Response to a Mainstream Christian

I have a good old friend who is a mainstream Christian and finds fault with some of my rantings against what I call "the Christians". He defended the normal Christian. Here is my response:
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I do agree that most Christians are sane and normal. After all, America is (by and large) sane and normal, and it is populated by 85% people claiming to be Christian. The sad thing is that--not just the loudest Christian voices, but really the only audible Christian voices--are those of the rabid end of the spectrum. Hence my severe extreme absolute frustration! I do believe that those who make themselves out to be the leaders of Christianity DO want to teach Creationism side by side with--if not instead of--evolution. And that they DO either hate or fear gays (those who don't know gays) or are atleast more than willing to use hatred/fear of gays as a political wedge issue (now it's the illegal immigrants on the wedge issue firing line, though). Gay marriage would do absolutely nothing detremental to heterosexual marriage. The only effect on heterosexuals would be that a heterosexual would be much less likely to marry an in-the-closet opposite sex partner, hence they'd be less likely to ruin each of their lives (e.g. Ted Haggard & Larry Craig). Any man who loves his wife won't love her any less just because the couple down the street is a gay couple. If a married couple can't respect their own marriage in a society that allows gay marriage, then that is a severe deficiency of that couple--cutting of their noses to spite their faces, I guess. I just don't see how that heterosexual couple would let such a thing spoil the beautiful wonderful thing they have together. I just doesn't compute. And the absolute worst thing would be to put into the Constitution an amendment that removes a right of a group of people. The Constitution should only limit and enumerate government powers and guarantee citizen rights. It shouldn't limit citizen rights. Ever. Ever. It's just sad that Congress has members who, while understanding this, still use the "marriage amendment" to play political chicken with the issue.

I also think that race is an issue. If it weren't, I can't imagine that George Allen would have said to Macaca, "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia". Fortunately, race is much less of an issue than it was in past elections. Despite all that happens, I still see the state of society getting better and better every year. Where others see decay, I only see improvement. 2007 is better than 2006 which is better than 2005. 2008 will be even better! Society's acceptance of diversity is increasing every year. Race is much less of an issue than 30 years ago. Fortunately, in the area of gay marriage, the divide is much more intergenerational than partisan. When the boomers are dead and the Gen-X'ers run the country, gay marriage will be a reality. And the world will still continue to get better.

I'm happy to hear that you are as afraid of the fanatics as I am. I hope you agree that when Huckabee says that God is responsible for his rise in the polls, or that when Falwell says liberals, feminists, and gays are responsible for 9/11, or when Pat Robertson says that the residents of Dover, PA better not turn to God for their problems because they voted out the pro-ID school board, that you completely understand why we liberals see those as very scary abuses of religion by prominent religious leaders in order to acheive their political ends. I hope that all good Christians view those politiziations of Christianity as being damaging to both the nation, and to Christianity (I'm sure you can see how it's damaged mainstream Christianity when you read my remarks). Can you blame liberals for wanting to smack down Christians when we see people buying/reading Ann Coulter's books after she says that we should invade all the Middle Eastern countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. If these Christians weren't like this, if they didn't try to impose prayer on captive audiences at graduations and football games, impose graven images of the 10 Commandments on public buildings (2nd Commandment, Chief Justice Moore?), didn't make a scene when a Hindu opened the Senate with a morning prayer, didn't freak out when a store clerk says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", didn't claim that the Founding Fathers were more religious than they actually were, then secular liberals wouldn't act like cats being rubbed the wrong way. I just don't want to hear that when a person--who was homeschooled by a very Christian family, who went to missionary school, whose brother goes to Oral Roberts (hmm.. have they been in the news lately?)--shoots up a bunch of religious people, that the fault lies with the "secular media." Why should the blame be shifted off his own community/parents and onto my community when such a person commits such a crime? Don't make the seculars a scapegoat when a wacko raised in a hyper-religious environment sees the hyprocrisy and is severely unbalanced by that revelation. Sure, we seculars may be pointing out the hypocrisy, but don't blame the messenger. Besides, if we seculars had our way, he wouldn't have easy access to his arsenal. The ownership of such firepower seems to be correlated with religious belief--for what reason, I can't understand.

I guess in the end I really like Lincoln's quote: "I don't pray that God is on our side. I pray that we are on God's side." Anytime a politically oriented religious leader self-righteously assumes that God is on his side, it really turns us off (especially when we find that leader is filthy rich [while soliciting donations from the elderly on fixed incomes], fornicates, supports non-religious political causes based on greed, etc). Even the lay people who arrogantly know they are going to heaven rather than humbly hope they are going to heaven bother me--salvation should be based on one's works--not a one time promise of a "personal relationship with Christ". When McCain said he sees the Hand of God when he looks at the Grand Canyon in a debate, that doesn't bother me one bit. I know the feeling he's talking about. I don't think it's the "hand of God", but he and I are just naming the same feeling with different names. I am a believer in the Golden Rule, too. I believe in helping those down on their luck. I went to a Unitarian church in Houston and enjoyed it. I love visiting churches in Europe and temples in Japan. Each yoga practice I go to is opened and closed with what is essentially a Hindu ceremony. If one wants to believe that a god is the best way to explain our existence, that is fine. When one says that the belief in a god is necessary to be moral, my hackles get up. Then when one starts to use the belief that one must believe in god to be moral to institutionalize religion into society/government, my hackles get up even more. I'll be happy when the Christian leaders stop complaining about being repressed by the secularists. If you are Christian I don't care if you wish me a Merry Christmas. It's your right. If you are Jewish and you wish me a Happy Hannukah, that's fine too. When a party A greets a party B, if the greeting is meaningful to either party, the greeting is OK, as far as I'm concerned. And if Christian employee A is representing a department store and doesn't want to have to assume that customer B is Jewish because he has a hooked nose, what's wrong with Happy Holidays, Bill O'Reilly?

I guess my long winded point is that I wish the sane religious people would start restraining their own nutjobs so we liberals don't have to. I don't have ill will toward religion in general. I do have extreme animosity to the abuse of religion when it is used to attack me, my beliefs, my values, my freedom, my rights, and my future--and I will defend my side against that by going on the offense.