When you’re running for a school board position in suburban St. Louis and tweet out memes about banning Islam in America, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, you could be invited to speak at a candidates’ forum at the local mosque. And that’s how it came to be that the first words Parkway School Board candidate Jeanie Ames spoke to the assembled crowd at the mosque were, “I am not a xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Islam, anti-Semitic racist.”

In fact, Ames spent the better part of her two-minute opening statement trying to defend herself against charges of bigotry and racism that had arisen, in part, from her retweet of a graphic calling for the banning of Islam in America.

She has since claimed that the offending tweet — and  others — were misconstrued or taken out of context. Unfortunately for Ames, her personal Twitter feed makes the context of her remarks crystal clear: Her motto, MAKE PARKWAY GREAT AGAIN, may offer a clue as to who has influenced her thinking.

In her Twitter profile, she describes herself as a “Proud wife mommy – Free market Capitalist – Constitutionalist – Catholic – Confederate – Lily-wearing – Metal lovin – Grass Roots – American Badass.”

Yeah, she called herself a “confederate.”

On January 24, the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran this article with the headline, A self-described ‘Confederate’ is running for Parkway School Board. Residents are alarmed. The article called her out not only for wanting to ban Islam, but also for referring to Michelle Obama as a “giant rat.”

Ames’ attitudes had begun to alarm a lot of people. Some who spoke to the newspaper noted:

“Jeanie Ames’ record of racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and other bigotry prove beyond any doubt that she has no place on the Parkway School District’s Board of Education … All people of conscience who believe in the value and place of all children at Parkway schools should oppose Ames’ candidacy in the strongest terms.”
— Anna Baltzer of Jewish Voice for Peace

“It is quite disturbing to say the least that a person with views such as ‘banning Islam from America’ is running for the Parkway School Board.”
— Mufti Asif Umar, imam of Daar-Al-Islam Masjid a mosque situated in the school district.

What else motivates Ms. Ames? Have a look at the banner on her Twitter page.

What does Jeanie Ames really want to do for the Parkway School Board? Is she misunderstood? Have her many offensive tweets somehow been taken out of context? The people in the photo below protested outside the March 25 candidate forum because they don’t believe she’s been misunderstood. They think Jeanie Ames has made herself perfectly clear.

This is an important moment in the community. Will Ames win or lose? And what will that tell us about ourselves?

Postscript:

Many of Ames’ neighbors have yard signs for the more progressive candidates in the race. None have Ames signs. Some are coming more to the point by posting yard signs stating “Hate has no home here.”

In the end, Ames lost, getting just 12.2% of the vote.

The post “Xenophobic, anti-Islam, anti-Semitic racist.” Who, me? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The airwaves are currently filled with both outrage towards and defense of the fake news that has been competing with “real news” of the day. Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor-designate Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.) and his son have been promoting a clearly fallacious story that Hillary Clinton was involved in a sex-trafficking operation. A man from North Carolina believed it and went into a Washington, DC pizzeria, which was presumably the center of the operation, with an assault weapon. Fortunately, no one was hurt and he was arrested.

Mainstream media is concerned that its reputation will be tarnished by the proliferation of fake news. Who will be the arbiter of what’s true and what’s not? Ultimately, the judges will be the American people; the media consuming public.

Since President-elect Donald Trump broke all records for falsehoods with fact-checkers like Politifact, it’s no small wonder that there is an overlap between those who supported Trump and those who tend to believe news stories that simply are not true.

But are there other indicators of who among us may be prone to believe fake news? One thought that crossed my mind is those who believe the gospel of organized religions. This is only a hypothesis at this time, but it may be worth exploring.

There are people who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To many others, that story is preposterous. That simply “does not occur in nature.”

For those among us who look to empirical information to be the basis of our judgments, the idea of the resurrection is quite a stretch since there is no evidence as to that happening, or how it could have happened. The same would be true with the story of Noah’s Ark or any number of other Biblical stories. The same would hold true for accounts from the Koran.

Donald Trump received quite a bit of support from the Evangelical community. These are the people among us who are most likely to take a literal interpretation of the Bible or other “scriptures of faith.” Is belief in scripture an indication of being “factually challenged” as belief in fake news is?

Again, I do not know the answers to these questions. But if there is a correlation, then we should open a further dialogue about how a propensity to believe the scriptures of religion may be a precursor to susceptibility about what is true and what is not. Facing such a dilemma would be challenging and painful, but perhaps would be a wise direction in the evolution of humankind.

