Theocracy and marshmallow Peeps

I spent Easter listening to Handel’s Messiah, eating marshmallow Peeps and watching the world celebrate the Resurrection (except for the folks at Google who resurrected Cesar Chavez instead). I wound up scratching my head about the way religion keeps popping up in public issues.

We pride ourselves on religious tolerance in the United States but I’m not sure it’s really in our DNA. The early colonists fled England to avoid religious persecution, but set up little theocracies as soon as they landed and started burning witches.

Meanwhile, the Spanish were propagating the faith in the Southwest. Hi there, Indians! You’re all Catholic now because we have guns. 

We have Thomas Jefferson to thank for the inclusion of freedom of religion in the First Amendment and the concept of “a wall of separation” between church and state. Whether Americans embrace that principle today is anybody’s guess. Rick Santorum never got the memo.

The latest church-state issue is same-sex marriage. I’ve supported same-sex marriage for decades but can’t help wondering: If we’re serious about the separation of church and state, why do we let the government perform marriages?

All the state should care about is a legal contract that confers spousal rights. The moment we call that contract a marriage, people think the state is their church and try to impose their religious beliefs on everyone. Outsourcing the sacrament of marriage to the government makes it a civil right, and that’s the conflict.

This would be a non-issue if the state issued a spousal contract and left it at that. Any two people (perhaps more in Utah) could register at City Hall and then get married, or not, in the church of their choice. Churches would be in charge of marriage and could deny their sacrament to anyone they choose. The divorce lawyers would get even more business.

If the churches backed such a proposal I’ll bet most state legislatures would quickly approve it. Unless, of course, church people really don’t want to separate church and state and would rather impose their beliefs on everyone through government force.

Theocracy has been part of political debate since the evangelical folks hijacked the Republican Party several decades ago. I’ve always found it odd that Republicans stand for economic freedom but some of them want to impose a kind of Christian Sharia law on personal freedom. The Democrats wisely exploited social issues in the last election to divert attention from their dismal economic record.

What’s more puzzling is the growing antipathy toward religion: a sort of reverse theocracy. Atheists have been filing frivolous lawsuits for years but now are being taken seriously: a few municipal governments and school districts have gone to ridiculous lengths to banish any mention of Christmas or Easter from holiday celebrations in a kind of atheist Sharia law. How can so few atheists — about 5 percent of the population — afford so many lawyers? Perhaps they tithe. As a lapsed Unitarian, I’m practically an atheist myself but do not feel at all insulted that “In God We Trust” is printed on our money.

Fox News tut-tuts about a war on religion and may have a point. An increasingly non-religious population re-elected a government that forces Catholic institutions to provide free birth control and is unconcerned about the Arab Spring’s open season on Christians.

Time magazine has declared that the same-sex marriage debate is over and religious objections are irrelevant. Even the news media coverage of the new Pope was a little snarky at times. A few commentators sounded disappointed that the cardinals elected a Catholic. And one of the most popular musicals on Broadway makes fun of Mormons.

It’s ironic that nobody dares ridicule the Muslims, some of whom want to impose Sharia law for real. That’s probably because radical Islamists kill people when their feelings are hurt. I guess it’s prudent, but a little cowardly, to disparage only those religions that turn the other cheek.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It’s refreshing to see the evangelical theocrats in retreat but stamping out religion, as the Communists tried to do, is no improvement. So far, Handel’s Messiah appears to be safe and nobody is messing with my marshmallow Peeps.