The Huffington Post reported this week that “the American Family Association, a religious right group, is urging that Tillikum (Tilly), the killer whale that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, be put down, preferably by stoning. Citing Tilly’s history of violent altercations, the group is slamming SeaWorld for not listening to Scripture in how to deal with the animal.”

Apparently, the Bible should be referred to in cases such as this:

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” (Exodus 21:28)

“However, the group is going further and laying the blame for the trainer’s death directly at the feet of Chuck Thompson, the curator in charge of animal behavior, because, according to Scripture,”

But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:29)

I submit to the AFA that it is now 2010, not 610 B.C.E. when the Yahwists were busy stoning everybody who disagreed with them. Can we at least pretend that 3,000 years have gone by?

I hereby name the American Family Association  nithings. Let them stand shamed and condemned before all for their vile and reprehensible behavior.

I would like to introduce here my very first piece for Politicus USA (www.politicususa.com), Conservatives Argue Against the Constitution When They Oppose Gay Marriage

I am excited to be part of Politicus and look forward to being a weekly contributor there. This piece I see as a logical extension of my most recent piece here regarding gender and this is an issue, along with anything related to church-state issues, that I will discuss frequently wherever I can get my voice heard.

When you construct a neat little box for yourself and call this box “purity” or “truth,” then by definition all that falls outside that box becomes “impure” and “false.” That is a necessary result of such box construction. It is a process followed by monotheism (where everything outside itself is seen as “paganism”) and by particular groups within that genus – the Israelites themselves and a sub-category, the Essenes, and later, by the Christians. The objective might be to “box in” the “constructed other” (everyone outside that box) but it has the concomitant (and therefore unavoidable) effect of also boxing in those who lay claim to that purity and that truth.

They have, by creating the “other” category, also created a category for themselves: “We are special. We are real Americans; you are false.”

We have seen this construction of a purity box in American politics. Especially since the election of Barack Obama, Republicans who do not object to every proposal the president makes are accused of not really being Republican. This once unofficial trend has become doctrinaire (the ranting of Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck, Hannity and others) and has now been codified as of Friday, January 29, 2010: A proposal for a “litmus test” which would have required candidates to affirm ten core conservative positions (Ten Commandments anyone?) did not materialize but what did still amounts to a creed:  GOP candidates must support the party’s platform if they want gold for their war chests.[1]

The religious undertones are unmistakable. More and more, the GOP has become “God’s Own Party” – a party in which political purity closely aligns not only with religious purity but adopts the language of religious purity.[2] As Regina Schwartz says of monotheism,

Politics are not hardwired into theology. Worship of one deity need not necessarily produce this violent notion of identity, but monotheism has been caught up with particularism, with that production of collective identity as peoples set apart, and it so happens that when the biblical text moves more explicitly toward polytheism, it also endorses a more attractive toleration, even appreciation of difference.[3]

And it is this sense of collective identity, this idea that Republicans are a people apart – a people of God, a Chosen People like the Israelites – that epitomizes the recent polarization of the American political – and religious – landscape. It is not only required that you be Republican to be acceptable; you must also be a Christian, and not just any Christian, but a certain type of Christian.

Shades of the so-called Old Testament (more correctly, the Hebrew Bible).

In Upstate New York, recently, Republican Dede Scozzafava was forced to withdraw from the campaign for NY-23 Representative because she was not Republican enough to be truly a Republican. As Politico reported at the time, “Conservatives have asserted that Scozzafava, a GOP establishment-backed state assemblywoman who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, is far too liberal for them to support…”[4]

As the Washington Post tells it, “[former Alaska governor Sarah] Palin and [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Pawlenty cast the contest as a fight for the direction of the GOP.” But it is more than this. For purity ideologues, Scozzafava is not really a Republican at all. Pawlenty was strident: “we cannot send more politicians to Washington who wear the Republican jersey on the campaign trail but then vote like Democrats in Congress.” Glenn Beck denounced her as “ACORN-supported” and an “Obama-Lite Republican” and conservative robo-calls in the district describing her as a “child killer,” a “lesbian lover” and a “homo.”[5]

Rush Limbaugh was more blunt:

We can say she is guilty of widespread bestiality. She has screwed every RINO in the country. Everyone can see just how phony and dangerous they are. 2010 might be a nightmare for PETA. Tow animals may become extinct: RINOs and Blue Dog Democrats.[6]

CBSNews reports that “Michelle Malkin mocked her as a ‘radical leftist.’”[7]

Quite clearly, it is not political issues that define one’s political affiliation, but what are perceived to be violations of the Ten Commandments.

