The Awkward Age

I like this billboard, though I also suspect it was photoshopped, rather than a real billboard.

I also like this comment on the post the image illustrates:

My favorite quote thus far; “So we got the date wrong. It’s not like its the end of the world.”

But that's about as far as it goes. The post itself concludes:

What I am wondering is this: when the world did not end, did it cause anyone to become more rational? Or will the Doomsdayers become stronger believers (as sometimes happens in cults) – and more importantly, do moderate Christians feel their interpretation of the bible has been validated?

The word "rational" (not to mention "moderate") increasingly sets off alarms for me, as more and more atheists say and write and post ravingly irrational things in the name of irrationality. I can't see any reason why the failure of the Rapture to take place last Saturday should "cause anyone to become more rational." As the blogger points out, "moderate" Christians who've been citing Matthew 24:36 as a warning about predicting a date for the Second Coming will probably see Jesus' non-appearance as a vindication of their interpretation of the Bible, not as a reason to abandon Christianity.

But then, why should they? Scientists are constantly making absurd and irrational claims about science and what it can do. A decade or so back, I read a lot of stuff by scientists who claimed that a Grand Unified Theory of Physics was right around the corner. They didn't specify the date and hour, of course -- they were as canny about that as the authors of the gospels -- but they were sure it would happen within a generation. It didn't. A little over a century ago, some physicists were making similar forecasts -- just before Einstein published his theory of relativity and knocked 19th-century physics ass over teakettle. Computer scientists have long made similar failed promises for the development of artificial intelligence. No one -- at least no scientist -- would argue that because these predictions failed, science should be scrapped.

I talked about this with an old friend who said that, confronted with harmful scientific claims about sex and race, she tries to talk about "scientists" rather than "science," since science isn't responsible for what scientists do or say. I agreed to an extent, but argued that you can't really separate the two: there is no such thing as "science", just a lot of scientists engaged in various projects. Then I pointed out that defenders of religion say the same thing she'd said about science: it's not Christianity's fault, it's Christians who you should blame.

A few years ago, Katha Pollitt wrote in The Nation, "I actually believe in science. I believe we are clever enough to think our way out of the problems we make for ourselves." Pollitt has often attacked critics of science, whether Christian fundamentalists or members of the "academic left." But her statement of belief in science (which I've heard from many other people) isn't rational: it's an affirmation of faith, a credo. Whether "we" really are clever enough to think our way out of the problems we make for ourselves will have to be seen. (I have no such faith myself.) When people, especially scientists, proclaim what Science will do in the future, they are making statements of faith, not reason.

I don't "believe in science" any more than I believe in Christianity; nor do I "believe" in atheism. I don't even "believe" in Reason. I think reason is a useful tool, but like any tool it has its limits, and it's only as good as the premises one starts with. As the saying goes, "Garbage In, Garbage Out." ("Garbage In, Gospel Out," a computer-scientist friend of mine puts it ironically.) Raising Science or Reason to authority is another version of what Religion is for some people: an attempt to escape human limitations and achieve certainty by fiat.

The Awkward Age

I like this billboard, though I also suspect it was photoshopped, rather than a real billboard.

I also like this comment on the post the image illustrates:

My favorite quote thus far; “So we got the date wrong. It’s not like its the end of the world.”

But that's about as far as it goes. The post itself concludes:

What I am wondering is this: when the world did not end, did it cause anyone to become more rational? Or will the Doomsdayers become stronger believers (as sometimes happens in cults) – and more importantly, do moderate Christians feel their interpretation of the bible has been validated?

The word "rational" (not to mention "moderate") increasingly sets off alarms for me, as more and more atheists say and write and post ravingly irrational things in the name of irrationality. I can't see any reason why the failure of the Rapture to take place last Saturday should "cause anyone to become more rational." As the blogger points out, "moderate" Christians who've been citing Matthew 24:36 as a warning about predicting a date for the Second Coming will probably see Jesus' non-appearance as a vindication of their interpretation of the Bible, not as a reason to abandon Christianity.

