Post-Christian America

The cover story on this week's issue of Newsweek is about life in what it terms "post-Christian America", i.e., an America which has moved well beyond the old-time religion of our forefathers.

As we all know, of course, there never was such a place. Rhode Island, the article points out, was founded by dissidents from all the other major religions as a place of safety from the tyranny of Massachusetts (Protestantism) and Maryland (Catholicism). We were always a mixed bag of beliefs (and non-beliefs). There is nothing new about that.

What is new, though, is that Americans are moving away from organized religions towards individual theologies based on a belief "in a Higher Power" but without the need for any human authority to act as God's muscle here on earth. We are far less religious these days, but far more spiritual.

This sounds suspiciously like every 12-Step Program I've ever heard of. The grandaddy of 12-Step programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, began in 1935 in Akron Ohio. One of it's founding tenets is the need for it's members to develop a belief in a "Power Greater than Ourselves"... leaving it up to the individual member to decide for him or herself exactly what that Power is.

This is very bad news for the RRR (radical religious right) aka "fundies" (fundamentalists) who would like to impose a born-again, literal fundamentalist theocracy on the nation; to outlaw abortion on demand (and, eventually, all contraception); to drive all LGBTQ people back into self-loathing closets and to "restore" our nation to it's pristine, newly-founded, condition. Which, by the way, never really existed.

Despite the outcome of Prop 8 in California last November, last Friday's unanimous vote by the Iowa Supreme Court and the outcome of the votes of the Vermont legislature and senate yesterday have triggered a seismic shift in America's thinking on the subject of gay rights in particular and fair play and full equality in general.

I believe that the culture war is over (or nearly so). The Right has lost (decisively).

Next subject?

===================================================
UPDATE!! Anti-Gay National Organization for Marriage Launches New Campaign in wake of recent events.






--- more update: it turns out they're all actors. somebody turned up the audition tapes and posted them on Youtube, too. Gee, you can't even trust Christianist Fundamentalists anymore.

Catholicism 101

Get your own Poll!

Good Friday

Today would be a great time for me to thoroughly disrepect those who fervently believe that what they believe is what everybody ought to believe or else we should get the hell out, but unlike certain dipshit, asshole bigots who think

A B S O L U T L E Y - N O T H I N G

about trampling, trashing and totally destroying my life, and dispensing an unending stream of vitriolic bullshit about me (without even knowing me) in the process (i.e. that I "chose" to be gay -- that one is really a hoot -- and really pisses me off) in order to further their beliefs, I won't.

I have too much respect for faith in general. I know I wouldn't like it very much if I was attacked on the basis of my faith. My faith doesn't come with a bible (unless you consider The Big Book of my 12-Step Program to be a "bible", which I don't). Nor does it come with a hierarchy (lamas, ministers, deacons, monks, bishops, archbishops, popes, presidents, emperors or kings). Nor does it have a vast bureaucracy.

My faith is pretty simple, actually.

There is a God.

I'm not Her.

There are no Virgins who have babies, or endless cycles of reincarnation or 20 pound books that God drops out of Heaven, fully writ in 16th century Olde Englishe.

There are no thundering, mounted hordes of horsemen, riding out of the Arabian desert, spreading their beliefs at the point of a sword.

There are no inquisitions, or auto da feys or dunking chairs or burnings at the stake.

There is no such thing as heresy.

There is no such thing as blasphemy.

All there is is the simple, pure belief that there is a Power Greater than Me...

and that I'm not Her (and no, there's no belief that God is one sex or another. That's ridiculous. God just "is." God doesn't need an "other" in order to create. If God wills it, it is. I just use the feminine pronoun to piss people off.)

What others believe is their business. I make no attempt to dictate to them on the basis of MY opinions about faith and belief.

And I would certainly never make any attempt to have my spiritual beliefs encrusted in our flag and enshrined in our constitution or laws.

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." (although often attributed, there's no clear-cut source for that quote. Some think it was Upton Sinclair, others think it was Sinclair Lewis. My vote goes to Shari Lewis, via Lambchop.)

No matter what you believe, may you have a joyous and peaceful weekend.

This weekend and always.

Eva Milbauer

I mentioned Eva Milbauer in my blog yesterday. She taught chemistry (and God knows what else) at Henry C. Conrad High School in Woodcrest, Delaware during my high school years (1963-1966).

I didn't actually take any classes with Mrs. Milbauer, but somehow or other we connected and we started talking to each other, outside of class.

I used to hide out in her chem lab storeroom with her during our lunch hour and we would talk about all kinds of things. I had a feeling there was one thing about me that if I could only work up the nerve to mention, she wouldn't think ill of me for it. That, of course, was the fact that I was... er... different.

Looking back there were probably lots of gay teachers at Conrad. God knows the lady gym teachers were all candidates for the Sisterhood of Lesbos and there were several English teachers (male) who were highly suspect. But even though my fledgling "gaydar" was picking up those blips on my adolescent screens, it was only Eva whom I thought, if I could only work up the nerve, would embrace me and tell me, "There, there. It's perfectly all right. You are not a freak of nature."

That woman really knew how to pay it forward.

In the years after high school I oftened wondered how she was doing. I never felt that way towards any other teacher I'd ever met. None of my catholic school teachers had ever encouraged me to "think." They had only encouraged me to memorize and regurgitate facts upon demand. Facts as determined by the Holy See, of course.

But Eva encouraged me to think for myself. It made me feel giddy, as though I were almost being heretical, by questioning things which had previously been unquestionable.

Looking back on it, she might well have gotten fired for her subversive activities with a few, select, students whom she'd taken a shine to, including me.

But I knew how to keep my mouth shut about such things. Hell, by the time I was sixteen, I was an expert at keeping secrets. Everybody else's and most especially mine.

By sixteen, in order to keep secrets and NOT be held in contempt of the sacraments, I had simply foregone the sacraments. The church and I had parted company sometime around the time of my confirmation. Within a year of that event I was no longer a participant in the rites of Holy Mother Church.

What I lost in terms of "salvation" via Rome, I gained in salvation in terms of my ability to think for myself. However, it would be many, many years before the groundwork that Eva laid, starting in 1965, would bear fruit in my sober years. But it was absolutely worth the wait.

So here's to you, Eva Milbauer, wherever you are! Thank you for caring when no one else did!