Politics and Religion

[browngirl]

There's so much about this year in politics I should be chronicling, people such as Obama (race and its sociopolitical construction, leadership, speeches and inspiration) Edwards (policies, press as kingmaker/kingbreaker, trustworthiness, his wife's illness) and Kucinich (he looks like a Keebler elf, his wife looks like a Tolkien elf) but I did want to write about one thing.

At first blush, the way people use religion against candidates is really annoying. With so many legitimate reasons to oppose Romney, why focus on that he's a Mormon? (Not least because it lets pro-Romney people accuse anyone who doesn't like him of religious bigotry. I wouldn't care if he worshipped Godzilla, I saw enough of what he was like in charge when he was MA's Governor, a post he now repudiates, I've seen that to him the only 'good' immigrants are the ones working on his landscaping, and I don't want him as our next president!)

Then there are religions people aren't even members of. Obama keeps being accused of being a Muslim, which leaves him in the unenviable position of saying he's not without dumping on Islam. It would be like continually being accused of being a Latvian or something, where one has to say, "no I'm not Latvian, not that there's anything wrong with Latvia", only with the added fillip that Latvia is not nearly as charged of a concept as Islam in the US today. I wish I could write, "if he were a Muslim what would that matter?" but I'd be being specious to do so; it would definetely matter.

I'm not even sure I could say all the ways in which it would matter would be ways in which it shouldn't, and here we get to my own moments of religion giving me pause. I could see how having a Muslim president could worry people, not least because Huckabee's fundamentalist Christianity frightens me. At first I thought I was being unfair to him, but I wonder if this is a case where I should listen to what I really do know from my Christian childhood; there are legitimate reasons to be wary of someone who likely would use the considerable power of the Presidency to promote the teaching of Creationism, the deprication of stem-cell research, the destruction of reproductive rights and the "protection of Marriage" with all that implies for the erosion of GLBT people's civil rights. But am I being too permissive with myself? These are legitimate reasons to be wary of several of the Republican frontrunners, and though all these policies are designed to appeal to a certain powerful form of fundamentalist Christianity they actually aren't as bound to it as both fundamentalism's adherents and opponents tend to believe they are. Do I really need to bring up Huckabee's beliefs in listing all the reasons he scares me, or am I doing the same thing as people who bring up Romney's Mormonism do? Would worrying about having a Muslim president be a matter of prejudice or policy?

And so, as I try to live and vote ethically, I'm thinking about all this.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Well, except that the 'theo' really provides a lot of fuel for the 'crat'; what could be more right, more worthy of any measures including oppressing and killing people, than doing God's will? Or so theocrats think.

But the 'crat' is definetely the main problem, I agree with you there.