By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“All governments are theocracies. We now live in a secular humanist theocracy. I want to change that to a government with God at its head.”
-Gary DeMar (quoted in John Sugg, “A Nation Under God,” Mother Jones (December, 2005)
When I started first grade in 1951, each school day began with the Pledge of Allegiance. We recited “one nation, indivisible,” because people understood that fidelity to one’s country is not a religious virtue. The National Prayer Breakfast was not on anyone’s calendar because it didn’t exist. Politicians felt no compulsion to invoke God’s blessings on the United States at the conclusion of every speech. Protestants opposed every effort to secure public funding of Catholic parochial schools in order to preserve the “wall of separation” between church and state. The corner grocer didn’t care whether a customer was gay or had been born again. Textbooks were not reviewed by religious committees for conformity with the King James Version. No serious person had yet suggested that insentient, artificial commercial entities could magically channel the religious beliefs of their shareholders. And no one complained that a war was being waged against religion.
But following some of the events at this year’s Values Voter Summit, I have become nostalgic for 1951.
The Summit is the premiere annual political event for conservative Christian evangelicals, and making an appearance has become almost a required pilgrimage for Republican presidential candidates who desire the support of the religious right base of the party. Those in attendance this year heard many of the usual rants against same-sex marriage, abortion and the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act. However, those concerns did not top the priority list. Instead, a 39% plurality of those polled at the conference believe that the most important issue facing the country today is religious liberty.
So how is this possible? The past 30 years have seen an explosion in government support of religion. Millions of dollars in public funds are provided to a variety of so-called “faith-based” programs. Taxpayers support charter schools with decidedly sectarian curricula all across the country. A number of states provide tax credits to enable parents to send their children to religious schools. Religious institutions and, after Hobby Lobby, for-profit businesses as well, have been granted exemptions from compliance with portions of the ACA. This is in addition to the exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation which religious institutions already enjoy in their hiring and firing practices. Religious groups distribute bibles in public schools and operate after-school programs on school property to proselytize grammar school children. The Town of Greece decision now permits governments to schedule ceremonial prayer in accordance with local majoritarian religious preferences. Most rational people would agree that freedom of religion and religious expression are hardly at risk.
The comments of several of the event speakers may furnish us a clue. Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Institute repeated the false story of the child disciplined for saying grace before eating her lunch. Michele Bachmann reminded the audience that the battle against Islamic terrorism is “spiritual warfare.” Gary Bauer accused President Obama of protecting Muslims while ignoring the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. Jason and David Benham, whose proposed television program on HGTV was cancelled after revelations of their virulently anti-gay activities, compared themselves to victims of ISIS, silenced for their Christian beliefs. And Sen. Ted Cruz, who for the second year in a row won the presidential straw poll, intoned “We need a president who will speak out for people of faith, for prisoners of conscience.” So for the attendees at the Values Voter Summit, there is indeed a war on Christianity. It is being waged by Muslims and by those who object to intolerance.
But the whole story is really darker. When members of the Christian right speak of freedom of religion, what they mean is freedom for a particular brand of conservative Christianity. Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council, the principal sponsor of the annual Summit. He is neither a legal scholar nor a theologian, but that does not matter. In Mr. Perkins’ view, religious freedom does not apply to Islam. It also does not apply to Christians who support gay rights. In fact, religious liberty is reserved solely for those holding “orthodox religious viewpoints. It has to have a track record, it has to come forth from religious orthodoxy.” Mr. Perkins’ First Amendment does not compel government neutrality toward religion; it requires preferential treatment for those Christian sects whose doctrines adhere to Mr, Perkins’ notion of orthodoxy. He is a theocratic dominionist in religious liberty’s clothing.
And that, in a nutshell, is what the war on religion in America is all about. It is a war declared by Christian fundamentalists on all religious traditions deemed non-conforming. The goal is a society in which separation of church and state is eliminated and religious pluralism rejected as unbiblical. Ted Cruz is merely the latest last hope for the hapless.
