Attack of the Theocrats!: How the Religious Right Harms Us All—and What We Can Do About It

by Faircloth, Sean

  The minds of Einstein and Madison make me very optimistic about the future. The trends arc toward science and compassion, inherently humble concepts, and, especially among the young, toward justice, secularism, and greater inclusion. However, those with the greatest and most absolute certainty can, at least at first, have a rhetorical advantage. Some people find certainty extremely comforting. Indeed, the seductive simplicity of certainty is the greatest rhetorical advantage of fundamentalism.

  Let’s give credit to fundamentalists. They sell the comfort of certainty, and many people have been buying, including our politicians. The Christian fundamentalists have secured special rights in Congress and the states. Fundamentalists have secured billions of tax dollars that are in turn used to help them achieve their political ends.

  Almost thirty years ago fundamentalist author Robert Simonds wrote How to Elect Christians to Public Office. Dismissing the fundamentalists as mere crackpots was not savvy politics. Their strategy was excellent and successful beyond what their numbers would warrant. Can nonfundamentalist Americans—those committed to the separation of church and state—be as committed to truth as fundamentalists can be committed to unbending, ancient documents? Can we be as committed to gentleness as they are committed to corporal punishment in school? Can we be as committed to justice and inclusion as they are to judgmental harshness? Can we be as committed to action based on reason as they are to action based on unbending doctrine?

  Perhaps the biggest motivation for action is the stark and harsh results of privileging of religion in U.S. law. We will see that, far from an intellectual abstraction, this breach of Jefferson’s wall has greatly harmed Americans and people the world over. Moreover, fundamentalists, through their political and legislative efforts, have harmed the very American exceptionalism they claim to revere. After all, America is exceptional only so long as it embodies the rationalism and reason that were central to the genius of Jefferson and Madison, our brilliant leaders who envisioned, designed, and then built the all-important wall separating church and state.

  3 Religious Bias in Law Harms Us All

  Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests.

  —Mitt Romney

  During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

  —James Madison

  You’ve heard the phrase “you can’t legislate morality.” In fact, the only thing you can legislate is morality. Legislative decisions embody the moral choices of a society. Most religious people are good and honorable citizens who place a high premium on morality, as they should, yet theocrats increasingly manipulate our laws and tax dollars in ways that harm real people—and that are, put simply, immoral.

  Religious people will often ask the nonreligious, how can you be moral if you don’t believe in God? Consider the words of Jefferson: “Fix Reason firmly in her seat. . . . Question with boldness even the existence of a God. . . . Do not be frightened from this enquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure for you.” I ask, how can our morals be rigidly bound by ancient texts rather than guided and modified by reason and compassion?

  Whether we turn our attention to health care, the care of children, women’s rights, tax policy, or general issues of religious discrimination, we see myriad examples of real people harmed by religious bias in law—in short, by religious “morality.” Yet the vast majority of Americans, including Americans, religious and secular, who care about separation of church and state, remain blithely unaware of even the most harmful and immoral of these laws.

  You’ve already been briefly introduced to the horrific ways in which religious bias in law harms children, and we will see more examples of how it harms children, which is but one of several areas in American law that reeks with unjust bias. We must shine a light on the many ways that religious bias in law and in many of our government institutions harms all of us and, through our foreign policy, harms people the world over.

  Religious Bias Hurts Our Men and Women in Uniform

  Federal law requires everyone who enlists in the Armed Forces to take the enlistment oath, pledging to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution states that religion cannot be used as a qualification for public service and that our government can neither advance nor inhibit religion. Despite this oath, assignments and promotions based on religious membership rather than merit have occurred in the U.S. military, as have direct endorsements of religion, particularly in recent decades. The military has failed to create effective mechanisms for reporting and, when necessary, disciplining those who discriminate and harass based on religion.

  In 2004 “friendly fire” killed Pat Tillman, who left the National Football League to join the Army Rangers. The circumstances of his being shot in the head three times by U.S. weapons while on tour in Afghanistan remain hazy. (The military first pretended that Tillman died under enemy fire.) A well-read man, Tillman, just before he died, had made an appointment to meet with the antiwar intellectual Noam Chomsky. Tillman was not religious and opposed the Iraq War, and he is rightly considered a national hero. But how would a more anonymous soldier in the military be treated who held similar views about our place in the universe?

  Consider the case of Specialist Jeremy Hall, who chose to be honest about his lack of religion. Unlike Tillman, who was used by the military as a propaganda tool, Hall did not have the protection of fame. A superior officer implied to Hall that to get promoted he must put his lack of religion aside and pray with his fellow soldiers. A man of integrity, Hall refused—and didn’t receive the promotion. Later, at a meeting of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers organized by Hall, a major crashed the meeting and chastised Hall, threatening disciplinary action.