The post Is there a link between belief in fake news and belief in religion? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I’ve been binge-watching a 2008 Israeli soap opera called “Srugim,” and it’s sparking some thoughts about religion.The title, “Srugim” [“suh-roo-geem”] is a Hebrew word that refers to a segment of strict-Orthodox Israeli Jews who are identifiable by the knitted kipa [yarmulke] worn by its male adherents. The series follows a group of 30-ish unmarried men and women who adhere to “Srugim” practices. Being single places them outside of the social mainstream of strict-Orthodox culture, where most women marry in their early 20s and begin having large families as soon as possible. The characters are all looking for love, but struggling to balance the cultural pressure toward marriage with their own needs for independence and autonomy. Their adherence to strict-Orthodoxy ranges from total immersion to a variety of adaptations to contemporary styles and social mores.

To be clear, this is not a documentary. Sometimes it’s serious, and sometimes it’s funny. Think of it as somewhat less comedic “Friends” set in a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem. Surely, as a TV drama, it presents a fictionalized view of Israeli religious and romantic life that is exaggerated for dramatic effect. As an outsider, I can neither debunk nor testify to the level of reality that “Srugim” presents. I can say that “Srugim’s” writers present a very sympathetic view of an Orthodox Jewish way of life and of the characters who are living it.

As for me, I am a person who once embraced a form of Judaism [of the Reform variety], and later moved away from the entire notion of religion as a positive force in my life. So, I began watching “Srugim” mostly as a linguistic exercise: It’s in Hebrew, with English subtitles, and as someone who once was semi-fluent, it’s a fun way to reacquaint myself with the language.

“Srugim” has also made me think about the role that religion plays in peoples’ lives. Orthodox Jewish religious customs are a central part of the show: the Friday-evening siren in Jerusalem that signals the beginning of the Sabbath; the prayers, songs and rituals that accompany Sabbath dinner; the rules governing sexual “purity” during a married woman’s menstrual cycle; the taboo on touching between unmarried men and women; and many more.

Watching all of it leaves me with conflicting thoughts. On one hand, I see people for whom strict religious rules create a comforting structure for their lives. The decisions are all made for them: when to marry, what kind of person to marry, and how to live day-to-day—with religious identity and rituals as the organizing principles. And when they’re not sure what to do [e.g., Is it okay to attend a funeral during the first seven days after one’s wedding?], they can just ask a rabbi.   [And if one rabbi gives you a Talmudic interpretation that you dislike, you can just find another rabbi.] I can see the appeal of it: You have a set identity. The strict rules un-complicate things: You live in a cozy cocoon with people who share your identity. You are warmed by a sense of closeness with your deity, and you feel secure from the confusion of outside influences, because the rules are clear, and if you stick to them, everything will be all right. Who am I to scoff at what some people experience as a beautiful, soul-satisfying way of life?

On the other hand, the prescriptive nature of the characters’ lives is suffocating. One character—feeling the constrictions—makes the decision to become, officially, un-religious. I can see that it’s the path of least resistance to accept, as facts of life, the boundaries that these characters adhere to. But, in my view, the women in “Srugim” are far too accepting of dictates that limit their personal choices, and far too accommodating to men. [They cover their hair, worry about dressing modestly, and accept their status as second-class citizens in their religion.] Clearly, I would be a very lousy Orthodox Jew.

Some reviewers—people closer to the Orthodox community, I suppose—have criticized “Srugim” for presenting a negative portrait of religious life. It’s true that some of the religious adherents seem clueless about life and need to consult a rabbi for advice on just about everything. But, as I see it, that’s satire and dramatic excess, not vitriol. On the other hand, the characters who try to leave the religious life are portrayed as the ones who are struggling the most by giving up something of importance. I imagine that religious critics of the series may have been objecting to inaccuracies in the portrayal of rituals and customs, and to the exaggerations that typify the soap opera genre. It would be understandable for insiders to worry that non-Jews might get a skewed view of Judaism from these departures from reality.

The acting and writing on “Srugim” are excellent. The characters seem like real people—and quite likeable, even when they hurt each other.  They do that a lot—but that’s the nature of soap-opera.

And even though I completely reject—for myself—their dependence on religion for meaning and direction, I find myself rooting for their happiness. I even grudgingly respect their devotion to rituals that are inconvenient, limiting, and—to me–absurd.

