Metacentricities

I’ve been watching the whole saga of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or FLDS). It is a very interesting situation, for sure. There is no question that polygyny (polygamy is a broader term) is oppressive to women and girls (and, also oppressive to boys, since many of them are kicked out of the church so that there is less competition among men for multiple wives.)

And, of course, since many of the girls are married off well below the legal age (as young as 14) certainly this practice amounts to institutionalized statutory rape, supposedly legitimized by revelation from God.

I don’t believe that the FLDS is necessarily any worse than the general population when it comes to child abuse (that is to say, I’m sure the prevalence is as just high, but not necessarily much higher.) And, for me, polygamy (or polyamory - the broad terms meaning sexual and marriage relationships between multiple adults) isn’t something that should be regulated by the state. In my opinion, the state really doesn’t have any business regulating what consenting adults choose to do.

Of course, that’s the rub. The girls in the FLDS, even those who are over the marriage age are not likely consenting - or if they are, it is a “consent” born of life-long brainwashing. What if, for example, the FLDS had the same polygynous practices, but women only got married at 18 or older? What do I think about that? Even though I would abhor that situation, I’d have to say that the state should have nothing to do with it.

Interestingly enough, polygyny is not something that is especially problematic for the writers of the Bible. It was completely normal to the writers of the Hebrew Bible, and it’s acceptability or lack thereof in the early Christian church is debated. Of course, no other forms of polygamy (multiple husbands, or other kinds of combinations) aren’t a part of the picture at all. At some point, polygyny became unacceptable, and polygamy is still considered such by our society as a whole.

Joseph Smith thought that plural marriage was ordained by God, as a part of his whole idea that believers needed to get back to the Old Testament ways. It was, apparently, not accepted by all followers originally. It eventually became a central part of Mormon religious practice. It was, of course illegal, and eventually, the legal pressure to conform was so great, that the church gave it up. This also lead to the schism which resulted in the FLDS.

So to the bigger question - when does the state (and, by extrapolation, the population at large) get to say when a religious practice is not acceptable? I don’t think for a moment that the arguments against polygyny in the late 19th century had much to do with women’s empowerment - even though that would be more of the argument today. And when does the prevailing morals of the majority, even if not involving laws relating to harming of individuals (such as regulations of relationships between consenting adults) infringe upon the freedom of religious expression? All good questions.

I went to the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival in Orange, Massachusetts today. It was, in its way, a pretty standard festival - lots of booths, and food, and stages for musicians, etc. It was fun, for sure. The “GQ” index (Ruth and I like to talk about the “GQ” or “Grooviness Quotient”) of the festival was quite high. It was a “trash-free” festival - everything was recycled or composted, which was wonderful. All of the electricity was generated either by biodeisel or solar power. There were lots of local farmers and local artists and artisans selling everything from, er, garlic, to special kinds of jams and mustards, to wood sculptures, to prints and varied kinds of artwork, etc.

As Ruth and I were driving to the festival, while she was twiddling the dials on the radio, she noticed that I rarely listen to music while I drive, but “people talking about depressing topics.” We then went on to talk about what point is it, really, to stay informed? What can we do differently, or better, if we hear how many thousands of dollars a minute is being poured into killing innocent people?

I was thinking about the fall of the Roman Empire, and what average Jane and Joe did while it crumbled. I don’t have an answer, but I did realize that there wasn’t much we could do except vote, make our voices heard when we can, and, I think perhaps most importantly - create the communities, organizations and culture that will, perhaps, grow out of the rotting hulk that is our society.

As Ghandi said, “be the change you want to be.”

It has become somewhat of a meme, that phrase, taken from reports about the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota. Of course, like many things for us, it takes a big disaster like this to wake us up to the realities: twenty seven years of fiscally conservative, largely trickle-down economics (Clinton didn’t significantly change anything), and the focus on the military-industrial complex has meant that our entire infrastructure, the things that we depend on every day, like roads and bridges and schools and hospitals are all full of structural deficiencies, and are ready to collapse.

