Religion and the Unraveling of America

7/7/2022

Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
July 7, 2022

Do you follow the Republican Jesus or the classic Jesus?

What can be more distressing than watching that once-great republic on our southern border betrayed by power- hungry strongmen, and becoming a theocratic dictatorship, step by step?

It approaches the same status now as several other odious governments in the world. But this is in the “Christian” west, and it makes use of deformed images and twisted moral teachings from Christianity.

Here is a Facebook witticism: “When I hear someone say, “I’m a Christian,” I ask, “Do you follow the Republican Jesus or the classic Jesus?”

American descent into a theocracy is the very tragedy so feared by the founding fathers in the 1700's when they laid out a clear division between church and state.

The context in which this is happening is one of prolonged social crisis. Since 2008, we have lived through a global financial meltdown, a worldwide health pandemic, the election of an amoral man to the U.S. presidency, a man intent on keeping power by telling a Big Lie about a stolen election to his gullible MAGA followers. And then a war in Ukraine, and a worrying climate crisis. Shock after shock.

Not that we weren’t warned about growing corruption in America, racism and hatred of women. Law professor Anita Hill told America about the machinations of Justice Clarence Thomas 30 years ago. Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood imagined the scourge of misogyny in a novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, a work she thought was too far-fetched to be published, in the eighties.

Such widespread malice and confusion must come to a head at some point on some specific issue, and for the U.S. it has been, unsurprising for feminists, the issue of abortion. Groomed by decades of misinformation, aided and abetted by right-wing factions of Christian churches and their donors, (think the Koch brothers and Opus Dei) an “Unsupreme” Court of nine persons, six of whom have Catholic backgrounds (Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Thomas, Amy Coney-Barrett and John Roberts) have delivered a ruling ending a 50-year women’s right to abortion.

Three of these judges (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney- Barrett) lied under oath at their confirmation hearings.

In a vastly unpopular judgment last week, the court voted 6 to 3 to overturn Roe vs Wade. Polls show only 25% of Americans have any respect for the court. This is the stuff of civil disorder and lawlessness - the breakdown of institutions meant to keep citizens free and safe.

The same week in which women’s agency in her reproductive health was denied, gun laws were loosened, ignoring the scale and horror of recent mass shootings all over the country. That it happened during a week marking George Orwell’s birthday was not lost on commentators.

And for us on this side of the border? The Conservative Party of Canada bears careful watching. The main contender for leadership of the party, Pierre Poilievre, has issued no statement. He likes to play both sides. He walks with convoy organizers.

Previously, 80 Conservative members indicated an openness to changing Canada’s situation, which is that no law exists regarding abortion.

Back in 1988, enlightened members of our Court, led by Justices Bertha Wilson and Brian Dickson, expressed trust in the moral responsibility of women and girls, and honored the notion of personal privacy in striking down restrictions.

With adequate sex education and a health system deeming abortion a medical procedure, we have crafted a system which, while not perfect in terms of access, is vastly superior to America’s. Public support for it is high. I think that a statue should be erected to Wilson and Dickson.

Moreover, we have largely neutralized the political power of the churches on this issue. I have worked for 40 years as a pro-choice, feminist, activist Catholic. I’ve had public dust-ups with priests and bishops, and “Campaign Life,” none mortal. I have never been refused communion.

I have urged the Pope to withdraw certain anti-woman policies. But there is an ongoing blindness about gender and sexuality.

Now it is clear, how right-wing religion threatens society in the U.S.A.

"Gleanings" is Rosemary Ganley's new book. You can purchase directly from the author at rganley209@gmail.com or from >Amazon<

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