Unfortunately, the series ended after two seasons, without wrapping up the story lines. And although I had a negative reaction to the too-important role played by religion in the characters’ lives, I found myself—surprisingly—disappointed to not know how their stories turned out. Did Yifat and Amir work out their problems and have children? Did Hodaya get sucked back into the religious life? Would Reut ever find love? We’ll never know.  And I have to ask myself: Would I care as much if the characters were fundamentalist Christians, or Mormons, or Muslims?

Maybe I would. The bottom line is: I’m a sucker for a well-written, well-acted soap opera, no matter what language it’s in, where it’s set, or how different a life the people live from my own.

The post An Israeli soap opera draws me in, despite its religious setting appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I record TV shows to watch when I want to “zone out” as the kids say. One that I like is NCIS (not the grisly parts but the problem solving parts.) Last night I watched an episode from 2011 which was about some people who do terrible things to other human beings in the name of what they call their religion. One woman was a teacher in an Afghan school working alongside some American female service members organizing a school for girls. The Afghan woman set an explosive device which allowed men from her group to kidnap the girls. Some of the girls died after being tortured.

Two of the girls and one female American service member were rescued by the NCIS team and Army rangers.

When the woman/teacher was questioned, along with her son who was part of the plot to destroy the school, she was asked why she did such horrible things, especially after gaining the trust and affection of those little girls. That’s a question no one seems to be asking seriously despite all the talk about terrorists, “radicalization” of otherwise law abiding American citizens, or what this “war on terror” actually is all about.

The woman and her son on the NCIS program offered the closest thing I’ve heard to an explanation from their point of view. They said they are defending their traditional culture from an invasion by foreigners who bring “radical” ideas and try to pervert their girls and women with filthy sexual materials. She mentioned the internet specifically.

That conversation in the interrogation room was only a few minutes, but it is the only time I’ve heard any kind of explanation for actions I find so despicable, inhumane and completely incomprehensible.

And that was a TV show from 2011.

It’s natural, I guess, for us to demonize whoever our enemy is at the time. I’m sure our enemies in previous wars did the same about us. We certainly were led to believe the Japanese were inherently evil during World War II. And the “North” Vietnamese were monsters in our eyes despite there not actually being a “North Vietnam” at all.

I don’t have any answers, but I need to try harder to learn why people do terrible things to other human beings. I don’t think it’s helpful to just keep saying “They hate our freedom.”

As with all wars, past and present, there’s more to the story than we can see at the time.

The post How “NCIS” helped me understand religious extremism appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Religious identity has always been a big deal in America. Identifying yourself as a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or some other religion, is a convenient shortcut to let others know who you are—whether you’re like them or different—and offering clues as to how to interact with you. But what if you don’t identify with a recognizable religion? What if you’ve quit, or never joined up in the first place, or find yourself in a place on the fringes or somewhere between the lines? What do you call yourself, when the conversation inevitably—if not politely—comes around to the topic of religious identity?

As shown in the recently published Pew Research study, a growing percentage of Americans are growing away from traditional religious identification. I’m one of them, and I still struggle to define where I stand. It’s complicated.

On a recent NPR talk show, the discussion began with those statistics. And then, all call-in hell broke loose, when people began phoning in to describe their own, unconventional religio-spiritual identities.

One woman, who identified herself as an Episcopal priest, protested that the term “Christian” has been “hijacked and “unfairly claimed” by ultra-fundamentalists. She then declared herself to be a “Christist,” which she defined [if I understood her correctly] as a person who follows the teachings attributed to Jesus, without the ritualistic requirements of formal Christianity.

Another caller proclaimed himself to be a “deist.” He didn’t define it very clearly, but he was obviously making a distinction between his beliefs and those promulgated by churches he had tried to participate in.

You get the idea. Religious identity—in a way that strikes me as similar to sexual identity—is becoming fluid and confusing. That call-in show sent me into research mode: I’ve been trying to get definitions for the various shades of un-belief and un-religion.

Today, I stumbled onto an article that offers helpful descriptions [meaning definitions that I can actually understand] of seven of the more popular—and traditional—shades of non-belief. Unfortunately, reading these definitions makes me even more confused about what to call myself.

