Friday, July 27, 2007

A true trip to Fundieland.

Though I am in the middle of a move to California, I was born and spent the next twenty-two years in Virginia. I am not horribly fond of my conservative home state, but it does have the special place in my heart as I have found many friends, my husband, and have had plenty of good experiences there. I read a few months ago about someone's trip to Virginia, to Williamsburg especially, and was informed, much to my surprise, that Virginia is, in fact, a fundie heartland.

Now, most of my life was spent in the Northern, suburb of D.C., portion of the state, but I did go to college in an area just 20-30 miles east of Williamsburg. I feel as though I know the area decently well, and I have never felt such undertones there. We had a lot of missionaries come to the house my now-husband and I rented with some friends, but I attributed this to the fact that we were living in the middle of a poorer community, which tends towards more religious feelings and more missions taking advantage of said poverty.

Now, the main point of the article was the religious-based revisionist history going on in Williamsburg and Mount Vernon, wherein the Deist, not very religious, Founders are being painted as devout Christians so as to misinform the public about America's Christian heritage (and excuse their refusal to acknowledge the importance of the idea of the separation of Church and State). And that, I agree, is very alarming and bad. However, I'm sure that it would likely take place no matter where the founding of the US occurred.

If not at the site, at least in some history books, and I'm sure that it would be glossed over. Even in areas that tend towards liberal, many people are Christian, and in a lot of cases, people don't like history that mentions moral Europeans that aren't Christian. This doesn't make things right, by any means, but I doubt that location truly matters, especially when the caretakers of such places tend towards older families, especially on the East Coast.

I'm about to go to college in a very liberal area of California, but the first non-departmental email I received was a ministry for international graduate students. There is nothing wrong with this, but to assume that highly religious people do not live in liberal places, that they do not find ways to have influence, is rather presumptuous.

In Virginia, religion is handled much the same way it is in many states: you're assumed Christian, a few Churches are very active, especially in poorer communities, but it's a background sort of thing. It's the normal state of things in many states. Virginia is conservative, and I am sure there are some parts that are very religious as well, but the state isn't a fundie haven.

I know, because I just spent the past two days driving through true fundieland states. My drive to New Mexico (not horribly efficient, but it was free lodging with the in-laws that have helped us move out this far) had a rather Bible Belt heavy drive. We spent two days going through Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

I had always known in the back of my mind that these places were part of a different cultural heritage than my own, a place full of Southern feeling and lots of religious fervor. However, I had expected to not really notice it as someone just driving through the states. Perhaps I'd overhear a few conversations at dinner, but whatever, that's what makes them happy; if it is a big part of your life, by all means chat with your friends.

I did not expect the billboards.

Well, to be fair, one of the first things I witnessed over the Arkansas border was a gigantic cross stationed in front of a large, nearly featureless, Church. I wonder how much the parishioners paid for that pointless symbol? Would not the money have been better spent on items such as caring for the poor or other forms of charity? It just seemed so superfluous.

As soon as I crossed from Tennessee to Arkansas (an armpit of a state, but that's another story), I began to see advertisements for Churches, religious stores, simple reminders of doctrine. My favorite one in Arkansas read simply "thou shalt not commit adultery." It seemed such an odd statement to put on a billboard, a sad statement to how well Evangelical morality is doing in good old Arkansas. Or perhaps, it is simply a way for them to feel smug? A way to bring up sex simply in a shameful context, to cement the idea that adultry = bad and sex outside of marriage = adultery? It felt both strange and skeezy to me.

I have never really seen such billboards in any area of Virginia that I visited, not even when going through the poorer, rural Southwestern portion of Virginia, not even one of those ones that preach and are simply signed "-God." All I've ever seen are the normal, small signs out in front of Churches. God wasn't part of a larger ad campaign there, it just was, existing in the place where it belonged: in people's homes, hearts, and Churches.

In Texas, we passed by the "largest cross in the Western Hemisphere," the sign for which informed me that it would be quite the spiritual experience for me. All my husband could think of was that there was obviously a larger cross in the Eastern Hemisphere, and how strange that seemed when considering the general religious make-up of Asia and a good portion of said Hemisphere (where is it, Australia? New Zealand?).