Again, we see the shadow of the Old Testament behind opposition to Scozzafava.

Regina Schwartz:

In the myth of monotheism, pluralism is betrayal, punishable with every kind of exile: loss of home, loss of land, even alienation from the earth itself.[8]

Loss of political office.

Schwartz notes the manner in which the Biblical narrative paints “inclinations toward polytheism” as “sexual infidelity” and how Israel itself “is castigated for ‘whoring after’ other gods, thereby imperiling her ‘purity.’ The land itself must be kept clean “or its inhabitants will be ejected, ‘vomited’ out of the land… When Israel is not monotheistic, it is filthy and pollutes the land” (Lev 20.20-25). “When Israel worships a foreign deity, she is a harlot, the land is made barren, and she is ejected from the land” (Jer 3.2-3).[9]

Dede Scozzafava has been vomited forth.

With the advent of the Republican purity test, of its “Ten Commandments” she will not be alone. This move leaves many Republican office-holders vulnerable.  The pressure to conform is intense. Extremist Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly bent Republican office holders to his will. In the case of Dede Scozzafava, CBSNews reports,

[Newt] Gingrich…[who] earlier this week…said conservative support for Hoffman had been a mistake…On Saturday… threw his support behind Hoffman via a Twitter post. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who only a few days ago similarly backed Scozzafava, is now behind Hoffman.[10]

Repent or die…a political death. The message has been made clear. Nobody wants to be vomited forth.

Inside that little purity box there can be no tolerance of differing opinions because tolerance = compromise and compromise means surrendering the distinctions between True and false, no ultimate truth and no heresy. You’re one of “us” or you’re one of “them” (the dreaded “other”); you’re for us or against us. From inside the purity box, it is a struggle of good vs. evil, of right vs. wrong, of capital-T Truth vs. moral relativism.

In the same sense that ancient Christians saw themselves as inheritors of the mantle of “Chosen People” today’s extremist Republicans (is there any other kind after “Black Friday” January 29, 2010?) see themselves as today’s Chosen People.

We heard this rhetoric during the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11: America was chosen by God to be the new Rome, a vehicle for the spread of Christianity and by extension then, Bush was chosen by God to be President. If you opposed Bush, you opposed not only America but you placed yourself in opposition to God.

Politics and religion have become indistinguishable in the new GOP; The Ten Commandments of the Israelites or the “ten political positions of the Republican Party. And as I have demonstrated here, the parallelism is not at all superficial, but reaches to a much deeper level. Be pure or you are not one of us; you will be vomited forth.

As New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann observes (Intolerance and the Gospel, 2006), the history of Christianity demonstrates that there is little tolerance for thinking or acting outside the “orthodox” Christian tradition. He suggest (and the evidence of the GOP offers tangible evidence) “that attempts to harmonize Christianity with the democratic ideal of tolerance cannot really work because there is a logical contradiction between monotheism and Christology, on the one hand, and the core values of a pluralistic society, on the other.”[11]

When the purity box makes compromise impossible, what is the prognosis for American politics? We have seen a very centrist-oriented Obama reaching across the aisle to work with Republicans. The Republicans insist that they are willing to work with Obama, but what they are suggesting is not give-and-take, it is not compromise (because compromise is not compatible with purity) but surrender: Obama must do what they want. They seem happily unaware that they lost the election (Democrats, by contrast, seem unaware they won, but that is another story altogether).

As Obama told the GOP leaders, “this is not how Democracy works.”[12]

But the GOP no longer seems interested in Democracy. The GOP’s only interest is in the diktat of “Truth”; the GOP has become the party of extremism. Extremism is “any ideology taken to its extreme, interpreted and enacted in an absolute sense that allowed no compromise with practical considerations or accommodation with the world.” As historian Michael Gaddis puts it, “Extremist discourse, in religion as in other contexts, valued above all zeal and authority in the pursuit of its cause, and strove for a total and perfect expression of its values.”[13]

And presto, we have the Republican Party’s “purity test.”