1. Atheist

The term atheist can be defined literally as lacking a humanoid god concept, but historically it means one of two things. Positive atheism asserts that a personal supreme being does not exist. Negative atheism simply asserts a lack of belief in such a deity. It is possible be a positive atheist about the Christian God, for example, while maintaining a stance of negative atheism or even uncertainty on the question of a more abstract deity like a “prime mover.”

(Hmmm. I’ve been calling myself an atheist for a while, now. It turns out that, according to this definition, I’m more of a negative than a positive atheist. But even that is not a perfect definition, because the author says that negative atheism “asserts a lack of belief” in a deity. I object to the word “belief:” I don’t think that the word “belief” belongs in a definition of atheism. In my kind of atheism, I simply do not accept the premise of a deity. It has nothing to do with belief, and everything to do with thought.)

2. Anti-theist

The term anti-theist says, “I think religion is harmful.” It also implies some form of activism that goes beyond merely advocating church-state separation or science education. Anti-theism challenges the legitimacy of faith as a moral authority or way of knowing. Anti-theists often work to expose harms caused in the name of God like stonings, gay bating, religious child maltreatment, genital mutilation, unwanted childbearing or black-collar crime.

(Well, then, maybe I’m an anti-theist, as well as an atheist, because I keep telling people that I quit religion when I realized that it creates divisions among people and that a shitload of bad things have happened under the guise of religion.)

3. Agnostic

…The term agnostic represents a range of intellectual positions that have important substance in their own right and can be independent of atheism. Strong agnosticism views God’s existence as unknowable, permanently and to all people. Weak agnosticism can mean simply “I don’t know if there is a God,” or “We collectively don’t know if there is a God but we might find out in the future.”
…These definitions of agnosticism, though different, all focus on what we do or can know, rather than on whether God exists.”

(So, it’s possible to be an atheist and an agnostic? Is that what I am?)

One author—Philip Pullman—is quoted as calling himself both:

The question of what term to use is a difficult one, in strict terms I suppose I’m an agnostic because of course the circle of the things I do know is vastly smaller than the things I don’t know about out there in the darkness somewhere maybe there is a God. But among all the things I do know in this world I see no evidence of a God whatsoever and everybody who claims to know there is a God seems to use that as an excuse for exercising power over other people…

4. Skeptic

Traditionally, skeptic has been used to describe a person who doubts received religious dogmas. However, while agnostic focuses on God questions in particular, the term skeptic expresses a broader life approach. Someone who calls him- or herself a skeptic has put critical thinking at the heart of the matter. Well known skeptics, like Michael Shermer, Penn and Teller, or James Randi devote a majority of their effort to debunking pseudoscience, alternative medicine, astrology and so forth. They broadly challenge the human tendency to believe things on insufficient evidence.

5. Free-thinker

Free-thinker is a term that dates to the end of the 17th Century, when it was first used in England to describe those who opposed the Church and literal belief in the Bible. Freethought is an intellectual stance that says that opinions should be based on logic and evidence rather than authorities and traditions…The term has gotten popular recently in part because it is affirmative. Unlike atheism, which defines itself in contrast to religion, freethought identifies with a proactive process for deciding what is real and important.

(All of these definitions are making things much more complicated. Probably, many of us on the un-belief spectrum would like to think of ourselves as somehow fitting into each of these categories, because they make us think we’re smarter than the blind-faith believers.)

6. Humanist

While terms like atheist or anti-theist focus on a lack of god-belief and agnostic, skeptic and freethinker all focus on ways of knowing—humanist centers in on a set of ethical values. Humanism seeks to promote broad wellbeing by advancing compassion, equality, self-determination, and other values that allow individuals to flourish and to live in community with each other. These values drive not from revelation, but from human experience.

(Personal anecdote: About 30 years ago, when I still participated—with a large dollop of skepticism—in religion—I was in the presence of a scholarly older gentleman, to whom I expressed my reservations about the Jewish holiday we were commemorating. “I hear what you’re saying,” he said. “You do realize, don’t you, that you are a secular humanist.” I didn’t. But I do now. I just hope that all of these definitions are not mutually exclusive. I really don’t want to have to choose at this late stage of the game.)

7. Pantheist

…Pantheists center in on the spiritual heart of faith–the experience of humility, wonder, and transcendence. They see human beings as one small part of a vast natural order, with the Cosmos itself made conscious in us. Pantheists reject the idea of a person- god, but believe that the holy is made manifest in all that exists.

(At last, I think I’ve found a category that doesn’t fit me. That’s a relief.)