Said cross, which we could see from the highway thanks to the wondrous plains of the Midwest, looked to be made of the exact same materials as the giant cross in Arkansas, without the excuse of a Church in front.

It's almost like in this area, everyone comes at religion like it is a war to be one, like they are trying to outdo one another in shows of Godliness. It's rather strange, and very different from any form of religion that I was brought up around.

When we stopped for dinner at a vaguely famous (and very delicious) Texas steakhouse, a youth group stopped by for a big deal of an outing. They were called "God's Army," (my cheap potshot is that it sounds like a combination Bible study and gun club) and again, this raised Catholic atheist was floored by the attitude attached to Christianity here, making religion a battle to be won, a land to be conquered under God, a place where loud and proud is apparently more important than actual works of charity and support. I can easily see how fundie attitudes of fighting against this atheistic nation and pushing God down everyone's throat develop and flourish here. In fact, it seems to fit with what I saw of how religion is practiced in some areas: outdo each other, make the strongest outward appearance of godliness. It's rather chilling.

To use an old cliche, it was like visiting another country. I have never felt so out of place in this country. Even in Japan, I knew where I stood and felt that I had more in common with my Japanese friends than I likely did with the prevailing attitudes in the Bible Belt. It was likely the first time in a lifetime of overseas travel that I have fully experienced culture shock. I could only sit there, amazed, as I read each sign to my husband, a mix of amused and shocked that it was all serious.

No, I know that Virginia has many fundie values ("ew gays and women," for an example), and that religion is rather matter-of-fact, but I would not paint it as "Fundieland." To do so only makes the greater movement taking place in the Bible Belt look a bit more harmless to those that live in Conservative Virginia. If they are like Virginia, it can't be that bad, eh?

Monday, July 2, 2007

That old fundie work ethic.

What is it with fundies and their absolute refusals to do their jobs?

First we had pharmacists refusing to do their goddamn job and fill birth control and EC prescriptions because being so complicit in the death of a fetus or even the prevention of conception (plus the bull that it can be an abortifacient) is against their morals.

Now, we have doctors refusing to treat women in a number of reproductive senses. No emergency contraceptives for rape victims. No IVF for lesbians. No physicals for adoptions for unmarried women. No birth control. No abortion referrals. The list continues. It's extremely disgusting and, frankly, evil.

I would ask why someone would take a job that interferes with their beliefs, why they refuse to refer patients to a doctor who will do their job completely, why they aren't upfront with their limitations so that women needing these services can make other arrangements without being completely humiliated, but I know the answer.

They want to humiliate these sinning whores. They want to save babies they refuse to prevent or take care of, their mothers be damned. They live in a false sense of reality where refusing to provide these services mean that these women go back, find Jesus, and never get the medical procedure they came in for.

Now, in the medical field, when you can't complete a procedure, you send the patient to a doctor who can. Why not apply the same thing here rather than being a smug fundie asshole about the whole thing? Why do they delight so much in other's unhappiness? Doesn't seem godly, but we knew that.

I'm personally of the opinion that you have the obligation to your patient first, and that just providing an abortion referral or HBC doesn't make you complicit in their action. You were completing the perfectly legal action that is part of your job (nazi comparisons don't apply here). Don't like it, change jobs, or specialties (I'm pretty sure that urologists don't have this issue!).

While I think it's rather asshole-ish to refuse a service that you are supposed to provide (in a lot of ways, these uber-religious gyns refuse to do about half of their job while treating some of their patients poorly), but I can understand not wanting to be complicit in a sinful action. But, you still have the obligation to refer them somewhere else, rather than be a prat and just leave. Especially when the patient paid money to see you and have a service provided. Without any other warning, I'd half say that that is fraud.

It's rather upsetting that it's only now becoming a real issue. That we're the only developed nation on Earth that is slipping backward in terms of women's rights. True, only a small percentage of women likely ever face this, but that's enough for me, and this number is likely to only grow as fundies push their children to go into medicine and law just so they can force their beliefs down the public's throat.

Plus, if the only gynocologist in your area is a fundamentalist, you're stuck with him unless you have money and the ability to drive hours to the next doctor, hoping that the fundie trend doesn't continue. It crosses a line into my rights, my beliefs, and the quality of my care, which is sacrificed so some fundie can make a statement. Gah.

