When Books Went to War by Molly Manning

Source of book: I own this.

My wife was given this book by one of her family members. It looked interesting, so I decided to read it too.

In many ways, World War Two is the defining moment of the 20th Century. It was the last gasp of nationalism as a justification for war in Western Europe - really, the last strong assertion of 19th Century political philosophy, and the final fall of dictatorship in that region. True, it would live on in the nationalistic dictatorships of the USSR for another 50ish years, but Germany and Italy would transition to constitutional democracies thereafter, and Western Europe would enjoy an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity.

I have written before about how similar Nazism and Communism are to each other. Both embody the idea of a nationalistic utopia attainable by totalitarianism and the rejection of globalist ideals - and ideas. In both cases, it was deemed necessary to purge the nation of “un-German” or “un-Soviet” books. This idea of ideological (and usually racial) “purity” is central to all totalitarian systems, including religious ones.

Thus, in 1933, after the Nazis took over German, mass book burnings took place. It is estimated that over 100 million books were destroyed. That many of the books deemed unacceptable were written by Jews was not coincidental. The parallel with Communism is likewise unmistakeable. Ideological purity demands the revocation of freedom of speech and freedom of thought. I will also mention that the cult group I spent my teens in recommended burning of certain books - and toys - that were deemed too evil to exist. (Such as, to name one author, J.R.R. Tolkien.) The totalitarian instinct is the same however it is expressed. 

 History is important...

When it became apparent that the United States would enter the war, certain visionary individuals realized that the war was not just one fought by weapons and bloodshed. It was, at its core, a war about ideas. As the Council on Books in Wartime - the organization founded to provide reading material to US soldiers - noted in an essay kicking off their effort, the fighting wasn’t just taking place on the field, but in the realm of ideas. They correctly noted that the single most destructive weapon in the war wasn’t a bomb, it was Mein Kampf. That book caused an entire nation - an educated nation no less - to burn the great books. And that book furthermore caused millions of otherwise decent people to turn on their countrymen and viciously exterminate millions.

The types of books the Nazis destroyed are interesting. Goebbels specifically targeted books deemed “progressive,” singling out books about pacifism, socialism, reform, and sexual freedom. Is it any surprise that today’s right, which tolerates - even embraces - open Nazi slogans and symbols wishes to target these same ideas? One of the startling things about reading the Nazi propaganda is just how similar it is to the “traditional values” propaganda today - the bullcrap the Culture Wars people keep peddling. Return to the glory days of the past. Racial and cultural purity. Women belong in their place and need to have more babies so that the “foreigners” don’t out reproduce them. Stop feeding the inferior races and classes. And so on. Nothing has changed - this poison is back with a vengeance right now.

And so it was back then. In the days before the war, there were a surprising number of Americans who were sympathetic to Nazi ideals. (Not least of which was the KKK - which today likewise is in sympathy with neo-Nazism.) White Supremacy was pretty open in society back in the 1930s and 1940s. As Selden Menefee’s book (and later radio dramatization) noted, “large segments of the population are more interested in keeping the Negro in his place than in keeping Hitler and Tojo in their places. The resulting dissention must be very gratifying to Dr. Goebbels.” In another telling segment, a Southern politician tells Menefee that there is no “racial question.” “There is white supremacy, and there always will be white supremacy. We have no patience with fellas in Washington, with their anti-lynching bills, their anti-poll-tax bills, and their anti-discrimination clauses in war contracts.” Again, it has been disturbing to see this basic idea raise its head - and come to power again.

Even some of those who weren’t openly pro-Nazi instead adopted isolationist ideas. The US should just stay out, and look out for its own interests first and last. (Sound familiar?) Men like Wendell Wilkie argued the opposite, that countries need to cooperate with each other in order to achieve lasting peace and mutual prosperity. (In other words, a more globalist view. I am shocked that, after a half century of relative peace, this idea is controversial. Back even a decade ago, conservative politicians at least agreed that mutual trade relations helped support a peaceful world. Make profit, not war, right?)

To counter these poisonous ideas which very nearly destroyed free society 75 years ago, a group of people set out to make sure that the fighting men of the US military had free access to the world of ideas - particularly those which the Nazis deplored. And they succeeded in an amazing way. Furthermore, these idealists hoped to counteract the forces of White Supremacy in our own country. When Books Went to War tells this story.

The story is pretty compelling. There certainly was a demand for books by the soldiers. The war (as with most modern wars) consisted of hours of waiting punctuated by moments of terror and chaos. Those long hours needed to be filled by something other than thinking about dying or killing, and books were the perfect solution. So books needed to be provided.

There were two main phases of the effort. The first was a volunteer collection of books from private individuals. Millions of books were donated and sent to the military units. This was both good and inadequate. The books filled a need for a while, but they worked best at training camps and headquarters - not so well in the field. First, most books at the time were larger hardbacks. They were difficult to carry, heavy, bulky, and didn’t stand up to combat well. Eventually, it became clear that more was needed.

With that in mind, the Council convinced Congress to appropriate funds, and the major publishers to provide books at a very low cost, and the Armed Services Edition series was created. Eventually, millions of copies of over 1300 titles were distributed in light, compact, durable paperbacks to the troops.

Titles were carefully selected to represent a broad range of topics, taste, and genre. Poetry, westerns, classics, non-fiction, bestsellers, and more were all part of the series. Care was taken to find titles that were in demand, and that the soldiers enjoyed.