Religious extremists, Gaddis observes, “convinced themselves that they have enacted not only their own will, but God’s.”[14] We live in a world where political extremists feel the same.[15]

Such an attitude does not leave much room for the rest of us. Nor does it leave much hope for the future of American politics. The only solution, from the GOP’s point of view, is the complete surrender of the Democratic Party to its will. A governing majority is impossible without compromise; this necessity of working across the aisle is built into the American political system.

But hands cannot reach across the purity box. Or as Egyptologist Jan Assmann puts it (Moses the Egyptian, 1997), “false gods cannot be translated.[16] And the true God lives within the purity box; outside are false gods – real and metaphorical.

We are being asked to choose between the Constitution and God.

Historically, the solution to this dispute has been inquisition, holy war…and theocracy. Constitutionally, none of those outcomes are desirable – or even theoretically possible. The Founding Fathers could have established the new nation as a monarchy or a theocracy; they did neither. We can only assume they meant to have a liberal democracy. The Constitution codifies these ideas. It protects that liberal democracy.

The Constitution, significantly, is the highest development of the ideals of the Enlightenment.

But the war against the Constitution is very real and has proven unexpectedly effective. Church-State walls are under attack and crumbling and adherence to Enlightenment concepts such as diversity, tolerance, and individual human rights are seen as attacks on God. The Enlightenment gave us the Constitution; extremist Christianity and the Republican Party have united to attack – and destroy it.

The purity test – the Nicene Creed of the new republicanism – is not the end; it is only a step in the road that defines the nature of the struggle for the faithful. The purity box does not allow for retreat or surrender; nor for the sake of all our ancestors created in the New World – a land of liberty – can there can any retreat or surrender from progressives.

The outcome of such a surrender is unthinkable.

---

[1] My Oxford American Dictionary (2008) calls a creed “a statement of belief or principles.”

[2] HonoluluAdvertiser.com http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100129/BREAKING01/100129052/GOP+adopts+platform+test+for+candidates+during+Hawaii+meeting

[3] Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997),, 31.

[4] Politico.com http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28970.html

[5] Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/09/AR2009110903690.html

[6] MediaMatters for America http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/limbaugh-scozzafava-guilt_n_342535.html

[7] Coop’s Corner, CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/31/blogs/coopscorner/entry5475675.shtml

[8] Schwartz (1997), 47.

[9] Schwartz (1997), 63.

[10] Coop’s Corner, CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/31/blogs/coopscorner/entry5475675.shtml

[11] http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~gluedem/eng/

[12] The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/obama-goes-to-the-gop-lio_n_442331.html

[13] Michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (University of California Press, 2005), 5-6.

[14] Gaddis (2005), 6.

[15] One need only remember Palin’s assurances to the “faithful” that God would do the right thing for America on election day. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/10/palin_the_right.html

[16] Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism ((Harvard University Press, 1997), 3.

Update:  Please see the recent post by Gus diZerega over at Beliefnet,

James O’Keefe, Conservatism, Racism and a Religious Connection

Thanks go to Makarios for pointing me towards this excellent piece.

(Now that Jól is past I have had time to reflect on what the holiday means to me. I have also had time to reflect on various environmental issues. There is a symmetry that exists for Pagan peoples where religion and environment are concerned that is perhaps missing for some, and this article is meant to address one particular aspect of that symmetry. My goal here is to offer food for thought, rather than solutions – Hrafnkell)

People like fireplaces and wood burning stoves – not to mention a good bonfire. Not only for the warmth they provide, but for aesthetic reasons, particular on a cold winter’s day. Few will disagree that the sight and sound of flames licking at wood is a recipe for contentment.

But for Heathens, a wood fire can have religious connotations that might be lacking for those who follow other religious paths (the idea of the Yule log is not unique to Germanic Paganism).

No doubt there are few who have not heard of the Yule log. Fewer are probably aware of its Pagan antecedents.  For a Heathen, the Twelve Days are unimaginable without a decorated tree (the decorations were originally gifts to the tree) and a burning log in the fireplace.

