Religion and Politics

In the early 70s, I was stationed for two of my four years in the Navy at the Naval Training Center in Orlando, Florida.  For half of that time, I had a second part-time job as a bartender in the Officer’s Club.  With no experience in a bar other than as a consumer of their fine attitude-altering products, I was assigned to their best mixologist, Al.  Now Al had been bartending at the Officer’s Club since back when it had been an Air Force base before the Navy takeover.  He handed me a three-ring binder with the recipes for the most popular drinks of the time.  Beyond the memorization of ingredients and quantities of various cocktails, Al had some other bartender advice.  He told me there were a couple of basic rules that would serve me well.  First, be a good listener, and second, never discuss politics or religion.

I come by my bartending skills through genetics; this image shows my 
great-uncle Frank's bar in the Newtown Square Hotel and my
grandfather John Dallas owned a hotel and bar elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

That was good advice.  Whenever a customer began discussing either of those verboten topics, it was best to nod, smile, and change the subject as soon as possible.  Well, anyone who has read my political commentary, knows that I’ve made up for lost time in that arena.  That second topic, however, doesn’t come up much in my writing as I prefer to honor an individual’s choice of religion.  This is especially true if their choice doesn’t overtly affect me.  It only starts to be a matter of discussion if religion becomes the justification for something outside the area of a personal belief system.

Stained Glass Trump

To that point, I find far too many people using religion as a shield or club.  They will justify a political or virtually any position of theirs in the name of religion and claim some other-worldly logic that is not to be challenged.  They will assert that the Bible, Koran, or Talmud is to be interpreted in such a way as to bolster their position.  I will have no position on your choice to observe the teachings of some organized religion or to follow a deeply held philosophy unless you claim that it needs to be accepted by everyone else without challenge.  To waive a religious belief as some sort of magic wand to support some position is to raise my ire.

Lately, we have seen a surge of nationalism and faux patriotism used to justify racism and white supremacy.  We have likewise seen people quoting passages or philosophies from their chosen “good book,” to support all manner of non-religious positions.  While words written perhaps thousands of years ago may have been well-intended, we too often forget that these same writers also held that the world was flat and, as interpreted by modern Young Earth creationists, that same earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old.  You may hold such beliefs but don’t expect them to go unchallenged.  Likewise, don’t expect others to swallow as “gospel” such easily debunked ideas.

Our founding fathers crafted our originating documents with a two-sided hope which protected the state from religious incursions and religions from state influence.  Since that time, we have seen countless incursions of religious influence on our politics.  From a variety of topics including contraception, abortion, and gay marriage, we see religion crossing over to become a political force.

The Establishment clause of the First Amendment has been widely interpreted to create the need for a separation of church and state.  Thomas Jefferson penned the Constitution and his feelings on the matter are well established.  In his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, he declared that the Establishment clause clearly built a “wall of separation between church and state.”  As a Virginian, Jefferson fought to disestablish the Anglican Church as the church of choice for all in the state.  He argued that compelling citizens to support through taxation, a faith which Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers and other “dissenting” faiths found contrary to their own beliefs, was wrong.

I believe that members of organized religions have every right to discuss and argue their points before a political body but to use their tax-free financial enterprise to further influence political direction is wrong.  In that latter instance they should be taxed like any other business desiring to use its financial strength to better position its “business.”

President John F. Kennedy once stated, “I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

The separation of church and state may be an arguable point for some but using some a priori reasoning to justify your position is inherently flawed and shows its weakness.  You should establish your reasoning with knowledge derived from observation or experience, not something you believe just because you believe it.  Your logic at that point has devolved to that of a mother who ends her argument with, “because I said so.”