In his Feb. 1 column "Democrats, Republicans and the Jews," Benjamin Bright '07 espoused, in an offhand remark, the one form of prejudice that is tolerated and even commended at Brown. Tucked inside an otherwise well-constructed column about a potential Jewish shift to the right was a quote from Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. Bright quotes a 2001 speech in which Sen. Inhofe uses a Biblical passage to defend a Jewish Israel, concluding that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is "not a political battle at all (but) a contest over whether or not the word of God is true." Bright comments: "Don't get me wrong, I find this kind of God-speak absurd."
I am not religious. I'm not even Christian. But this remark struck me as very offensive. Unfortunately, I'm sure most Brown students do not share my reaction. We love to violently insist that we are tolerant of anyone of regardless of race, sexual orientation and religion, but rarely do we recognize that we do not extend this tolerance to anyone who actually practices religion. In extreme cases, these individuals are treated as dangerous psychotics.
Like many Brown students, I would identify myself as non-religious. As a liberal, Unitarian Universalist and "cultural" Jew, I find the use of religious argument in political discourse not merely inappropriate but frightening. However, Bright's irreverent response represents the exact danger that many Brown students attribute to the religious community: an alienating close-mindedness. And I don't mean to single out Bright. His comment is relatively harmless in comparison to the threatening views it represents.
Refusing to show respect for religion as a critical social force isn't just disrespectful - it's ignorant. According to an April 2006 CBS News Poll, 82 percent of Americans believe in God, and 85 percent assign religion at least some importance in their daily lives. Sneering at an opponent's politics is one thing, but attacking an opponent's religion is a personal insult and will ensure that he or she stops listening. Dismissing religion out of hand will smother the much-needed political dialogue between the left and the right.
Until this fall, I shared my Brown friends' attitude towards religion. "I don't understand the religious," I wondered. "Don't they see the danger of mixing religion and politics? Why don't they wake up and realize this is the 21st century? Why don't they get it?"
Then I spent a semester at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. I would never suggest that my one semester living there makes me some kind of expert on the South, especially since southern Virginia barely qualifies as such. Yet three months living in Williamsburg transformed my cultural understanding of 21st-century America.
I had an especially rude wake-up call. It was the first time in my life I was fully aware that I am neither religious nor Christian. This revelation began with my reaction against my roommate, a Bible study leader from Kentucky who dotted her desk with Bible verses on Post-Its. There were also the religious proselytizers who, every few weeks, assailed us between classes with signs bearing slogans such as "TURN TO JESUS OR FACE ETERNAL DAMNATION." William and Mary is a public school, so such groups are permitted on campus. And marriage was constitutionally defined as exclusively "between a man and a woman" while I was living in Virginia. It wasn't even a close vote: 57 percent of Virginians approved the amendment.
I was shocked, but I was one of the few. "This is Virginia," my friends snorted. "Are you really so surprised?" I was reminded of the woman who famously remarked after Nixon won the 1968 election, "How could Nixon have won? Nobody I knew voted for him."
Which, of course, is totally irrelevant. And the fact that nobody I know would vote in favor of the marriage amendment is equally irrelevant - over a million people did. Living in Virginia, I realized that religion is a force to be reckoned with. I'm the one who didn't "get it." Regardless of whether or not I think religion, God or the Bible are bad sources of authority, millions think otherwise.
So we at Brown and we as liberals need to take religion seriously, since it figures heavily in the lives of many in this country. No, the extremists of the religious right are probably not going to vote Democratic any time soon. But there is a vast gray area of semi-religious people who have left the door open to discussion about issues such as global warming, healthcare reform and yes, even gay marriage. That door slams shut the minute we insult religion. It's not impossible for religious people to support liberal positions - Virginian voters who passed the Marshall/Newman marriage amendment, for example, put Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., into the Senate in the same election. And my roommate never raised the subject of religion, since we were too busy trading recipes - we are both vegetarian - and movie suggestions (she and her boyfriend thought "Saved!" was hilarious). She hated the screaming sign-wavers, by the way. I believe she referred to them as "insane."
Brown is not a microcosm of America or even a microcosm of the liberal community. Down South, in the Midwest and even right here in the Northeast, you will be the dangerous psychotic if you sneer at "God-speak." So stop sneering.
But maybe you don't need me to tell you that. After all, no one you know would do such a thing.
Chelsea Rudman '08 is one step closer to her personal salvation through Jesus Christ.