  Because of his personal beliefs, Hall received death threats from fellow soldiers. On leave in Qatar, a group of U.S. soldiers chased Hall, hurling slurs and threatening to beat him. Fearing for Hall’s safety, the army assigned him a bodyguard. He eventually chose not to reenlist.

  Such harassment is not unique. A 2005 U.S. Air Force report found that officers, faculty, and cadets at the Air Force Academy promoted fundamentalist beliefs and harangued cadets who practiced a different religion or no religion. Media reports have revealed similar incidents in the military, particularly in recent years.

  Contrast that with what happens to those officers who actively promote fundamentalist beliefs. In 2006, seven high-ranking uniformed military officials appeared in a video promoting the Christian Embassy, a proselytizing organization led by Bill Bright. Bright founded the multimillion-dollar Campus Crusade for Christ. He signed the 2002 “Land Letter” that offered President George W. Bush religious justifications for invading Iraq. What happened to the uniformed officers in the Christian Embassy video? Two of them, General Robert Caslen and Colonel Lucious Morton, were promoted, despite a reprimand by the Department of Defense’s inspector general for their uniformed participation in this evangelical project.

  Organizations like the Officers Christian Fellowship (OCF), the Military Ministry of the Campus Crusade for Christ, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), and the Christian Military Fellowship (CMF) encourage soldiers to proselytize. The OCF Web site states, “Our purpose is to glorify God by uniting Christian officers for biblical fellowship and outreach, equipping and encouraging them to minister effectively in the military society.” They “call on Christian officers to integrate biblical standards of excellence” into their professional responsibilities. They think “local or ship-based chapel activities offer prime venues for Christ-centered outreach and service to a military community. . . .
By cooperating with and assisting chaplains and lay leaders, we seek to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ throughout the entire military society.”

  The OCF operates on almost all of our bases worldwide and counts 15,000 U.S. military personnel as members. This organization seeks to coopt military resources and personnel to market religious fundamentalism. This active proselytizing leads soldiers like Specialist Hall to seek support from Jason Torpy, a West Point graduate and president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers.

  On bases and ships, chaplains, attached to commanders, work as close advisers on morale, giving them a special status within the chain of command. According to the only federal court decision directly dealing with the military chaplaincy’s constitutionality,Katcoff v. Marsh, chaplains are to “meet the religious needs of a pluralistic military community.” Army chaplains, the court observed, aren’t authorized “to proselytize soldiers or their families.” Chaplains must not advance one religious viewpoint over another, whether monotheism over other types of theism or theism over nontheism, yet there is no education in religious diversity during the Chaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course.

  When my father served in the military, the idea that the military itself would foster religious discrimination or favoritism was unknown. America’s military includes a diverse citizenry. That fundamentalism could become embedded as a quasi-official military religion was antithetical to real military values. It still should be.

  Religious Bias Hurts Our Health

  Women’s Health

  In 2005, after being raped, a twenty-year-old woman in Tucson, Arizona, made frantic calls to pharmacies trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception. She finally found a pharmacy carrying the prescription, but was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense the medication because of the pharmacist’s religion. By the time a willing pharmacist was found, the optimal time for taking the medication had passed.

  The Guttmacher Institute reports that fundamentalist pharmacists in several states get special permission from state legislatures to ignore their professional duties and to even deny rape victims emergency contraception. Pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions for contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives, in over fifteen states. Since emergency contraception became available without a prescription for women over the age of seventeen, refusals to provide nonprescription emergency contraception have also been reported.

  Pharmacists work in the health-care profession, not in a church. They have the right to consider their own religious beliefs in determining what medical decisions they make for their own care, but their religious bias should never impede fulfillment of their professional duty to patients. The trauma of rape should never be compounded by the denial of access to emergency contraception. Each year, approximately 25,000 women in America become pregnant as a result of rape. Timely access to emergency contraception could help many of these women avoid the additional trauma of an unintended pregnancy.

  We must pass the Access to Birth Control Act, which would require prescriptions to be filled without delay; if a pharmacist has a personal objection to filling a legal prescription, the law would require it be filled immediately by another pharmacist. We must also pass the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act, which would mandate that hospitals guarantee rape victims access to emergency contraception, regardless of the religious bias of health-care providers.