But then, why should they? Scientists are constantly making absurd and irrational claims about science and what it can do. A decade or so back, I read a lot of stuff by scientists who claimed that a Grand Unified Theory of Physics was right around the corner. They didn't specify the date and hour, of course -- they were as canny about that as the authors of the gospels -- but they were sure it would happen within a generation. It didn't. A little over a century ago, some physicists were making similar forecasts -- just before Einstein published his theory of relativity and knocked 19th-century physics ass over teakettle. Computer scientists have long made similar failed promises for the development of artificial intelligence. No one -- at least no scientist -- would argue that because these predictions failed, science should be scrapped.

I talked about this with an old friend who said that, confronted with harmful scientific claims about sex and race, she tries to talk about "scientists" rather than "science," since science isn't responsible for what scientists do or say. I agreed to an extent, but argued that you can't really separate the two: there is no such thing as "science", just a lot of scientists engaged in various projects. Then I pointed out that defenders of religion say the same thing she'd said about science: it's not Christianity's fault, it's Christians who you should blame.

A few years ago, Katha Pollitt wrote in The Nation, "I actually believe in science. I believe we are clever enough to think our way out of the problems we make for ourselves." Pollitt has often attacked critics of science, whether Christian fundamentalists or members of the "academic left." But her statement of belief in science (which I've heard from many other people) isn't rational: it's an affirmation of faith, a credo. Whether "we" really are clever enough to think our way out of the problems we make for ourselves will have to be seen. (I have no such faith myself.) When people, especially scientists, proclaim what Science will do in the future, they are making statements of faith, not reason.

I don't "believe in science" any more than I believe in Christianity; nor do I "believe" in atheism. I don't even "believe" in Reason. I think reason is a useful tool, but like any tool it has its limits, and it's only as good as the premises one starts with. As the saying goes, "Garbage In, Garbage Out." ("Garbage In, Gospel Out," a computer-scientist friend of mine puts it ironically.) Raising Science or Reason to authority is another version of what Religion is for some people: an attempt to escape human limitations and achieve certainty by fiat.

The War on Christmas -- I Can See the Light at the End of the Tunnel

Speaking of people who Just Don't Get It, Mary Elizabeth Williams, a Christian writer for Salon.com, recently wrote an attack on atheists who attack religious faith, in particular those who put up a billboard attacking Christmas:

And as a practicing, questioning Christian, I'm in strong agreement with the belief that church and state should firmly be separated, and with the concept of civil rights for all Americans, regardless of their points of view. Because shoving your beliefs on other people is just plain rude. Do you see where I’m going with this? Whether one unshakably believes in a perfectly swaddled little baby Jesus who arrives precisely on Dec. 25 surrounded by cute donkeys and starstruck shepherds is hardly the point. It's that snotty, oh-just-face-it-you-idiots attitude, that utter certainty, that's just as belligerent coming from an atheist as it from an evangelical.

"Because shoving your beliefs on other people is just plain rude" -- am I alone in seeing the delicious, totally clueless irony in that statement? If this billboard constitutes "shoving your beliefs on other people", then so are all the pro-"faith" billboards and churches with roadside marquees and Gideon Bibles in motel rooms and Christmas carols on the radio and all the Christian paraphrenalia that permeates our culture is "shoving your beliefs on other people." To say nothing of all the religious advocates, ranging from the Roman Catholic Church to Jim Wallis and Michael Lerner, who are hollering for more god-talk in the public arena, as if it weren't already saturated with it. By any measure, these atheist billboards amount to less than a drop in the bucket by comparison.

