Religious Intolerance

ZenCat

ZenCat

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The other day in Chat, I was telling a few people about an incident that occurred between my husband and his Assistant Project Manager (my husband is his direct supervisor).

It all stemmed from an interview I heard on National Public Radio, and a post I made on the new Republican National Committee's "grass roots" website, created for the purpose of inviting suggestions as to how the Republican Party can revitalize itself after it's recent intense decline in popularity.

So I posted my views that the Republican Party should separate itself from it's now seemingly inextricable marriage to the Extreme Christian Right, and return to it's roots (small government, well-protected borders, protection of individual states' rights). My entire post below if anyone is interested.

Anyway, my husband was so proud of my letter, that he was showing it to EVERYONE (co-workers, bartenders, etc.) the night after I posted it, because it became very highly rated on the website (4 out of 5 possible stars). So he shows it to his assistant, who reads it, and then proceeds to rant and rave and insult me... to my husband. Called me an ignorant, prejudiced, narrow-minded fool, among other things. To my husband. To his BOSS. To the guy who is a few weeks away from becoming, in fact, the East Coast Operations Manager for their division (my husband's current boss' job).

The guy is an evangelical christian. He went on to explain that evolution is a hoax, dinosaurs are a hoax, prehistoric everything is a hoax. We all know the drill, here. But he was very angry, and very directly insulting towards me. The guy went on and on, including speculations about what pagan rituals we might practice in lieu of Christmas. Tom sat there (I'm sure with one fierce eyebrow raised, not-blinking, in an expression I know and avoid at all costs but this guy obviously doesn't). At the end of the rant, my husband merely shrugged and said "We're all entitled to our own beliefs, dude."

So I just got a call from Tom, who just got off the phone with his assistant, who called and with great humility told Tom that he couldn't get to sleep the other night, thinking about their conversation. Tom said "Nah, don't worry about it, man. What a boring world it would be if everyone believed the same thing." and this guy said "No. That's exactly what I mean. I can't believe how you think. I can't believe how tolerant you are. I think everyone should believe what *I* believe and nothing else. It made me feel like I was so shallow, and you were so deep. He said he didn't feel like he wanted to apologize, but wanted to make sure Tom knew that he was kind of awed at the open-mindedness Tom and I have."

Bizarre turn of events, eh?

Or maybe he went home and told his (vile, controlling) wife about it and she beat him with a mop, calling him a stupid melonfarming froghumper for risking his job in this economy. Who knows. I still think it was decent of him to make mention of it.

I also gave Tom holy heck for discussing politics AND religion in the workplace, and forbade him to show my letter to anyone else, despite being touched by his obvious, overzealous pride in me.

My post on the RNC Website:
http://www.republicanforareason.com/RPC_Text.aspx

The Republican Party has become the party of the Religious Right, seemingly inextricably. This metamorphosis is frightening to those of us who believe religious extremism has no place in American Government.

When I first registered to vote over 25 years ago, it was as a Republican. I believed in smaller government, states' rights, and protecting our borders. I believe societal health is rooted in personal responsibility and actions. This is what I was told the Republican Party stood for. In the ensuing years, the primary focus of the party seems to have transformed into one of vehement religious and societal intolerance, seemingly as it's primary Ideal.

Nothing illustrated this re-characterization more alarmingly than the election campaign conducted by Governor Sarah Palin, who embodies all of the most frightening caricatures the Republican Party has come to mean to much of America and the world:


  • American Military and Religious Arrogance abroad
  • Ignorance of and indifference to Global Issues and the rights of other cultures
  • Religious extremism and intolerance at home in America
  • Exclusion of those who do not embrace the values shared by the Religious Right and proprietary use of the phrase "Family Values" to describe those values. There are other families in this country who hold their values dear, though they may differ from those of the Religious Right.

Until the Republican Party can assure those outside of the Religious Right that the party is more than an intolerant, witch-burning mob, brandishing AK47's and proclaiming God's Will from the stump, it will be viewed with fear and contempt by those of us who have abandoned it.
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There are much more frightening caricatures than those Sarah Palin embodies. I think you just experienced one of them. :wink:
 
Zen, it's regrettable hearing what happened at your husband's workplace, but certainly not surprising. Many have been taught that thinking outside of their religious box is simply blasphemous. These arguments will continue until the end of time and we can't do a thing about it, either, less we become as rigid and petty as they are towards us. I also agree full heartedly that the religious right also continues to claim that is has the answers to all things good, as we are also seeing with the radical Islamists. Regretfully, this will continue as the only option to many.

