Freedom of Religion: Is the First Amendment an aspiration, or reality?

Freedom of Religion: do we really have it? During our passage from Juneteenth to the Fourth of July this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights. And especially the specific freedoms it enshrines.

 

The “Defund or Abolish the Police” movement has driven me (along with many others) to take some long, hard looks at the institution of policing, its history, and what it could become, if remade in a better way.

 

But—also in light of recent events—I’ve begun to wonder: Is the First Amendment just as aspirational as the police motto “To Protect and Serve”? In this and several future posts, I’ll consider our ideals, and how they add up next to our reality.

Many thanks to Indivisible of Door County, WI

Freedom of Religion

 

Today’s post interrogates the first sentence in the First Amendment (not using the Reid Technique).

 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” is how the First Amendment begins. Yet, for much of our history, Americans have—and still do—strenuously seek to limit, abridge, and deny the religious freedom of others.

Many thanks to Imgflip and Marshal Tenner Winter for this image.

 

Black people

Since well before the birth of the United States as a country Black people were enslaved in North America. Freedom of religion was one of the many freedoms they were denied.

For centuries, the home religions of enslaved persons were suppressed by many slaveowners. It’s true some resisted converting their slaves to Christianity because it might make them seem “too equal.” And some  enslaved Muslims tried to hold onto their religion.

But most owners insisted they be converted to make them see their enslaved state as God’s law. Some even altered the Bibles they allowed their slaves to have—they feared the Exodus story might give them too many ideas.

 

It didn’t ultimately work. The Black Church became a powerful force for freedom. But those slaveowners and their enablers gave religious suppression a real good shot. And they successfully stamped out a lot of African beliefs, or forced them to “go underground.”

Many thanks to Ammo.Com.

Native Americans

The American authorities made far fewer bones about suppressing Native American spiritual and religious beliefs. "Freedom of religion for Indians" was never a consideration, even well into recent times.

They didn’t go about it quite like European invaders in what would be Mexican territories. Those “missionaries” enslaved and forcefully converted the Indians under their control.

 

But the US Government focused increasingly virulent ethnic cleansing energy on “pagan” ceremonies, starting in the 1830s. They made many practices illegal, punishable by imprisonment. 

They often forcibly kidnapped children and held them in boarding schools where their home languages, customs, and spirituality were brutally suppressed. This continued well into the 20^th Century.

Right on, designer Mark Forton! This image is available on several products.

Contemporary hate and intolerance

More recently, white supremacists have felt free to attack churches, synagogues, and temples. Using domestic terrorism to suppress religious diversity flies in the face of the First Amendment, but law enforcement usually has focused on the egregious violence to persons and property. I wrote about this last year on my Artdog Adventures blog.

Lawmakers have tried and sometimes succeeded to use Christianity as an excuse to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ individuals, in what future generations may view as a violation of the "establishment clause."

Many thanks to Human Rights Watch for this map.

Some people welcome these laws and court rulings as "freedom of religion." But many others see them as "freedom to discriminate."

And unfortunately the current President of the United States seems determined to violate the full spectrum of First Amendment. He got started right away on freedom of religion.

Early his first year, he tried to keep Muslims from several countries out of the U.S. And eventually he succeeded. Does he value the appearances and trappings of religion far more than the substance? Looks that way to this writer.

How far have we really come?

We like to think that, as a nation, we've come a long way forward into a more equitable and enlightened society. We earnestly want to believe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

But recent events have laid bare just how deeply our country is divided. We disagree more sharply than ever on liberal/conservative lines. This has even gotten to the point where we disagree over simple public safety measures.

Savage injustices tear us apart on many other fronts, too. Economic equality. Access to health care. Our dealings with the justice system. And many more. So of course the intolerance issues extend to freedom of religion.

The challenge before us is clear. If we want that arc to bend toward justice, we must work to make sure it heads that way.

IMAGE CREDITS:

Many thanks to Indivisible of Door County, WI, for the text-image of the First Amendment. I want to thank Imgflip and Marshal Tenner Winter for the "So simple a child can understand" image. Much gratitude to Ammo.Com, for the Thomas Paine quote. And many thanks to Human Rights Watch for the "License to Discriminate" map. I appreciate you all!

 

Abolish the police?

If we abolish the police in the 21st Century, why should people need XK9s in the future? 

Wait! That wasn't the question at the top of your mind?

Learn more about Jan's XK9 Books on her website. She writes science fiction police procedurals about sapient police dogs on a space station. Cover artwork for The Other Side of Fear is © 2020 by Lucy A. Synk; Cover artwork for What’s Bred in the Bone is © 2019 by Jody A. Lee

Actually, it wasn't my first question, either (although I do have answers). When I originally learned about the movement to abolish the police, my first question was why would we do that? 

