In Wichita Park, Flip Benham, (center), director of Operation Save America, yells at clergy members who support abortion rights.
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If you didn't read yesterday's post, "The Christian Taliban Strikes During a New Orleans Unitarian Church Service,", please do so here . I'm afraid today's post won't make much sense without it.
what eye thynk: Today, I want to respond to one of the people who commented on Sunday's post. Lee commented that "Unitarian isn't a real 'church' anyway. It's no different from scientology."
First, who is Lee to decide what constitutes a real church? Native Americans believe the earth was created by the Mother and that the spirits of their ancestors protect them. Do they not have the right to that faith or should they be required to vet their beliefs and rituals through someone like Lee?
Second, why should the status of a church have anything to do with interrupting and terrorizing those who gather to worship in a manner of their choosing?
Lee missed the entire point of my distaste for Mr. Benham's group's display. They acted with total disrespect for those Unitarian members' right to practice their faith and despoiled the sanctuary of the people who had joined together to worship. They wanted the people gathered in that sanctuary to concede that Operation Save America is the only organization worthy of representing true faith in the one God. They acted like the Taliban.
What makes these people think they had the right to invade this church? Do they really suppose that, because these people hold different views on women's rights, it makes their sanctuary less holy?
We are a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of different cultures and different beliefs. We have existed as a nation for 238 years because we have accepted and respected and celebrated our differences. But more and more we are becoming a nation of intolerant bigots. Thuggery and a loud voice are becoming more valued than tolerance and an accepting heart.
Groups like Operation Save America are built from bricks of pride and mortared by people like Lee who judge those who disagree as inferior. Their mortar is weak and their pride is blind, deaf and ugly. And un-American.
As a child, I was taught about the Pilgrims and why they left 'home'. They were denied what we consider to be a basic Right: Freedom Of Religion.
ReplyDeleteI was raised in the Christian faith and was taught to respect those who were of another faith.
At first I thought if there is only one God, how then can these other beliefs exist? Somewhere in my teens I began to notice that even in the most remote villages in Africa, and in the Amazon, people there believed in a God. Was their God different from mine?
Out of youthful curiosity I attended various churches in the Christian faith. I wondered why, if we were all Christians, could there be so many denominations?
All seemed to be pretty much the same. So, I concluded, politics must be the reason.
I didn't know much about the Unitarian Faith, but a friend was to be married in one. I attended. It was long ago and my memories faded, but one thing still rings in my ears: love. That Unitarian Church was all about love.
And, at a gig in a nursing home I needed to tune my guitar. I asked where I might do this. I was directed to the Synagog. It didn't occur to me earlier that it was a Jewish nursing home and when I entered the synagog I didn't know what to expect. What I found, what I felt, was the same holy power I feel in my own church.
I'm near 70 now, and not able to tell you the precise moment that it occurred to me that truly (verily if you prefer) there is only one God.
And that we all see Him from a different 'place'. Not just geographically, but by some beautiful manner that allowed us to find that one God: some kind of a beautiful 'peek' that convinces us there is a reason for living.
I don't pretend to know anything about theology, but I do know that Christ taught love by sermon and tolerance by example. He also taught me not to judge others.
I pray that the intolerant, even the bigoted, turn to Him in this. And that once they do, they accept His answer.