But, of course there is more. Our American society as a whole is full of structural deficiencies. Structural deficiencies in priorities, in compassion, and in awareness. We all fiddling while our Rome burns. It is, of course, burning. It’s been burning for a while now.  I think we’re finally beginning to really feel the heat.

In a pessimistic moment, I hear people say “here’s a wake up call,” and I think “how many of these do we need?” We’ve had a gazillion already. But then, I think perhaps it’s like those mornings when you don’t want to get up, and you hit the snooze button over and over, until, at some point, you realize it really is time to wake up.

Today is the last day of the social forum workshops. Since I’ve been “off duty” both in terms of tech stuff, and in terms of doing workshops, I’ve been wandering around to different workshops. I went to a good workshop I’ll talk about in more detail in the next post. It’s been very interesting - a quite intriguing mix of people and perspectives and attitudes about social change.

One of the fascinating things that is going on is that the USSF is overlapping at the Westin with a National American Miss pageant. Specifically, they will be crowning Miss Georgia … (pre-teen, etc.) So, at the same time as all of these activists in birkenstocks and piercings and casual clothing are walking about, there are this perfectly coiffed mothers and daughters wearing extremely excessive amounts of pink. It reminds me of the year I went to the National Women’s Studies Association conference in Oklahoma City, and we were overlapping with the national cheerleading camp.

The elevators in the Westin have been a challenge (too many people, and too few elevators) - but the mix of people at and in the elevators today has lead to some awkward silences (in comparison to earlier, when almost everyone was from the Social Forum, and there were the standard “so where are you from” exchanges while waiting for elevators, which takes forever.)

It is an opportunity, I think, for practicing compassion for people who are choosing to live very different lives, rather than derision, which, I have to admit, is my first impulse.

On the first day we arrived here, at North Topsail Beach, where we are spending some time before we can move into our house in Shutesbury, my partner and I would hear this bumping sound. It was windy that day, and we thought that must be a window that was banging open, or a chair that was banging against something outside. We’d keep hearing it - sometimes it was so loud we could feel it, too. Sometimes, it was several sounds an hour, sometimes hours would go by without the sounds.

We kept hearing it, but basically ignored it, because it wasn’t predictable, and we couldn’t find out where it came from.

One day, Ruth walked on the beach, and she realized that the sound was still with her - she’d hear them as she walked down the beach. So we realized it wasn’t from the house, it was from somewhere else.

It turns out, it’s from Camp Lejeune, about 15 miles down the beach from here. They hone their skills at shooting things, from guns and rifles, to missiles.

We never would buy a house here, for a variety of reasons. First, neither of us is attracted a house on the beach, second, the area is, well, pretty whitebread for us. What’s also true is that North Topsail Beach is a barrier island, and very precariously placed if there is a hurricane. In 1996, hurricanes Bertha and Fran almost wiped North Topsail off of the map. There were even proposals to abandon it, and make it a park. But since then, there has been a real estate and building boom, with lots and lots of new houses, and more being built every day (they are putting in the pilings for a new house just down the street from this one, as I write this.) Clearly, the lessons of 1996 have been completely forgotten.

So, if one sold real estate here, one should disclose: “You’ll hear missiles and bombs going off at all hours of the day and night, and in case of a hurricane, you may no longer have a house to vacation in.”

Technorati Tags: camplejeune, hurricanes, missiles, northcarolina, northtopsail, realestate, topsailbeach

I love the Pew Research Center. They provide such great data on people’s ideas and attitudes. They are a real reality check on what we think is going on in this country. So anyway, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press just released a new study on the relationship between religion and politics.

There is a lot to chew on, here. First, as they say, the Democrats have a "God problem." 69% of the people in their study feel that liberals have gone too far to remove religion from schools and government. 62% of people think that the Democratic party is neutral or unfriendly to religion, whereas 41% think Republicans are neutral or unfriendly to religion.

Interestingly, 49% of people feel that conservative Christians have gone too far in imposing their moral views on the country. Also, 63% of the people think that the American people should have more influence over laws than the Bible. However, almost one third of people in this survey (32%) think that the Bible should have more influence over laws than the people of the country. This is a pretty large percentage of people. 67% of people surveyed think of the US as a Christian country.