What has always confounded me is that religion is available to connect us to our faith, our beliefs, our God, as well as to create structure in society (even if that structure is shifting from nomadic cultures). However, once violence occurs in the name of religion, be it through words or the sword, then that religion has failed to achieve it's ultimate purpose. Whenever someone is killed in the name of religion, then that religion has defeated the value for mankind. It simply didn't achieve ultimate peace and unity it was intended to achieve.

Half of the fundamentalists, in whichever of the main players of today's religion, are breeding hatred and intolerance. In Christian terms, this goes directly against the message of Jesus Christ, who preached of forgiveness and love.

I find myself seeing messages in Eastern religions that provide practical tools to handle the hatred in the world, but certainly wouldn't expect everyone to follow the same path. I do, however, indeed have respect for many religions and find similarities in each that I have studied.
 
TheLastMohican said:
There are much more frightening caricatures than those Sarah Palin embodies. I think you just experienced one of them. :wink:
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Heh, yeah. Well she's still fresh in my mind.

*scrape, scrape*
*douse with napalm*
 
:) I like your husband. Previous to this I thought he was a moron for being a republican. However those [Old Republican] are the views I can respect and admire, and have done for most of my life. Those are almost Tory views, which are close to the Reformist views for which I stand.

The other fellow was a dickhead.
 
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That's interesting...and kinda funny. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. The sooner people get that through their heads the better off we'd be.

Religion as a whole irritates me for that reason. Believe what you want to believe, just leave me out of it.
 
The thing that disturbs me so much is that the letter was never about religion, or judging religion, it was about the Republican Party's abandonment of the important American Principles regarding Separation of Church and State in it's bonding with the Evangelical Right.

"Practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States." ~ James Madison, Fourth President of the United States
 
Your husband is a wise, tolerant man, ZC, and it's terribly sad that the other fellow showed his a$$hattery by being a mean, intolerant bigot.

Man.

He's making good folks look really, really bad. Satya, I'm sorry that this person is fuel for your arguments. :(

I used to vote Republican for a while, too - until after the Reagan era. Then I became a social Libertarian. I liked the idea of "Compassionate Conservative" but it certainly wasn't utilized in the past eight years. It frustrates me when folks equate religion with absolute politics, and a political movement becomes the new religious movement. And it's scary! It's what happens in African nations and India and Pakistan, and some very leftist/rightist countries: The political party becomes the religious party, and vice-versa. So if you end up voting differently from your religious circles, you're ostracized and immediately declared a hater of your own religion.

Which is false.

*Sigh.*

*Hugs Obama tight in a topsy-turvy world*. Obama has his issues, don't get me wrong. But I am SO GLAD he won. The alternative would probably have turned the USA into a neo-fascist hell.
 
Shai Gar said:
:) I like your husband. Previous to this I thought he was a moron for being a republican. However those [Old Republican] are the views I can respect and admire, and have done for most of my life. Those are almost Tory views, which are close to the revisionist views for which I stand.

The other fellow was a dickhead.
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LOL. Tom's not a republican. Faaar from it.

He's not a US Citizen, so can't register to vote or vote.
 
Oh right, that's HS's husband.

Gah, I get you two confused in my mind all the damn time.
 
ZenCat said:
The thing that disturbs me so much is that the letter was never about religion, or judging religion, it was about the Republican Party
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Politics and religion will bring out all kinds of extreme behavior in people.
 
HolySmoke said:
Politics and religion will bring out all kinds of extreme behavior in people.
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Gyah yeah. What's worse thought is Politics and Religion combined.

I think that Politics and Education is the worst possible combination though.
 
Props to him for putting up with that! Lord knows if I were in his shoes I would have flipped out.
 
me too, someone insulting the woman I chose to be with? Bye Bye Employment.
 
Shai Gar said:
Gyah yeah. What's worse thought is Politics and Religion combined.

I think that Politics and Education is the worst possible combination though.
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Let's also throw a dash of parenting, money and sex into the fold, mix in a little fatigue, et voila ! Guaranteed outright, justified argument waiting to happen ! ! ! ;)
 
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Kudos to you and your husband. When someone says something insulting or bigoted to me I usually react with a combination of :m196: and :m104:.

If Obama hadn't won the primaries, I think there would've been a serious move to create be a third political party formed in the US. The paleolibertarian/Ron Paul supporters in the GOP and the non-unionized intellectual liberals from the Dems. But maybe I should get my own thread to talk about that...
 
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