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!

Disorders

This post is late, and it will have to be short. Disorders of several sorts have beset close family members in recent days, and as a result a certain level of personal chaos reigns. When such things happen in our personal lives, we may feel as if we've been run over.

Photo by Ryan M. Kelly - The Daily Progress/AP

But actually being run over is much, much worse. We have glimpsed recent new horror (including synagogue congregants, holed up in fear while Nazis marched outside in American streets) in Charlottesville, VA, where "all sides" did not contribute to the public disorder in equal measure, no matter who desperately wishes to believe otherwise.

AP Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Anger does beget anger. Confederate monuments and statues all across the country have become targets in reaction to the white supremacists in Charlottesville.

Image source: WNCN-TV video screenshot, via The Blaze.

In such an environment it's difficult not to wonder if the world has gone mad--or if perhaps we have. Patience is hard to find. Perspective is hard to find. Just as it's hard to keep one's head in a mob, so it's hard to keep one's eyes on core values.

But that is our current national test.

IMAGES: Many thanks to CNN, photographer Ryan M. Kelly of The Daily Progress and AP for the photo of the horrific impact of a car into a crowd of peaceful counter-protesters in Charlottesville, to Los Angeles ABC Channel 7, Pablo Martinez Monsivais and AP for the photo of President Trump making a statement about Charlottesville, and to The Blaze and WNCN-TV for a pictorial article about the destruction of a confederate monument in Durham, North Carolina.

Post-election burnout? Here's help!

Wow. It's over. Are you feeling a little ragged, this morning?

We are now living in the wake of one of the most divisive, dysfunctional presidential-election cycles most of us can remember. Psychologists even talked about "election stress disorder," while the madness continued, and worried about the very real havoc it wreaked on people's peace of mind.

However you feel about the results, the nastiness didn't just stay at the top of the ticket. Down-ballot races often seemed at least as mean-spirited and angry. What is worse, partisan divisions have begun to inspire a lot of mistrust, rancor, and in some cases downright hatred between everyday people all around us. People we may once have seen as "my neighbor," or "my cousin" many of us now see as "us" and "them."

But the election's over. The votes are cast, for well or ill. The seemingly wall-to-wall political ads have finally ended, thank God. Now comes the hard part: living with what we have wrought.

I'm not talking about the politicians, or who'll be in the White House come January. I'm talking about my fellow Americans. How do we suck it up and start speaking to each other again? 

Our nation's fate and future depend on our being able to do that. We're going to have to act like rational adults, and stop casting aspersions on each others' intelligence and morality. Can we ever be positive thinkers again? Should we even try?

The short-term advice is not to talk about the election results too much, or think too hard on what you learned about the other person's politics in recent months. But straight-up denial isn't a winning plan, either. Sooner or later, facts must be dealt with.

But when the facts are inconvenient or unfavorable from your point of view, what do you have left?

Can we muster the hope?

Can we afford not to try?

IMAGES: Many thanks to the "4th of July" Pinterest Page for the "ragged flag" photo--but relax. It's not really a shredded flag. It's a decoration made from strips of cloth and lace. Many thanks to the Pinterest board, "Workplace Quotes," for the Negative/Positive quote, and to "The Teenager Quotes" on Tumblr via the "Positive Quotes" Pinterest board for the quote about dealing with an addiction to negativity. Many thanks also to the "Work Hard" Pinterest Page for the "no matter the situation" quote. Last but not least, many thanks to the "Positive Thinking" Pinterest Page for the "Hope is stronger" quote.

The Pot and the Bowl

Artdog Image(s) of Interest 

We often hear that the United States is a great big melting pot, where immigrants come from all over and get assimilated, so that they can become Americans. As you can see from the style of the image above, this idea has been around for a while.

This "melting pot" idea assumes the cultural differences will get melted right out, and we'll all turn into generic Americans. Everybody will share the same cultural references, speak English, and leave the Old Country behind.

It's balderdash, of course. People don't "melt" that easily, and they can only interact with the world via the cultural references they have. Even several generations after the first, many aspects of a person's cultural heritage live on in them. I do like the "Equal Rights" spoon Miss Liberty is using to stir us with, though. It would be nice if we saw that spoon a lot more often in public life.

  

Or maybe we're like a salad bowl, as a more contemporary image says: all the assorted individuals mix together and interact with each other, but they maintain most of their original flavors and characteristics. (in this illustration, is the English language kind of like the . . . salad dressing?)

I'm not sure that's an entirely apt metaphor, either, because after a while we do grow more like our nearer neighbors, while older ties and influences may loosen. Assimilation may never be total, but it is an important force.

Fact is, neither is a perfect image, because people aren't (normally) pieces of food. We're way more complicated than that. This is a worry and an irritation to those who like to keep things simple, but I have a feeling those folks have enough frustrations already: life is rarely uncomplicated.

If you're the kind of person who lives in fear, then the "otherness" of people from different cultures can be frightening. If you're the kind of person who finds variety to be the spice of life, then nothing tastes better--pot OR bowl--than cultural diversity.

IMAGES: Many thanks to the WYPR article America: Melting Pot or Salad Bowl? for the image of Melting Pot Stirred by Liberty, and to the Oswego (NY) City Schools Regents Prep website for the Salad Bowl of Immigration image.