And, lastly, we have the kicker: a Massachusetts law student who failed the state's bar exam by one question. He's suing the state because this question had to do with the state's gay marriage and adoption laws. Being, the good little bigot that he is, his Christian morals couldn't allow him to support this immorality, and therefore could not answer the question.

Now, this is obviously both an entitlement temper tantrum and a fish for a Supreme Court case that can strike down Massachusetts's gay marriage laws.

Granted, that question isn't really the reason he failed. He failed because he got that question AND a bunch of other questions wrong (he missed something like 130 points out of 400!). You cannot single out one specific question and claim that that question was the one that made you fail, not the others you missed.

While the doctor morality debate is a somewhat squiggy gray area, this debate flat isn't. A lawyer's job is to know the law, whether he agrees with it or not. Even though there are laws you may disagree with, they are still laws, and while a lawyer can decline cases based upon his morals, but it doesn't make the laws go away. You can't make it go away. Your personal beliefs do not grant you the ability to ignore laws you do not like. So, this case should likely go nowhere, because he chose to not even learn about something he knew would be on the test. Sounds like his fault to me!

Granted, this is a fundie that didn't get the passing grade he felt entitled to, and had a little tantrum because it was obviously the fault of the gays, not that he just didn't learn enough material to pick and choose his questions. You can't just close your eyes and demand that the rest of the world be shielded from you because you don't like it or believe it to be immoral. Life is give and take, especially in our society, you can't remold it to your wishes, and people that claim persecution because life doesn't work to their wants is very aggravating, especially as a member of a minority religious group that is continually badmouthed.

Though, I really want to say that things I'm bad at are against my religion and that persecuting me for refusing to answer questions on the said topics is me remaining faithful to my religion. Those algebra problems are against my religion, so I refuse to answer them. Wait, why can't I get my math degree? Please stop oppressing me!

Worst. Con. EVER.

There's a decent, overly frightening, article over at alternet, about Christian Reconstructionists and a nice little convention they just had. These are the kooks that want to rewrite the Constitution and make their little strict Bible theocracy. Same scary crazy, different verse, quite similar to the first.

"We need a new American vision," said Cass, former head of TV preacher D. James Kennedy's now-defunct Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, "because we've lost our biblical heritage, our Christian birthright, which has been given to us by our founders, we have squandered for a poisonous bowl of atheistic humanism and political correctness.

Oh, how the revisionism hurts. As we all know, the Founders were fuzzy Deists by all appearances. Basically, they more or less believed that God touched Earth, got it started, and walked away. God was not involved in human life, and the supernatural and divine revelation was bullocks to them. These were not religious men for the most part.

Not to mention that they missed the point of the separation of Church and State. It was written in to prevent the abuses the Founders had seen when there is a state religion, the flat persecution and over-control. Granted, this is what they want, so I suppose they just make faces at that part of the Bill of Rights and are working with Liberty University to see how best to rewrite it.

And, yes, they mention rewriting history when they make their theocracy. As that is already happening in Williamsburg and at Mount Vernon, I'm not sure what they wish to really change, other than just insert "God," "Jesus," and "homosexuality is an abomination" a bunch of times in Founders' speeches.

Their blatant hypocrisy is always so striking to me, even when they complain about the hypocrisy of others. For example:

"Genocide being the ultimate expression," Cass declared, "the deliberate, systematic extermination of a group of people." Kind of like what is happening in Sudan's Darfur region, he added.

This quote is mainly a slippery-slope scare tactic. Maintaining a secular government doesn't mean that religion will be persecuted. We have a nice little document called the Bill of Rights that has this bit called the First Amendment which protects their right to practice their religion without the state stepping in and saying otherwise.

But, this claim is scary to the religious. So very scary, and it cultivates a wonderous feeling of an in-group that wants to protect. Yeah, we're struggling, but we have each other and we're going to hang in there! We're better than all those infidels, we're so strong and not tempted! They are truly masters of mob psychology and fear tactics. I'm not going to even touch the sickening comparison to Darfur.

But, earlier in the text, you see that these same people support forms of genocide:

Reconstructionists seek to impose the criminal code of the Old Testament, applying the death penalty for homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, witches, incorrigible juvenile delinquents and those who spread false religions.

