March 8, 2015 8:15 AM

When invoking Godwin's Law to describe Christianity in Oklahoma isn't a stretch

THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

(apologies to Keith Olbermann)

Oklahoma State Sen. Joseph Silk (R)

[I]f your religion directs you to treat women as not equal to men, the State of Oklahoma will support your actions. If your religion, or your interpretation of your religion, mandates you to hate the gays, don’t worry, Oklahoma’s got you covered. The bill’s scope is so broad it allows anyone to refuse to provide “any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges,” or “counseling, adoption, foster care, and other social services” to anyone else - again, based on their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”…. It also allows anyone, including the State of Oklahoma, to refuse to acknowledge or recognize as valid any marriage or other domestic union. Senator Silk would like folks to know that he’s not anti-gay, just pro-faithful.

It’s Oklahoma, so no one can reasonably claim to be surprised that a Republican state legislator is attempting to conflate his (alleged) Christian faith with hatred and oppression. That he can’t see the similarities be between what he’s proposing and the early days of Nazi rule in Germany only makes Silk truly one of the worst people in the world. As much as I hate invoking Nazism in the service of an argument, this is a case where it’s absolutely appropriate and reasonable.

Jesus Christ taught love, tolerance, and acceptance, yet Silk’s interpretation of his Christian faith somehow manages to omit those crucial qualities. The idea that there are Oklahomans with “deeply held religious beliefs” only means that they don’t have a clue as to what their religion is actually about. Nor are they cognizant of the fact that “deeply held religious beliefs” is merely camouflage for their own ignorance, fear, and prejudice. The truth is that they find the “homosexual lifestyle” to be icky and abhorrent…and so they wish to remove any trace of it from their lives and minds.

There’s nothing in this attitude or in Silk’s legislation that’s even remotely redolent of the teachings of Jesus Christ. If Silk and those who think like him bothered to blow the dust off their Bibles now and again, they might recognize how far they’ve strayed. Then again, they’re just arrogant enough to believe that their brand of cafeteria Christianity is an embarrassment to those who actually endeavor to lead Christ-like lives.

You don’t have to like homosexuals, and you may well be legitimately repulsed by homosexuality…but that doesn’t connote ANY sort of right to legislate those you despise out of existence.

Silk told The New York Times…that the “L.G.B.T. movement is the main thing, the primary thing that’s going to be challenging religious liberties and the freedom to live out religious convictions.”

He added: “And I say that sensitively, because I have homosexual friends.”

If Silk had “homosexual friends,” he’d be pulling his legislation from consideration, because friends don’t attempt to legislate friends back to second-class status. Friends don’t work to pass legislation that defines their friends as second-class citizens subject to the whims, prejudices, and “deeply held religious beliefs” of “Christians.” Friends look out for the well-being of their friends; if you’re trying to legislate them back into the closet, you’re not a friend. You’re their oppressor, you lack the honesty and the self-knowledge to recognize that you’re the worst sort of Christian hypocrite.

I fail to understand why so many good, God-fearing Christian patriots are so obsessed with what consenting adults may or may not be doing behind closed doors. They demand that government get off their backs, that they be given smaller, less intrusive government…all while expecting that the power of that “small government’ be used to enforce their fears and prejudices. That the people who feel this way are unable and/or unwilling to recognize the depths of their hypocrisy says pretty much everything you need to know about modern Christianity.

What’s next? Pink triangles? Marching gays and lesbians into ghettos and walling them off? Tossing them to their deaths off buildings (Oh, wait…that’s ISIS)? Executing them? How long must we wait for good and honest Christians, those who sincerely try to live their beliefs, to speak out against those who pollute Christianity with their hatred, homophobia, and immoral self-righteousness?

If Joseph Silk is a Christian, I’m the Queen of Chechnya. He’s little more than an authoritarian despotic Conservative willing to use Christianity as a club with which to bludgeon those he hates and fears…and I really have to wonder what he’s so afraid of. A very wise man once told me that we hate most in others what we fear most in ourselves. If Silk possess even a modicum of self-knowledge, I suspect he may well be surprised at what he could learn about himself.

Unfortunately, the America Silk is looking to create more closely resembles Nazi Germany than the democracy our Founding Fathers envisioned…but for authoritarians like Silk, it’s not about democracy, which can be messy and unpredictable. An authoritarian Christian theocracy is more to his taste…and he’s anything but a minority in Oklahoma.

Joseph Silk is everything that’s wrong with religion in general and Christianity in particular. Is it any wonder I’m good without God?

blog comments powered by Disqus

Technorati

Technorati search

» Blogs that link here

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 8, 2015 8:15 AM.

Today on "People Unclear on the Concept: International Women's Day was the previous entry in this blog.

Is there email in Heaven? is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Contact Me

Powered by Movable Type 6.0.7