I don't even know how to take this.
U.S. Fundamentalists: Taliban of Tomorrow?
COMMENTARY | Fundamentalism is an epidemic in this country, a vitriolic scourge spreading like a virus of the conscience that could leave the United States looking a lot like Afghanistan post-Taliban. Despite the Constitution's requirement of separation of government and religion,fundamentalists are working hard to codify their intolerance, their misogyny, and their aggressive ignorance. They want to shape our government to conform to their ideology, and claim that those of us who resist, who value our freedom, the Constitution, and the autonomy of women, are somehow "persecuting them" by our refusal to capitulate.
Look, fundamentalists. You've made it clear that there is no compromise, no middle ground, no live and let live. There is your way of life and only your way of life, much like Afghanistan on the brink of the Taliban devolution.
We women will not be sent into some speculative Margaret Atwood world, where our only value is as a tool for breeding. The state of Virginia does not have the right to violate its own rape statute prohibiting forced penetration by object and demand a transvaginal ultrasound prior to an abortion, which accomplishes nothing medically. Women won't be relegated to irrelevant in a discussion of our health, or, if you choose to believe Rep. Issa's (R.-Calif.) "religious freedom" propaganda, irrelevant to a discussion of religious freedom.
Your bigotry and hatred will not claim the lives of more kids who are gay or perceived to be gay. As Rolling Stone reports, evangelism created a climate in Michele Bachmann's district where bullying was the acceptable way to deal with people deemed "wrong." Kids committed suicide as the tragic result. You cannot indoctrinate kindergarteners, as Bloomberg News reports, with "Bible study" in public schools, kindergarteners who are now telling their non-conforming classmates that they're "going to hell."
And then there's the push to equate religion with science. Science is demonstrable. Science has a basis in method and repeatability. Religion is a belief system, that is, by its nature, not provable and not disprovable. As per the First Amendment, it does not have a place in our public schools. Creationism, even if you dress it up in a white coat and call it "intelligent design" is not science, and yet, as high-school student Zack Kopplin in Louisiana has discovered, there is a continual battle to equate it to evolution.
It's fine if fundamentalists choose to disregard evidence. It's fine if they choose to do so in their own religious schools. What is not fine is the attempt to legitimize that ignorance in the form of a public education curriculum, eviscerating the Constitution to do so.
We must remain vigilant, religious and non-religious alike. We cannot shrug off or make light of the fundamentalism that has found its way into the political process. If we stop watching, if we stop speaking, we might suddenly find ourselves in a country very much like post-Taliban Afghanistan, a Stone Age we thought we'd left behind long ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/u-fundamentalists-taliban-tomorrow-201900279.html
U.S. Fundamentalists: Taliban of Tomorrow?
COMMENTARY | Fundamentalism is an epidemic in this country, a vitriolic scourge spreading like a virus of the conscience that could leave the United States looking a lot like Afghanistan post-Taliban. Despite the Constitution's requirement of separation of government and religion,fundamentalists are working hard to codify their intolerance, their misogyny, and their aggressive ignorance. They want to shape our government to conform to their ideology, and claim that those of us who resist, who value our freedom, the Constitution, and the autonomy of women, are somehow "persecuting them" by our refusal to capitulate.
Look, fundamentalists. You've made it clear that there is no compromise, no middle ground, no live and let live. There is your way of life and only your way of life, much like Afghanistan on the brink of the Taliban devolution.
We women will not be sent into some speculative Margaret Atwood world, where our only value is as a tool for breeding. The state of Virginia does not have the right to violate its own rape statute prohibiting forced penetration by object and demand a transvaginal ultrasound prior to an abortion, which accomplishes nothing medically. Women won't be relegated to irrelevant in a discussion of our health, or, if you choose to believe Rep. Issa's (R.-Calif.) "religious freedom" propaganda, irrelevant to a discussion of religious freedom.
Your bigotry and hatred will not claim the lives of more kids who are gay or perceived to be gay. As Rolling Stone reports, evangelism created a climate in Michele Bachmann's district where bullying was the acceptable way to deal with people deemed "wrong." Kids committed suicide as the tragic result. You cannot indoctrinate kindergarteners, as Bloomberg News reports, with "Bible study" in public schools, kindergarteners who are now telling their non-conforming classmates that they're "going to hell."
And then there's the push to equate religion with science. Science is demonstrable. Science has a basis in method and repeatability. Religion is a belief system, that is, by its nature, not provable and not disprovable. As per the First Amendment, it does not have a place in our public schools. Creationism, even if you dress it up in a white coat and call it "intelligent design" is not science, and yet, as high-school student Zack Kopplin in Louisiana has discovered, there is a continual battle to equate it to evolution.
It's fine if fundamentalists choose to disregard evidence. It's fine if they choose to do so in their own religious schools. What is not fine is the attempt to legitimize that ignorance in the form of a public education curriculum, eviscerating the Constitution to do so.
We must remain vigilant, religious and non-religious alike. We cannot shrug off or make light of the fundamentalism that has found its way into the political process. If we stop watching, if we stop speaking, we might suddenly find ourselves in a country very much like post-Taliban Afghanistan, a Stone Age we thought we'd left behind long ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/u-fundamentalists-taliban-tomorrow-201900279.html