One interesting and gratifying result of this program was that many soldiers who were not readers before the war became addicted to reading. There wasn’t much else to fill the time, and peer pressure also helped encourage everyone to read. As a result, the men who came back from the front were generally better read and informed than they would have been otherwise, and an entire generation discovered literate reading.

[Side note: unfortunately, this effect failed to take hold in subsequent generations. The Baby Boomers were the first television generation, and even today, they are the generation least likely to have read a book in the last year, to have read a book since college, and so on. Millennials are actually more likely to be readers.]

There were some interesting books among the many titles. Perhaps the most beloved was A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Also popular for nostalgic reasons was Chicken Every Sunday by Rosemary Taylor. I might have to seek that one out. Also notable was The Great Gatsby, which had been languishing in obscurity prior to the ASE program, but became wildly popular after it was “discovered” by the soldiers. I also have a fondness for the very first ASE book: The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N by Leo Rosten (originally under the pseudonym Leonard Q. Ross), one of my favorite humorous books - and one that humanized immigrants to me in a very real way.

There were some hiccups, however, in book selection. And, as is always the case when it comes to book controversies, the challenges came from the usual suspects: politics and religion.

On the politics side, the Republicans, horrified at the idea that Roosevelt might win a fourth term, snuck a bill through that essentially prohibited books with political ideas from being part of the ASE program. This was part of the greater fight over voting by soldiers - since most of them supported Roosevelt, active efforts were made to suppress their votes or influence their opinions in one direction or another. In what has to be one of the most impressive counteroffensives, libraries, publishers, and the armed forces leadership all pushed back against the bill. As the Council chairman at the time, Archibald Ogden, said, given the restrictions, all they would be able to publish was the Bobbsey Twins and Elsie Dinsmore. (That last one is darkly hilarious in retrospect. The Elsie Dinsmore books were super popular in the most Fundie homeschooling circles, of course. But they are far from free of politics. Rather, they are deeply racist and authoritarian. As in, if they are good Christians, black people will get to be white in heaven level racist. As in obey your abusive father and marry a man twice your age authoritarian.)

Fortunately, this counter effort was successful, resulting in the repeal of the bill. If anything, the Republican effort at suppression of political ideas backfired, particularly after it came to light that a German professor had predicted back in the 1930s that the Americans would ban their own books - the Nazis wouldn’t have to do it.

The other threat came from religion, specifically in the form of moralizers worrying about sexual content in some of the books. Some of these were not particularly high art, such as Forever Amber, a pulp bodice ripper. But the other book that came in for special censure was Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith, which told of an interracial relationship. Both books were at one time banned by the USPS - until Eleanor Roosevelt (rapidly becoming one of my heroes…) insisted the bans be lifted. In addition, the city of Boston banned them. Just in case you wondered where the phrase “banned in Boston” came from. Ogden stood firm on the subject, armed with the knowledge that the servicemen were on his side. He quoted one infantryman’s letter as follows:

“Pay no attention, absolutely no attention, to whatever organization tries to influence your selection of books. If the legion of decency approaches you, please leer at them in your most offensive manner, and tell them to stuff it.”

And the books that were challenged sold - as they generally tend to after an attempt to ban them. Ogden quipped, “It’s beginning to look as if all an author has to do to get into the armed forces library is to be banned in Boston.” Needless to say, this censorship attempt failed rather dramatically.

There was one issue, however, that did cause great consternation and loud complaints on the part of the soldiers. Occasionally, something would go wrong, and a book would turn up missing pages. I feel the pain, believe me. Nothing could be worse than getting partway through a book and not being able to finish it. Such mistakes were corrected, and soldiers which had an issue were given replacements.

The book concludes with some interesting information about the aftermath of the war. One of the key pieces of post-war legislation was the G.I. Bill, which provided free education to (most) veterans. Combined with the new-found love for books that the returning soldiers had and a thirst for knowledge (to the point where younger students complained they were wrecking the grading curve), the G. I. Bill led to a boom in skilled and educated workers in the 1950s - surely one of the contributing factors to the economic boom which ensued.

That said, the author correctly notes that not everyone was included. Because of segregated schools, African Americans did not have much in the way of opportunities to take advantage of the bill. Thus, racial inequality was increased. Likewise, women were not just ineligible, they were actively pushed out of the workforce to make way for the men.

Perhaps the best lesson to draw from this, though, is that investments in education and literacy pay dividends. Again, I am shocked that this is even controversial these days, and that state universities continually have to fight for adequate funding. But perhaps this too is a symptom of what ails the Boomers. Not valuing books much themselves, and benefiting from the prosperity the previous generation created, they haven’t been eager to pare back their own lifestyles to invest in the the Millennials, preferring to whine about how bad the kids all are. But, if they took a good hard look at the past, they might note that making America great requires an educated public, skilled workers, and investment of the public resources to make that happen.

It is mostly coincidence that I happened to finish this book at the beginning of Banned Books Week. But it fits.

The pattern of totalitarian systems of any age has been to suppress knowledge, eliminate dissent, and burn or ban books. In the war of ideas, knowledge is key - and empathy too. The best defense against the onslaught of fake news and hatemongering is real knowledge, real facts, and the ability to empathize with people outside the tribe. Books have always been crucial in this battle of ideas. Unlike clickbait articles or 140 character sound bites, books allow a bigger picture to be seen, people to be fully humanized, and ideas to be fully developed. Infowars and Stormfront are the Mein Kampf of our time, and the ideas haven’t really changed. They have just been re-packaged. One of the things that gives me optimism for the future is that younger people are more likely to be readers.

