Its Time For The Religious Right To Embrace The Mind-Your-Own-Business Option

[Heddi]

https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/it-s-time-for-the-religious-right-to-embrace-the-mind-your-own-business

Every few years, someone in the far-right fundamentalist Christian community puts forth the argument that modern American culture has become so nasty and hostile to “traditional” Christians that it’s time to withdraw.

They don’t plan to go to a forgotten island somewhere. Rather, they would create a kind of community in internal exile. As much as possible, they’d form parallel structures, such as fundamentalist-oriented educational institutions and media channels, and tend to their own gardens.

Rod Dreher’s new book The Benedict Option is the latest to promote this idea. I haven’t read the book, but a recent column about it in The Washington Post made the concept sound romantic, exciting and almost noble.

...
In some states and communities, fundamentalists who choose to run for-profit businesses are expected to respect the rights of others and stop subjecting people they don’t like – members of the LGBTQ community, non-believers and Muslims chiefly – to discrimination or ill-treatment. Expanding pluralism and diversity in America means that members of minority groups are no longer content to ride the back of the public policy bus. They want the same rights and privileges that the majority has enjoyed for years. They are not asking for these rights, they are demanding them.

This means that the right of LGBTQ Americans, non-believers and non-Christians to be treated with dignity is secure (in the case of the LGBTQ community, in some states, anyway) – but so is the right of extremely conservative religious groups to preach against things they don’t like, such as marriage equality. Fundamentalists spew this stuff all of the time, and their churches have not been punished for it. To be sure, people have pushed back against the mean-spirited rhetoric that flows from many fundamentalist churches, but that’s to be expected. Sharp disagreement and a spirited counter-argument aren’t the same thing as government-sponsored persecution.


...
Let’s be clear: The goal of the most right-wing fundamentalist Christians is not and never will be disengagement; it is to meddle in the lives of others and use the government as an instrument to enforce their narrow, exclusionary dogma.

[justhanginon]

1. Damn, I was really hoping they would take the

"forgotten island somewhere" option and leave the sane people the hell alone. Stay out of our schools, our bedrooms and all other aspects of our lives. These people are no better than the Taliban.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Spreading the Gospel

It is on the proselytizers to have to bear the truth of Christianity. It is a heavy burden you know - well because they say so.

Having this knowledge, it goes without saying, makes them special and of course with that onerous burden comes duty. Seeing as all those people who do not agree with them are at least mistaken, at worst Satan's minions, well they have to save us all from ourselves right?

In fact, this is such an important truth and duty that......well some of them think they are excused from certain moral niceties, so lying, emotional manipulation, corruption, assassination, terrorism become legitimate tools for bearing that truth to the heathens and unfortunates.

The simple fact that this kind of arrogance exists makes those who disagree with them their moral inferiors.

[Jonny Appleseed]

3. Getting "Christians" to stop spreading Christianity would be harder than getting Hindus to

start a sport called "professional cow torture". It's what they've been doing for 2000 years and one of the more aggressive tenants that they enjoy taking part in unlike that "be nice to people" bullcrap .

[TlalocW]

4. The problem with these type of Christians is that they're so concerned with themselves

They can't see past to any unintended consequences of whatever it is they're trying to do. All they're seeing is how they think they're going to screw over other people so they're still on top, but by the very nature of the law, they know they have to couch it in general terms of religious freedom (because saying it's for one sect only won't fly in the courts), and they never consider what that means, and they forget about the last fuck-up they were responsible for. And there are now well-organized groups out there - I'm primarily thinking of the Satanists - that will gladly open their eyes for them.

Examples include:
Getting the Ten Commandments monument removed from the Oklahoma State Courthouse grounds when they attempted to get a statue of Baphomet installed there as well.
Schools (in Florida I believe) were sending kids home with donated material from various Christian groups, and the Satanists got to do the same, making the Christians the strictest proponents of church-state separation ever (at least for a short time).
Satanist clubs in schools.
Other religious displays in December in courthouses, including a Festivus Pole.

So they're going to go into this, thinking (once-again), "This will show everybody, and our faith will be secure!" but they will immediately wig out when some other religion tries to do the same thing they are.

TlalocW

[Mariana]

5. They will never choose that option.

A whole lot of them believe that God will punish them for allowing "sins" like abortion and same sex marriage to go on. You hear it every time there's a natural disaster, preachers getting on TV and radio and saying that God is punishing the whole region or country because he's angry at them for this or that "sin".

You even heard it after 9/11. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell got on TV and they had a long list of people who were at fault for the terrorist attacks. They blamed the ACLU, the abortionists, the pagans, the feminists, the gays and lesbians, the People for the American Way, the secularists, the NOW, the courts, and "all the Christ-haters". There may have been more, I don't remember.

This is why they will never mind their own business. The sinners caused 9/11, in their minds. The sinners cause every natural disaster, every mass killing, every major accident and every war. Bad stuff happens to Christians only because God is angry they don't do enough to stop the sinners from sinning. As long as they believe that, they will never leave the rest of us alone.