Shame On You!

With the month coming to a close I’m glad I waited to almost the last minute to present this month’s awards. I think you’ll agree the delay was well worth it. As in past months the nominees all earned the honor accorded them, and as always it was difficult to limit the number to three. As my friend Steve has pointed out, “So many silly people, so little time.”

The envelope please…

First Place goes to The Entire Government of Arizona. For the first time since the days of the segregated South an entire state government has decided to enact a law that is the embodiment of Jim Crow and allows racial profiling in an attempt to “deal” with its illegal immigrants. State Senate Bill 1070 – dubbed the “Papers Please” bill by critics – would require law enforcement officials in the state of Arizona to investigate someone’s immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person might be undocumented. What constitutes reasonable suspicion and just how exactly a law enforcement official can tell who might be undocumented is of course the sixty-four thousand dollar question that Governor Jan Brewer, who did her best impersonation of a deer caught in someone’s headlights when she signed this bill into law, could not answer. The best Brewer could come up with at the press conference was that she would not tolerate profiling and that “we need to trust our law enforcement officials to know what they’re doing.” She made that last statement with a straight face.

There is no other way to put this. This law is an abomination. It runs counter to all we hold near and dear, namely that we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Now anyone suspected of being “illegal” will have to prove they are not, and if for some reason they do not have the proper documentation on them, they will be arrested, even if they are in fact legal. And who is likely to be stopped and asked to “prove” their status? People who look illegal, that’s who. Brewer, when asked whether she could recognize what an illegal looked liked, could not answer. If she couldn’t, how on earth are the law enforcement officials who we are supposed to “trust” going to be able to tell? And therein lies the problem. Arizona has just enacted a law that on its merits now requires its local police departments to troll for people of Hispanic origin in order to root out its illegal alien problem. How could reasonably intelligent people not believe that this would constitute profiling when the essence of the law itself requires its use in order to be effective? To quote Stephen Colbert, “It’s like they’re saying that harassing Latinos with racial profiling is an inevitable side-effect of this law. It’s not; it’s the entire point of this law.” The law’s sponsor Russell Pearce was quoted as saying, “When you make life difficult, most will leave on their own.” Who is most?

Even if you grant the argument that the law’s intention is to reduce if not eliminate the illegal immigration problem that plagues not just Arizona, but all border states, the fact is that this law throws out the baby with the bathwater. The fourth and fourteenth amendments are quite specific: The fourth amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, the kind of search likely to happen under this new law. The fourteenth amendment states in pertinent part, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” The law’s intent, however noble its proponents believe it to be, will be subverted by the harsh reality that many innocent Hispanics will be subject to needless invasions of their privacy and encroachment of their civil liberties. This is unacceptable in any free society. Imagine if the Statue of Liberty’s inscription read: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free - can I see some ID please?”

Shame on you, Arizona for passing this law and for showing the world that we still have a long way to go before we bury our racial prejudices, and for completely ignoring the Constitution in the process. In an ironic twist, owing principally to concerns over Brewer’s safety, the press conference was held in a non-disclosed setting. Reporters had to show their credentials and driver's licenses twice to enter the building, thus giving them a little taste of what Hispanics in this state will have to go through every day now.

Second place goes to The Obama Administration. In what can only be described as the best case of the pot calling the kettle black in quite some time, the Administration is expressing concerns over learning that Pakistan is holding thousands of suspected militants in indefinite detention without benefit of a trial.

WTF?

Ever since February of last year when the Obama Administration announced that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights and cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention – a decision that shocked human rights attorneys – thousands of detainees have been held almost virtually incognito without any right to due process, mirroring to a tee Bush Administration’s policies. Incredible!

