TERRY MOSHER
This is likely a futile exercise because it’s extremely difficult to discuss rationally politics and religion without being met by intractable opinions. So I will just ramble on and ignore the consequences of saying things that will not be resolved no matter how hard I try to make sense of it all.
I was thinking the other day that while we supposedly live in a country where the majority rule that in the past decade or so it’s the minority that seems to win the day. Or maybe it’s just that political correctness has become the model that we run our daily lives on and it only seems the minority are in control.
But it does seem to me we (the majority) are being shunned or shoved under the bus every time there is an incident that rattles the airwaves. For the sake of discussion here I’m talk about religion, and the effect that has on our national psyche.
This country was founded on religions principles, although the founding fathers wanted to make sure there was a separation of state and church when it came to governance. I remember when John F. Kennedy was running for president and there was a big thing being made about him being Catholic and that if he was elected the Pope would have great influence in the White House and in our government.
As funny as it sounds now, it was taken serious back in the late 1950s. For many it was a scary thought and there was a pushback against the Kennedy campaign from the religious right and the secular portion of our nation.
As you know, Kennedy got elected and the Pope did not take up residency in the White House. Kennedy was eventually undone by the dark side of politics, which I believe centered around the Mafia being promised by Joe Kennedy (JFK’s dad) that once his son was elected president he would guarantee Cuba would be freed of Castro and they again would have free access to the economy and all ugliness that the Mafia represented. When JFK did not come through the Mafia got its revenge in Dallas.
But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to know why we (the majority) allow ourselves to be pushed around by the vocal minority. What pushed me over the edge were two things that recently happened – the confrontation in Kentucky over a county clerk’s refusal based on her religious beliefs to grant marriage licenses to gay couples and the hullabaloo raised over a Bremerton High School football coach leading post-game prayers, which he had been doing for nine years, when apparently an atheist objected.
I may be on weak ground here, so if you think so I’m not afraid to be rebuked by you or anybody else, because in the end without polite discourse very little will ever get resolved, as we have witnessed in Congress for the last seven years.
I think the clerk is on solid ground when she cites the Word of God for her refusal to grant the licenses. If you walk with the grace of God you have to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and I can see as long as she walks that way she would not being true to God.
But to me this is a pure case of using God as a pretext for not doing her legal duty. She is under a legal obligation to do so and if she can’t perform her job because of her religious beliefs then the proper thing for her to do is surrender her authority and allow somebody else to do so. To resist all compromises in the name of God while pure in its stance has no legal footing in the secular world.
I’m guessing here because I can’t get into the clerk’s mind, but is it possible as one pastor has suggested that she has been so resistant because she can gain monetary benefits from people who will support her and donate to her cause?
I don’t know if that is the case, but I do know she is in the wrong. Before I go on you have to know that I can speak to the issue of God because I’m not just a believer, but I know God exists from the things that have happened to me over the years.
Having said that, I believe the clerk is in the wrong for using God as a crutch. It is not her judgment to make that marriage should not be between same sex people. God will make that judgment on Judgment Day. It is her responsibility to carry out her duties as defined by secular law and if she can’t because of her conviction then she must step aside.
I can define the Bremerton coach issue quite easily. Because there is a separation of church and state in our country, the coach as an employee of the state is defined in legal terms as the state and when he leads prayers as the state is usurping that barrier between the two.
So he is wrong to lead to prayers, but because the majority of us feel what he is doing is non-threatening he has been allowed to continue to do so for nine years and would still be doing it if one person, the minority, hadn’t objected.
It gets me that an atheist can cause such uproar over an activity that is so peaceful and compassionate in its very nature. Why would anybody object to that?
If the coach was leading a post-game summit to entice some young men to do illegal and dirty things and nobody objected then I would be terrified what he was doing. But to raise the issue over something that is positive and possibly beneficial to not just our community but society is upsetting to me.
I have friends who are atheists and that is fine with me. I’m not going to force my beliefs on them, and they aren’t forcing their non-belief on me. Besides, it’s not for me to judge what people do or do not believe.
Being different than the majority can be an uncomfortable position. I get it because I have been in situations where I was the minority and I know the feeling. Still, when players on teams knee down in post-game situations, and it’s done almost in all sports, where is the threat? Where is the harm? As long as its voluntary why should it bother you, or me?
Of all the things that a person can object to, this is the one that makes no sense because Christian ministry by its nature is peaceful and loving. So if I want to pray, and I do so almost every day, and often many times a day, what problem am I causing? And if I do it post-game, that’s a bad thing?
There are things that disturb me in this world. All I have to do is turn on the news and listen to the latest killing in Chicago or the beheading in the Middle East, and I get the chills. We are becoming more and more secular in nature, so when I see somebody praying post-game I see good, not bad, and that is good.
Enough. I’m getting a headache trying to make sense of what which makes no sense.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.