@NickS
If MEN are the ones whose EMOTIONS are being turned on by porn, and you are a Man, and you have a porn stash, then by process of logic, it is YOU who is being emotional about this issue. Just like I said above. You just don’t want to admit your mind is in the gutter, and you don’t want to get rid of your dirty pictures and dirty movies. Waah!
As far as men owning the world, whatever, they don’t own me.
As far as the Constitution, yes it’s provisions have been extended through judicial rulings. I think SCOTUS was wrong on the porn stuff, and if I had my way, you would just have to learn to cope without your dirty pictures and your dirty movies.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky, pay no attention to the personal stuff. It seems to always be what some people resort to when they feel cornered. You don’t “need” to understand or accept ANYTHING that comes from this person. There are people whose ‘reality’ and ‘insights’ about people are usually wrong.
Darren, Thanks. As you know, CHILD pornography is an emotional topic for me. I saw the toll it took on my wife doing presentence investigations on these animals.
MikeA, Threads morph. We have a discussion ongoing about religious right and feminist left trying to violate the First Amendment. A relevant discussion. You wrote a post and didn’t participate in the discussion. As you know, they tend to meander.
Squeeky, Your understanding of the Constitution, and specifically the First Amendment, is well let’s just saying, lacking. Those brave men fighting the British didn’t know they were fighting for the right of the Nazi Party to march in Skokie. For the KKK to march in Detroit. They weren’t told they were fighting for Miranda Rights, that if violated lets guilty people go free, or for the Piss Christ. I could go on, but you hopefully get the point. This is the Constitutional point on which, my friend, you are flat ass wrong.
This has struck an emotional nerve, whether you realize it or not. You spoke about your disgust w/ your ex boyfriend. You talk about “lewd” and putting things “up your butt.” Men like porn. If you want to understand men you need to understand that. You don’t need to like it or even accept it. But, you need to understand that. Men are stimulated visually MUCH more than women. This is a biological fact. Here’s another fact you won’t like, but it’s the truth. Men still rule the world and own most everything in it. You said you read Paglia. No one I know speaks more eloquently about women’s need to use their sexuality to gain stature and wealth in this man’s world. The way to a man’s heart is NOT through his stomach. It’s a bit lower.
Nick –
Thanks for the Skokie reference. As I’ve said before, I’m a lapsed Jew, and I’m friends with others, but we always retain the cultural heritage of Judaism. When the Nazis were applying for permission to march in Skokie, I was involved in many heated discussions with my friends, and seemed to be one of few who firmly believed that the Nazis had every right to march, so that we, someday, could do so as well. Remember, as you know me to be a liberal, you’d imagine that my friends were, too. Still, the Nazi specter loomed so large that they couldn’t divorce their emotions from their principles.
I hated every step the Nazis took, but I tried to picture Jews marching in the streets of Berlin, and thought to myself that this is what we had to protect.
I guess in the First Amendment area, I’m somewhat of a purest. I’m not really one of the PC crowd, although I can be sympathetic to those who feel that people are hurt by speech. I was sympathetic to my friends, but couldn’t give in.
It doesn’t make me a hero by any means. If anything, it makes me more cautious.
Nick wrote: “Squeeky, Your understanding of the Constitution, and specifically the First Amendment, is well let’s just saying, lacking.”
Nick, aren’t you overreaching a bit here? The SCOTUS acknowledges limits on free speech. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, you can’t use speech to incite riots, and obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment.
Remember the Miller test in Miller v. California?
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=us/413/15.html
“Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment.”
1) Whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards”, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2) Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,
3) Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
The work is considered obscene if all three conditions are satisfied.
Davidm2575: One thing that’s always fascinated me about conservatives (which, of course, you aren’t necessarily one) is that they’re all for following the very letter of the Constitution when it suits them, but when it comes to an issue like sexual speech, clear readings of the text are right out the window.
Take “obscenity.” I can read the First Amendment as easily as anyone, and it says, in pertinent part, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” I don’t see anything there about “except for sexual speech,” so clearly, the Supreme Court’s Miller decision, among others, is an example of what conservatives call “judicial activism.” Worse, there’s also the Ninth Amendment, which the Supremes have studiously ignored for decades, which makes clear that just because a particular right isn’t spelled out in the Constitution doesn’t mean “the people” don’t have it: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Mark, surely you recognize that the First Amendment is not meant to protect all forms of speech or all forms of religious exercise.