And "belligerent"? The whole tone of Williams's post is belligerent, though no doubt she'd say she was provoked. Fair enough, but to allow oneself to be provoked into belligerence goes against two thousand years of Christian theory, though in fairness it conforms perfectly with two thousand years of Christian practice, starting with the frequently intemperate rhetoric of Jesus himself. I guess it's okay for Christians to be righteously belligerent, but not for nonbelievers. Christendom was built on the belief that it's not only legitimate but a moral duty to attack the beliefs of others; Williams should try investigating early Christian history.

For that matter, American Atheists are aware that they're being belligerent, and quite properly unapologetic about it.

Silverman: Here's That War on Christmas You Ordered The Times reports that "Mr. Silverman said the billboard served two purposes. The first was to get the many people who do not actually believe in God but practice religious rituals to 'come out,' in his words ... The billboard also stands up to what Mr. Silverman described as a reactionary assault on atheists driven mainly by the religious right. 'Every year, atheists get blamed for having a war on Christmas, even if we don't do anything,' he said. 'This year, we decided to give the religious right a taste of what war on Christmas looks like.'"

I'd only object that these billboards are hardly even a taste of "what war on Christmas looks like." But baby steps, baby steps.

From the same source, we get some reports of concern trolling:

I Can See This Backfiring, writes Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review. "Ironically, in his desire to out Christians who are just going through seasonal retail motions, [Silverman's] billboard may serve to remind believing Christians of the real reason for the season."

I'm sure Ms. Lopez would just hate to see anything like that happen. Oh, and What About Teh Children?

Does It Have to Be So Confrontational? wonders Fox anchor Megyn Kelly. In a mostly amiable interview with Silverman, Kelly asks, "Why impose your belief on a big billboard when the little kids drive by? It's in a place that gets a ton of visibility." Silverman replies, "We're allowed to express our views, just like all the churches are allowed to express their views on billboards."

I wouldn't expect any less from Fox News, the network that fought in court for its right to lie to you, but isn't it surprising that so many people have trouble grasping what freedom of expression (to say nothing of freedom of religion) means? Well, no, I guess not.

On the other hand, "reason" doesn't have much to do with any of this. How do you "celebrate Reason," and what's reasonable about that? For that matter, why not put up billboards debunking the myth of Santa Claus? (That might get American Atheists in trouble with the business community, a more fearsome opponent than the community of faith.) I also remember seeing one atheist blogger denouncing the erection of billboards touting belief, but that was before these atheist groups started doing the same thing, so I guess it was different, and anyway that was ancient times; we have to look to the future!

My objection to the fetishization of Reason by so many atheists and self-declared skeptics is that they are generally unaware of how much unreason and mythology they themselves subscribe to, and don't do actual reasoning very well. Take this interesting paragraph from a mostly pretty good rebuttal to a Christian from the Toronto National Post:

It’s not atheists who use ancient books to lecture and sometimes legislate people on how to live. It’s not atheists who fight over a divided Jerusalem nor who taught my French Canadian mother-in-law that the more miserable a life she lived the more she would be rewarded in death. It’s not atheists who can rally a crowd to stone a woman for being a rape victim. And while non believers likely try to pass critical thinking on to their children they don’t send them to weekly lectures about atheism and tell them they are bad if they don’t learn to parrot their parents’ beliefs.

Oh, really? Atheists are a varied lot, but some of us do use ancient books (Plato and others) to lecture and sometimes legislate people on how to live. As for fighting over a divided Jerusalem, let us not forget that the Zionists who built the modern state of Israel, in full knowledge that they were displacing the people who already lived there, were mostly fiercely secular and often Socialist Jews; blaming the Palestinian resistance to their dispossession on religion is fundamentally dishonest. Given the history of scientific racism, it's also disingenuous to blame social injustice solely on religion: scientific rationalists have been all too happy to take up the task of keeping the lowly in their place, if not for God then for Natural Selection and the good of the Race. Women and homosexuals have not always found Science to be our friend, nor Religion always to be our enemy. (Not surprising, since neither Science nor Religion has any inherent moral content.)