As recently as January of this year, the New York Times and Washington Post blasted the Administration for its decision to ignore international law as well as the Constitution. The New York Times wrote in an editorial on January 17th, “We keep waiting -- in vain -- for the Obama Administration to stop trying to block judicial scrutiny of some of the Bush Administration’s most outrageous policies on the detention of prisoners.” And on January 22nd the Washington Post wrote, “A Justice Department-led task force has concluded that nearly 50 of the 196 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war, according to Obama Administration officials.”
And now the current administration is up in arms and expressing concerns because another country has decided to follow in our footsteps. How disingenuous can a government be? For the last eight years we have continued to circumvent our own Constitution, spit in the face of international law, and continue to undermine our credibility within the Muslim world, and yet we call out a sovereign nation when it does the same thing. Small wonder Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, in his op-ed piece, sarcastically quipped,

“Let's teach those Pakistanis that we're not going to tolerate their lawless and tyrannical detention of people without charges and trials. We won't put up with it. Especially not when it's "justified" with the Orwellian claim that their real civilian courts can't handle the prosecutions and they're "afraid" that Dangerous Terrorists might be released if they give them due process because they're unprosecutable. Kudos to the Obama Administration for teaching them that countries that live under the Rule of Law simply don't deny people trials based on such excuses. It'd be one thing if they were assassinating these people without any charges or trials -- that of course would be understandable -- but not detaining them. We're the Leader of the Free World and we simply can't be seen associating with or supporting regimes that would do such a thing. Besides, unlike the U.S., it's not like Pakistan really faces an Existential Threat from Islamic radicals or anything, so (unlike us) they really have no acceptable excuse for doing these things.”
Shame on you Obama Administration for not only refusing to live under the letter of law, but for being hypocrites while doing it.

And bringing up the rear, Sue Lowden. If you thought Michelle Bachmann had the exclusive on crazy, Lowden’s recent interview will have you believing the end times are at hand. The Republican candidate for Harry Reid’s Senate seat had some, shall we say, unique takes on how to combat the high cost of medical treatment. We’ll let Lowden tell it in her own unadulterated words.

“You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house. I mean, that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.”
No she isn’t; not only that, the tea party darling has continued to insist that she wasn’t misquoted and unabashedly stands behind her comments. Somewhere in an undisclosed bunker under the Capital building Harry Reid is muttering to himself, “I can’t believe I’m trailing this whack job!” So, the next time you lose a limb, or need a transplant, or have a disease that requires an “experimental” treatment make sure you bring some chickens to your local hospital or doctor’s office. Tell them Sue Lowden sent you.

Shame on you Sue Lowden for trivializing the seriousness nature of healthcare costs in this country and for insulting your constituents in the process.

Coming Out: One brave bird dares fly against the wind.

There are many things that have always bugged me about Christianity. Its ties to moneyed interests throughout its history – at least the history that post dates the early days of the Church – has been a great cause for concern for many progressives who view such ties as contrary to the teachings of Christ; the incessant view held by many conservatives that the Bible should be interpreted literally has been a thorny issue that has plagued the religion since the days of Augustine, and there appears to be no resolution forthcoming any time soon; and the endemic conservative bent throughout the Church on virtually every issue from global warming to healthcare reform has pitted brother against brother and sister against sister and forced many outside the faith to question what our real priorities are. What can we possibly offer those seeking everlasting salvation if we cannot show that we ourselves are saved?

But while all the above are significant enough to make a saint swear, none has been more puzzling and damning than the issue of homosexuality. One would rather admit to being a leper than to admit to being gay. The Church has treated such “aberrant” behavior like a doctor would treat an infectious disease. Support groups like Living Waters offer to “cure” the afflicted of their malady by convincing them that they have somehow been wounded early in their lives. Once that wound has been brought to the Cross the natural heterosexual drives that exist in all God’s creatures are restored. Life resumes as it should and all is well in the universe.

Now it’s not my wish to belittle the faith that I have called my own for nearly twenty years, nor do I mean to suggest that support groups like the one mentioned above have not helped the broken and downtrodden, for the tragic truth is that many Christians, as well as non-Christians, have suffered deep wounds at the hands of predator adults who were supposed to be our protectors in our formative years. The damage that such wounds cause are played out in our adult lives and must be rooted out if we are to be set free. But to jump from A to C and suggest, as so many in the Church do, that homosexuals are nothing more than heterosexuals who have been sexually wounded quite frankly is offensive to the homosexual community. To lump these people into the same pot of damaged goods because their lifestyle runs counter to certain Biblical teachings seems most, well, un-Christ-like. The problem with quoting scripture is that you can use it to make any point you wish to make, no matter how hurtful or myopic it might be.