Consider the classic example, “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater.” If someone is playing a joke to get everyone to clear out of a theater by yelling fire, and especially if the stampede of people caused by such speech results in many injuries and even death to some people, such cannot be considered protected speech. If you were on a jury, would you vote to acquit based upon the First Amendment in such a situation?
In like manner, if a Charles Manson type cult decides for religious reasons to slaughter people or to offer human sacrifice, the First Amendment cannot be used to protect them from State law because of the First Amendment’s recognition of the free exercise of religion.
I am a conservative and a registered Republican. I recognize the danger to society that pornography poses, just as I recognize the danger that narcotics pose. Nevertheless, the government war against such things seems to cause more harm than the danger inflicted by such vices. I favor education over the strong arm of government, such that people choose to censor themselves of vices that have a corrupting influence over their soul. Nevertheless, I also recognize that if our society were not so licentious, I might not be so libertarian in my viewpoint.
Davidm2575: Well, it seems to me that if the First Amendment were not intended to protect all forms of speech, why don’t those “exceptions” appear in the text of the amendment, which clearly DOES protect all forms of speech? I understand the Supreme Court has illegally taken it upon itself to exempt certain forms of speech from constitutional protection, and frankly, I agree with the concept behind many of those exceptions—shouting fire in a crowded theater, defamation and false advertising come immediately to mind—but if even those exceptions are to be made, a constitutional amendment should be passed incorporating those exceptions into the Constitution itself. By having failed to do so, the American people have opened their lives to the whimsey of the courts regarding not only what they may say, but also what they may do and in some cases what they may think. That’s very bad for the Grand Experiment (in Democracy)—and something I would think would be opposed by every libertarian.
That said, one thing that’s clear about the exceptions I find worthwhile is that all of them involve direct harm to one or more individuals, while “obscenity” (which, one should recall, Justice Potter Stewart said he would “recognize it when I see it,” and no subsequent “definition” has improved on that) doesn’t, unless it can be proved that the participants were not willing performers (or children, who can’t consent to sexual conduct). Guess what? No one knows what “prurient interest” or its most common “definition,” a “morbid, degrading and unhealthy interest in sex” is, nor can anyone give a non-legally-vague interpretation of “patently offensive” sexual conduct, and since the vast majority of people have never discussed their sexual likes and desires with their own family and friends, much less their neighbors, the whole concept of “community standards” is useless for “obscenity” litigation purposes. In other words, the “Miller test” is just so much smoke and mirrors, designed to disguise conservatives’ “moral imperative” of suppressing sexual speech.
I understand that, as a conservative Republican, you find “pornography” (much less “obscenity”) offensive, but the Constitution was not written with your (or any conservative’s or any religious person’s) view of “morality” in mind. I’ve seen many religio-conservative screeds on the “danger(s) to society that pornography poses,” and they’re all crap; not worth the electrons they’re printed onscreen with. I understand that, as a conservative, you think society is going to (if you’ll pardon the expression) “hell in a hand-basket” in part because pornography has been accepted by the vast majority of American citizens (none of whom are “addicted” to it), and if you see ANYTHING you don’t like in the mass media, it is your absolute right to… look away! But please don’t attempt to tell me, or anyone who can read the plain English of the First Amendment, that it doesn’t say what it clearly DOES say. (And if that’s not good enough for you, try the Ninth Amendment as well.)
Mark, it does not seem reasonable to think that the meaning of the First Amendment includes all speech. You are not being reasonable to argue that all speech is protected speech, yet in the next breath you agree that yelling fire in a crowded theater, defamation, and false advertising are not protected forms of speech.
Mark wrote: “I understand that, as a conservative Republican, you find “pornography” (much less “obscenity”) offensive, but the Constitution was not written with your (or any conservative’s or any religious person’s) view of “morality” in mind.”