But let’s not forget the deists—most notably America’s founders—

…who didn’t believe in miracles or special revelation through sacred texts but thought that the natural world itself revealed a designer who could be discovered through reason and inquiry.

Or the Naturalists,

..who assume a philosophical position that the laws operating within the natural realm are the only laws governing the universe and no supernatural realm lies beyond.

Or the Secularists,

…who argue that moral standards and laws should be based on whether they do good or harm in this world and that religion should be kept out of government.

Maybe, like the whole notion of the existence of some form of supreme being, it’s just not definable at all, and—except for those who proclaim “faith” and unshakable belief—we all have to learn to live with the vagueness and ambiguity, trying on different definitions for size, and sometimes switching from one to another.

In my ideal world, though, having a name for whatever one thinks about the origin and organization of the universe wouldn’t be such an important part of one’s identity or a getting-to-know you social requirement.

The post The religious-identity spectrum: Is this the new LGBTQ+? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Republican legislators and Governor Mike Pence in Indiana have presented us with the latest incarnation of church – state relations in the United States. As they try to stand four-square behind religion, it might be good to take a look at what U.S. Constitution says about church-state relations. The First Amendment says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Like any right in the Constitution, it is not absolute. Why is it not absolute? Because it can’t be. Inevitably it will collide into other rights also guaranteed in the Constitution. For example, the 14^th Amendment, Section 1 states:” No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

So the obvious question arises, “What happens when my religious belief interferes with someone else’s “equal protection of the laws?” The answer requires that we follow the words of Lyndon Johnson, “Let us reason together.”

We literally have to bargain this through. Suppose the bakery in Indiana wants to refuse to sell goods to members of the LGBT community. The proprietor says that his or her religious beliefs are such that homosexuality is a sin and it is acceptable to treat members of the LGBT community with less deference and respect than others.

However, on the basis of the 14^th Amendment and the civil rights public accommodations laws of the 1960s, there is a guarantee that an individual, regardless of race, national origin, etc. cannot be denied service at a public establishment. So what is of a higher value, the proprietor’s right to discriminate or the customer’s right to be served at any establishment open for business?

In this case, it is a little difficult to determine purely on a legal basis because members of the LGBT community are not considered a protected class, as is the case with a race, color, religion, gender, age, or national origin. With all the advances in rights for members of the LGBT community, there has not been the sort of legal protection for just “existing” that many other groups have.

Even though the civil rights of members of the LGBT community are not legally protected in the way that other groups are, logic leads us to conclude that their rights should be protected as with other “existence” groups.

This leads us back to the question of what is of  higher value, the proprietor’s right to discriminate or the customer’s right to be served at any establishment open for business. If we side with the business owner because of his or her religion, we are left with all kinds of questions, not the least of which is “what is a religion.” What would happen if all the businesses in a particular area suddenly got “religion” and decided that it was against their religion to serve members of the LGBT community? Then we would have a situation similar to the confederate states during the era of segregation. Large numbers of individuals would be locked out of significant portions of our society. The “common good” of our citizens would be sublimated to the wills of individual business owners whose main intent would be to discriminate against an unprotected group of citizens.

Women and minorities have been discriminated against during most of this history of this nation. In the 1960s, we began to make serious progress in reducing the discrimination. In the past five years, we seem to have taken steps backwards. What is happening now in Indiana and elsewhere beckons us to renew our logic and our compassion to protect the basic interests of the common good.

The post This church – state thing gets curiouser and curiouser appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I am troubled by Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act [RFRA] for the obvious reason—that it is apparently going to be used to discriminate against people in the LGBT community [and who knows who else] and for another, less discussed reason, too: RFRA represents another instance of the absurd special exemptions and preferences America grants to religion in general, and religious organizations and beliefs in particular.

Religious institutions don’t pay property taxes—even though many sit on some of the most valuable land in their communities. Our tax laws enable people who donate money to religious organizations to treat them as tax deductions. You can donate a chunk of land to a religious organization and take that as a tax deduction, too.

More subtly, we treat religious officials as though they have some kind of special moral authority and wisdom. We address them, in non-religious settings, with their religious titles. They receive special tax breaks [known as “parsonage”] on their income and church-supplied housing. We begin governmental meetings with prayers, and we invite clergy to lead them, thereby further institutionalizing a role for religion in our legal and political system.