Case in point, last week’s announcement by Christian singer/songwriter Jennifer Knapp that she is a lesbian has rocked the Christian music world. No other artist of Knapp’s caliber has ever come out of the closet, and the shock waves were predictable. Based on the treatment Amy Grant received when she got divorced, one can only imagine the scorn that is awaiting Knapp for her bravado in acknowledging her status.

Yes, I said bravado! Regardless of how one may feel about the homosexual lifestyle, it took courage for Knapp to come clean, especially knowing the community to which she has called her home for so many years. But courage has never been Knapp’s problem. The four-time Dove award winner has not only been a staple of many Christian groupies, she has also earned the respect of her peers throughout the music industry as a whole. Her cover of Shawn Colvin’s “Diamond in the Rough” remains one of the better covers of the last fifteen years.

I have never hid my disdain for the bulk of Christian music. Fact is I often find such music banal and just flat out lame. It is lifeless and artless. Gospel, by comparison, buries it. Knapp’s music was one of the few exceptions to the rule. Unlike so many of her peers who leap from A to D – you know, I was a sinner and now I’m free; thank you Jesus; God is great – Knapp got it. The struggle wasn’t over just because we surrendered to God; in fact it was just beginning. She knew she was wounded and she never shied away from baring her soul as well as her heart. She is that rarest of artists in the Christian music industry. She embraces her pain - you could almost call it angst - and uses it as a vehicle to allow us into her journey in the same way a Bruce Springsteen or a Lucinda Williams might. And while I am certainly not suggesting that Knapp deserves inclusion into that “sacred” group – she has quite a ways to go before crossing that bridge – among all the artists of her genre, she is the only one I take seriously, because she is the only one who never forgot where she came from. Too often, in our zeal to tell the world how wonderful salvation is, we forget that pain is still an integral part of our life story. Artists like Jennifer Knapp, who do not recoil from it as from a hot flame, in the end dignify their music as well as their fans.

And now she has another story to tell: a story of suppression and denial and, yes, shame. The road ahead for Knapp will no doubt be a rocky one, and she has earned it. But she has also earned the right to live it out and to sing about it in what ever manner she chooses, no matter how it may rub the majority of Christians a certain way. Knapp has said that her forthcoming album, aptly titled “Letting Go,” will honor her faith even while it seeks to appeal to a more mainstream audience and that is the way it should be. Knapp isn’t abandoning her faith; if anything she will need it now more than ever. Whether the Christian community ever receives her back into its “good” graces remains to be seen. If they can look past their own stigmatizing biases, I submit they may be pleasantly surprised; if they can’t and choose to shun her, it will be their loss. Either way the sun will still rise in the east tomorrow, only there will be one less bird flying with the flock.

A Hate That Endures: Why the Tea Party Movement may be here for some time to come and why we must be steadfast in our stance.

In the original Star Trek pilot, Captain Christopher Pike is captured by a race called the Talosians, who have the ability to make him do anything they want by reading his thoughts and manipulating his surroundings. The only emotion they cannot read is intense feelings of hatred or rage. Try as he might Pike is unable to keep his hatred up and, when the emotional rush is finally over, is punished by his captors for wrong thinking. The moral of the story is that no matter how hard one tries he or she can never sustain such “primitive” emotions for long. Eventually the wave subsides and we are restored to a state of emotional stability. Gene Roddenberry knew a thing or two about human beings and he knew no rational mind could hold onto that much rage for long; no rational mind that is.

But Roddenberry was a bit of an idealist. Like most science fiction writers of his day, he believed that man would eventually rise above the fray of pettiness and bigotry that has defined most of his somewhat limited existence on this planet. Our destructive natures would eventually be replaced by a more utopian-like lifestyle. The concept of primitive emotions such as hatred or rage controlling the mind for more that a brief interlude was something he could not fathom. Certainly we would “evolve” beyond that point and be able to live together without killing one another either literally or figuratively. But Roddenberry’s optimism seems strangely out of touch with the stark reality of our present-day circumstances. If today’s Tea Party Movement is any indication it could be a very long time before we ever see the kind of world Roddenberry envisioned for humanity. Like the famous cereal commercial, one is apt to say of his naiveté, “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.”

