To
be clear, I’m not upset with the likes of
Benjamin Lopez because he’s a faithful Christian,
I’m upset because he’s abandoned reason. I don’t
understand why he can’t be both faithful and reasonable.
The framers of our Constitution handled that challenge just
fine.
The
fact that America’s initial governors were able to
separate religion from government doesn’t mean that
they weren’t aware of the existence or importance
of religious or spiritual values in life. It means, in my
view, that they were so aware of the need for, and power
of, religion that their language reflects the high respect
they held for it by leaving it out.
The
word "God" does not appear within the text of
the Constitution of the United States. The words Jesus,
Christ and Christianity don’t appear either. The Declaration
of Independence contains the word “God,” but
in this context: “the laws of nature and of nature's
God.” Writers of that document clearly preferred the
term “the Creator” over Jesus. When they wrote,
“…that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,”
they didn’t mean all Christian men. If they had, they
would have written it.
The
idea that the writers of our most valued government documents
were explicit in meaning in some paragraphs and writing
in code in others is ridiculous.
Benjamin
Lopez and others like him will never appreciate that I’m
a lesbian, and I can live with that. But they can certainly
appreciate that I am, like them, a spiritual human being
with morals, values and desires. Yet they choose not to.
Why?
The
Christian right has provided me and everyone else who wants
to play along with a frustrating brainteaser. Sure, I’d
enjoy attempting to solve the riddle more if my life and
liberty didn’t hang in the balance, but while writing
this hasn’t been all that fun, I think I might be
on my way to figuring it out.
The
way I see it, there is only one answer. The trick
is to match it with the right question.
So,
once again, Let’s … play…Jeopardy!
Familiar
music: (doo, doo, doo, doo-doo, dum, dum, dum…)
Alex
Trebek: Hello again, contestants. Welcome back to…Final
Jeopardy! The Final Jeopardy category is…Equality.
Is everyone ready?
(Applause)
Alex:
The answer is … Freedom and justice for all …
(More
familiar music)
Alex:
Time’s up, everyone.
(Moments
later…)
Alex:
Kim, what’s your answer?
Kim:
What can we look forward to when reason is no longer the
enemy of faith?
Alex: Amen, sister.
Kim
Ficera is the author of Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: An Unconventional
Life Uncensored. Her
bi-weekly column Don't
Quote Me is dedicated to all the folks in and out of
Hollywood who talk without thinking or who don't know when
to stop talking. Email her at kim@kimficera.com.
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