As for "pass[ing] critical thinking on to their children," you have to know how to do it before you can pass it on to anyone else. And most atheists are not, as far as I can tell, any better at critical thinking than most religious believers; I sometimes think they're worse, since so many assume that not believing in gods automatically makes you rational, and that's the kind of belief that makes people stupid. Waving "reason" around as a buzzword is not importantly different from waving "faith" around. Better than celebrating reason is trying to practice it well, and that's a lot harder to do.

The War on Christmas -- I Can See the Light at the End of the Tunnel

Speaking of people who Just Don't Get It, Mary Elizabeth Williams, a Christian writer for Salon.com, recently wrote an attack on atheists who attack religious faith, in particular those who put up a billboard attacking Christmas:

And as a practicing, questioning Christian, I'm in strong agreement with the belief that church and state should firmly be separated, and with the concept of civil rights for all Americans, regardless of their points of view. Because shoving your beliefs on other people is just plain rude. Do you see where I’m going with this? Whether one unshakably believes in a perfectly swaddled little baby Jesus who arrives precisely on Dec. 25 surrounded by cute donkeys and starstruck shepherds is hardly the point. It's that snotty, oh-just-face-it-you-idiots attitude, that utter certainty, that's just as belligerent coming from an atheist as it from an evangelical.

"Because shoving your beliefs on other people is just plain rude" -- am I alone in seeing the delicious, totally clueless irony in that statement? If this billboard constitutes "shoving your beliefs on other people", then so are all the pro-"faith" billboards and churches with roadside marquees and Gideon Bibles in motel rooms and Christmas carols on the radio and all the Christian paraphrenalia that permeates our culture is "shoving your beliefs on other people." To say nothing of all the religious advocates, ranging from the Roman Catholic Church to Jim Wallis and Michael Lerner, who are hollering for more god-talk in the public arena, as if it weren't already saturated with it. By any measure, these atheist billboards amount to less than a drop in the bucket by comparison.

And "belligerent"? The whole tone of Williams's post is belligerent, though no doubt she'd say she was provoked. Fair enough, but to allow oneself to be provoked into belligerence goes against two thousand years of Christian theory, though in fairness it conforms perfectly with two thousand years of Christian practice, starting with the frequently intemperate rhetoric of Jesus himself. I guess it's okay for Christians to be righteously belligerent, but not for nonbelievers. Christendom was built on the belief that it's not only legitimate but a moral duty to attack the beliefs of others; Williams should try investigating early Christian history.

For that matter, American Atheists are aware that they're being belligerent, and quite properly unapologetic about it.

Silverman: Here's That War on Christmas You Ordered The Times reports that "Mr. Silverman said the billboard served two purposes. The first was to get the many people who do not actually believe in God but practice religious rituals to 'come out,' in his words ... The billboard also stands up to what Mr. Silverman described as a reactionary assault on atheists driven mainly by the religious right. 'Every year, atheists get blamed for having a war on Christmas, even if we don't do anything,' he said. 'This year, we decided to give the religious right a taste of what war on Christmas looks like.'"

I'd only object that these billboards are hardly even a taste of "what war on Christmas looks like." But baby steps, baby steps.

From the same source, we get some reports of concern trolling:

I Can See This Backfiring, writes Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review. "Ironically, in his desire to out Christians who are just going through seasonal retail motions, [Silverman's] billboard may serve to remind believing Christians of the real reason for the season."

I'm sure Ms. Lopez would just hate to see anything like that happen. Oh, and What About Teh Children?

Does It Have to Be So Confrontational? wonders Fox anchor Megyn Kelly. In a mostly amiable interview with Silverman, Kelly asks, "Why impose your belief on a big billboard when the little kids drive by? It's in a place that gets a ton of visibility." Silverman replies, "We're allowed to express our views, just like all the churches are allowed to express their views on billboards."

