at other times and places, other measures to ensure or enhance rights of gay people by pointing to their Bibles.
My personal argument against these people and their point of view on this subject is that we in the United States live in a secular society, not in a theocracy. If it were Muslims who wanted to blur the line between church and state by imposing Islamic sharia law (as have, for example, the Taliban in Afghanistan), there would be a loud outcry. But apparently it matters whose religion is the source of the views and proscriptions that some would like to incorporate into the civil law.
Another example of mine: Jewish people (in the US and of course elsewhere), if they are observant Jews, believe that one should not eat pork. Now suppose that I, as a Jew, argued in the legislature that since I believe that eating pork is a sin (and the Bible—Leviticus—says, I believe, that the eating of pork is an "abomination"), then no one in the US should be permitted by law to eat pork. I'd love to hear the screams and shrieks of those African-American ministers who fought against gay marriage in Illinois when their pork chops are taken away!
And, round about the year 1850, the Bible was pointed to as not only permitting, but positively endorsing, slavery.
A column today by Neil Steinberg in the Chicago Sun-Times had the same idea but he used different examples. He said that if you stone your daughter for speaking disrespectfully toward you, it won't serve you as a defense to point to your Bible. Nor can you perform a sacrifice in your driveway and point to your Bible as permitting it or requiring it. As Steinberg said, "That battle has been lost."
Just as 150 years after the slavery debate our views have changed, and no one would try to defend slavery, maybe in another 10 or 15 decades people will look back to these times and see that it was ridiculous to point to the Bible as justifying the inferior treatment of gay people.
Copyright © 2013.
Showing posts with label theocracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theocracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Monday, January 9, 2012
What a Theocracy Might Mean
After being truly struck by a couple of Iowa voters who, when interviewed, said we need "God in America" or "God in government," as I previously wrote, I want to write a bit more about what theocracy means, what a theocracy might be like.
When religion and the government are in the same hands, you have people making laws according to what they believe God likes and wants. To me it is supreme arrogance for anyone to claim to know what God wants; and certainly not everyone is going to agree about what God wants. No matter how confident this or that person is as to what God's will, wishes, likes (etc.) might be, we will have a difference of opinion in a society as diverse as America. We do, after all, have not only different religions in America and even within Protestantism we have many denominations and sects.
These differences of opinion can mean religious war; and in a theocracy, religious war is civil war. We should look at the example of the Muslim world where the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia, are constantly at war with one another, bombing and murdering one another.
The Inquisition was a good example of the Church and the State, while not officially one and the same, practically being one. In Spain, once Christians had reconquered all of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors (and in fact a bit before), the Inquisition was started. Many Jews and Muslims—who had previously lived in harmony with Christians—now had three choices: leave the country, convert or at least pretend to convert, or be tortured to death.
The Framers of the US Constitution had the negative example of England one to two centuries earlier. In the period between the death of Henry VIII and the first Elizabeth, there was considerable jockeying back and forth between Catholics and Protestants. The country was Catholic one day, Protestant the next. It was hard to know which side your bread was buttered on, it changed so fast. And the consequences of who was in power at the moment were not inconsequential. For example, Catholics—at least wealthy ones with big houses—had secret rooms and passages built in their houses where priests and other artifacts of their worship could be concealed. Queen Mary, who ruled, I believe, on and off in the period between Henry VIII and Elizabeth, was known as "Bloody Mary" because of her practice of burning Protestants at the stake. And Elizabeth, once in power, executed Catholics who she believed had been plotting against her. There was armed strife and many people lost their lives. "By 1643, hundreds of thousands of Christians had been slaughtered by other Christians because of the way they worshipped Christ."*
(There was again strife later in the 17th century when King James II, suspected of being secretly more Catholic than Protestant, was forced out in the so-called "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 that installed the Protestants William and Mary.)
It seems that wherever there is not complete religious homogeneity—and there is nearly always someone with differing ideas—there is likely to be strife. Theocracy is a recipe for terrible conflicts.
You know, I just said to myself, looking over what I wrote: "God, I shouldn't even have to write this!!"
_________
This quotation is from an article, "God, Government and Roger Williams' Big Idea," Smithsonian, January 2012; adapted from the book, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul by John M. Barry, copyright 2012 by Viking.
Update: This posting was updated with additions on January 13, 2012.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
When religion and the government are in the same hands, you have people making laws according to what they believe God likes and wants. To me it is supreme arrogance for anyone to claim to know what God wants; and certainly not everyone is going to agree about what God wants. No matter how confident this or that person is as to what God's will, wishes, likes (etc.) might be, we will have a difference of opinion in a society as diverse as America. We do, after all, have not only different religions in America and even within Protestantism we have many denominations and sects.
These differences of opinion can mean religious war; and in a theocracy, religious war is civil war. We should look at the example of the Muslim world where the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia, are constantly at war with one another, bombing and murdering one another.
The Inquisition was a good example of the Church and the State, while not officially one and the same, practically being one. In Spain, once Christians had reconquered all of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors (and in fact a bit before), the Inquisition was started. Many Jews and Muslims—who had previously lived in harmony with Christians—now had three choices: leave the country, convert or at least pretend to convert, or be tortured to death.
The Framers of the US Constitution had the negative example of England one to two centuries earlier. In the period between the death of Henry VIII and the first Elizabeth, there was considerable jockeying back and forth between Catholics and Protestants. The country was Catholic one day, Protestant the next. It was hard to know which side your bread was buttered on, it changed so fast. And the consequences of who was in power at the moment were not inconsequential. For example, Catholics—at least wealthy ones with big houses—had secret rooms and passages built in their houses where priests and other artifacts of their worship could be concealed. Queen Mary, who ruled, I believe, on and off in the period between Henry VIII and Elizabeth, was known as "Bloody Mary" because of her practice of burning Protestants at the stake. And Elizabeth, once in power, executed Catholics who she believed had been plotting against her. There was armed strife and many people lost their lives. "By 1643, hundreds of thousands of Christians had been slaughtered by other Christians because of the way they worshipped Christ."*
(There was again strife later in the 17th century when King James II, suspected of being secretly more Catholic than Protestant, was forced out in the so-called "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 that installed the Protestants William and Mary.)
It seems that wherever there is not complete religious homogeneity—and there is nearly always someone with differing ideas—there is likely to be strife. Theocracy is a recipe for terrible conflicts.
You know, I just said to myself, looking over what I wrote: "God, I shouldn't even have to write this!!"
_________
This quotation is from an article, "God, Government and Roger Williams' Big Idea," Smithsonian, January 2012; adapted from the book, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul by John M. Barry, copyright 2012 by Viking.
Update: This posting was updated with additions on January 13, 2012.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
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