The Lions Will Lie Down With the Lambchops

[from 8/25/10]

Let’s talk about justice, equality, ethics, and decency!

Ha, ha! Did I get you going? Actually, we’ll abuse wishy-washy liberals today. First, let’s define “wishy-washy” in the context of “liberal”. This may take space. I sure hope so.

Here’s my great insight. People of all political varieties, not just liberals, when faced with a situation that calls for a judgment, may miss the crux of the matter by letting themselves get lost in side issues. It only tends to look “wishy-washy” when liberals do it.

Take the “Mosque at Ground Zero” debate. The Republicans wrote and got passed a law that prevents New York or any one else from stopping the Islamic Center. When Newt Gingrinch misses that central crux, he misses it much the way a tank rolling down the road overlooks a lame pigeon. There’s a crunching sound. We don’t call the conservative Newt “wishy-washy” when he annoys us in this way. We call him “belligerent” or “jerk-tastic”.

Whereas, when liberals annoy us by missing some point, we discover them playing in the liberal sandbox of ethical relativism respectfully disagreeing amongst themselves over whose rights take priority over whose needs, historical patterns of oppression, and whether one person’s offense offending another person’s offense is more offending than the offenses going the other way around and backwards.

So President Obama reminds us that the Imam has the right to build the center, and then turns around and says that saying so doesn’t necessarily mean building it would be the best thing to do. The best thing for who to do? Pee Wee Herman? Shut up.

So, by “wishy-washy” I’ll mean, that particular losing sight of right and wrong that happens by being blinded by dreams of a liberal paradise in which all that is best and perfect will poop out of a grand consensus that even conservatives will join in. The lions lying down with the lambs, as it were, frolicking with them in the clover. And even the clover sees that what we, lions and lambs, all of us, will have decided, is for the absolute very best for every living thing in the world.

Conservatives rarely appear wishy-washy, simply because the conservative paradise doesn’t involve consensus. The conservative paradise involves you doing what you’re told. So conservatives that get sidetracked merely forget their own principles & tell you to do what they wouldn’t, if their heads weren’t also sidetracked to where the sun don’t shine.

“Hey! What brought this on, Wes?” Well, Anitra “Legal As The Day She Turned Eighteen” Freeman was playing with conservatives on the Interwaste the other day and dredged up a year and a half-old story of two girls being expelled from a private religious high school, having been both successfully accused of being lesbianic, and she thrust it out, asking the right & wrong of it.

By the time I found the discussion Anitra began, there were some thirty interweaving comments all along the lines of, golly, freedom sure is complicated, isn’t it? How will we ever sort out the competing interests here? Freedom of religion versus the right to one’s sexual orientation?

Here’s how you sort it out. Forget the liberal sandbox. Forget freedom of religion. Forget sexual orientations. Forget competing interests. Forget that it was a school and a school principal.

When do adults have the right to traumatize minors by conducting inquisitions into their sexuality or their sexual feelings for one another?

If the religion sanctified child-rape and the parents consented to have their children go to a school that meted out rape in the principal’s office, would the parents’ consent stand in for the consent of the children? Newsflash: Grilling teenagers with prying questions about their sexual feelings amounts to emotional rape.

A judge ruled that the girls could be expelled based on grounds of religious freedom to believe that lesbians are “wrong”. The judge was wrong to allow that to even be the issue. The issue was and remains, you don’t harm children that way.

Mayor Fails Sherbert Test

Let's talk about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)!

A 1963 Supreme Court case decided that a Ms. Sherbert who was fired for not working on her Sabbath day was entitled to unemployment benefits, establishing the 4 part "Sherbert Test" to help courts determine when religious freedom trumps a law: If 1) a belief is sincere and if 2) the law places a significant burden on the practice of the belief, then the government must prove 3) it's acting in furtherance of a "compelling state interest," and 4) it has pursued that interest in the manner least restrictive, or least burdensome, to religion. If 1) and 2) hold and 3) and 4) can't be proved by the government, then the government needs to step off.

Well, that decision, made by a liberal 1963 court, was whittled away by later liberal courts appointed by different presidents. So finally Congress had no choice but to pass the RFRA in 1993 to get their Sherbert back.

Why do I, Wes Browning, care? I'm getting to that.

First, in 2007, the Justice Department ruled, without notifying me personally, that the RFRA meant that the government can go ahead and give my tax money to faith-based organizations that only hire people of their own religious persuasions, even though the same Congress that passed the RFRA specifically said no to the practice. The Justice Department said, basically, a general vague yes from Congress that they like overturns a specific clear no that they don't like. If the Justice Department's Mommy said "you don't always have to do what Billy wants," and also said "don't hit Billy," the Justice department would decide it could do what Billy didn't want, namely punch Billy silly.

It so happens it's against MY religion to give one dime of my taxes to any organization that only hires Christians to do charity work that Animists could do just as well. But the Justice Department decided that my religious claim on how MY money is spent in MY name doesn't mean SQUAT, because these religious charities that can collect all the money they want from public donations TAX-FREE would be SERIOUSLY burdened by not having my money, too.

[Left: This animist can label and stuff envelopes for a donation drive as well as any Baptist or Presbyterian. All he needs is a chance to prove himself.]

Well, OK, I'm not going to be a sore loser. So long as that same low bar applies everywhere.

Last week, Nickelsville, the world's pinkest tent city that wants to be a shantytown, was forced onto the parking lot of University Christian Church, northwest of the University of Washington, by the persecution of Mayor Nickels and his administration. You'd think they'd be safe on church land. But Nickels has told the church and everyone else concerned that putting Nickelsville up in the parking lot violates Seattle's land use laws.

What does Sherbert say? Let's see.

1) Does host sincerely believe that their religion requires they give sanctuary to the poor? Yes. It's in their Bible.

2) Would making the church clear the parking lot of tents, or produce a replacement parking lot within days, significantly hinder the practice of said belief? Duh! (It might be different if they were granted a reasonable amount of time to provide alternative off-street parking, but Nickels is in a big hurry. He's got to screw'm while he's got the itch.)

3) Does the state, i.e. the city, have a compelling interest? They have an interest in ensuring that people can park on the streets. But compelling? Parking? Compared to survival? Give me a break.

4) Is evicting Nickelsville and/or fining everyone involved $150 the least restriction of the church's freedom to exercise its beliefs in this case?

Hardly. If a mission that only hires Christians can have my taxes, and never pay them back, there's no reason the city can't let a church limit my parking for a lousy month or two, for the sake of homeless people, when every developer in town can do the same for the sake of building bigger and better homes for the rich.

Nickels needs to step off.