One Nation Indivisible

Let’s not allow two little words to come between us.

It would be a shame, after all that we have been through together. From the Founding, when we stood together and knew that if we were divided, we’d fall.

We are one nation, indivisible. We don’t need more than that. But you insist, you say two more words are necessary. I disagree. I think those two words are trouble.

I’ve never spoken of this before, how this troubles me. It has always been important for me to respect our freedom to believe whatever we want as individuals. It’s one of the things that make this nation special. One of the reasons why I pledge my allegiance to the flag that unites us. So I’ve never been one of those to say those words don’t belong.

You say that freedom to believe is important too. But I’ve been listening to some of the other things you’ve been saying, and I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing.

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good… Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.

Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God’s law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies.

– Randall Terry, Operation Rescue

I suppose that is one way to make a nation indivisible. But it’s not what I had in mind.

When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed.

– Randall Terry, referring to doctors who provide abortions

You are probably not an extremist like Randall Terry. It’s hard to imagine such a person being able to build a following in the United States of America. But it has happened. In a different religion, in a different country, this sort of movement goes by another name: Taliban.

Extremists tend to overwhelm moderates anywhere. I am sure there are plenty more moderate Muslims living in Afghanistan than there are Taliban, but they fear for their lives. That’s probably not what most Afghans wanted, but they ended up with the Taliban anyway.

Is that what we want for America?

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their positions 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

Or they threaten you with loss of life. And follow through on the threat.

I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.

That statement comes from Senator Barry Goldwater in 1981. Since then, conservatism has been hijacked by religious fundamentalists. “Hijacked” is an appropriate term as it is a tactic of religious fundamentalist terrorism.

Those two words are a wedge that is being driven between us. They will tear us apart. It is why I don’t say them when I pledge my allegiance to flag and country.

My complaint is not with religious moderates, which is why I have never been one of those who have tried to have those two words removed from the pledge.

But I suppose if this offends you, then “liberty and justice for all” mean less to you than those two words. And maybe you are not so moderate after all.

It has been pointed out to me that the inclusion of the two words in the pledge was done in the Fifties in order to clarify the distinction between Americans and “God-less” communists in Russia and China. And my refusal to say these two words somehow makes me less patriotic than others, according to those others.

Religion does have a neat way of dividing people, doesn’t it?

Which is why I do not put my trust in God. Nor do I put my country under any being, no matter how supreme his followers claim he is.

In this, I’m following in the path set by the Founding Fathers, who knew better and separated Church and State.

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, wrote:

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

I’m looking forward to that day.

All quotations are from The God Delusion. Thank you, Richard Dawkins.