Religious Freedom and Other Oxymorons

A famous quote from the Vietnam War was a statement attributed to an unnamed U.S. officer by AP correspondent Peter Arnett in his writing about Bến Tre city on 7 February 1968:
"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it", a United States major said today.
He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong. Wikipedia
Really? Wow.
Do you ever feel that sometimes certain spokespersons, politicians or public officials say the exact opposite of what really happened? This is sometimes referred to as doublespeak or newspeak.
Newspeak, as defined by Merriam-Webster:

propagandistic language marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings  

In case your education was lacking, this term was made famous by George Orwell in his dystopian novel about the future 1984 (written in 1948, BTW)
And, finally, Merriam-Webster also defines oxymoron as: 

a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as in cruel kindness)  

Got it? Oxymorons are surely Newspeak, although not all Newspeak may be an oxymoron (it might just be an outright lie).

Anecdotally, it seems that oxymorons and newspeak are modern contrivances. Beginning with the Vietnam War, a travesty of humanity and governance, it seems that there has been a fundamental break with reality for many of our leaders.

So often, it seems that those "talking heads" say a lot of words without saying ANYTHING. I'm not sure if this results from an excess of Ivy League Education or simply a deficit of courage and character.

My favorite US President was Harry S. Truman. He famously spoke his mind and even placed a placard with the words "The Buck Stops Here" on his Presidential Desk in the Oval Office. Refreshing, no?

Is this, then, a modern malady? Regrettably, no, I think. As the adage goes "there is nothing new under the sun". Human nature is nothing if not consistent - it would seem. Refer please to an exchange between Jesus and the Religious Leaders of his day in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7:

The experts in the law asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with unwashed hands?"

He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.' 

Having no regard for the command of God, you hold fast to human tradition." He also said to them, "You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to set up your tradition.

For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if anyone tells his father or mother, 'Whatever help you would have received from me is corban' (that is, a gift for God), then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother.

Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this."

Notice that last line "And you do many things like this". Delicious! It is ironic and unfortunate that many people have an understanding of Jesus that roughly parallels their elderly and infirmed grandfather - sweet, well-intentioned, and harmless. This is nothing like the historical Jesus who was closer to Che Guevara, the Marxist Revolutionary.

But I digress. The point here is that this "liberty" with the truth is not a recent phenomenon, but has likely existed as long as human speech.

As a general rule, we are many times cowards in times of stress or decision - and liberally amend or bend the truth to avoid discomfort or criticism. I suspect it has always been so - and will always be.

This "bending of the truth" has been made widely available in the recent same-sex marriage debate and the transgender bathroom law battle in North Carolina and now Texas.

During the marriage equality warfare, one can almost imagine a pundit on either side saying something like that previous quote "we had to destroy the community to save it." The no-holds barred debates exhibited enough drama and hyperbole to remind one of the slavery debates of the 1850's. Where is Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, when you need him?

One particularly delightful oxymoron used extensively during the marriage equality debates was "religious freedom". One assumes this term refers to the First Amendment of the US Constitution which pithily reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;  

So, religious freedom, as used in this debate, is the freedom of one citizen to deny the freedom to marry to another. Surely a more perfect example of Newspeak would be hard to find.

Applied to the debate on slavery in the 1800's one can imagine "Slavery Freedom" or possibly "Lynching Freedom" during the Deep South during the Civil Rights era of the 1960's.

And although Janis Joplin famously sang that "Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose", in this instance there is actually quite a lot to lose.

For the outraged Evangelical Christians who opposed marriage equality, it is their right to live in a world ordered by THEIR rules and their own version of reality.

For those who previously were denied marriage equality, it was the right to marry the person they loved, form a family unit, pass on property through a legal will at death, and even visit their dying partner in the hospital.

Or for those Americans of color in the Jim Crow South, did they really need the freedom to be denied service in restaurants, lodging in hotels while traveling, the right to attend movies, or just shop in their local department store?

Did they need the freedom to be lynched? No, the racists and the KKK already had that freedom. What was needed by so-called Negroes of the day was the freedom to live! The freedom to NOT be lynched and have their homes burned to the ground.
In these two instances, whose personal freedom - those freedoms of life and liberty long cherished by Americans - whose actual, real-life freedoms are at risk here?

But my favorite oxymoron - #1 on everyone's all-time greatest hits album - is family values.

This oldie but goodie originated with the "Moral Majority" in the 1970's and 80's - a group founded by Jerry Falwell (a close confidant of Richard Nixon) who purported to represent the great "silent majority" of good moral Christians who opposed affronts to their freedoms - things like birth-control (then very difficult to obtain), life-saving abortions, and even equal pay for women. Yes, the horror of such an America!

Family values are often demonstrated by the numerous pastors caught in affairs with members of their congregations. My favorite example, however, are those where the very pastors that railed against the evils of homosexuality were having gay sex with male prostitutes! Wow, talk about a hypocrite…

Or an even more oxymoronic example would be the Duggar Family - the reality TV stars of "19 Kids & Counting" - whose oldest son molested several of his sisters. This crime was covered up and dealt with by prayer and good intentions.
However, gay couples are not allowed to adopt children in many Southern states. How Newspeak-ish!

I have a family member who - together with his gay partner of over a decade - adopted a special needs, bi-racial child over 12 years ago.

During the subsequent period, they have loved this previously abandoned child. They have given him love, a safe home, and all of the resources he needs to grow up strong. What would his chances have been had they not chosen to love him? Is their love, somehow, second-class to the Duggar family's version?

Who demonstrates real "family values" here?

Oh, and about that Religious Freedom. Whose freedom was most impacted by the freedom to marry and raise their son to be a happy, productive adult?
Which raises the question - does religious freedom apply to everyone, or just Evangelical Christians?

Given the obstructions and protests against Muslims and their freedom to practice their religion (wear the hijab, pray towards Mecca, or even build mosques in largely Christian areas), are all religions free in America?

When the Moral Majority lobbied for prayer in schools - to whose God are we praying? The Christian God? Allah? What about Beelzebub, the God of hell?
It would seem not only is there some question about the real meaning of the term "religious freedom", but it would appear that such freedoms are not really available to all Americans.

In such Orwellian times, it might be good to remember another George Orwell classic, Animal Farm.

The main characters of this dystopian fairy tale are farm animals, not humans.
When speaking of freedom and the rights of the citizens of the farm, it was important to note this key quote:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Indeed.

dg 

1/13/17

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