All of this special treatment and—pardon the pun—reverence for religions, their beliefs and practices, and their anointed leaders–has become part of the fabric of American culture. Yes, I understand the primordial American impulse to protect religion—as a part of the founding principles of our country. But I am pretty sure that the founders did not intend for “protection” to evolve into what we have today: the elevation of religious belief above enlightened thought.

What I see in the RFRA is the radical notion—now institutionalized—that religious belief trumps everything—even the principles of fairness and equality. This law represents a major step backward, threatening to undo the hard-won battles for human rights that have helped America evolve into a more enlightened country.

And please note that in Indiana’s RFRA, it is implicit that the religious beliefs being protected are those of one religion only: Christianity—and possibly only fundamentalist Christianity. I doubt that the people who passed Indiana’s RFRA would want to apply its religious exemptions to people who have Muslim beliefs. That idea is not explicity stated in the law, but we all know that it’s there, between the lines.

The hypocrisy is, well, beyond belief. The same people who push for laws like the Orwellian-named RFRA claim that we are in danger of seeing Sharia law imposed on our country. Sharia law, in their view, would be a terrible thing: the imposition of radical, fundamentalist Christian beliefs, on the other hand, would be wonderful.

None of this is breaking news. We have been overtaken, politically, by radical right-wing notions, many of which have their basis in religious beliefs—and much of their support comes from politicians elected by people with radical religious beliefs.

There’s far too much emphasis, in our culture and in our politics, on prayer and belief, and not enough on evidence-based fact and rational thought. We would be a better society if scientific organizations and scientists received the same special exemptions and exaltation as religion.

The post Indiana’s RFRA: Elevating religion over…everything appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Of all the news stories that have been written about the sad horror of the August shooting in Ferguson, MO, has there ever been a more puzzling one than the Oct. 15 front-page story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, headlined “Clergy-led protest raises questions over nature of repentance”?

Post reporter Lillly Fowler described an event that occurred on “Moral Monday,” when “a gang of clergy” (her words) marched to the Ferguson Police Department, confronted officers, and asked them to repent.

Despite the fact that demanding repentance on a public street seems inherently coercive, this seems like an ill-advised and ultimately disrespectful action. We know that many police officers in St. Louis engage in racial profiling and use excessive force, but why single out these Ferguson officers as scapegoats for our entire system of law enforcement?

If the clergy want to protest and demand repentance, we can think of some organizations and individuals that engage in institutional and systemic racism that may be equally as damaging as that practiced by those who are supposed to protect and serve us.

For example, why not confront those legislators in Jefferson City who have enabled an out-of-control gun culture to flourish in our inner city and small suburbs? Black-on-black crime has killed more young men for more years than any too-quick-to-pull-the-trigger police officers. Clergy of all faiths believe that idolatry is evil, and in our society guns have become idols. Doesn’t this call for repentance?

While they’re in Jefferson City, our clergy could ask our legislators to repent for forcing 300,000 low-income Missourians, both black and white, to go without health insurance simply because our law-makers don’t like the Affordable Care Act that our black president was able to enact.

Or maybe they would like to protest the continuing efforts to promote voter ID laws, a poll tax in disguise, which would disenfranchise thousands of voters. Change begins at the ballot box, and making it difficult or impossible for certain individuals to cast their votes is one way to ensure that the status quo remains.

If they have any time left, clergy could protest the payday lenders, who snare low-income individuals into a cycle of debt that can trap them for years. Or they could demand repentance from those in the judicial system, where black men and women receive far harsher sentences than their white counterparts for the same crimes. Or they could take on the educational system, where students in poor school districts are often doomed to failure because of sub-standard facilities, a lack of supplies, and teachers who have not learned appropriate classroom management skills.

Our clergy could be very busy.

To be fair, many members of the clergy have gone to Jefferson City and have spoken out about issues of social injustice. They have marched, and talked, and prayed with lawmakers and others. But until the week of Oct. 13 in Ferguson, I’m not aware that anyone has called for repentance.

True repentance means change, and change happens one person at a time. Rather than confronting and potentially embarrassing individuals when reporters and photographers are present, the clergy might have considered a more respectful way to talk to officers about their roles in the system. True repentance probably will not be a media event.

Racism is an evil and it does exist in our community today. It is damaging all of us. So it is up to all of us: those who make rules, those who write legislation, those who vote, those who shop, those who donate money, those who teach, those who preach, and those who want something better for all our children—it is up to us to wake up. Now. We need to pay attention to what is going on.