This alone would put homosexuals, pagans, and most other religions at risk for the death penalty... which sounds a lot like they would like some systematic genocide themselves. So, genocide is okay, as long as it is people they do not like, as long as it is their genocide. Not exactly the highest form of morality, I would think.

Of course, looking at this screed, anyone who has ever had premarital sex, or couldn't prove that they hadn't when their friend slept over that one time, could be killed. Any teenager that has a bit more attitude than normal that day. I'm sure they'd even swing it to kill those who hold unpopular opinions or like Harry Potter. A nice little purge to get rid of anyone with even the smallest disagreements. A fundie paradise, if I properly understand their tantrums and claims of oppression whenever they are confronted with people with different opinions and life choices. Finally, they will be free! And it will only be at the cost of millions of lives. Sounds a lot like the Old Testament, if I'm allowed my one cheap shot for the day.

I wonder if they would just cut their losses and nuke San Francisco? I mean, I'm sure there's enough fundies in North Dakota to get access to our nuclear weapon stores up there. I also wonder where the stoning line is. When do they just send them to fundie reprogramming camp?

[North] has argued that stoning is the preferred means of capital punishment, noting that it is a communal activity and "the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost."

Well, it would save valuable dollars in the prison system. Though, I think the image of a man encouraging a bunch of people to get together and gleefully murder someone in cold blood (communal activity, indeed) speaks for itself.

If we are to maintain a death penalty, debate about it aside, it needs to be done with as little emotion as possible, with as few participants as possible, by people who are psychologically able to handle taking someone's life.

I don't think a Church congregation with a bunch of rocks fits that bill. Though, I suppose that the potluck afterward would be rather nice.

Folger said gays want to use hate-crimes legislation to "do away" with terms applied to homosexuality such as "abomination," which she noted is a word from Leviticus. The gays want to ban the Bible, according to Folger.

Their lack of empathy is saddening to me. Personally, I do not think anyone likes to be called an "abomination," especially for an inborn trait. Certainly if Christians faced that everyday, they would be raising hell.

What about not judging others? While I hate to hear that old patronizing line of "hate the sin, love the sinner," it's certainly preferable to constant reminders of being an affront to God and being told how horrible you are for accepting a part of yourself. It's not like coming out as gay is difficult for many people, or anything.

Of course, as has been pointed out many times before, this isn't going to ban the Bible or other hate speech, it just puts a harsher penalty on violent crimes motivated by hate. Now, you would think that they would be all for preventing violence. And, hey, they could even be protected if someone attacks a fundie for being a fundie. While it would suck for a minister to be tried for giving a speech that encouraged a mob, maybe they should also talk a lot more about loving the sinner, and that murder and assault are always sins, no matter the target.

Granted, they will never really admit it, but I'm sure the most vocal opponents of this bill don't really care about violence against gays. I'm sure there are some that feel smug and satisfied when they hear about a hate crime. They would never hurt a gay person, but those sinners finally got what they deserved.

And, again, to trot out the tired argument, just replace "gay" with "black" and see just how wonderful it all sounds. Same thing goes for "gay marriage" and "interracial marriage." Granted, there are plenty of racist fundies, so I suppose it only goes so far.

Ventrella bemoaned the secularization of society, claimed Christian children from coast to coast face harassment from public school teachers and officials and that the legal system must be used to fight back.

This is such utter tripe. Most teachers, being part of a Christian majority, are likely Christian. While they cannot generally talk about their faith in school or be very obvious about it, they certainly aren't going to persecute members of their own religion. My high school had a Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which sounds pretty religious to me, though students could not start a pagan group. I have heard of a girl who wrote an essay, and was taken aside and told that "she couldn't be an atheist because her 'ability to care for others feelings isn't an atheist trait.' and that her 'attitude was very Christian.'" In a society where Christian is the status quo, and people believe you to be so unless you say otherwise, I severely doubt these children face much true persecution. Not being allowed to run amuck and force your beliefs on others isn't persecution.

But then, picking out their inconsistencies is like shooting fish in a barrel. Which we've all done many a time. They talk large, and frighteningly, but it's not going to go that far. And, if it does, I expect some migration and a nice brain drain to Canada and other English-speaking nations.