I wouldn't expect any less from Fox News, the network that fought in court for its right to lie to you, but isn't it surprising that so many people have trouble grasping what freedom of expression (to say nothing of freedom of religion) means? Well, no, I guess not.

On the other hand, "reason" doesn't have much to do with any of this. How do you "celebrate Reason," and what's reasonable about that? For that matter, why not put up billboards debunking the myth of Santa Claus? (That might get American Atheists in trouble with the business community, a more fearsome opponent than the community of faith.) I also remember seeing one atheist blogger denouncing the erection of billboards touting belief, but that was before these atheist groups started doing the same thing, so I guess it was different, and anyway that was ancient times; we have to look to the future!

My objection to the fetishization of Reason by so many atheists and self-declared skeptics is that they are generally unaware of how much unreason and mythology they themselves subscribe to, and don't do actual reasoning very well. Take this interesting paragraph from a mostly pretty good rebuttal to a Christian from the Toronto National Post:

It’s not atheists who use ancient books to lecture and sometimes legislate people on how to live. It’s not atheists who fight over a divided Jerusalem nor who taught my French Canadian mother-in-law that the more miserable a life she lived the more she would be rewarded in death. It’s not atheists who can rally a crowd to stone a woman for being a rape victim. And while non believers likely try to pass critical thinking on to their children they don’t send them to weekly lectures about atheism and tell them they are bad if they don’t learn to parrot their parents’ beliefs.

Oh, really? Atheists are a varied lot, but some of us do use ancient books (Plato and others) to lecture and sometimes legislate people on how to live. As for fighting over a divided Jerusalem, let us not forget that the Zionists who built the modern state of Israel, in full knowledge that they were displacing the people who already lived there, were mostly fiercely secular and often Socialist Jews; blaming the Palestinian resistance to their dispossession on religion is fundamentally dishonest. Given the history of scientific racism, it's also disingenuous to blame social injustice solely on religion: scientific rationalists have been all too happy to take up the task of keeping the lowly in their place, if not for God then for Natural Selection and the good of the Race. Women and homosexuals have not always found Science to be our friend, nor Religion always to be our enemy. (Not surprising, since neither Science nor Religion has any inherent moral content.)

As for "pass[ing] critical thinking on to their children," you have to know how to do it before you can pass it on to anyone else. And most atheists are not, as far as I can tell, any better at critical thinking than most religious believers; I sometimes think they're worse, since so many assume that not believing in gods automatically makes you rational, and that's the kind of belief that makes people stupid. Waving "reason" around as a buzzword is not importantly different from waving "faith" around. Better than celebrating reason is trying to practice it well, and that's a lot harder to do.

Dialogue Is Hard -- Let's Go Shopping!

If religion is purely a matter of faith beyond reasoned debate, then who could object if believers participate in the public sphere? But when they do, there is no reason anyone should take them seriously, whatever their position may be. “The Lord wants us to do X” or “God says we shouldn’t do Y” – let them speak by all means, but then smile indulgently, as at the prattling of a child, and then return to serious discussion. These people have declared themselves irrelevant. They haven’t been excluded by wicked, narrow-minded secularists – especially in the church-ridden United States, where most public discussion will involve believers of some stripe – they have excluded themselves, by their own refusal to engage.

The first question to put to such believers is: “How do you know what God wants? This believer over here says that God wants the opposite. How do I decide which one of you is telling the truth?” I’ve often asked exactly this of gay Christians. Why should I take their version of Christianity more seriously than I take Pat Robertson’s or Pope Rat’s? If they reply at all, it’s usually along the lines of, “Well, I never said you should!” So why did they pipe up in the first place?

Part of the problem is that the level of public discussion, especially in the US, is so dismally low. Most people seem to think that all they have to do is state their opinion, and that’s that. But stating your opinion is the beginning of discussion. Someone else will disagree with you, and where you do go from there? Most people have no idea whatsoever, except perhaps to say, “Everybody’s entitled to their opinion! It’s a free country!” Many people take any disagreement at all as an infringement of their First Amendment rights. They confuse respect for their right to hold an opinion with respect for the opinion itself.