We cannot always get oak, but we can get wood – actual wood rather than Duraflame’s napalm-like qualities, or the logs made out of coffee grounds. But wood, after many millennia, is becoming a politically incorrect and environmentally inexpedient commodity.

People have become aware of the polluting qualities of burning wood. We live in environmentally conscious times, and we are daily bombarded with studies revealing the origins and causes of various forms of pollution.

I first encountered the idea of particulate pollution when I moved (briefly) to Florida. Florida, I learned at the time has (or had) a problem with particulate matter floating around in the air and this was a cause of concern, given my allergies. I knew that stuff wasn’t good for you.

The U.S. Department of Energy has identified some of the problems related to wood-burning fireplaces – they emit various nasty substances, including the above-mentioned particulate matter, but also nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and organic gases. That a wood-fire can therefore be harmful to a person’s health scarcely needs saying. It is particularly bad for people who already suffer from various health problems or whose health is precarious because of age or pregnancy.

There is the added issue of fireplaces serving as a means of escape for heat – thus leading to increased energy consumption to keep your home warm. For this please see the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Savers Blog.

Clean Air Revival informs us about the dangers of particulate pollution:

Burning solid fuel yields particulate pollution – solid particles smaller than a red blood cell which have been implicated in 30,000 deaths in the US and 2.1 million deaths world wide per year. .  “Particulate pollution is the most important contaminant in our air. …we know that when particle levels go up, people die¹. ” Indeed, wood smoke is chemically active in the body 40 times longer than tobacco².

1. Joel Schwartz, Ph.D., Harvard School of Public Health, E Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2002

2. Wm. A Pryor, Persistent Free Radicals in Woodsmoke: An ESR Spin Trapping Study, Free Radical Biology and Medicine 1989, 7(1): 17-21

Perhaps unsurprisingly, wood smoke can contribute to the risk of cancer: A  July 11, 2005 study published in Chest informs us that exposure to wood smoke may increase the risk of lung cancer via a mechanism similar to that of tobacco: “… our findings demonstrate that wood smoke could produce similar effects on p53, phospho-p53, and MDM2 protein expression as tobacco.… It is important to consider wood smoke exposure as a possible risk factor for the development of lung cancer in nonsmoker subjects.”

Not a pretty picture by any means. I learned long ago that grandma made me sick by using wood cutting boards and preparing raw meat and veggies on the same surface; now I learn than her fireplace was giving me cancer!(For more on the dangers of wood smoke see Clean Air Revival and Wisconsin Department of Health Services.)

The situation is so serious (or at least, perceived to be – there are critics of the measures) that some parts of the country are placing limits on burning wood. Planetizen.com reports that “Five years ago, the Central Valley became the first area of California to ban indoor wood burning when an ‘alert’ was called by the air district; other air districts followed in 2008.” On October 17, 2008, “Regulators in the Bay Area Air Quality Management District are clamping down on wood burning between November and February as a way to meet a new federal law limiting the amount of breathable, fine particles.” On March 9, 2009, the Connecticut Legislature considers HB6616 An Act Establishing Wood Smoke to be a Public Nuisance (!) On December 29, 2009, it was reported that Bay Area inspectors in California caught 47 fireplace violators on Jól day.

Ouch. Happy Jól, folks.

In many cases you can only have a fire if you have the proper type of wood stove. In others, no fires at all.

What’s a conscientious but devout Heathen to do?

Will the day come when across the fifty states we are barred from burning a Yule log? And should a religious waver be possible?  A spokesman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District does not offer an encouraging answer: “We know a lot of people like to burn on this holiday, but it’s our duty to protect public health,” said Ralph Borrmann, the spokesman.

While the dangers of wood smoke cannot be denied, it seems hypocritical that those who cause the worst levels of pollution – big corporations – proceed with doing untold harm to our environment with hardly a comment directed at them. You can watch their chimneys belch smoke into the sky but you can’t burn a Yule log for your gods?

Still, legal and regulatory hypocrisies aside, it’s a bit of an ethical conundrum. If Paganism is nature-based religion, how does one reconcile concern for the environment with concern for showing proper devotion to one’s gods?