As this book shows, it isn’t just enough to have freedom to read. We must actually read, or we are missing the point. There is much for all of us to learn, and access to great ideas has never been easier. We owe it to ourselves, to others, and to our children to continue to learn and explore, and cultivate a love of knowledge, wisdom, and learning in our children.

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This is my 2014 selection for Banned Books Week. Technically, that was back in late September, but I was delayed by a few factors. First, I got busy and let the event sneak up on me. Second, Palace Walk had to be ordered, and took a couple of weeks to come in. Finally, because the book is nearly 500 pages long, it took me a while to read it.

Just a reminder of my rules for book selection (which you can read about here):

I distinguish between banned books and challenged books. A banned book is one that is made illegal to publish or to possess by a government. A challenged book, in contrast, is one that either is sought to be kept out of a library or school, but is not illegal to publish, buy, or own. I believe there is a significant difference, although the reasons for banning and challenging are often the same.

Here are the reviews for previous Banned Books Weeks:

Areopagitica by John Milton (2011)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (2012)

The Quest for Christa T. by Christa Wolf (2013)

***

Palace Walk is the first book in the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz. Written in Arabic in the 1950s, it wasn’t translated into English until 1990, after Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for Literature. (He remains the only Arab to win it.) As an interesting tidbit, the translation was overseen by Jackie Kennedy Onassis, back when she was an editor for Doubleday.

Mahfouz grew up in Cairo in the 1910s and 20s, in a devout - and strict - Muslim family. To a degree, Palace Walk and the later books of the trilogy reflect facets of his life from childhood to middle age, although they are not autobiographical. He has admitted that the youngest son, Kamil, is based on himself, but the events (at least the non-historical ones) do not directly mirror his experiences.

Mahfouz was a prolific author, writing dozens of novels and plays, hundreds of short stories, and various other works over his 70 year career. His work didn’t really break through to the Western world, however, until relatively late in life, after he won the Nobel Prize.

This book was suggested to me by a frequent and well-read commenter on my blog. After doing a little research, I realized that Mahfouz was an ideal choice for Banned Books Week.

The Cairo Trilogy was banned throughout most of the Arabic world - except Lebanon - which makes it fit my criteria.

However, it is the personal life of Mahfouz that really seals the deal. Before Salman Rushdie made headlines by being the subject of a fatwah calling for his assasination, Mahfouz was on the Islamic Fundamentalist “death list.” After Rushdie fell afoul of the extremists for his novel, The Satanic Verses, Mahfouz defended him, which reminded the extremists that they already hated him. In 1994, despite police protection, the 82 year old Mahfouz was seriously injured in an assassination attempt outside his Cairo home. (Rushdie was apparently wise to have fled to England…) So, Mahfouz can truly be claimed as a hero in the fight for free speech - and received honorable wounds.

[Side note: I read The Satanic Verses a few years before I started my blog. I highly recommend it as an example of Magical Realism, and as a clear case of how fundamentalists cannot stand any questioning of their dogma. Great book.]

Mahfouz spoke one of the most insightful comments about how censorship reflects poorly on the censors.

“No blasphemy harms Islam and Muslims so much as the call for murdering a writer.”

Palace Walk is set in the Cairo of Mahfouz’s childhood, at the end of World War One through the Egyptian Revolution of 1919. The book follows the family of Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, the tyrannical and hypocritical father.

Ahmad has two sides to his personality. To his family, he is harsh, controlling, devout, and aloof. To his friends, he is jovial, personable, and free. He loves “wine, women, and song.”  (Let’s just say that “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll” isn’t new by any stretch…) Although he confines his wife to the house at all times, and demands absolute, unquestioning obedience from his children; he himself stays out all hours of the night, drinking and singing, and having a series of affairs with courtesans.

His eldest son, from a prior marriage, is much like him - but without the discretion to stay out of obvious trouble. His second son is a serious and politically passionate student. The youngest (the stand-in for Mahfouz) is a young boy. The elder daughter is jealous of the younger for her beauty and desirability. The mother is in repressed denial about her husband’s dalliances, and submerges her own personality in her obedience and submission to his every whim.

While the political turmoil rages around them, the family itself experiences dramatic change. Both girls marry, which changes the dynamic of the family. The second son rebels - not out of a desire to cast of the yoke - but because of his idealism in support of Egyptian nationalism. The elder son, unable to control his sexual desires, attempts to rape a servant, so his father marries him off. This ends badly as the son becomes bored with what he has as a matter of property and seeks new thrills, causing embarrassment to his family. In a number of different ways, the author portrays the changing of society and the gradual erosion of the father’s absolute control of his family.

The turmoil in society is two-fold. First, there is the political upheaval as Egypt seeks independence from England. Mahfouz does an excellent job of creating in the reader sympathy for the Egyptians, while retaining the humanity of the British. There is no simple good/evil dichotomy here, but it is a change from the often jingoistic British perspective of colonialism. Mahfouz writes it well because he lived it. Even though he was only seven years old, he felt that the events had a profound effect on him, and he writes accordingly.