I’m not talking only about religious fundamentalists here, but about liberal Christians. Such people often complain that Christianity in America is being equated with ignorant, bigoted bible-thumpers who read Left Behind, not nice people like them. It’s true, fundamentalists tend to regard only themselves as Christians (except when they’re trying to inflate the number of self-identified Christians in the US); but then liberals tend to do the same. I’ve mentioned before the gay minister who said he preferred the term “Religious Right,” because he didn’t like to think of the Christian right as Christians.

Or the exclusion can be a little more subtle. When Barack Obama invited a self-styled ex-gay gospel singer to participate in his election campaign, he chided his critics in an interview in The Advocate:

Part of the reason that we have had a faith outreach in our campaigns is precisely because I don't think the LGBT community or the Democratic Party is served by being hermetically sealed from the faith community and not in dialogue with a substantial portion of the electorate, even though we may disagree with them.

This is a revealing statement. Obama was saying that “the LBGT community” is “hermetically sealed from the faith community” and “not in dialogue” with it. As though “the LBGT community” contained no people of “faith”! (And with Obama and the other Democratic candidates waving their cult affiliations around, it’s equally dishonest to say that the Democratic Party is sealed off from the “faith community” as well.) That’s what antigay religious bigots would like you to believe, of course, but it’s not so. It’s primarily the antigay “faith community” that is not interested in “dialogue” with the rest of the electorate; they simply want to lay down the law – not to argue with their opponents, but to preach to them.

But I say “primarily” because in general the progay “faith community” is not much more interested in dialogue. Remember the gay minister I just mentioned. Or Joe Solmonese, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, who said that “There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies.”

For all that, the Human Rights Campaign fought its battle in press releases, not in action: “A vigil that was planned to protest outside of the concert included only about 20 people, almost all white, who held signs like "We are Here, We are Queer, we are voting next year," while across the street long lines of African-Americans, who seemed still dressed for church, waited to go into the event that started at 6 p.m.” But hey: dialogue is hard work, I’ll be the first to admit that.

There’s one other line that believers will use when they claim that they’re unjustly excluded from the public sphere: What about Martin Luther King, Jr.? Well, what about him? It’s true that King was a Christian minister, but one thing that struck me when I read a collection of his speeches recently was how little he relied on god-talk when he wasn’t giving a sermon. King didn’t need to. He had a perfectly good secular argument: full equality for people of all colors is guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment to the American Constitution. He didn’t have to argue for the justice of the principle. What he and the movement he spoke for demanded was that the principle be put into practice, against all the lies and evasions and fierce opposition of American whites. Hence the title of his book, Why We Can’t Wait, answering the claim that “you can’t change people’s minds overnight,” a claim that’s still being made to defend racism and other forms of bigotry to this day, fifty years later. Never forget, either, how many American Christians opposed racial justice on “faith community” grounds; some of those, like Jerry Falwell, went on to establish the Christian Right as a political force. Religious belief can’t settle these matters; believers who claim that their position “is just a matter of faith” are right that far; but religious beliefs, be they conservative or liberal, are simply irrelevant to social and political conflicts.

Dialogue Is Hard -- Let's Go Shopping!

If religion is purely a matter of faith beyond reasoned debate, then who could object if believers participate in the public sphere? But when they do, there is no reason anyone should take them seriously, whatever their position may be. “The Lord wants us to do X” or “God says we shouldn’t do Y” – let them speak by all means, but then smile indulgently, as at the prattling of a child, and then return to serious discussion. These people have declared themselves irrelevant. They haven’t been excluded by wicked, narrow-minded secularists – especially in the church-ridden United States, where most public discussion will involve believers of some stripe – they have excluded themselves, by their own refusal to engage.