The rage that emanates from this movement is not unique to our history. We have seen it before. But it has seldom been so concentrated and enduring. I have written at great length of my concerns about this movement and what it means to our future as a country. I have warned that we are vulnerable to a national tragedy the likes of which have not been seen in this country since 1963. The emotional madness that defines the bulk of these tea partiers is well passed the pathological stage; it is a national phenomenon that has already deeply wounded one of the two prominent parties in the country and is attempting to use acts of intimidation against the other. What it cannot achieve through legitimate means, it will attempt through coercion. Zero accountability coupled with zero tolerance equals a recipe for disaster.

To the rational mind – the one Roddenberry believed existed in us all – this seems like a bad dream. This can’t possibly be happening, not in America. My wife, who has always taken the high road and describes herself as a progressive with a moral compass, is blessed with a strong intellect and a superior ability to reason things through and resolve conflict peaceably. She has no stomach for such abhorrent behavior. In her heart of hearts, she sees passed the asinine and racist signs and sees a frustration that others have manipulated to suit their ends. Of course she has a point – the cart / horse analogy is germane to any discussion involving this group – and she has proven far more resilient than I have ever been when it comes to patience and compassion.

But she has also chosen not to listen to the rhetoric that is coming out of this movement. She has refrained from listening to the Hannitys, Limbaughs and Becks. Whether manipulated, stoked or just flat out inflamed to a riotous mass, the proverbial Genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back in. The issue before us is not who lit the fuse, but how can we prevent the ensuing explosion from bringing down the whole damn house?

Well for one thing, we – all of us – need to stop believing that cooler heads will prevail. There are none within this lot, and those who still might possess an ounce of sanity are more likely to go along with the majority of their brethren rather than risk being called a traitor. You don’t have to believe me, just look at the GOP. Could anyone have guessed that this once prominent and majority party would be reduced to the status of mouth piece for the likes of Dick Morris and Sarah Palin? David Frum was right when he said, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican Party.” Loathe though I am to give any credit to a Republican, especially one who worked in the Bush Whitehouse, Frum has nailed it so to speak. The tail is now waging the dog.

Another thing that we all need to do is stop pretending that this fight is not ours to wage. I am so sick and tired of well-meaning Christians who keep quoting Ephesians 6:12 as though it somehow absolves them from having to speak up and challenge hypocrisy. The scripture reads as follows: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” If I’m reading it accurately it clearly states that while we are not to fight against one another, we are commanded to fight against that which poisons the minds of our fellows, and call it out whenever it rears its ugly head. Those who insist on spreading hatred and lies, in the spirit of Psalm 63:11 “shall be stopped.”

In all of scripture I keep looking for the passage where God, all by himself, accomplished every task. With the exception of the Creation account, it is not there. Even the birth of his only son required the services of a virgin woman. We do violence to scripture by sitting on our hands and looking upward toward the heavens. We need to get up off our knees and bring the fight to those who would pervert and subvert our values in the name of the king of darkness. Do not deceive yourselves; Satan is having a grand old time of it sitting back and watching his creation unleashed and unchecked. You would say Satan cannot do that which God does not allow. I would say that is a cop out for the weak and timid. We are all called to be soldiers. The only question is whose army are we in?

Lastly, we need to present to our fellows a cogent and rational mindset that best represents the heart of what Jesus would have for us as a people. Nature abhors a vacuum. It is not enough to refute the lunacy of the Right, if at the end of the day all we do is substitute our own brand of intolerance in place of theirs. We may win the battle, but we will eventually lose the war. We needn’t be lambs led along to the slaughter house, but we cannot, no matter how tempting it might be, subscribe to the same methods and traits as our sworn enemy. That is the real meaning of Ephesians 6:12. We do not lie down; we stand firm, shielded in His armor and resolute against all that the enemy will throw at us.

The next few months will be as great a test for this nation as any it has yet seen. In a way we are witnessing a sort of Civil War. This war may not result in the killing of thousands of soldiers as the last one did, but there will be casualties nonetheless. It is our duty to be resolute and steadfast in the face of the coming deluge. The enemy will not go quietly into the night, and neither should we. For we are the benefactors of a benevolent and all-powerful God that always triumphs over evil and will equip us for every struggle. He will never abandon us in our time of need so long as we call upon him for our strength.