The second societal change is from a traditional, patriarchal society to one in which women are viewed as having some rights of their own. Education, for example - or even the right to walk the streets unaccompanied by a man. It is profoundly sad that this change, which started in Egypt 100 years ago, should have met such absolute reversals throughout the Arab world in the last several decades.

The portrayal of Ahmad is excellent. On the one hand, he is easy to hate, despicable in his lust and drunkenness, and unbearable in his hypocrisy. On the other, he is relatable in a weird way. He is able to justify his own lapses and retain his good opinion of himself. He (correctly) notes that the Koran appears to permit dalliances with courtesans and concubines (as does the Old Testament, incidentally), and he makes up for his abuse of alcohol (in his mind) by his strictness with his family. His efforts to raise them right mitigate his own lapses. It is in so many ways a familiar hypocrisy. Goodness in one area excuses lapses in another. From the Pharisees on down, this is an unfortunate human tendency. (It is perhaps most visible when religious leaders fail…)

And Ahmad is certainly a narcissist. The greater world revolves around him because of his scintillating personality. His family revolves around him because of his place of authority and power. And he must be the center. As he puts it, regarding the potential marriage of his daughter, “No daughter of mine will marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me...me...me.” At one time, I might have blown this off as an exaggeration, but my experience with John Thompson [insert link] speaks otherwise, as he seemed to think that my family should consider it a great honor to be pursued by such a luminary as him.

Ahmad isn’t just a hypocrite, either. He is a product and a member of the society in which he lives. Many of the men cheat habitually. The Greek tavern is a regular haunt of Muslim men. There is an entire subculture of entitlement that is fed by the societal beliefs about women. Because men regain near absolute power over the women, they themselves are the only checks on their behavior. Thus, a truly moral man may avoid the culture of philandering, but there is no consequence for those who indulge. After all, the women must obey and shut up. After all, what are their options? Return to their parents’ home is about it.

Mahfouz is brutally honest about the attitudes toward women. The eldest son, Yasin, has nothing but contempt for his mother, who had multiple marriages and affairs after being divorced by his father. “Every woman is a filthy curse. A woman doesn’t know what virtue is, unless she’s denied all opportunities for adultery.” This from a young man who squanders his income on wine and prostitutes. Because the double standard is the standard in societies that denigrate the equality of women. He can sleep around at will, but she must remain pure.

It was quite painful to read the passages dealing with Amina, Ahmad’s wife. She was married to him at 14, and has buried her very self in her service of him. She knows he stumbles home drunk every night, and that he has had a string of affairs, but she refuses to acknowledge this to herself. Instead, she represses everything, never having an opinion or need of her own. As she says to him after he rather violently rejects her extremely subtle attempts to relate a marriage proposal regarding her younger daughter, “My opinion is the same as yours, sir. I have no opinion of my own.”

It would be easy to dismiss this as either an exaggeration or as something limited to extreme Islam. However, this is exactly what leaders of Christian Patriarchy like Bill Gothard taught should be the attitude of those “under authority.” Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to. It is the concept of absolute obedience to authority by those under it. Namely, women and children.

The problem with Ahmad isn’t strictly a religious one. Many of his friends are far less strict. Indeed, the society as a whole was transitioning toward one where women had freedom, and children were to be nurtured rather than controlled. Ahmad is an unusual specimen even in his time and culture. However, the culture also supports the structure that allows his abuse. His friends may question his strictness, but they cannot and will not question the hierarchy of power that enables it. He may not use his rights wisely, but they are certainly his right.

Thus, Ahmad is able to inflict his abuse on his family, and there is no real recourse for them. Palace Walk is thus a powerful story of how structural power imbalances enable and feed the abuse of narcissists like Ahmad.  

One final thought on this book. I was struck by some significant similarities between this book and The Cypresses Believe in God. [An outstanding book. Highly recommended.]  Both are set during times of civil unrest, both follow a close family, both have an eldest son tempted by sex and a second son idealistically following a vision, both chronicle the weakening of religious and political ties. The plots are in a number of ways parallel, although I cannot find evidence that they were aware of the others’ work. The differences are fascinating, however. In Cypresses, the parents are admirable, salt of the earth types. In Palace Walk, they are highly dysfunctional and of little help to their children. In Cypresses, the whole world goes crazy. (This is the most terrifying part of the book.) In Palace Walk, the revolution is logical and justified to a large extent. Neither the British nor the Egyptians are stark raving mad like the various parties to the Spanish Civil War. In Cypresses, religion and family ultimately draw toward moral, compassionate behavior, while in Palace Walk, both fail to offer truly moral guidance. Thus, in Cypresses, in a world gone mad, family and faith offer the refuge from the maelstrom. In Palace Walk, the insanity comes from within, and only escape from the tyranny of the family structure as excused by religious teaching can lead to a better way.

Perhaps, in the end, the contrast of the two books might best be seen in the characters of the two fathers. Matías Alvear is full of integrity in his public and private life, and full of genuine love and compassion for others. When all goes to hell, his family knows his heart, and responds accordingly. For Ahmad, once his power to abuse and control starts to slip, he has nothing left to his relationships with his children. They are free to disregard him and his directives, because there is no underlying relationship of love and mutual respect.

