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The above is a link to a video produced by the Freedom From Religion Foundation -- essentially a pod cast of its "Ask An Atheist" program -- which discusses "Religion Is Coming For Anti-Discrimination Laws".
It's a long video -- around 43 minutes. And if you don't watch at least most of it, you won't "get" what the concerns are.
A case coming up to the Supreme Court next year is a follow-up case by religionists to the famous (or infamous) Colorado cake case of a few years ago. Concerns that are being raised include that the new case could lead to discrimination against not only groups of people based on race, but against religious minorities, Mormons, atheists, Muslims, same sex couples, and other minority groups. It is essentially discussing religious rights versus civil rights.
Interesting piece of data, in recent years only 30% of weddings are religious weddings, while 70% are non-religious weddings.
Could we be going back to right to restrictions on educational venues, restaurants, lodgings, even theme parks, based on freedom of religions to discriminate? There is a suggestion that the religious right groups want to make "norms" "rules".
Here's the problem with discussing this topic on this part of the forum: the topic is restricted to religious rights versus civil rights -- not a place for political rants. If that's what happens, then the thread will get closed down quickly...and I worry that a few of our posters will attempt to make that happen.
Christian fundamentalism is bent on regressing nearly all social progress from the past century to the fullest possible extent. They are going to take everything down that they can.
Why?
Because it is a regressive ideology that dreams of a return to a lost "good old days" that never actually existed.
Because belief is conflated with personal identity, and a society that has and celebrates freedoms that are forbidden to fundamentalist Christians amounts to personal annihilation.
Because personal responsibility is trumped by family, tribal and national responsibility, so if you don't get yourself way up into other people's business, you are "condoning" their reprobate lifestyles and in danger of being judged / punished by god right along with them.
Christian fundamentalism is bent on regressing nearly all social progress from the past century to the fullest possible extent. They are going to take everything down that they can.
Why?
Because it is a regressive ideology that dreams of a return to a lost "good old days" that never actually existed.
Because belief is conflated with personal identity, and a society that has and celebrates freedoms that are forbidden to fundamentalist Christians amounts to personal annihilation.
Because personal responsibility is trumped by family, tribal and national responsibility, so if you don't get yourself way up into other people's business, you are "condoning" their reprobate lifestyles and in danger of being judged / punished by god right along with them.
I think they desire a time when they are once again 'in power', so to speak, and in recent decades that power has slipped away from them.
I think they desire a time when they are once again 'in power', so to speak, and in recent decades that power has slipped away from them.
That, too. "This was once a Christian nation" is also a powerfully appealing (to them) trope that they flog, though it has no actual basis in history. The closest that comes to the historical truth of matters is that this was (and still nominally is) a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority nation where in theory there is no state religion but in practice (structurally) there very much is. One of the things that has lit a fire under fundamentalists is that they are close to losing the longstanding white majority, as well as the ability to assume that areligion and atheism (the "nones") are not a significant competing element in society.
However, substantive discussion of that aspect may veer us too much into the political arena, because to make this a "Christian nation" (a Christian version of sharia law if you will) they must seize the reigns of political power (which they have largely done, via their unholy alliance with one of the political parties). And to substantively counter that, political responses must be discussable, and I'm not sure they are, even in A&A.
I just read a book titled Immoral Majority by a christian fundamentalist, Ben Howe. Yes, he's still a fundamentalist. But he accuses the evangelicals of abandoning the word of god for the sake of temporal power.
He says god's plan rules all, and in that sense, it never mattered whether Clinton or Trump won, since both of them are immoral and neither of them can overrule god. (He himself voted for a third party).
You either believe god's in charge or you don't. Seems like an obvious point.
I just read a book titled Immoral Majority by a christian fundamentalist, Ben Howe. Yes, he's still a fundamentalist. But he accuses the evangelicals of abandoning the word of god for the sake of temporal power.
He says god's plan rules all, and in that sense, it never mattered whether Clinton or Trump won, since both of them are immoral and neither of them can overrule god. (He himself voted for a third party).
Seems like an obvious point.