  Unjust, religiously biased laws pertaining to sexual health have a deep, pervasive, and harmful effect not just in the United States, but also abroad. In 2003 in Ethiopia, Yemmi Samta didn’t know that her fourteen-year-old-daughter, Saron, was pregnant until she found Saron unconscious and bleeding profusely on the dirt floor of their hut. Samta begged a neighbor to load Saron onto a donkey cart and take her to the nearest clinic, twelve miles away. The girl died on the journey from blood loss, the result of a back-alley abortion.

  In places like Ethiopia, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) often provide the only option for women and girls who need abortions. Unfortunately, a U.S. policy created under Ronald Reagan often restricts foreign NGOs that receive U.S. family-planning funds from using their own non-U.S. funds to provide clinical abortion services. The NGOs are also often prohibited from advocating for abortion-law reform in their own countries and even from providing accurate medical counseling or referrals regarding abortion.

  This global “gag rule” restricts access to basic, accurate women’s health information and services. Its existence demonstrates the power of American theocratic forces. These groups view foreign aid funding as a form of leverage, enabling them to impose their religious bias on people in other countries, including many of the most vulnerable and impoverished people on earth.

  Since President Reagan initiated the gag rule, women across the globe have been denied health-care services and information they rightfully need and deserve. The global gag rule prohibits a woman from knowing her medical options because to allow her comprehensive information and care would encourage what religious extremists label as immoral actions. Neither Congress nor the president should deny women accurate medical information. To impose a gag rule is to mandate a particular religious bias and to promote religious propaganda based on the views of specially privileged religious groups—and to use tax dollars to do so.

  Who sits in the Oval Office determines whether or not the global gag rule stands. Both Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama overturned the policy, while Presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush imposed the gag rule. The lives and rights of women should not hang on one man’s edict (or, when we get there, one woman’s edict). Congress must permanently repeal this gag rule, so no matter who’s in the Oval Office, federal funds can go to hospitals and clinics that provide comprehensive reproductive information and services, rather than only to those that restrict informing women of all their choices and rights.

  Health Education

  Policies based on religious bias affect women’s health and our children’s health and health education. Religious ideology, not medical science, now targets many public school children in health-related curricula across the country. For example, in May 2009, using federal “abstinence-only-until-marriage” funds, the State of Mississippi held a teen abstinence summit. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “The 2009 summit featured religious themes and overtly Christian messages, including a lengthy presentation about the Ten Commandments by Judge John Hudson. Judge Hudson told the audience, ‘Abstain, God says, from promiscuous sex. . . . Why would He tell us not to do it? He’s not. He’s telling us that He created this great and wonderful gift for a special and unique committed relationship that is to last forever.’ The program also included several prayers.” Yes, that’s our tax dollars at work.

  Consider what experts say about such programs: the American Academy of Pediatrics states that “abstinence-only programs have not demonstrated successful outcomes with regard to delayed initiation of sexual activity or use of safer sex practices. . . . Programs that offer a discussion of HIV prevention and contraception as the best approach for adolescents who are sexually active have been shown to delay the initiation of sexual activity and increase the proportion of sexually active adolescents who reported using birth control.” Similarly, researchers who studied the National Survey of Family Growth to determine the impact of sex education found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to get pregnant than those who received abstinence-only education.

  Since 1997 the federal government has allocated more than $1 billion for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Making matters worse, by law, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs can’t provide lifesaving information about the health benefits of contraception and condoms for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies. Sex education programs for teens should protect the health and safety of children—not promote a particular religious bias. />
  Fundamentalists oppose pediatricians, preferring propaganda to information. As the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends, medically accurate sex education programs free from religious bias must be supported. No federal dollars should fund abstinence-only programs. Tax money should go to programs that work, tell the truth about health issues, and respect the separation of church and state.

  Life-Saving Health Research

  For a worldview that often references God’s love, where is the compassion in failing to provide lifesaving information about AIDS? Where is the compassion in prohibiting lifesaving research?

  Did you ever know someone who faced leukemia? About a quarter million children and adults in the world develop some form of leukemia every year. Many die. But there’s hope. Through embryonic stem cell research, scientists may develop a special type of white blood cell that destroys leukemia cancer cells.

  Did you ever know someone who faced diabetes? Millions upon millions face this horrible disease, often resulting in amputation, disability, and death. But, because of embryonic stem cell research, there’s hope for the development of cells that produce insulin for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Stem cell research could prolong the lives of millions of diabetics.

  Maybe you know of someone who faced Lou Gehrig’s disease or a stroke or Parkinson’s disease or a spinal cord injury. Millions of people face these deadly challenges. Embryonic stem cell research offers real hope, but there is a catch. Theocratic extremists object to such basic research. Thousands of embryonic stem cells from fertility clinics across the country are destroyed every year rather than used to advance what the National Institutes of Health says is “one of the most promising areas of research.”