======================================================================== 105 The following is excerpted from Socialist Worker (Canada) October 1993. Subs can be obtained by writing to Socialist Worker, PO Box 339, Station E, Toronto, Ontario Canada M6H 4E3. (Prices per year: Reg Sub $10 Can; Institutions and Supporting $16; US and Overseas $20) Regular Left Jab column by John Bell Sigh of the Unimpressed ----------------------- When I was but a wee spud, my mother did her best to give me religion. If you guessed that it didn't sink in, you're right. My crisis of faith came early. I had forgotten my good shoes at school over the weekend, so off I went to Sunday school wearing my sneakers. All hell broke loose. My fellow Christians- in-training teased me mercilesly and, worse, the pious instructor ripped me for my lack of respect. I'm sure I couldn't articulate my anger at the time. But I recall thinking that Jesus, as I understood him, wouldn't give a damn what kind of shoes I was wearing. I drew the line between the Lord and his earthly representatives. It wasn't long before I dug in my heels and quit going, and eventually dispensed with the idea of god as completely unnecessary. Still, there are some so-called religious values that I continue to hold. As a positive human moral code, "Do Unto others as you would have them do unto you" is tough to beat. And that Golden Rule seems completely compatible with socialism. In fact, it only seems incompatible in societies based on inequality and class division, where a few grow rich and powerful by exploiting the labour of others. The history of organized religion is, in general, a history of ignorant bigotry and unhuman violence. That is not tosay that all religion, in all circumstances, is bad. Religion, is indeed, in Marx's phrase, "The sigh of the oppressed, the heart in a heartless world." At times religion has been the banner behind which mass popular movements have attacked injustice and oppression. But in the main, religion, superstition and fear have been wielded by the rulers, to keep the masses in their place. So it is today in North America. Let's take a little stroll through last month's headlines and see what the good guys are up to. The following examples all occurred in the US. (But don't kid yourself; similar things have happened, and, are happening, here in Canada.) When fundamentalist Michael Griffin murdered Dr. David Gunn outside a Florida abortion clinic in the spring of 1993, he discovered he had lots of born-again fans. One woman from Wichita, Kansas wrote repeatedly, calling him a "brave soldier" and "hero." "I know you did the right thing. It was not murder. You shot a murderer. It was more like anti-murder. I believe in what you did....I wish I could trade places with you," wrote Rachelle Shannon. She won't be getting her wish, but she will be joining him in jail. She was arrested for the attempted murder of Dr.George Tiller in late August. Shannon, with her husband, publishes an anti-abortion newsletter called the Brockhoeft Report, named after a man serving time in federal prison for firebombing an Ohio abortion clinic. Since her arrest, another doctor was murdered in Mobile, Alabama and clinics in three cities have been damaged or destroyed in arson attacks. The banner of "family values" continues to be the cover for religious fanatics attempting to censor what we see, hear and read. "Parents don't to send their children to schools which promote homsexuality, attack religious beliefs, use explicit sex education materials and delve into the psyches of their children," says Martin Mawyer of the Christian Action Network. The Network has a hit list of books they want banned from schools: The Colour Purple, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher in the Rye, and the diabolical Where's Waldo? which "depicts a woman's bare breast." The same vocal nutbars have forced television networks to add warnings before shows which contain violence and "adult situations." When Frank Jordan was elected Mayor of San Francisco he appointed the Reverend Eugene Lumpkin, a strong campaign supporter, to the city's Human Rights Commission. Now he's asking for Lumpkin's resignation. Lumpkin has used his position to attack the homosexual community. Calling homosexuality "an abomination" and insisting that AIDS is divine retribution against gays, Lumpkin quoted a scripture passage which says that homosexuals should be stoned to death. Pressed by reporters as to whether he was serious, Lumpkin answered "That's what the book said. Sure I believe it. I believe everything the Bible says." After Democrat Bill Clinton's election, many Republicans blamed the party's far right wing of born-again zealots for scaring away voters. So a conference was called in September where party officials hoped to persuade the zealots to tone down the rhetoric next time around. But the leopard can't change its spots. Former Presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan broughtthe house down with some old time, fire and brimstone bigotry. Ridiculing the idea of multiculturalism, Buchanan put it plainly: "Our culture is superior...Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that sets men free." It is pretty hard to refute that sort of superior logic. A handful of lunatics? A desperate minority outside the mainstream? I wish it were so. As I write, this lunatic minority has persuaded the US senate to continue to refuse to pay for poor women's abortions. In cities and towns across the continent, gays and lesbians are seeing the gains they fought for and won over the past twenty years eroded and challenged. Every day in North America eleven lesbian and gay teenagers commit suicide, unable to reconcile their own sexuality with the bigotry around them. You don't have to look far to find some godly foamer ranting about the gay agenda being "rammed down our throats." Gay agenda? To be treated equally, not to be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation, to have the freedom to be themselves; that is the only gay agenda I can see. And to my godless, atheistic mind that agenda seems to fit in with the old Golden Rule just fine.