No, this is not my perspective at all. I do not find pornography offensive. In many cases, I find pornography enticing and tempting! The problem is that I have observed many young men hurt by pornography. In the same way that I observe people whose lives are destroyed by alcohol, drugs or gambling, I have seen porn addiction consume people to a point of damaging them and their relationships.
Now my wife and my children, they do find pornography offensive. My wife finds excessive violence offensive too. But they are not trying to outlaw it for everyone. They just don’t want it put in front of them. I can understand that.
In my opinion, pornography should be regulated like narcotics so that we do not inadvertently offend those of more pure minds. The same with prostitution. Why would you object to that? Why force pornography upon everyone?
Davidm2575: When it comes to the Constitution’s clear wording, I really don’t think it matters what you think “does not seem reasonable.” The words are there; everyone can read them… though apparently not everyone can understand them. And speaking of not understanding, there’s yourself, who failed to note that while I agree with the CONCEPT of limiting speech that defames, incites riots and cheats honest citizens, my position very clearly was that such limitations are still ILLEGAL under the First Amendment absent another amendment excluding them from “free speech.”
Perhaps you could explain further how the “many young men” you have observed were “hurt by pornography.” Porn may be movies, photos, drawings or words, all of which are subject to interpretation, dismissal, acceptance or several other possible reactions by individual minds—but “hurt” isn’t one of them. If someone spends what THEY consider to be too much time looking at porn, they have an illness called “obsessive/compulsive disorder,” and they may wish to seek treatment for that—but it has nothing to do with the “pornography” itself; they could just as easily obsess about any number of things, including hand-washing and praying. Many people do suffer from OCD that manifests itself as any number of obsessions/compulsions—but porn didn’t CAUSE it; the porn watching was merely a symptom of the actual condition.
Pornography is ALREADY regulated, in that it is against the law for anyone under 18 years of age to appear in it, or to look at it, and adult stores all have policies prohibiting those under 18 from entering the store. Many pornographic websites have front pages that instruct those under 18 to click away from the material, and there was at one time a law, since overturned for other reasons, that required sites to obtain some form of ID from a potential visitor showing he/she was over 18 or be refused access. That seems to me to be a good law, and I wouldn’t object to one being enacted again—though I can understand how some adults without verifiable ID (usually a credit card) would object to it—especially since NO ONE, no matter what age, is harmed by voluntarily looking at porn.
No one is “forcing pornography upon everyone.” One actually has to go to some effort to see movies, photos, etc. of actual people having actual sex—and as Lenny Bruce once noted about women who posed nude for Playboy, “If you believe there is a God, a God that made your body, and yet you think that you can do anything with that body that’s dirty, the fault lies with the manufacturer.”
Mark, there’s a good point to be made, and I believe you’re making it in response to David. WHO will do the regulating, and, as always, is there a slippery slope argument to be made? The initial prohibitionists, outside of the
Carrie Nation types, wanted hard liquor regulated or banned. Many of them were shocked when the amendment included beer and hard cider. We don’t need another “war on drugs” type crusade, either. We know how well that’s working, and any limitation or banning, save the 18 or under and the child pornography ban, will become another cash cow for the regulators, and do little to stem the actual product.
Mark wrote: “No one is “forcing pornography upon everyone.” One actually has to go to some effort to see movies, photos, etc. of actual people having actual sex…”
The way things are now is in light of understanding that “freedom of speech” has exceptions as outlined by SCOTUS. The position you have articulated is that the First Amendment gives pornography special protection. If I were to stand in front of City Hall with a large picture of whales with the caption, “Save the Whales,” or if I stood out there with a large picture of two people engaging in hardcore sex, in your opinion, both are equally protected speech. Even an image of child porn, from your esoteric reading of the First Amendment, would be protected speech.
Oh, I know you say you are against child porn and other speech, but according to you, the First Amendment makes it illegal to censor any of it. You have said that we would need a Constitutional Amendment in order to prohibit it.
Mark quoted Lenny Bruce: “If you believe there is a God, a God that made your body, and yet you think that you can do anything with that body that’s dirty, the fault lies with the manufacturer.”
