Separating Church and State

(Via)

As I've mentioned before, I'm taking a class on the Creationism Evolution debate this semester, which has generated some interesting discussions and readings and is also the reason that I'm convinced that Google thinks I'm a creationist. There is only so much time I can spend on Answers in Genesis before the fact that it is for research stops being a good reason to be reading about how dinosaurs and people coexisted 6000 years ago, and I surpassed that limit a while ago. Recently we've been talking about the Creation Science movement in the US (which is sort of redundant because fundamentalist Christianity is fairly unique to the US) in relation to various court cases pertaining to the teaching of evolution is public school. This prompted my professor to assign us an article to read unironically titled "Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?" It is from the news letter of The Creation Science Association for Mid-America and it was written in 2008 by Tom Willis, who has also written gems such as "Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Vote?" In case you were curious, he answers both questions with a resounding "no" on the grounds that

"Hard-line evolutionists spend their entire life declaring Christians to be ignorant, crazy and, probably dangerous. But evolutionism is totally contrary to the empirical facts of science. Anyone truly believing evolution is either totally deluded or ignorant. Regarding who is really the dangerous group, in their unmitigated, and totally unjustified arrogance, evolutionists have caused more misery, and killed and tortured more people, in the last 90 years than all the wars of the last 2000 years."

Frankly, both of these articles are so ridiculous from my perspective, that of someone who is well educated, particularly in the sciences, and isn't particularly religious, that it reads as satire, which my professor assured us that it isn't, and in fact, the organization was a driving forced behind the Kansas State Board of Education removal of things like evolution and the age of the earth from their curriculum back in 2000.

But the fact is, there are people in the US, a not so small number in fact, who actually believe things what Willis is saying. Things like "Evolutionists are largely incompetent" and that "[Evolutionists] are manifestly the most dangerous and destructive people on the planet (Well OK, Muslims are strong competitors)." [Parenthetical part of the original text]. It should be noted that he defines Evolutionists as anyone who accepts the tenets of evolution, regardless of their position about the genesis of evolution. Born Again Christians who believe that God put evolution is place and that the earth is older than 6000 years are just as bad as hard core atheists and Muslims to him. He counts Evolutionism as a religion that is bend on destroying True Christianity (his specific brand of fundamentalist Christianity and Young Earth Creationism), and anyone who isn't a Young Earth Creationist is incompetent and intellectually incapable of anything. Ignoring the blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric he employs as well as the myriad logical fallacies and conflated arguments, these articles are still really frightening, because they serve to remind me that the US is really quite a religious country, and the religiosity particular to the US is one that favors fundamentalism and demands political action in favor of fundamentalism.

The fact that a (somewhat) successful presidential candidate has said that the idea of the separation of church and state makes him sick and it isn't an issue outside of the liberally bend media outlets says something about the priorities of America as a whole. Sometimes I forget that the US is so religiously conservative, because I attend a large public university in a fairly liberal mid-size city in the Upper Mid-West. I am fairly well insulated in a liberal bubble where even people who don't believe in macro-evolution, and I have several here at school, can study science and engineering and are not yelling for creationist to be taught in schools. But that doesn't seem to be the norm among the Christian fundamentalism movement in the US, particularly the farther south you go. They are the moral majority that has been pushing politics ever father right as of late, and not just is a fiscal conservative kind of way (which, for the record, I am totally on board with, fiscal conservatism that is to say). This election cycle has been full of issues that are important to the religiously conservative, which is fine, but they have been manifesting in scary ways that have gotten more support than my bubble would have lead me to believe was possible. The recent spate of highly invasive anti-abortion bills and the way that issues of women's reproductive rights have been arbitrated by conservative white men, as well as the perennial issue to which state is voting on making gay marriage (more) illegal this time. It seems insane to me that it is okay for the Catholic Church here in the Twin Cities to give more than half a million dollars to fund a constitutional amendment making gay marriage more illegal than it already is in Minnesota (it's already banned by state statute).

This is a little more meanspirited than I like, but it's fairly accurate (via)

I forget sometimes that our separation of church and state is already fairly loose, particularly when controversial issues are concerned, which is all the more reason to recognize that there is a fairly powerful group of Americans who want even less separation than we already have. They want school mandated Christian prayer, and they want Genesis taught as scientific fact, and they want gay people to not exist and women to not have rights concerning their bodies. Granted that's the most extreme view, and most Christians are very nice people who don't believe that God is out to punish people or that all of modern science is a lie. This is solidly the case of a very loud and powerful minority influencing policy and making everyone look bad, but they are still getting laws passed across the country.

I know this got kind of ranty, but I feel very strongly that people should respect others beliefs and not try to force their own religious beliefs down others throats via legislation. It frustrates me that the US, which presents itself as a bastion of freedom and tolerance, can be so intolerant to both differences and progress. I shouldn't be surprised every time I realize that Young Earth Creationists are incredibly powerful in some parts of the country, and that conservative Christianity as a whole is a major force in certain realms of politics these days, but I always am. Call me an idealist, but I think that it's just plain fair for real science to be taught in public schools, and for me to be able to marry whomever I choose, and for it not to be a big deal for me to be able to get affordable birth control, and I think these should apply across the country.

This is more political than I generally like to get, because I don't believe in forcing my opinions and beliefs on others or that my opinions are necessarily correct or the only valid ones, and I wouldn't go so far as to say that fundamentalist Christians are crazy or bad people, I just wish they would keep their beliefs to themselves. Having a diverse society is a good thing, because it forces us to challenge our belief systems and expand our horizons, just don't tell me that people who accept scientific fact shouldn't be allowed to vote or should be sent to labor colonies in Antarctica (I'm looking at you, Tom Willis).