The first question to put to such believers is: “How do you know what God wants? This believer over here says that God wants the opposite. How do I decide which one of you is telling the truth?” I’ve often asked exactly this of gay Christians. Why should I take their version of Christianity more seriously than I take Pat Robertson’s or Pope Rat’s? If they reply at all, it’s usually along the lines of, “Well, I never said you should!” So why did they pipe up in the first place?

Part of the problem is that the level of public discussion, especially in the US, is so dismally low. Most people seem to think that all they have to do is state their opinion, and that’s that. But stating your opinion is the beginning of discussion. Someone else will disagree with you, and where you do go from there? Most people have no idea whatsoever, except perhaps to say, “Everybody’s entitled to their opinion! It’s a free country!” Many people take any disagreement at all as an infringement of their First Amendment rights. They confuse respect for their right to hold an opinion with respect for the opinion itself.

I’m not talking only about religious fundamentalists here, but about liberal Christians. Such people often complain that Christianity in America is being equated with ignorant, bigoted bible-thumpers who read Left Behind, not nice people like them. It’s true, fundamentalists tend to regard only themselves as Christians (except when they’re trying to inflate the number of self-identified Christians in the US); but then liberals tend to do the same. I’ve mentioned before the gay minister who said he preferred the term “Religious Right,” because he didn’t like to think of the Christian right as Christians.

Or the exclusion can be a little more subtle. When Barack Obama invited a self-styled ex-gay gospel singer to participate in his election campaign, he chided his critics in an interview in The Advocate:

Part of the reason that we have had a faith outreach in our campaigns is precisely because I don't think the LGBT community or the Democratic Party is served by being hermetically sealed from the faith community and not in dialogue with a substantial portion of the electorate, even though we may disagree with them.

This is a revealing statement. Obama was saying that “the LBGT community” is “hermetically sealed from the faith community” and “not in dialogue” with it. As though “the LBGT community” contained no people of “faith”! (And with Obama and the other Democratic candidates waving their cult affiliations around, it’s equally dishonest to say that the Democratic Party is sealed off from the “faith community” as well.) That’s what antigay religious bigots would like you to believe, of course, but it’s not so. It’s primarily the antigay “faith community” that is not interested in “dialogue” with the rest of the electorate; they simply want to lay down the law – not to argue with their opponents, but to preach to them.

But I say “primarily” because in general the progay “faith community” is not much more interested in dialogue. Remember the gay minister I just mentioned. Or Joe Solmonese, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, who said that “There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies.”

For all that, the Human Rights Campaign fought its battle in press releases, not in action: “A vigil that was planned to protest outside of the concert included only about 20 people, almost all white, who held signs like "We are Here, We are Queer, we are voting next year," while across the street long lines of African-Americans, who seemed still dressed for church, waited to go into the event that started at 6 p.m.” But hey: dialogue is hard work, I’ll be the first to admit that.

There’s one other line that believers will use when they claim that they’re unjustly excluded from the public sphere: What about Martin Luther King, Jr.? Well, what about him? It’s true that King was a Christian minister, but one thing that struck me when I read a collection of his speeches recently was how little he relied on god-talk when he wasn’t giving a sermon. King didn’t need to. He had a perfectly good secular argument: full equality for people of all colors is guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment to the American Constitution. He didn’t have to argue for the justice of the principle. What he and the movement he spoke for demanded was that the principle be put into practice, against all the lies and evasions and fierce opposition of American whites. Hence the title of his book, Why We Can’t Wait, answering the claim that “you can’t change people’s minds overnight,” a claim that’s still being made to defend racism and other forms of bigotry to this day, fifty years later. Never forget, either, how many American Christians opposed racial justice on “faith community” grounds; some of those, like Jerry Falwell, went on to establish the Christian Right as a political force. Religious belief can’t settle these matters; believers who claim that their position “is just a matter of faith” are right that far; but religious beliefs, be they conservative or liberal, are simply irrelevant to social and political conflicts.