Religious Scholar

I’m glad Intolerance is not a religion, because I am becoming very intolerant of it!

I’ve tried to steer clear of politics in this blog, celebrating the commonalities our various belief systems share. However, observing the pre-election revels in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul has stretched this blogger’s endurance level to the breaking point.

Anyone with a bias toward compassion, community, spiritual inclusiveness, and respect for all people and the natural world has to be frozen with horror watching some of the sight and sound bites emanating from Minnesota this first week in September. Intolerance might as well become a plank in the platform of one of our illustrious political parties.

Doesn’t the First Amendment of our Constitution prohibit infringements on the right to religious freedom and freedom of the press? And aren’t these two freedoms being mocked by the rhetoric of the extreme right? Spitting in the face of the Constitution, certain forms of Christianity are held up as an absolute for all people in our nation. Conservative leaders qualify terrorism with the word, “Islamic,” vilifying a religion with one of the highest numbers of adherents worldwide (second only to Christianity, according to Adherents.com).

A candidate for one of the highest offices in our land shows scorn for the natural world by ruthlessly killing animals for sport and supporting unfair hunting practices, while at the same time supporting coerced pregnancy and the teaching of a specific form of fundamentalist Christian creationism in tax-dollar-funded schools. We won’t even go into the issues of diversity and gay rights, core realities of a world which virtually every major religion holds is the work of a benign divine creator spirit.

Yes, I have become intolerant of intolerance. Intolerance is the one attitude that can uproot and destroy lives, nations, even our world. Don’t shout it from the rafters with glee and thunderous applause! Instead, proclaim tolerance and prevent the infiltration of tenets from specific religions from determining government policies and laws. All religions deserve our respect and tolerance. No religion deserves a place in American government.