Lawrence Auster writes:
I’ll give you the same answer that Richard John Neuhaus gave to the question of whether an atheist can be a good citizen.
An atheist can behave as a decent person, obey the laws, support his government, defend his country in time of war. In all those ways he can be a good citizen. But he cannot be a good citizen in the fullest sense, of being able to give an account of his country and its principles, because he himself disbelieves the fundamental principles on which his country is founded.
Similarly, a homosexual can behave as a decent person, obey the laws, support his government, defend his country in time of war. But because he is alienated in the core of his being from the central concerns of human life—heterosexual love, marriage, family—that are the very basis of human society, he cannot give an account of the basic principles on which society rests. Therefore he cannot be a good citizen in the fullest sense.
So because gays don’t fit some religions’ definitions about what constitutes the goals of “human life,” they can’t be good citizens in America. Notice how there is no effort to explain why Christian definitions about human life should have anything whatsoever to do with civil law in America — that’s because people like Lawrence Auster don’t for a moment imagine that the two can be separated. Their conception of America is dependent upon their Christian beliefs; their form of Christianity is intimately connected to their American nationalism.
I don’t think that the relationship with atheism here is incidental. Like gays, atheists fail to live up to the standards some Christians would impose upon everyone. It’s not just that we can’t be “good Christians,” which might be a more reasonable conclusion, but that we can’t be “good citizens” — these Christians move well beyond making religious declarations and into the realm of political categories.
How short is the distance between “can’t be good citizens” to “shouldn’t enjoy the same basic rights as citizens”? It’s not far at all. People like Lawrence Auster who deny that atheists or gays can be just as good Americans and American citizens as certain Christians are promoting Christian Supremacy — an ideology every bit as noxious and dangerous as White Supremacy. It is upon this sort of ideology which Christian Fascism can be based — a fascism which denies equality to everyone by the “right” sort of Christian.
Christian Right & Christian Nationalism:
- Religious Right News
- Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
- Christianism & Christian Nationalism
- Religion in America
Christian Nationalism & Dominion Theology:
- Dominionism & Dominion Theology
- Christian Reconstructionism
- Leading Christian Reconstructionists
- Reconstructionism & Christian Right: Common Goals, Beliefs
Christian Right & Christian Privilege:
On “Gays and Atheists cannot be totally good citizens.” UTTER BULL****!!
In 2000, the US Dept of Justice officially reported that over 100 MILLION jailable misdemeanors and felonies were reported for the year, and that an estimated 35 MILLION went unreported.
So, in a nation that claims to be about 85% “Christian,” who the HELL is committing all these crimes….the gays, the Atheists??!!!
Get a life!!!! Do good citizens commit crimes by the millions???
TheArt@Webtv.Net
“An atheist can behave as a decent person, obey the laws, support his government, defend his country in time of war. In all those ways he can be a good citizen.”
The only definition of ‘good citizen’ I’ve ever known was someone who “can behave as a decent person, obey the laws, support his government, [and] defend his country in time of war.”
It seems inherent in the term ‘citizen’ that all someone has to do to fit the term ‘good citizen’ is what ever the government tells them to do. Correct me if i’m wrong, but wasn’t one considered to be a good citizen in Germany, during the holocaust, if they had a general hatred of anyone considered to be inferior. (I may be over-generalizing there, but I think my point is still valid)
“But he cannot be a good citizen in the fullest sense, of being able to give an account of his country and its principles, because he himself disbelieves the fundamental principles on which his country is founded”
How, exactly, does one “give an account of his country” anyway. I have to give him credit here, it’s hard to counter something that doesn’t make any sense in the first place.
As far as principles go; I believe the primary principle of this country is freedom, one such freedom being from religion. Freedoms that have my full support, and am proud to be a part of.
Somehow I doubt that even Mr. Auster is “able to give an account of his country and its principles”.
The real question is how “full” of an account is required. You would have to know a great amount about American history, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights(i’m sure I’m missing something), to be capable of giving a full account of America’s principles.
Alright i’m done ranting (I’ll probably think of something else to say right after I submit this
Yeah, it seems to me that it is these xtian supremacists with their xtian-dependent views of America who are the ones with the most limited ability to “give a full account” of what it means to be an American. Their xtian beliefs just seem to blind them to so much that is out there and all around us, waiting to be discovered and enjoyed and appreciated. Similar to the way that a white supremacist could not experience the added fulfillment of personal relations outside his race, so too are the xtian supremacists missing out on so much of life, not to mention the benefits and pleasures of being an American, because of their narrow beliefs.