Friday, April 22, 2005 | 5:27 a.m.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
WEEKEND EDITION
April 23 - 24, 2005
Please, let my people go.
Today, Jewish people the world over celebrate the Passover which commemorates the great Exodus from Egypt after Pharaoh, reluctantly, freed them as slaves to begin their 40-year journey to the Promised Land. I say it was reluctant because, as most of us know, it took Moses, expressing the will and begging for constant signs of the power of his God, to convince the Egyptian leader that people were not meant to be held in slavery.
It took all manner of plague and the death of Egypt's first born to convince Pharaoh that there was a power over earth far stronger than his own and that freeing the Jews was a good idea. The rest of the story is a rather remarkable history of a people as they wandered the desert in search of a home for themselves and their monotheistic view of the world around them. That story is told each year as Jewish people gather for the traditional Seder at which time we remember the hardship, learn the lessons of that time and, most importantly, pass those stories on to the next generation. At the Seder, the youngest among us are the focus of the evening.
I have been wondering about the Passover story and its relevance to the world in which we live today. Jews are not enslaved anymore, although there are people around the globe who are. Or, at least, there are people who wish it were so. Short of one people being subjugated to another, though, there is a feeling that some people consider themselves the arbiters of the lives of others and, in some way, enslavers of them.
The irony, of course, is that much of this is being done in the name of religion, something that should give us all pause.
I am talking about fundamentalism and, specifically, its downside. It is easy to find horrific examples of the dangers of religious fundamentalist thinking in other parts of the world. One need not look much past the Middle East and the kind of fundamentalist belief that causes a young person to strap bombs around himself and blow up a bus full of innocent children in the name of religion. How about Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia? The ability of fundamentalist religious leaders to enslave the minds of its people -- with the help and support of the political leadership -- is well known and abhorrent to Western ideals. The ideals of the Judeo-Christian ethic that form the bedrock of American culture and idealism.
It is easy to recognize how ugly and dangerous a fundamental religious belief can be if it is hijacked by a political agenda, which is determined to use a person's faith to advance a secular goal, because we see it every day. Over there.
So why is it so hard to recognize a similar use of religion in our own country? One in which a political agenda is advanced by harnessing the simplistic tenets of faith in mostly well-meaning people to advance causes that are mostly unrecognizable to the very people aiding and abetting the secular agenda?
Huh? I know what I just said may not make much sense to some people but that is precisely my point. Maybe I am just too much of a cynic on this point but I cannot believe for one moment that people of faith would knowingly condone violence, intolerance, greed and any other manner of misbehavior in the name of religion. And, yet, it seems that we are heading in that direction in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I haven't come to this belief easily. It has taken years of watching the political landscape in America and the ability of some in society to use people of faith to do their will. But recent events have sounded the alarms and force me to speak out, if only to clear my own conscience at a time of remembering what slavery of minds and men was all about.
It is no secret that religious fundamentalists -- let's call them the Christian right-wing of the Republican Party for now -- have been railing against judges, both federal and state, because of the way the Terri Schiavo case was handled. Forget the hypocritical nature of their concerns -- right to life in one case, demand to die in another -- the fact remains that people who held deep and abiding religious convictions thought that Terri should be kept alive against her husband's wishes, the courts' decrees and, most importantly, Terri's own desire. That, of course, is their right to feel that way.
When belief turned ugly, though, was when our political leadership used the Schiavo case to lash out against the independence of our judiciary with demands that all judges who didn't agree with the minority of people who tried to insert themselves into Terri's life and death should be removed. That came with a chorus of fundamentalist believers who must have forgotten, if only for the moment, that it is that independent judiciary that is the last and only defense in this country against religious oppression. But because the ability of politicians to market their agendas to people not looking past the immediacy of an emotional moment is so great, the result is a growing belief in this country that judges who don't toe a particular religious agenda must be removed.
Here is where I am supposed to remind everyone that this great country was founded by people running away from the religious oppression of others, people who just wanted to be left alone to believe as they chose and not the way a government or a majority of people decided they should. It seems we have already forgotten that lesson, which is only a few hundred years old. Perhaps America should have a Seder every year because that has allowed the Jewish people to remember ugliness for thousands of years.
And for those who say that this fundamentalist movement is small and inconsequential, remember this. Recently, the United States Air Force Academy -- you know, that school that is supposed to train young men and women to protect this country and our way of life -- has been jolted by acts of oppression from Christian cadets toward those who don't believe as they do. Simply put, if a person believes that his fellow serviceman is going to hell because he doesn't believe the way the majority of students want him to, then the level of trust needed for our armed services to function properly will be nonexistent. Where will this country be then when our Air Force and Army can't function because of religious squabbles? Ask any general. Ask any politician who argued that gays couldn't serve for the very same reason.
Some with control over the Air Force Academy suggest that not much can be done. They claim that "Evangelical Christians do not check their religion at the door." That is frighteningly similar to an essay about religion written by a current Georgia congressman who claims that he votes his religious faith in the U.S. Congress because he can't be expected to "check his religion at the door."
And there is the rub. I say that in a democracy, when you take an oath to represent the people who elected you and uphold the Constitution of the United States, then you have a sworn duty to do so. And if your religious faith prevents you from fulfilling that responsibility then you should resolve that dilemma in favor of the American people. Yes, we want people of goodwill and we want good people to offer themselves to public service. That is how we get the best from democracy.
But if you can't check your religion at the door to the people's house or the people's Air Force, then don't go inside. Believe as you will but don't allow your beliefs to overcome your sense that this democracy works only when people of differing opinions, differing beliefs and differing ideas believe that their voices are being heard.
That should be the lesson for this Passover.
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