The book itself seems to anticipate a sequel, as it ends after a catastrophe, but without tying up the loose ends. However, I looked up some information on the sequels, and it appears that there is a significant time gap before the next book. Mahfouz appears to expect the reader to fill in the fallout of the final events. I shall have to find the other books in this series, as I am curious to see how it ends. In general, the writing is compelling. If anything, I found myself wishing the book was a little longer so that more information about certain events could be included. The characters are memorable and believable, and the psychological aspects of the relationships are compelling.

Thought Police and Religious Freedom: Do We Really Believe God Hates Fags - Part 2

When I wrote my post on the passing of Fred Phelps, I had no idea that three related events would explode soon after.

The first was the World Vision incident. For those who didn’t catch this, World Vision changed its policy to allow legally married same-sex couples to work for the organization’s United States operations. Thousands of donors pulled out in protest, and World Vision backtracked.

The second was that the incoming CEO of tech company Mozilla resigned under pressure after it came to light that he had donated to the political campaign for California’s Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage.

The third was an executive order by President Obama requiring companies contracting with the Federal Government to have non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation.

The reactions to these three events by my fellow Evangelicals was sadly both predictable and incredibly tone deaf. I would add that I - and many of my generation - found the responses to be rather un-Christlike as well.

There were the calls to dump existing child sponsorships at World Vision because it was no longer a “Christian” (read: doctrinally pure) organization. The hardships that would result to the children? Not nearly as important as making sure that no fags were allowed to assist in the mission.

For the Mozilla decision, the response was also completely predictable. “The End of Free Speech.” “Thought Police.” “Fascism.” “Gay Mafia.”

Likewise for the non-discrimination policy. One company involved complained that he was suffering religious persecution, that he was not being allowed to practice his religion. Because apparently part of his religious practice was to fire gays. And Evangelicalism backed him up!

I’m rather appalled by that. It’s one thing to make a political argument about the constitution, but to make job discrimination into a religious sacrament? 

It is amazing to me that there can be this level of hypocrisy.

I explained in my previous post that I believe that Evangelicals view the United States as the new Israel, and are terrified that God will remove his blessing if we don’t do everything in our power to rid our nation of homosexuals. That theory is about all that adequately explains these reactions.

Let me analyze these related events from the legal point of view, because the responses betray a basic lack of understanding of our constitution. I also want to address the religious side, because I am appalled at what continues to be said, and I believe it is a significant reason that Evangelicalism is losing its young people.

Let me start with the legal errors.

First, I am so tired of people analyzing the Mozilla situation as a “free speech” issue. The 1st Amendment right to free speech is a right to be free from government interference with one’s speech. Subject to what we call “time, place, and manner” restrictions, we have the right to voice our opinions in public. That includes the right to make political donations without retaliation from the government.

Mozilla is not a government entity. It is a for-profit corporation owned by private sector shareholders. Within the basic boundaries of state and federal fair employment laws, they can choose to hire whomever they want.

On a related note, the claim of “thought police” or “fascism” is equally ludicrous. There is no governmental action here whatsoever. A private sector corporation has made a decision about what sort of person it wants as the visible representation of its company.

When people complain about a decision like this, what they are calling for is NOT free speech. They are calling for speech without consequences. They are calling for the ability to exercise free speech without risk that others will see them and their speech as offensive.

But not everyone’s speech. Just their speech.

Federal Contracting

Likewise, the legal analysis in the Federal contracting issue is faulty. (Leaving aside the more legally interesting question of legislation by executive order.) Our Federal government chooses to contract out some of its functions, such as building stuff. NASA, for example, flies a lot of rockets, but it doesn’t actually own a facility to manufacture them. They pay private industry to do that.

Our government is, by design, secular, rather than theocratic. It exists (in theory) to serve the American people, not just one particular segment. That’s one reason why our constitution has a clause forbidding religious tests for office. It’s also why we enacted civil service laws - so that cronyism and discrimination wouldn’t determine who could serve. Likewise, non-discrimination laws protecting various groups have been put in place throughout the years. Generally, these are aimed at stopping discrimination against a group that has been subject to discrimination in the past. It’s not much of a stretch to note that homosexuals are one such class that has been subjected to a great deal of exclusion. In fact, one could simply look at the fact that there is a huge protest at the thought of having to hire gays. (Sort of like there was for non-whites, and women…)

So thus, we as a nation appear to be in the process of deciding that non-discrimination laws to protect those of minority sexual orientation are a good idea. (About half of the states, including my home state of California, already have such laws that apply to public and private employment. So a Federal contractor based in CA would already be subject to the rules, as would any non-church employer.)

I’ll point out that Federal contractors are not religious organizations providing religious services. The companies in question aren’t providing “rent-a-preachers” or wafers for Mass. (It would be a pretty obvious Establishment Clause violation if the federal government were hiring companies to provide sectarian religious services or sacraments.)

The contractors, rather, are building things, and performing basic, non-religious, services.

Since these are non-religious in nature, there is no legitimate reason to require, for example, that one’s employees all be Baptists. Likewise, there is no legitimate reason to require that all employees hold to the sexual code of the employer. This simply shouldn’t even be relevant to their employment. A lesbian can swing a hammer or clean a bathroom without interference from her orientation.

Thus, it really seems a stretch to me that having to hire competent employees without caring about their orientation wouldn’t require a violation of religion at all.

This would seem to be a basic fact, unless one believes that God has called one to isolate homosexuals and deny them access to jobs. If your religion is based on harming those who don’t follow your sexual rules, then I guess one could make that argument.

