A few nights ago, I was walking to a friend's house with him and we noticed a father who was feeding his two children out of the back of his station wagon. We left hoping that they wouldn't be forced to move out of the driveway of the fast food place they were at. Both of us were crushed, which seems silly now given that this is so prevalent. But of course, reading about it is different than seeing it. My friend and I had been talking earlier in the day about an article I had written for the school newspaper in which I defended liberal beliefs, trying to explain that they are often as morally driven as any conservative beliefs. My friend prodded me for being defensive, and I was offended at first, but I realize he is right. Why did I feel the need to defend my beliefs?
I believe my liberalism comes from the values instilled into me by my family, and my faith. I was raised Catholic, and I am as cynical as any of those comedians who talk of the absurdities in the Church. However, I chose to remain Catholic because I believe they most strongly profess the core of Christianity is working for social justice. The Bible says "You will be judged by how you treat the least among you" and "It is easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven." Are these not the values that we should most instill in people? The ones we should make most prevalent in our society? Would that not be best route to creating peace and tolerance, and destroying hatred and greed? This is why the Religious Right makes me the most sick of any other conservative group. "Christian conservative" is an oxymoron.
I'm no longer going to defend my beliefs. I'm no longer going to defend why I think the least fortunate should be taken care of and why promoting peace and other social justice should be the main job of government over protecting the interests of the wealthy and powerful. They should be the ones defending why they don't believe that. They should be the ones whose morality is questioned. And from now on, I will dedicate my political activism to making sure that is the case.
Monday, November 22, 2004
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2 comments:
Excellent, my brother. Remember that we don't have to take the moral high ground, we're already on it! Let those conservative "Christian" hypocrites blather about the right and wrong of abortion while ignoring homeless families (since they keep those sort out of their neighborhoods). They have their politics of intolerance and self-righteousness, spouting off their old-testament "eye for an eye" scripture, while we remember what Jesus said (to paraphrase): first love God, second love everyone else. When they tell you you're not a Christian because you don't go to church, ask them what kind of Christian they for not doing what God commands them to.
Well said. Stories like that tear me up. It is the thought of people living like that every day, millions of them all across America suffering and going without food, shelter, or the most basic concerns of life, while our government passes round after round of tax cuts to enrich those who are already rich beyond measure, that motivates me so strongly to see that our government and we as a people who are more fortunate do what we are required to as human beings to help those people.
No, we don't have to defend our beliefs. It is a situation that arrogant and manipulative conservative and Republican pundits and politicians have placed us in as a movement, by attacking our patriotism, our credibility, our intelligence, our motivations, or whatever suited their purposes politically to obscure the fact that they themselves have even less interest in those people then they said that we did.
The great huminatarians of our times have never spent much time defending their beliefs. Martin Luther King Jr. derived his beliefs from a supreme authority, and instead of defending them he challenged the beliefs of those who thought that blacks should live as second class citizens in their own country, and emboldened the hearts of those who struggled with him. It is a lesson that we need to remember. Our beliefs are strong because we are right, and now we must give moral vision, clarity and purpose to our beliefs and how we express them. We must confront those who believe differently from us with their own hypocrisy and shame, and challenge those who believe as we do to stand up and say so.
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