Religious Freedom? Really?

I confess it. I have gotten exercised about the whole issue about what should be provided in women's health insurance. I have Taken The Bait.

Here's how I look at it. Try to follow along.

First, a completely imaginary case:

You're an election judge. Your job is to provide ballots to people who come to vote. But now something occurs to you, in a flash of overwhelming righteousness: Women who do not cover their heads in public are shameful beings. When women with uncovered heads come to the polls to vote, you do not acknowledge their existence. Certainly you do not give them a ballot.

News flash: I have it in for you. You have taken a job and then decided that the job is unworthy of you. You will not besmirch yourself by doing what the job requires. I demand you either find someone–an election clerk, perhaps–who can handle the work that is beneath you, or you get out of the election judge business.

Now to reality:

You are a church. But you have chosen to get into non-churchy things, such as health care. And now you have decided that a part of health care–providing women with contraceptive services–will diminish your unfathomable holiness.

My stern advice: Find a way to accommodate these women, or get out of health care.

If you have taken a job, and then decided you are too noble to do the job, but will not give up the job: To hell with you. The fist of your religious freedom is smashing my face.

No rabbi or imam or bishop gets to decide what health care women should get. (Women or anyone else, for that matter.) Not in my America.

Christmas: A Note

For your holiday pleasure, I heartily recommend this week's podcast from Start the Week With Andrew Marr. The discussion centers on the Roman Emperor Constantine, who decided it would be politically useful to appropriate a carefully edited version of Christianity for his Empire. The result is nicely summarized in the Nicene Creed, which covers these aspects of Christ: Birth, Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. Carefully omitted from Constantine's religion: Jesus's Ministry. It seems the actual words and deeds of Jesus were too controversial; they didn't serve the Emperor's political agenda.

The podcast explains this much better than I do. But the next time you hear public figures bloviate about their devotion to Christianity, without actually showing any familiarity with the teachings of Jesus–well, perhaps you have Constantine to thank.

For the Mosque

If I had known the party was going to last this long, I would have arrived sooner.

Really, I thought we'd have a few days of politicians demagoguing, and then we'd move on to the next manufactured crisis. Oh, well. For what it's worth:

A few weeks ago, when I heard about the proposed Islamic mosque and community center a few blocks from Ground Zero, a center where the emphasis would be on tolerance and understanding, it was not difficult to form an opinion. Of course we should allow the mosque to be built; in fact, we should welcome it. This was also the reaction of the local authorities and community, along with a commentator on Fox News and probably a lot of other folks. No-brainer.

Then this summer, a few sharp-eyed politicians spotted an angle, a wedge they could pound on to stoke fear and loathing to their advantage. They've paraded a grab-bag of bogeymen: Islam; the leader behind the mosque; the funding for the mosque; the violation of the sanctity of Ground Zero; the hurt feelings of 9/11 survivors.

Sorry folks. My opinion hasn't changed.

You may detect a lack of energy here. Lordy, I feel like I'm having to explain, for the umpteenth time, why it's good to have an open society. This is like going back to school and repeating civics. Some smarter-than-me fifth-grader can probably do a better job, but here goes. (Or you can skip my feeble prose and read William Saletan's articles here, here, here, here, and here.) As I see it, these are the main arguments against the center, with my responses:

Islam is evil. Well, we certainly have no shortage of people making evil use of Islam these days. The Taliban are lopping off noses in Afghanistan. In many theocracies, women are being sentenced to death for not much more than being women. And Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are proclaiming death to anyone who disagrees with their world-view—Muslims, Christians, anyone.

But I would hesitate to assign a religion to perdition based on the horrible behavior of a few of its followers. Fifteen years ago, it would have been Christianity in the dock. Catholic Rwandans and Orthodox Christian Serbs had carried out genocidal campaigns against Christians and Muslims they didn't like. If anyone had pointed to these murderers and claimed that's what Christians were like, we would have marked that person down for a liar or a lunatic.

Likewise, anyone today who points at extremist Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or wherever and claims they represent Islam is seriously disconnected with reality. In Houston, we've lived among Muslims for years with no problem. (Remember that basketball star who used to play for the Rockets?)

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not to be trusted. Rauf has spent a lot of time building goodwill toward Islam here and abroad, and he hasn't been afraid to condemn extremists. Christopher Hitchens has found a few objectionable utterances, but this is far from showing the man intends to subvert our society.

You just can't trust those Muslims. This is the blanket version of the distrust issue, and today isn't the first times America has cast an entire group under suspicion. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, we rounded up Japanese-Americans and interned them—just as a precaution, mind you. The President was in on this, as were the Supreme Court and most of the rest of the country. Later we realized what a shameful act this was; the Japanese-Americans were overwhelmingly patriotic. And today I have yet to see any evidence that large numbers of American Muslims are out to destroy our country.

The funding for the center is suspicious. As Jon Stewart has pointed out, the funder of the mosque is also a major stakeholder in Fox News. I think this guy's radicalism may be exaggerated.

Ground Zero is sacred. Fortunately, the Islamic center is proposed for two blocks away. And after the center is built and in use (if that happens), I can easily imagine groups of Muslims walking over to Ground Zero and vowing that never again must Islam be used to justify this sort of atrocity.

Since 9/11, a lot of people in Manhattan have a visceral hatred of Muslims; don't aggravate them. Certainly this is a consideration for Rauf and his followers. They may yet decide to go elsewhere so they don't have to deal with the hostility. But if they decide to see the plan through, how can decent Americans oppose them? It's too much like the old days when blacks were discouraged from moving into white neighborhoods, because there were a lot of whites who hated blacks. Many blacks beat a retreat, but a few went forward. And in many cases integration was disruptive, but ultimately a boon for our country. Segregated America needed to be shaken until its damn teeth rattled. And today's sudden irrational fear of Muslims deserves the same treatment.