Federal contracting has its problems, but “too many gays employed” isn’t one of them.

The Mozilla and the World Vision cases are very similar.

The World Vision case is a bit different than the federal contractor issue, because World Vision is a ministry, and doesn’t rely on federal contracts. Thus, it is free to require religious tests for its employees. Thus, it appears to resemble the Mozilla case. Here is the parallel:

Certain donors to World Vision put pressure on that organization to exercise its hiring powers in a way that excluded gays. “We don’t want your kind (gays) working here.”

Certain customers (and employees and board members) put pressure on Mozilla to exercise its hiring powers in a way that excluded donors to a certain political campaign from the highest position of leadership. “We don’t want your kind (bigots) representing our organization.”

Po-TAY-to. Po-TAH-to.

Except that this isn’t the first time this has come up.

A key childhood memory is of the never-ending calls to boycott corporations for their political decisions.

This has been going on literally for decades. Boycott Target because they donate to Planned Parenthood. Boycott Burger King. Boycott Proctor and Gamble for...I forget...maybe it was because they were Satanist or something.

There was another reason, though, that really sticks in my mind.

If my memory serves, AT&T and Exxon Mobile were singled out for a particularly heinous violation of decency. What was that, you ask?

These corporations decided to spend their own money to extend health care coverage to same-sex partners.

How awful! Rather than use that money to buy a new corporate jet or line the pockets of the CEO (which would not have drawn a boycott), they were going to provide health insurance to people God hates. We cannot have that happen. BOYCOTT!

And that’s just health insurance. For centuries, gays risked losing their livelihood, their freedom, and even their lives if they were outed. (Even as recently as the last century, there is the sickening story of Alan Turing. It’s worth looking up.) 

There is a pretty clear pattern of Evangelical Christianity - continuing through today - using its political and economical power to say, “We don’t employ your kind here.”

Again, let me go back to my previous post. Anything less than a complete and vigorous exclusion of gays from every facet of decent society is considered to be drawing God’s wrath on our nice little theocracy.

The shoe is now on the other foot.

The same tactics we have used for decades are now coming back around. When we were the majority, we could do this without repercussions. Now, public opinion has shifted and is continuing to shift, and we are finding that using our money and our speech to declare that God hates fags is making us unpopular. We are no longer the popular kids on the playground. Others are deciding that maybe they don’t want to hang out with us.

This isn’t the thought police. This isn’t an abridgment to religious freedom.

People don’t like to hang out with assholes. Not even if they are “Assholes for Jesus.™”

Especially not if they are “Assholes for Jesus.”

Again, the shoe is on the other foot, and we are suddenly faced with our own tactics being used against us, and we are freaking out. Perhaps we might have thought about that before we used those tactics.

If the tactics are legitimate when we use them, then why shouldn’t they be used by others? Legally, there is no difference. We just want our case to be treated differently.

Of course, we do believe that there is a difference. We just aren’t being honest about what that difference is. We like to claim that we have a politically consistent philosophy, but cases like this expose us. We believe in free speech...for us. We believe in non-discrimination in employment...for us, but not for gays. After all, we came unglued when World Vision decided to hire gays. And by god, we want the right to deny gays jobs or terminate them from the ones they have. (Or even, in some cases, we apply this to minorities and women. See Matt Walsh calling for abolishment of all restrictions on discrimination - including Civil Rights laws. Oh wait, he now has removed that post. Too embarrassing perhaps?)

The difference is that we believe that we are doing God’s work. We believe in the theocratic principle, that the laws of our secular nation should be primarily directed at enforcing our views of sexual morality - and even, if we are really honest, our cultural preferences. (Future blog post on this one, perhaps.)

We believe that since God hates fags, we are justified in using these tactics against them, but they are not in using them against us. Shoe’s on the other foot now. How’s it feel?

Is this even remotely how Christians should act?

Can we just be honest about the practical implications of what we Evangelicals are advocating? We want the right to deny gays housing, employment, and anything else that we can. And we want to convert the rest of the world to our beliefs. What would that mean?

That would mean - in practice - that we would wish to starve, freeze, and in essence kill the homosexuals. Let’s admit it, rather than recycling platitudes about Christian love.

Denial of employment and housing is just that - a denial of the right to exist.

I guess our hope is that if we kill isolate and deny basic services to homosexuals they will what? Convert? Stay in the closet?

I talked a little about this idea in my original post, but have been thinking on it even more, and have concluded that we Evangelicals are so freaked out about God’s wrath toward us for not preventing others from sinning that we haven’t really noticed what Christ taught.

For purposes of this discussion, I want to make clear that I do not consider homosexuals to be enemies, of me or of God. I use the term purely to make a rhetorical point. As I pointed out in my previous post, I believe Christ taught that all human beings are our neighbors, and that those who are most despised by the self-righteous religious powers are closest to the Kingdom of Heaven.

That said, since Evangelicals generally tend to treat gays as the enemy in practice, regardless of what they say, I think we should take a look at what Christ actually said about enemies.

From the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44):

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. (KJV, which includes the entire quote)

And, from Mark 12:28-31:

One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of all?"

Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.'

"The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (NASB, caps in original)

In another context, Christ was asked a followup question: “Who is my neighbor.” Christ then told the parable of the Good Samaritan, clearly showing that we are called to love even - especially - those who are despised by the religious establishment, who are hated and hate us back.

