Intolerance

In a recent newspaper interview in another state the reporter said this to me: “the fundamentalists say that you are intolerant. Do you think that you are?” I said to her…”you bet….I am totally intolerant of intolerance.” “People that use God and the bible as a big 2X4 plank to hit all the rest of us over the head are beneath contempt and need to be resisted.”

In a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Salman Rushdie presented one of the great truths of our time. He said this: “Special interest groups, claiming the moral high ground, now demand the protection of the censor.

The fundamentalist Christian Right say we must “respect” their beliefs and agenda. Criticism, they say, is off limits as being disrespectful. Citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow citizens’ opinions. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked…And it is the skepticism of journalists, their unwillingness to be impressed, that is their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect of journalists for power, for orthodoxy, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption and for stupidity that I would like to celebrate, and that I urge you all, in the name of freedom, to preserve.”
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Respect for ignorance…a disease

H.L. Mencken was one of the most respected scholars, writers and nationally syndicated columnists in American journalism. He wrote for the Baltimore Sun. His observations on “religious opinions” should be on everyone’s fridge door.

“The most unbelievable social convention of the age in which we live is the one to the effect that all religious opinions should be respected, no matter how ignorant.”

The insidious and seductive cliche that seems to saturate our society is…”you should not be critical of another person’s religious belief…they all deserve “respect”. No matter how ignorant…how bigoted…how ugly…how destructive…how false…how cruel…how superstitious…they all deserve “respect”.

It reaches the absurd point where a person cannot even write a scholarly critique on a religious belief without being labeled and attacked. Distinguished scholars such as Joseph Campbell, or Dr. James Bennett Pritchard who was the biblical advisor to National Geographic magazine and Time-Life books, write about the myth of the Hebrew patriarchs and the monumental exaggeration of Old Testament events and they are immediately attacked as being anti-semitic.
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Edelen vs. the U.S.A.

Hanging on the wall in my study is one of my favorite mementos, or keep-sakes. It is a legal document. It reads: “United States District Court, Western District of Washington, at Seattle.” Then comes the following that I love: “WILLIAM EDELEN vs.THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”. The odds seem about even. I won, easily. It was no contest. Here is what happened.

There is a U.S. Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island, Washington. The Commanding Officer and Chaplain were glassy-eyed , “born again” fundamentalist Christians. They decided to schedule a Billy Graham “born again” revival on the Air Station. (U.S. Naval property). They advertised it as an “Old Fashioned Tent Revival”. Next, they mailed out the announcements on U.S. Navy stationery, using Naval personnel to do the leg work on the planned project. Such stupidity on the part of the Commanding Officer and others is just beyond comprehension.

I had written many columns on church-state relations and violations for Seattle newspapers. Knowing this a Seattle law firm called me one morning and said. “Bill, how would you like to sue the United States of America?” I said, “sure…why not?” The law firm calling me was one of the finest in the nation on church-state constitutional violations. Their lawyers had appeared , at that point, before the U.S. Supreme Court on 14 different cases and had not lost a single one. United States District Judge Donald Voorhees issued the following: “It is hereby ordered that the defendants appear before the undersigned judge at his courtroom and show cause why the court should not issue an order prohibiting the “Old Fashioned Tent Revival” at the Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Washington”: There it was. “WILLIAM EDELEN vs. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”
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