I would argue for one obvious (and partial) solution: that even where bans do not exist, one solution might be to burn less frequently. Obviously, a person could choose to burn wood only for religious reasons and on religious occasions. Most of us do not require the use of a wood fireplace to heat our homes (not that the heat we obtain via the power company comes pollution free!). For most of us, aesthetics are at the heart of a fire.

A simulated fire is obviously inadequate. This would amount to pretending to toss a pinch of incense on a flame or pretending to pray. It is the cultic act that has significance. Faux piety is no piety at all.

Wood pellets are offered as an environmentally safe option when burning wood. They produce less soot and ash (and no creosote – the stuff that causes chimney fires)  and they are made from wood that would otherwise go into a landfill. See Treehugger.com. But while wood pellets produce far less pollution, burning wood pellets does not have the same effect as a log. While aesthetic considerations might be set aside in the normal course of events, religious reasons render this a far less attractive solution.

For those who are interested in both the ethics and the environmental issues involved, please see Burnwise, a partnership program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

So I am sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office and the TV is on. It is tuned to ABC rather than FOX (the station of choice here in town) and for that I was thankful. The View was on, and though the chattering and the way the hosts talk over each other can be annoying, it was at least not Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

But then their conversation turned to Pat Robertson and his heinous remarks about Haiti. I was glad to hear all four of them – including conservative Christian Elizabeth Hasselbeck, roundly condemn Robertson. I was surprised also to hear Elizabeth defend Obama and what she felt was a veiled reference to Robertson in Obama’s reassurance that Haiti would “not be forsaken.”

But the conversation quickly came to annoy me. “Why,” I thought, “am I forced to sit here and listen to all this crap about what their god would or would not do?” You cannot escape it. This is a debate we would not even be having, we would not be forced to listen to and to endure, if it were not for monotheism. There was no Satan in the days of polytheism for people so sell their souls to. This was an accusation that could not have been made. And therefore, a debate which could not have taken place.

We cannot escape it, however. We see it on TV, we see it in magazines, in newspapers, and on the Web. Hate, hate, hate. Condemnation after condemnation.

It is only at times like this, it seems, that any sound of condemnation comes from moderate Christians. Most of the time, the hate goes unremarked. Generally, the only people who speak up are atheists. Even many Pagans refuse to speak up. I’ve been told – scolded would be a better word – by Pagans who tell me that “Pagans don’t do that.” We Pagans are supposed to make nice with Christians. Apparently, no matter how egregious the offense.

And I am offended. I take my own advice. I turn the channel, I flip to a different page of the of the paper or the magazine I’m reading, or go to a different website. But when you’re out in public, you’re a hostage. You have no control over the TV while you’re waiting to see your doctor or your dentist, or while you’re eating your meal. And in a town like this, it’s very rare to find a TV tuned to ABC.  If the girl behind the desk hadn’t been so busy, I’d have gotten up to tell her how much I appreciated them keeping the TV on a channel other than FOX. It was that remarkable, I thought.

But even having to fend off the propaganda, to dodge the shitstorm of falsity and disinformation spewing from the conservative media, is an aggravation. These people, I think, must be insecure about their god and their beliefs to have to invoke him with every other word. Even Elizabeth Hasselbeck managed to get a “holy spirit” thrown in for good measure before all was said and done. Maybe she was afraid of being forsaken if she didn’t.

I am a pious Heathen. I am devout. I love my gods and my religion. I do not, however, feel the need to mention them in every breath. They are part of my life. I am secure enough not to have to keep them and my beliefs on the tip of my tongue to prove it to anyone. And I know Jesus spoke of this, of this public display of piety that conservative Christians seem to think is required of them today. But they cherry-pick his words, just as they cherry-pick the “Old” Testament, choosing what to believe and what not to believe as if it’s a multiple choice with no wrong answers.

Frankly, I would be happy if I never had to hear another word out of them. If I want to know what they think about their god or their beliefs I’ll visit their website or blog or read their autobiography or follow their Twitters. Otherwise, I’d like to get through supper just once, or a doctor’s appointment, without having to hear about the holy spirit this and the holy spirit that. Do you think that’s too much to ask?