A silly quote when one considers that the Creator would expect man to use his rational mind to understand what organs belong in what orifices, and if failing to do that, maybe at least he could read the instruction manual. If a man eats his own poop and gets sick, are you really going to argue that the fault lies with the manufacturer? If he puts his organ there and catches AIDS and dies, is it still the manufacturers’ fault? I guess if someone puts sugar in the gas tank of their vehicle, they can blame the manufacturer for that too.
David, I retrieved your comment at 7:13.
Thanks, Darren. You are the best!
WordPress doesn’t like me today. I lost my reply to Mark.
Sorry Mike, I got sucked into this porn discussion, hmmm who to blame? Who started talking about porn here? Oh well, as my German mutti used to say to me “Don’t blame anyone else, if they jumped off a roof, would you follow them?”
“All this OCD crap is just an excuse for moral deficiencies.”
Liking pornography is perfectly natural. Even monkeys like pornography. They are just smart enough to prefer pornography of monkeys they actually know rather than pornography of monkeys they have never met – unlike some people who prefer images of people they have never met will never meet in a million years.
What is unnatural and sick is to deny the natural curiosity that we all have. What is dehumanizing is to claim that natural expression or our interests is somehow inappropriate.
Everybody is interested in sex and body parts – some are just more repressed in expressing that interest.
The difference between Cosmo and Playgirl is a matter of style not substance – the subject is very much the same.
And whatever happened to the discussion of religious freedom?
@MaxCat
Plus, and because you can’t have two links in a comment, is this:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx
I am leery of studies, in general, because they seem to bounce all over the place, but the stuff about attitudes jives with my own experiences, and comports with common sense.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I don’t know this for a fact, but I suspect that pornography was not available to any but the wealthy until cameras came along.
@Max Cat
Most of the porn I have seen is beyond just stupid. It is aggressive and violent, and it is becoming the norm. You might enjoy this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255856/Teenage-boys-watching-hours-internet-pornography-week-treating-girlfriends-like-sex-objects.html
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Maxcat, I don’t agree with outlawing porn. I also am agnostic on porn. I’m just playing devil’s advocate a bit and I do agree with Squeeky a bit. Heck I even agree with Mark somewhat. I do think medical marijauna should be more accessible to those who TRULY need it.
@Mark Kernes
Gee, talk about swings and misses! Maybe there weren’t any laws because people weren’t publishing very much pornographic crap in the first place. Because most people knew the stuff was crap. Similarly, there weren’t many laws about heroin, morphine, and cocaine until larger numbers of people began using it, and the bad effects started showing up.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeekster: “Maybe there weren’t any laws because people weren’t publishing very much pornographic crap in the first place. Because most people knew the stuff was crap.”
And the hits just keep on comin’!!! To disabuse yourself of that quack nostrum, try reading attorney Marjorie Heins’ excellent study “Not In Front Of The Children: ‘Indecency,’ Censorship and the Innocence of Youth.” Therein, she talks about such 18th century works as John Cleland’s “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” (better known as “Fanny Hill”) and Benjamin Franklin’s “Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress,” both extremely popular in the Colonies in their day, as was Sir Charles Sedley’s “Fifteen Plagues of a Maidenhead” in Britain.
@NickS
No, Nick, it is not an emotional topic for me, It is just a common sense thing. I don’t think Washington told the troops at Bunker Hill, “Just hang in there men! Fight the cold and the hunger! One day all Americans will be free to look at at dirty pictures and play with themselves!”
Perhaps it is YOU who is being emotional, because you are the one with the porn stash. Perhaps it is your desire to hang on to your porn stash, and justify it, that leads you to say the things you do. Maybe you need to get rid of the crap, and get your mind out of the gutter. Then, you could view the situation a little more dispassionately. Do you really think that women enjoy being gang-raped on film for your viewing pleasure???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The Squeek: “I don’t think Washington told the troops at Bunker Hill, ‘Just hang in there men! Fight the cold and the hunger! One day all Americans will be free to look at at dirty pictures and play with themselves!’”