Other interesting findings (especially to me): a small majority (51%) of people think that live evolved, and were not created, although 21% thought that evolution occured via divine guidance rather than natural selection. I will say, that question bothered the heck out of me. They aren’t mutually exclusive options, and to ask it that way oversimplifies the whole question about evolution and "divine guidance." But that’s my bias.

There is some interesting data on attitudes about global climate change, the second coming of Christ, and other issues. It’s really worth a read. There is, I think, both things that are worth looking at if one is, for instance, a Democrat wanting to win an election. And I am continually surprised, for some reason, at how different I, and the people I know, are from the mainstream. That’s what I get for being a pinko lesbian, I guess.

It turns out that the Bush administration is moving to reclassify information that has not been classified before. What kind of information? Historical information about how many different kinds of strategic nuclear missles we used to have. For example:

In a 1971 appearance before the House Armed Services Committee, forinstance, Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird offered a toaster-shapedchart showing, among other things, that the United States had 30strategic bomber squadrons, 54 Titan intercontinental ballisticmissiles and 1,000 Minuteman missiles.

Those numbers, made public on March 9, 1971, are redacted in a copy of the chart obtained by the archive’s researchers in January as part of a declassified government history of the U.S. air and missile defense system, according to archive officials. [emphasis mine]

OK, so, outdated information that is useful to no one except historians is now being classified. Several people in this article call this “silly secrecy.” Or is it something else entirely?

In general, what’s true is that we can only keep tabs on the kinds of things our government is doing with information about it. I don’t think that this actual information means anything to them. I think what is important to them is to continually reduce the amount of information available to the people of this country. This is just another symptom of a diseased government. One that seems to continue to want to ignore that it is sick. And, of course, the real people who suffer from this disease is us.

technorati tags:government, classified, missiles, bush, information

Today, one of my favorite organizations, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (because I love data, if you hadn’t figured that out already) came out with an interesting new study. It’s worth a look. They looked at the “hotbutton” social issues of our time, such as abortion, stem cell research, and gay marriage. What they found is, in some ways unsurprisingly, that most Americans are pretty middle-of-the-road about those issues.

Interestingly enough, something that I hadn’t known, is that there is no gender gap when it comes to people’s opinions on the availability of abortion. I just hadn’t known that (which is surprising to me, since I thought I knew a lot about that issue.) Also, 66% of Americans thought that we had to find some middle ground on abortion, and only 29% felt there was no room for comprimise. I imagine that 29% is divided in some way between those who are pro-choice, and those who are pro-life. Who knows.

There is also some interesting data about where people think homosexuality comes from. Interestingly enough, Black protestants are more conservative than White evangelicals on the question of birth vs. choice, and whether or not homosexuality is changable. I wonder why this is.

Anyway, all of this taken together is more evidence that I think the religious right has probably gone as far as it will be able to ever go on these hot button issues. And, given the varied reporting in the news and blogosphere, I think that it’s getting really close to the point where we can say that they reached their peak, and they are fading. Yay!

technorati tags:abortion, religiousright, homosexuality, gaymarriage, protestant, evangelical

In the interest of learning more, and dialogue, I tend to read one or two Christian-oriented blogs that are more conservative than I am. I tend not to go the Jesus Politics route, so I don’t read people like Al Mohler very often (because doing that so stretches my ability to follow my 4 guidelines.)  But I did happen upon a blog that is part of Christianity Today, which is a conservative evangelical magazine (I think probably the most popular one.) It is called "Out of Ur."

They are having fascinating discussions about whether or not conservative politics are a barrier to the gospel and, interestingly, whether or not consumerism undermines Christian faith. That post says:

When we approach Christianity as consumers rather than seeing it as a
comprehensive way of life, an interpretive set of beliefs and values,
Christianity becomes just one more brand we consume along with Gap,
Apple, and Starbucks to express identity. And the demotion of Jesus
Christ from Lord to label means to live as a Christian no longer
carries an expectation of obedience and good works, but rather the
perpetual consumption of Christian merchandise and experiences—music,
books, t-shirts, conferences, and jewelry.

