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Rick Warren, Government Sponsored Religion and Anti-Gay: A Comparison Of Two Arguments
Since selecting Rick Warren to give the "incantation" or whatever it's called, at Barack Obama's inauguration, there has been an ongoing argument about whether this is a good or bad decision in terms of building unity or throwing the gay constituency under the bus. Another argument that has gained much less attention is whether a government function should include religious aspects at all and whether that violates separation of church and state. The purpose here is to compare the two arguments, show their similarities and acknowledge their differences. Ultimately, a course of action should be taken for each.
Ideally, religion and government should be completely separate. The constitution specifies that government will not promote any religion over other religions, but in my opinion the two should be kept completely separate. Unfortunately this is not the case. Several things come immediately to mind that show the religion in government: state sponsored holidays are taken from the Christian religions, money refers to the Christian god, and attempts have been made to show the Christian 10 commandments in one or more courthouses. Then there's Kansas and countless other examples exist.
The main effect of this is to keep the idea in the public's mind that Christianity has a status, at least in this country, above other religions. It's kind of like having smoking ads on TV. As people see those ads and see people smoking, it's something they think of as normal and if not healthy, at least not too terribly unhealthy - the people on TV appear to still be alive (probably but not necessarily true, since the actors may have died since filming). More importantly, however, is that smoking becomes associated with being "cool," that if smoking people are shown in expensive restaurants, in country clubs or generally in any environment associated with wealth or power, being a smoker is associated with being "better." For the same reasons, displays of Christianity in government functions associates the two.
The immediate effects of Rick Warren on either gay marriage or Christianity in government are zero. Mr. Warren is not going to be appointed to a cabinet position or any other government position, thus his speaking will not directly result in laws or policies of the Obama administration. Longer term, having Warren speak reinforces his ideas on gay marriage and that America is a Christian nation slightly. There are, however, many other things going on that promote both ideas a lot more than this action.
It's important to note that gays are attempting to gain equality under the law, whereas non-Christians already have equality under the law but are trying to maintain it. The status of each cause is not equal and therefore the urgency of promoting each is not equal. Regardless, both are important.
In general, my feelings about religion can be summed up as this: if somebody wants to believe in an invisible friend to eat their Malt-O-Meal when they don't want to, that's cool with me. (There was a commercial long ago where a kid gave his Malt-O-Meal - a delicious, sugar-rich oatmeal-like substance - to his invisible friend. When his dad pointed out how nutritious and vitamin-rich Malt-O-Meal was, the kid took his bowl back and ate it. Yeah, that's going to happen.) By extension, I generally don't "make a fuss" about government promotion of religion unless it has a tangible effect on me. Long-term, this may not be a good position to take.
Incidentally, I believe that making any distinction between gay couples vs. heterosexual couples as it pertains to marriage specifically or anything else generally should not be done. Whether two people get married has no effect on others - not strictly true since there may be differences related to taxes, but this is insignificant. Restricting any group based on something that doesn't affect anybody else, or worse, based on religious beliefs, is morally wrong and damaging to the country as well as to the targeted group.
So what am I going to do about Rick Warren? Nothing. If I were to put energy into fighting Christianity in government, there are certainly better places to spend that energy. Likewise there are better places to fight for gay marriage and equal rights. I already voted against prop. 8. Working with people to overturn that would be a lot more likely to produce results than fighting Mr. Warren. It seems likely to me that making a lot of noise about Warren would be counterproductive to both causes in that it alienates people by showing that only the ideologically pure are acceptable. Alienating people over something as silly as Rick Warren - for someone who is going to have such a limited effect - is not the right thing to do.
-mwalker
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