Then I realized that by asking that question I had already marked myself as a person who owns property and benefits from white privilege. 

Clearly, there was a disconnect happening. I needed to remedy it by educating myself.

Why would we abolish the police?

Let's start with my "Why would we abolish the police?" question. The answer depends on why the questioner thinks the police exist. Well, their motto is "to protect and serve." But protect what? Serve whom? That's where it starts to get dicey. 

(Meme courtesy of Cheezeburger.)

Functionally, throughout their history police forces have existed to protect the property and persons of some of the people from basically everyone else (except when they don't protect property or the personal safety of civilians). And in recent days we've heard many authorities cite "protecting property from destruction" as a reason for cracking down on protesters who linger past curfews.

They also don't exist to protect public safety in all the ways we tend to believe they do. Did you know that according to the Supreme Court, the police are not obligated to protect a person from physical harm, even when it is threatened? 

Above all, they primarily exist to serve the current power structure, for well or ill. And that's a big part of the problem. If you have a racist or corrupt power structure, police exist to support it. 

Minneapolis police advance through tear gas on a group of protesters. (Photo courtesy of Scott Olson/Getty Images, via NPR).

Do we have a racist or corruptible power structure in the USA?

I feel kind of silly, even writing that question. Of course we do.

We certainly have a racist power structure in the USA. If anyone can have lived through the last several years and still doubt that, they probably live in a gated community, are relatively wealthy, white, and only watch Fox News. In other words, they very carefully tune out many distressing aspects of reality. 

But you can't close your eyes, cover your ears, yell "La-la-la-la!" and magically transport yourself into a post-racial America. No such place exists.

Do we have a corruptible power structure in the USA? A look at the situation in Ferguson, MO, in 2014 offers a window on such a power structure. It was a community mostly run by the minority population of white people, with a mostly white police force. Racial profiling led to repeated arrests for petty infractions, and jail time when fines weren't paid. The city basically criminalized poverty, as well as driving or doing almost any other action while black.

The most discouraging part? This list only hits the "famous ones." (photo courtesy of KISS).

But wait! The police are the "good guys!" Right?

Well, they're certainly supposed to be. Both in real life and in our media, they're portrayed as (and quite often are) brave, self-sacrificing, and strong protectors of the weak or vulnerable. 

The District of Columbia has been at the forefront of the "community policing" effort. But is it enough? Many don't think so. (Photo courtesy of Governing)

But again, whether you view them as good guys or not depends on your experiences. After some of the experiences and understandings explored in this blog post, you may be starting to feel less happy with the police.

But . . . abolish the police? Entirely? Is that realistic? And is it even remotely desirable? Don't we actually need the police for a lot of important things? 

What about murders? What about armed robbery? Car theft? Rape? Human trafficking? Fraud? How would we deal with those things, if there were no police? I have yet to find comprehensive answers from the "abolish" advocates, other than promoting a decentralized approach that parcels out some duties to other agencies. 

But unpacking many of the angles will take at least another blog post or so. I'm looking forward to examining how the "abolish" and "defund" advocates may turn out to inform (or not) the process of reforming, reducing or in some cases completely dismantling the ways policing is done--as well as implications for the future (both ours in reality, and in my science fiction).

IMAGE CREDITS:

The covers of Jan's books are from her website. The meme about protecting and serving "the right way" is from Cheezeburger. The photo of the cops and the tear gas is courtesy of Scott Olson/Getty Images, via NPR. The very long list of unsafe things to do "while black" is from KISS, and the photo of the officer doing "community policing" is from Governing. Many thanks to all!

Remembering D-Day

A Special Artdog Image of Interest 

Seventy-five years on, remembering D-Day is not something many of us can do firsthand. It's more of an "oh, yeah, I read/heard/saw a show about that" situation. The nonagenerians who actually do remember D-Day are getting thin on the ground.

But remembering D-Day, honoring the sacrifices made then, and drawing lasting lessons from that whole period of history, becomes more important every year. We forget at our own dire peril.

IMAGE CREDITS: Many thanks to the Los Angeles Times (photo 1/31), for the U.S. Army photo of Ike and the 101st; to the BBC for the famous Robert F. Sargent "Into the Jaws of Death" photo, taken from inside an amphibious landing vessel, of troops wading toward Omaha Beach that day (it's one I've referenced before in this blog); and to DDay.Center for the "75th Anniversary" shield-logo. The photo-composite of the three images was created by me, for this blog post.