We don’t need scapegoats. Maybe we don’t need repentance, which is a religious construct. What we do need is to change.

The post After Ferguson: Repentance is not a media event appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As my mother approaches her 101st birthday, her mind is on fire with long-ago memories. Today, she told me the story of her grandmother, Sarah Plotkin Weintraub, who, in the early 20th century, was the medicine woman and exorcist in the Jewish ghetto of Chernosk, in Ukraine, before she packed up and landed in Cleveland, Ohio.

At least I think it was in Chernosk. Mom says that a cousin of hers, who came later, said that they were from “Chernoska,” although that cousin didn’t speak any English, so we’re not sure what she was referring to. Today, a google search yields “Chernovcy,” and “Chernivtsi,” neither of which I know how to pronounce, but both of which appear to refer to the same place. Further evidence that we’re talking about the same place is the Wikipedia mention that the town [however it’s pronounced] was once known as “Jerusalem upon the Prut” [a river, part of which    forms Romania’s border with Moldova and Ukraine].

In Chernosk, great-grandma Weintraub was the go-to person for medicinal remedies. I don’t know precisely what cures she served up to the folks in the ghetto and in surrounding shtetls. But back then, presumably, herbs and rubs and teas were the miracle drugs of the day.

But great grandma Sarah’s powers went beyond herbal cures. She was also the neighborhood ghost-buster.

How does my mother know that great grandma Sarah was an exorcist? Because, as a toddler, my mother was the target of one of Sarah’s exorcism rituals.

It all started with my mother’s Uncle Willie. He never married and had no children, but he adored all of his nieces and nephews. He adored them so much that, whenever he saw them, he smothered them with hugs and kisses and heaped them with compliments—wild, exaggerated compliments about how beautiful they were, how smart they were, how all-over wonderful, special and unique they were.

But, according to Jewish superstition, saying nice things about kids was bad. Uncle Willie’s family, like many of the times, believed that there was a thing called the “Evil Eye.” In Yiddish, it’s still referred to as the “Nehora” or “Eyin Ha Rah,” or pronunciations sort of like that. The prevailing superstition was that, if your child was seen to be too perfect, too lovable, too special, the Evil Eye would strike with some form of punishment. When your child received a compliment, you had to do something to protect her: One precaution was to spit and to utter a Yiddish phrase designed to keep the Evil Eye away.

Uncle Willie, in his good intentions, was considered guilty of tempting the Evil Eye. And one day, during a family gathering, he apparently went too far in praising my mother [who was, a look at ancient family photos reveals, clearly an adorable child].

That’s when great grandma Sarah leapt into action, with the anti-Evil Eye nuclear option of the era.

My mother still remembers it, almost a century later—that’s how traumatic it must have been. Sarah plopped Mom into her high chair. Then she started chanting, or singing. [It must have all been in Yiddish. Sarah never learned to speak English]. Then she grabbed a live chicken, held it by a wing–or maybe a leg–and began swinging it over her head as she circled the high chair, again and again. It must have been a very scary event—for the chicken, too–but that was part of the deal: It was supposed to be so scary that it would frighten away the Evil Eye.

To be fair to great grandma Sarah, this behavior was not a sign of mental illness. There was a certain contemporaneous, religion-based logic to what she was doing. She didn’t just arbitrarily grab a chicken, when there might have been other options, such as a lamb chop or a brisket or a hunk of gefilte fish. In Jewish superstition, chicken was the prescribed choice for exorcising demons: It was part of a ritual known in Yiddish as “shloch capores,” [variously spelled], in which the chicken was the scape-poultry that, as it was being flung, absorbed the evil vibes.

And, lest you smirk at such antiquated silliness, be advised that, in the 21st century, some observant and tradition-minded Jews still perform this ritual. Not as an official “exorcism,” but as a pre-High Holidays tradition, to cleanse themselves of their pre-atonement sins. Many years ago, before I quit religion, I attended a shloch capores ceremony at a Jewish retreat, where a rabbi twirled a chicken and then flung it into the lake, where it presumably died and took our collective wrongdoings with it. Of course, like other rituals, it has its variations: Back in my great grandmother’s day, I’m told, most people slaughtered the chicken post-kapores and then cooked it and ate it.  [I didn’t know it at the time, but the persistence of these kinds of beliefs, rituals and traditions contributed to my later decision to fling myself away from religion.]

