Government Power vs. Religious Beliefs

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I am a staunch supporter of the separation of church and state.  I believe the wall should be so high for government intrusion into issues of faith as to be almost impossible to even see over.  I believe Native American religions that use peyote in a sacramental way should be allowed.  Ditto for Rastafarians (I have to admit I know next to zilch about Rastafarianism so I could be off base here) with regards to marijuana.  I get really uncomfortable even at government interference that requires a Christian Science family to provide medical care for their children.  That is how I feel about these issues.  That is not the way things work.

Today I read an article in The American Thinker by Tom Trinko in which he attacks liberals like Sandra Fluke for wanting the government to intrude on religious beliefs.    Here's an important quote from the article...

What greater crime can one commit against a person than using the force of government to coerce him to become an apostate to the faith he believes in?

Now, I'm not going to argue the issue at hand, even though I believe the Obama administration's solution was perfect and that the real issue for most conservatives has nothing at all to do with using the power of government to offend religious believers.  At it's core, I agree with the statement and would bet that I believe it a lot more strongly than Tom Trinko, although I can't be sure of that.  Here's why the argument doesn't work.  The government does that all of the time and these folk raise no concerns.  The government prohibitions against Native American use of peyote and Rastafarian use of marijuana are simple examples.  

 

Let me give two personal examples.  I am a pacifist.  I believe that the history of Christianity, the scriptures, and the person of Jesus allow for no other interpretation.  Still, I am required to pay taxes that go to supporting military interventions all over the world.  Indeed, we spend more on the military than basically everyone else combined and depending on how one reads the numbers, as much as 50% of our federal budget is related to "defense."  I am not given a religious option to abstain.  Now, you might say that the difference is personal beliefs vs. institutional beliefs.  The entire Roman Catholic Church stands against contraception.  That argument doesn't fly, though, as there are a number of denominations in the Anabaptist movement, known as "historic Peace Churches" that are officially pacifist.  The force of government is used to coerce us to be apostate to the faith we believe in.  A second example - I do not believe as a follower of Jesus that there ever is a time when capital punishment is appropriate.  Ditto again for the historic Peace Churches.  And again, I/we cannot opt out of paying for such barbarity and are so forced to act in denial of our expressed beliefs.

I would agree that there are times when the government can stop certain religious practices.  I don't care what you believe, the government has the power to curtail human sacrifice.  Bottom line though, that is not what this issue is about.  It has nothing to do with freedom of religion and everything about culture wars and the oppression of women.  And then, there is the fact that Sandra Fluke was speaking on behalf of a lesbian friend with no worry about pregnancy but who uses birth control pills as a means of halting the growth of ovarian cysts... but why confuse a good argument with facts.

Libya

I feel deeply for the people of Libya. I respect the hunger they feel for freedom and self-determination and I think I understand both the optimism and the despair that led to their uprising. My heart breaks for the violence perpetrated by their own leader against them. I feel disgust at mercenaries willing to enter another country and kill the people there because the leader s afraid that using his own forces will alienate the military and turn them against him. Something in my gut resonates with the old Bruce Cockburn song, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher..." and the myth of redemptive violence calls me like a siren call.

All of that said, we should not be involved. There are at least three good reasons for that. The first is that we cannot afford to be involved in yet another war. I understand that on the first day, the US launched 112 cruise missiles into Libya. Those missiles cost $1 million each. Just for comparison sake, NPR receives about $5 million a year in government funding. Imagine how many teachers, college scholarships, meals for the poor, health care for the needy we could fund with $112 million dollars, and that was one day... there is no end in sight. Today, an F16E crashed. Evidently the pilots are safe but there are reports that US service people were injured in the rescue. I tried to find prices for an F16E and the ones I could discover ranged from $31.1 to 43 million in 1998 dollars. Add in the other costs and I can't imagine it is costing us less than $500 million a day. This is at a time when many are saying we're broke and those on the right are calling to slash programs for the poor, for children, for the elderly... We cannot afford to engage in yet another military adventure.

Second, we have seen that whether our intentions are good or not, we can't seem to get things right in the Middle East. No, I do not believe the lines we were fed by the Bush administration as we went into Iraq and Afghanistan, but at least some folk did... so even if I give them the benefit of a doubt, IT DIDN'T WORK. Why in the world would we think this would turn out any better?

The third is what war does to the participants, the human costs. Taking a human life destroys a piece of your soul even if the act is justified. For some folk, it is a small bit, for others, it is a huge piece and some never are the same again. I can't help but think the number of vets living on the streets has something to do with the condition of their souls when they got back... and healing a soul is not an easy thing. And there are the horrific examples of destroyed souls that we saw in the photos from Abu Ghraib and now from the "kill squad" in Afghanistan. I would never begin to imply that all soldiers turn into monsters... but some do. Were these evil kids before they went off to war? Perhaps some were, but what about those who were so damaged by their experiences that they became less than human. Again, I am not implying this is the norm or even common, but I do not believe these young men and women would have acted that way had they not been sent off to war. Yes, I know Obama has said we will not send in ground troops and at least to some degree that may mitigate some of the human costs to our side, but as today showed, even an "air war" sometimes requires boots on the ground and there are men and women firing the missiles and flying the planes who know their actions end in death and destruction. Plus, there are the traumatic brain injuries, the missing limbs, the deaths, collateral damage to civilians and infrastructure in foreign lands, and the destroyed families there and here.

I am a pacifist and do not believe war is justified, period, but for those who believe that at times war is a necessary evil, these human costs must be weighed seriously. This is not the time or place to send our young men and women.