This is essentially my own view, even though I'm no longer a fundamentalist. The sorts of things fundamentalism has come to find acceptable, even admirable, are things that back in the day would have horrified them. And indeed, when I was a youngster, their mantra was that politics was not something they should even be involved in. It would not solve anything for the reasons this guy points out -- we believed god's plan rules all. In my mind it was kind of mixed up with the dreaded "social gospel" -- our belief was that turning your life over to god / accepting Jesus solved ALL problems and charity, social support systems, or any other political idea was counter to that.
Sometime in the late 1970s / early 1980s this began to change, although the roots of those changes can be traced as far back as the FDR administration. Some para-church organizations, many of them covert, such as The Family, have been working in this direction since those days.
One of the ways they got the sheeple on board with these changes was the invented doctrine of life beginning at conception, a concept that basically didn't exist prior to the late 1970s. Even Billy Graham-founded Christianity Today was wrestling with the question of whether fetuses were persons, back in the 1960s. Someone figured out that selecting abortion as a priority wedge issue and assigning that rhetoric to it was a winner, and I think they judged rightly.
A reminder that this conversation cannot get too political, and the topics that are normally off-limits on the forum are still off-limits. But so far, it's a good conversation.
As I recall, the people went directly to the courts to ask that the law be thrown out before it is even tested. They want to produce wedding web pages (or something) and want to be allowed to do so only for man/woman weddings based on their religious beliefs. Essentially, they are asking also that the law cited in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case be thrown out. Of course, at the Supreme Court level, that would also bring Obergefell into question, where the Court had ruled that same sex couples had the right to marry under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. So, how does equal right for all match up against a minority view about Freedom Of Religion?
If you didn't watch the video, I encourage you to do so.
This is essentially my own view, even though I'm no longer a fundamentalist. The sorts of things fundamentalism has come to find acceptable, even admirable, are things that back in the day would have horrified them. And indeed, when I was a youngster, their mantra was that politics was not something they should even be involved in. It would not solve anything for the reasons this guy points out -- we believed god's plan rules all. In my mind it was kind of mixed up with the dreaded "social gospel" -- our belief was that turning your life over to god / accepting Jesus solved ALL problems and charity, social support systems, or any other political idea was counter to that.
Sometime in the late 1970s / early 1980s this began to change, although the roots of those changes can be traced as far back as the FDR administration. Some para-church organizations, many of them covert, such as The Family, have been working in this direction since those days.
One of the ways they got the sheeple on board with these changes was the invented doctrine of life beginning at conception, a concept that basically didn't exist prior to the late 1970s. Even Billy Graham-founded Christianity Today was wrestling with the question of whether fetuses were persons, back in the 1960s. Someone figured out that selecting abortion as a priority wedge issue and assigning that rhetoric to it was a winner, and I think they judged rightly.
This is a real interesting post for several reasons.
Back in the '60s and '70s we still had the fairness doctrine in media. We still enforced the law that you couldn't promote politics in the pulpit.
Furthermore, white conservative Christians were more split between the political parties as there were many yellow dog Dems, Unionists and FDR dems still alive.
Many have pointed out that Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority were the beginning of what we have now. But the catalyst of that was when preachers and tent revivalists had access to cable TV.
Then one political party realized that "family values" would be a big seller to conservative Christians.
Then the Fairness Doctrine was removed.
Then Pat Robertson ran for president.
Then the other political party nominated a guy who had been rumored to have participated sexual misconduct which played right into the family values thing.
This is a real interesting post for several reasons.
Back in the '60s and '70s we still had the fairness doctrine in media. We still enforced the law that you couldn't promote politics in the pulpit.
Furthermore, white conservative Christians were more split between the political parties as there were many yellow dog Dems, Unionists and FDR dems still alive.
Many have pointed out that Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority were the beginning of what we have now. But the catalyst of that was when preachers and tent revivalists had access to cable TV.
Then one political party realized that "family values" would be a big seller to conservative Christians.
Then the Fairness Doctrine was removed.
Then Pat Robertson ran for president.
Then the other political party nominated a guy who had been rumored to have participated sexual misconduct which played right into the family values thing.
And then we got cable news.
And then we got social media.
And now here we are.
Hold on now. What law was it that was enforced that you couldn't promote politics in the pulpit?
Plus, the Fairness Doctrine only applied to broadcasts, not the printed press, so only a part of "media".
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