Ah, if only Washington had been at the battle of Bunker Hill, he might have told them something, but since he wasn’t, we’ll never know. And in any case, the Constitution wasn’t adopted until a couple of decades after that battle, so “lord” knows what Washington would have thought of the free speech provisions that form its FIRST Amendment.
“Do you really think that women enjoy being gang-raped on film for your viewing pleasure???”
Rape is illegal, even in a porn movie. If you have seen someone being raped in a porn movie, I encourage you to report that movie and the place where you bought/rented it to the proper authorities.
Squeeky, There are porn etching on the cave walls of prehistoric man. People have used mind altering substances back as far as recorded history. I do love the fact that you express yourself freely and openly. Your poem up thread decrying being lewd and doing only what “is essential” struck me a bit odd. But, I am now understanding you much better. This is obviously a very personal and emotional topic for you. I respect that. Your First Amendment thought on this are diametrically opposed to what I think. Everything else is really personal taste. And, as I said @ the outset, in very large part a male/female Mars/Venus thing. People on the right and left want to ban all sorts of things, from booze, porn, guns, drugs, speech, etc. We libertarians know banning is the nuclear option. Zealots on the left and right are nuclear cowboys. I thank God for the Constitution.
@NickS
Gee, the country went for a couple of hundred years without porn being afforded the protection of the First Amendment. Reversing a SCOTUS decision or two on porn hardly shreds it. As written, the First Amendment seems pretty silent about the importance of voyeurism.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky: “Gee, the country went for a couple of hundred years without porn being afforded the protection of the First Amendment.”
Ooh, swing and a miss! In fact, according to “The Heritage Guide to the Constitution,” published by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, beginning with the ratification of the Constitution, “There was only one state law banning pornography, and that appears to have been unenforced until 1821.” (pg. 312) None of the other states had them until the 1870s, when religious zealot/censorship promoter James Comstock convinced Congress to enact the Comstock Act, which banned the sale and/or transport of “obscene literature and articles of immoral use” through the mails. State governments soon followed suit. For more on law enforcement’s targeting of sexual material, I would recommend the excellent reference volume “Girls Lean Back Everywhere,” by Edward de Grazia.
NIck,
One is just pictures or movies of individuals engaged in sex. The other one is used for prosecution of criminals such crimes as child pornography or rape. The two are greatly different.
Fascinating thought process and mindset to read here. Do go on, please, Squeeky.
@Annie
LOL! I think they are symptoms of the same thing, which is a sick, narcissistic obsession with one’s self to the exclusion of what is best for society at large. If porn were to disappear from the world tomorrow, people would still have sex, get married, make babies, etc. The addicts would migrate to Candy Crush, Free Cell, or Solitaire.
The same with dope. After people came down, they would relearn how to have fun and cope without resorting to chemicals. But, i don’t see any of this happening any time soon. The dope fiends outnumber the non dope fiends, and the perverts have lost nearly all sense of shame.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
On this topic, Squeeky and Annie, I have to somewhat part ways from you. Annie on the subject of porn, and Squeeky on the subject of porn and drugs.
I’ve watched porn. As I wrote before, it was the porn marketed “for the ladies” and I found it silly, but I know men watch it and read it. Unless a proven link shows correlation between it and sexual violence, I’ll remain neutral. Some studies DO actually say it prevents the same. On this, I’m going to become all First Amendmenty and go all Larry Flynt on you.
On drugs, at least on pot, this aching body is still looking for legalization in Georgia. I see and read so many articles about addiction to LEGAL medication, which I think is far more dangerous, and I’ve been prescribed my fair share following 13 surgeries and who can count how many dental procedures, along with statistics about the dangers of alcohol, which I also believe is far more dangerous than pot. (Is that a run on sentence? If so, I’m too lazy to go back and change it…). I was a cigarette smoker, and proud to say that next month will be 25 years since I quit. If those killers can still be legal, then, I’m sorry, so can pot.
Darren, Are you the Riddler? Please explain, I don’t have a clue what you’re saying.