No, I wouldn’t put it that way, of course, but she’s got something there. It seems that in this country, we do a lot of that with spirituality in general - it becomes something to consume, a brand to identify with, not something to live.

I am really interested that they are having these conversations.

Hat tip to The Corner, who liked my sermon.

technorati tags:christianity, religion, consumerism, conservative, evangelical

I’ve been reading a lot of the blog coverage of the Barak Obama speech, and it’s fallout. On the right, is Al Mohler and others, blasting Obama for “secularism with a smile.” On the left are people blasting Obama for falling into the right’s arguments. Some of us are in the middle. And these are simply manifestations of the deep divisions we have in this country about the role of religion in public life.

There are three realities that we face. Three realities that frame, for good, or ill, the ways in which we talk about religion and politics, and the extent to which religion is involved in the public sphere. Three realities that affect the ways in which we frame and prioritize the problems that we face as a country, and as a society. Things are not going well. They are going to get worse before they get better. We had better figure this out.

First, we have been given, by the wisdom of our founders (who did some unwise things, too,) the separation of church and state. Article III of the constitution, and many Supreme Court cases have established this.

Second, we have the reality that most people in this country are, in fact, religious, or at least spiritually leaning. According to recent polls, 91% of people in this country believe in God or a “Universal Spirit”. 59% see religion as extremely important, or very important in their daily lives, with only 13% saying that it wasn’t at all important. 77% of people think that the Bible is either the actual (28%) or inspired (49%) word of God. Not only that, but a majority (59%) of people think, believe it or not, that Christianity is under attack in this country today. And only 17% of people think that religion has too much influence in our country. An astounding 93% think that the motto “in God we trust” should stay on the US currency. Of course, these are  polls, and polls are innacurate. But I think that the basic message is clear. Most people in this country are, in fact religious, take religion very seriously in their everyday lives, don’t think that there is too much of it in the public sphere, and therefore, will pay attention when it comes to politics. And, for good, or ill, these people are overwhelmingly Christian.

You can, if you want, call the overwhelming majority of people in this country crazy, as Jan Frel did on Alternet. But that is not going to help anything, except it might make a very small minority of people feel better.

I think that it is fair to say that Republicans and the religious right are wrong to say that Democrats are hostile to religion. I think it is also fair to say that Democrats have spent a lot of time sidestepping it, for reasons that are partially historical (the historical involvement of secular progressives in the party,) partially reasonable (a deep respect for separation of church and state,) and partially by being written out by the rhetoric of the right.

The third reality is that we live in a changing society, and what it means to provide “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to everyone in this country is different than it was 230 years ago. Different not only because we acknowledge the basic rights of people who did not have those rights acknowledged then. Different also because our society is structured differently.

The religious right likes to focus on the second reality, and basically dismiss the other two. Progressives tend to focus on the first and third realities, and ignore the second. All three have to be taken into account.

I don’t really have any good answers, but I have some good questions:

• Would it help Democrats to express their values more clearly, specifically, express, along with traditional arguments about why we, as progressives, think that it is important that our society take care everyone, that they also bring in arguments relating to “social gospel (that is, that Jesus was very interested in the welfare of those who were poor, sick and outcast)?”
• Would it help to tone down our rhetoric, to speak reasonably and respectfully, even when the right doesn’t return the favor?
• Would it be terrible for some Democrats who feel so moved to counter religious arguments against the stands they take (like the Alan Keyes example in Obama’s speech) with their own religious perspectives?
• How do we manage to uphold the rights of those who worship in all religions (or none at all) while allowing everyone’s voice to be heard?
• How do we manage to reconcile mutually exclusive ideas of the ways that this country should regard religion?
• Would it help to actually have people of different perspectives sit down in the same (real or virtual room) and talk openly, plainly and honestly about their perspectives, instead of remaining in our self-enclosed enclaves, which continually reify our own points of view?
  

It is my point of view, that the old paradigms (including the kinds of internecine warfare within the left that are, and will continue, to occur around this whole issue) aren’t going to help us get any closer to wresting this country back from the people who run it right now. We need some new approaches.

technorati tags:religion, christianity, us, politics, obama, left, right, democrats