There is one more that I think is dispositive of the matter. Saint Paul, in his letter to the Roman church - one that was ground zero for martyrdom - that we are not to seek revenge against our enemies. Echoing the words of Christ from above while quoting from the Old Testament (Proverbs), he says the following:

"BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD." (Romans 12:20, NASB, caps in original)

I do not think it is a stretch at all to apply this to the present. It would be silly to act as if this only applies to food and water. So let me phrase this for the situation at hand:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, if your enemy needs shelter, rent him your freaking apartment, and if he needs employment, give him the freaking job!

Even if you are hell-bent on considering homosexuals to be your enemies, shouldn’t you at least take Christ’s commands and the admonition of Saint Paul seriously?

***

Note on Proposition 8:

I am sure that many of those who donated to the Prop 8 campaign had simple motives. They believed homosexual acts were sinful, and didn’t want governmental recognition of homosexual relationships. I think, at the root, this is the general belief of Evangelicals. Well, that and anal sex is gross. (From the ever-entertaining Phil Robertson...)

You could call this the Phil Robertson approach. “God says it’s wrong, and it’s gross.” This isn’t a very good political campaign though. 

First, our opinion of what God’s opinion of something isn’t really convincing to those of our countrymen who don’t believe in God. Actually, that isn’t convincing to plenty of theists either. They may disagree about the interpretation of God’s desires, or they might not believe that our secular laws should always reflect God’s opinion. (We don’t outlaw gluttony, obviously.) Second, it’s pretty hard to drive voter turnout with “anal sex is gross and God doesn’t like it.” It’s a pretty uncompelling ad campaign.

So, the actual Prop 8 campaign took a politically effective approach: fear. (Sex sells, but fear sells more, and fear of sex sells most…)

The result was a series of ads that accused homosexuals of preying on the children. They’re out to get your kids, to infect them with the virus that will turn them gay. To teach them things in school that conflict with the “God hates fags” message. While not stated outright, the ads strongly implied that gays are child molesters eager to despoil the children.

I’m sorry, that is highly offensive. It’s not true. (Which is why girls are far more likely to experience sexual assault than boys.) And it certainly isn’t universally true.

[Great link with actual research about pedophilia. Bottom line: homosexual men are no more likely to be attracted to children than heterosexual men. Rather, pedophiles are primarily attracted to children, regardless of gender, and tend to choose victims based on availability for abuse, not gender.]

A little empathy here might be appropriate, so let’s imagine this flipped around. Couldn’t the claim be made that all Catholics are child molesters? Good lord! Have you read about all those priests? We need to be sure that we don’t let Catholics around our kids!

Or perhaps homeschoolers. They must all be sexual predators. Look at their leaders: Bill Gothard, Doug Phillips…

But this ad campaign ran, and millions of people saw it.

These ads probably did more to turn my generation against the beliefs of our ancestors on this issue that any other factor.

Because we know gays. They are our coworkers, our colleagues, our bosses, our mentors, and our friends. They are in many cases our relatives. To hear them painted as predators is disgusting and false.

And we can understand why they are angry at those who paid their money to fund those hateful ads.

The generation gap:

Many have remarked on the generation gap in opinions on Gay Marriage. I think the fault lines run deep and touch on a whole host of related issues. The gap is primarily between the Boomers and the older generations on the one hand, and Gen X (my generation) and younger on the other.

While our elders have correctly concluded that this is a watershed issue, I believe they have utterly failed to comprehend how and why it is such a big deal - and thus they have botched it badly in a way that has and will continue to damage Evangelicalism. And, I would add, will probably contribute substantially to the increasing numbers of younger people leaving the faith altogether.

To many of us young(er) folk, the issue is about the heart of Christianity. Is Christianity primarily about sexual moralism and political enforcement of the same? If so, it really isn’t fundamentally different from radical Islam or Mormonism or any number of other religions past and present.

If the exercise of Christianity is all about using wealth, political power, and whatever else we can to punish others for sexual violations, then we are justified in the use of whatever means are available - even killing. What does that say about our heart?

The fact that someone can stand up and say that firing those who don’t share his sexual mores is “exercise of religion” and nobody calls him on it is a huge problem.

Most of us have someone in our acquaintance I’ll call the “racist uncle.” You know who I am talking about. The guy (or gal) who can be counted on to say something that he or she doesn’t even realize is racist, but is highly offensive, and results in an awkward silence. We all know somebody like that.

The older generation of Evangelicals feels like a “racist uncle” to a great many of us young(er) Christians. We wince when we hear you talk like you do. When you talk about how important it is to make sure that gays don’t get jobs or housing. When you complain that you are being marginalized because you say offensive and mean stuff about others. When you act entitled to use the power of government to force everyone else to follow your sexual preferences. It’s very much the same as talking about all the happy black people before the Civil Rights movement ruined them. (Hello Phil Robertson… Does anyone in the Boomer generation realize how much we wince when we see you defend this creep?)

I kind of understand why the rank and file tends to just parrot what the leaders say, so perhaps I am most frustrated by the way that Evangelical leadership has handled this. This may come as a surprise, but my generation would like to actually see Christ reflected in the actions and words of the Church.

And we are NOT seeing it very often.

Instead, we hear politics and power and “gays shouldn’t get jobs” and a whole host of other things that look like just another moralistic political campaign, and nothing like Christ.