Anyway, Mom’s exorcism must have worked. She’s lived a long and happy life, with no evidence of any punishment by the Evil Eye, even though she has been complimented through the years for her talents and has herself tempted the Evil Eye many times by her kindness and praise toward us, her three daughters.

The post My great grandmother was a Jewish exorcist appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you want to enlist or re-enlist in the U.S. Air Force, you have to take an oath of allegiance, both in writing and aloud. At the end of the oath, you have to say, “so help me God.” You can’t refuse. It’s mandatory. It’s not just an abstract policy, either: It’s being enforced. Recently, according to Air Force Times, an airman at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, who labels himself an atheist, was denied reenlistment because he crossed out the phrase on the written version and refused to say it.

According to the American Humanist Association, the unnamed airman was told [Aug. 25, 2014] that the Air Force would not accept his contract because he had crossed out the phrase “so help me God.” The airman was told his only options were to sign the religious oath section of the contract without adjustment and recite an oath concluding with “so help me God,” or leave the Air Force, the AHA said.

…“The government cannot compel a nonbeliever to take an oath that affirms the existence of a supreme being,” [an attorney for the AHA said.] “Numerous cases affirm that atheists have the right to omit theistic language from enlistment or reenlistment contracts.

…the airman should be allowed to reenlist without having to swear to a deity, and instead given a secular oath. Miller said the AHA is prepared to sue if the airman is not allowed to reenlist.

The “take-the-oath-or-else” requirement reflects a recent change in Air Force policy–a change quietly instituted in 2013, as reported in Air Force Times.

Air Force Instruction 36-2606 spells out the active-duty oath of enlistment, which all airmen must take when they enlist or reenlist and ends with “so help me God.” The old version of that AFI included an exception: “Note: Airmen may omit the words ‘so help me God,’ if desired for personal reasons.”

That language was dropped in an Oct. 30, 2013, update to the AFI. The relevant section of that AFI now only lists the active-duty oath of enlistment, without giving airmen any option to choose not to swear an oath to a deity.

“Reciting ‘So help me God’ in the reenlistment and commissioning oaths is a statutory requirement under Title 10 USC 502,” Air Force spokeswoman Rose Richeson said Thursday. AFI 36-2606 “is consistent with the language mandated in 10 USC 502. Paragraph 5.6 [and] was changed in October 2013 to reflect the aforementioned statutory requirement and airmen are no longer authorized to omit the words ‘So help me God.’ ”

The Air Force said it cannot change its AFI to make “so help me God” optional unless Congress changes the statute mandating it.

I’m not a fan of oaths or pledges. They seem coercive, rigid and almost medieval to me. As a secular American citizen, I still don’t like the “under God” edition of the Pledge of Allegiance–and I’m usually silent during that portion of the preliminaries, anyway. I also don’t sing the national anthem or “God Bless America.” So, while the perpetuation of these religio-patriotic rituals should have taught me better by now, I’m still shocked by the Air Force’s insistence on its members’ affirmation of and faith in a supreme being.

Of course, I’m not alone in my outrage and in my thinking that this “so-help-me-God” policy has to be unconstitutional.  In a recent article published by AlterNet, Michael Weinstein, who leads the civil rights organization Military Religious Freedom Foundation, writes:

…Such reprehensible examples of blatant religious coercion fly in the face of the Constitution of the United States of America and an enormous amount of related Constitutional case law stretching back at least 125 years. Indeed, the bulk of the First Amendment is devoted to our guaranteed freedom of religion (or freedom therefrom, if one so chooses). There is the Establishment Clause, which explicitly prohibits compulsory religious oaths, and then there is the Free Exercise Clause, which prevents a person from having to submit to coerced practices and affirmations of a scathingly sectarian nature. Let us neither forget the “No Religious Test” mandate of Clause 3, Article VI of the Constitution which, by itself, would be wholly dispositive here of the USAF’s vile iniquity. Indeed, the issue of religious oaths has long been settled via bedrock legal precedents fortifying Constitutional equal protection which formidably underscores the already unequivocal guarantees laid out in our Constitution.

To some, “so help me God” is no big deal, and I’ve been told, many times, that my objection to the whole “God thing” in government proceedings is frivolous and unpatriotic. I disagree. And this latest development–requiring  members of the military to swear an oath under the guidance of God–is worse yet. It’s just too close to “Onward Christian Solders” for comfort.

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