It’s a bit beyond the scope of this post, but over the last couple of weeks, my pastor has been teaching on the references to spiritual warfare in Ephesians, and has noted that the Church has a tendency to treat people as the enemy and fight against them. His view - which I would agree with - is that this is essentially shooting the prisoners of war captured by the other side. Something to think about.

Note on John MacArthur and ostracism:

When I was a kid, we went for a few years to John MacArthur’s church in Los Angeles. While some of his stuff is pretty good (see my review of Twelve Ordinary Men), he has made a career in some ways of excluding people he disagrees with from the Christian faith. Exhibit A would be his longstanding (and rather one sided) “feud” with the late John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard denomination over doctrinal issues. I’m not going to claim that Wimber was right about everything (or that MacArthur is either), but Wimber certainly was more gracious about the disagreement. MacArthur preferred confrontation and accused Wimber of being a heretic. Further, MacArthur seemed really quick to apply that term to many outside of his particular doctrinal brand.

So, it isn’t much of a surprise that, lately, MacArthur came out with what he considers to be the “doctrinally correct” approach to dealing with a child who comes out as LGBT: ostracism. Ooo, big surprise there. Sure to be effective, no doubt. It sure goes with the general philosophy of gays as the enemy, to be destroyed or at least marginalized and dehumanized. Yes, there is video.

[Side note: MacArthur’s reference to “turn them over to Satan for destruction” is seriously triggering to me, because that was one of Gothard’s teachings about how to handle “rebellious” children. That is, children (even adults) which fail to agree completely with their “authorities” - that is parents - and obey them in everything.]

Note my own opinion on boycotts and assholery:

I’m not a big fan of boycotts. Maybe it is burnout from my childhood, but I don’t find boycotts to be a particularly Christian response to anything. They create bad feelings, don’t really convince anyone, and make the boycotter feel self-righteous for “doing something” without actually having to risk anything.

I don’t find anything admirable in trying to pit “us” against “them.” 

I don’t think either side is behaving particularly well right now. I would like to see more graciousness and desire for reconciliation. I know this isn’t going to happen from Evangelicals, though. If anything, they are becoming more and more fundamentalist about many issues. Gender Roles seem to be becoming a fundamental doctrine of the faith, for example, as I have pointed out elsewhere.

The world has changed significantly over the last few decades. My children are going to have to live in a world vastly different from that of my grandparents. Some things will be much better. I see progress in the area of race, for example. My daughters will have more options, and be less likely to suffer abuse than my grandmothers’ generation. On the other hand, the shrinking of middle class jobs means that they will probably have less economic mobility than the last few generations. I hope not, but I fear so.

But one thing I do know: they will not be able to get away with being militantly anti-gay. As Phil Robertson is discovering, talking about the glory days of Jim Crow will put you outside the mainstream of society. Just as previous generations have had to deal with African Americans in the White House and the Supreme Court, the next few generations will have to deal with gays in mainstream society. And being an asshole about it won’t fly.

Even if one is thoroughly convinced of the sinfulness of homosexual acts, one needs to behave decently. We don’t go around constantly shaming gluttons. We tend to, if anything, glorify the greedy and give our money to swindlers. For these, and many other sins, we don’t feel the need to make a scene. Just saying.

We can and should aspire to live in peace with all men, to the extent that we are able.

Maybe we could spend a little less time being assholes, a little less time whining about the “thought police,” and a little more time building relationships with our neighbors.

Note on the real employment injustices:

I find it irritating that most of those who get all freaked out about a CEO losing his job seem to be unaware of the real problems facing employees. In some cases, they even vote against job protections for poorer people, which seems a bit of a misplaced priority to me. A few links are worth reading.

In general, many employees, particularly those on the lower end of the economic ladder, are vulnerable to job loss for any and all reasons, including expecting their employers to follow labor laws. This case at UPS is just one of a myriad that I could list.

Lest anyone think that the risk to gays and lesbians of losing their jobs for their orientation is a trumped up problem, here is the story of a police chief, who was apparently doing her job well losing it because the mayor didn’t want homosexuals to be visible. The great moron quote caught on tape:

"I would much rather have.. and I will say this to anybody's face... somebody who drank and drank too much taking care of my child than I had somebody whose lifestyle is questionable around children.”

   

Comparison of boycotts of companies that provide same-sex relationship health care with threatened boycott of company over political contributions.

Perhaps the ultimate in assholery:

Yes, it isn’t enough to be a jerk to gays when they are alive. One must make sure that they don’t have a funeral. (Note that the church involved would just be renting out their building, not providing a preacher for the service.) One wonders if this church also vets their funerals for gluttons, greedy people, swindlers, hypocrites, and so on. [crickets…]

One more for thought:

Although he doesn’t use my (not really) trademarked phrase, “Assholes for Jesus,” Jonathan Merritt really analyzes the problem well.

Americans are not intrinsically allergic to Christians, but rather certain expressions of Christianity. The pope’s popularity helps us understand exactly which types of Christianity people resist.

Americans accept Christians who advocate for the marginalized.

Americans resist Christians who seek power to marginalize others.

Americans accept Christians who want to serve society.

Americans resist Christians who want to be served by society.

Americans accept Christians who are as clear-eyed about the failures of their community as well as others’.

Americans resist Christians who are partisan and tribal.

Americans accept Christians who are compassionate and speak with humility.

Americans resist Christians who are cantankerous and speak with hubris.