Everybody Loves A Catholic Girl With An Axe To Grind

I have an announcement, in case you care: I’m not going to see “Religulous.” It’s not that I’m offended by the concept, and I’m sure it’s a very interesting film. It’s just that, this deep into the election season, I am done having a sense of humor about my religion.

Is it just me, or has this been, like, the most self-righteous-y campaign season of all time? I mean, I realize I’ve only been paying attention to politics since about 1984, but it doesn’t seem like it’s ever been quite this egregiously holier-than-thou. On both sides. And I’m not talking about the candidates (well, except for maybe you, Sarah Palin), either; I’m talking about the good old American people, who seem, on the whole, content to lob allegations of socialism and fascism back and forth like so many fluffy white projectiles in a particularly meaningful rec-room game of Pig Pong.

Warning, America: I think we’re losing perspective.

And I’m going to take this moment to talk to my brothers and sisters on the Left, here, kids, and to say something I’ve been meaning to say for a while but haven’t been quite irritated enough to say until now, and that is:

Lay off the Christians.

For serious, guys. If I have to read one more blog comment about how religious people are ruining the country, I’m seriously going to lose it. And then you’ll have one pissed-off religious lady on your hands. Well, one more.

Listen, I understand your frustration that the Republican Party seems to have been hijacked by hard-right social conservative evangelical Protestants a few years back. That’s frustrating. They don’t represent all Republicans, and it’s really too bad they’ve done such a good job cornering the market on words like “values” and “patriotism” while advocating policies that are nothing like the patriotic values many of the rest of us embrace. That bugs me, too. But you know what doesn’t make it better? Painting all Christians with the same brush.

I’ve been teaching my students about persuasive writing this week, and the most important thing I’ve told them so far is that if you want people to believe your considered opinion is valid, you should provide some provable facts to back up your argument. So here are some facts for you. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 51% of Americans identify themselves as Protestant. (That includes all Protestant denominations.) 25% of Americans are Catholic. (I’m included in that group.) 3.3% of Americans identify themselves as belonging to other Christian religions, 5% belong to non-Christian religions (Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Sufism, Jainism, Shinto, what have you), and about 17% of Americans don’t subscribe to any religion at all. Want a visual?

See all the green? That’s the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian. Notice it’s a much larger number than the percentage of Americans who say racist things about Barack Obama.

Fact: Most Americans are religious in some way. Most of those religious Americans are Christians. Nearly eight out of ten American adults identifies as Christian. Does that mean eight out of ten American adults are gay-bashing hatemongers? Do eight out of ten American adults attempt to ban books and suppress freedom of speech? Are eight out of ten American adults hanging on Rush Limbaugh’s every word? (Side Note: Please don’t make me answer my own rhetorical questions.)

Fact: Many religious Americans (from many American religions) vote for progressive candidates. If you look at the “religious vote” in 2004, you can see that not even the evangelical churches delivered 100% of their votes to George W. Bush. And Kerry did fairly well among Catholics despite running a campaign that was something less than awe-inspiring; according to CNS (kind of the AP of the USCCB; oh, boy, do I love acronyms), approximately 47% of Catholics voted for Kerry (as opposed to 48% of the general public). According to the Pew Forum, “there is no religious majority at the ballot box.” (Side Note: You might also take a look at this season’s candidate preference by religion.)

And yet I keep running across the same tired old remarks about Christians, made by people who pride themselves on being open-minded and accepting of diversity. No wonder the Democratic Party is perceived to have a “God problem.” Some of our members obviously do. That’s not to say there aren’t anti-religion members of the GOP; it’s just that the GOP has learned how to tailor its message to religious voters better than the Democrats have.

So why does this all matter to me?

Well, for starters, I was one of those weekly-attending non-Latino Catholics who voted for John Kerry in 2004. During that election season (when, as you may recall, I was living in the bluest of blue states) I endured more than my fair share of small-minded talk about “red states” and the backwardness of “values voters” from well-meaning acquaintances who didn’t realize how judgmental they sounded. I didn’t let it dampen my enthusiasm for politics, however, although this election season, as partisan attacks on both sides (and again, I’m not talking about Democratic candidates here – I’m talking about Regular Joe and Jane Democrat, sitting at home at their computers) have escalated, I’ve found myself more and more often being insulted by the very people with whom I’m supposed to be agreeing. (In case you’re wondering, this was what finally put me over the top. Not the post itself – that was well-put – but a number of the reader comments.)

I was venting to MLB about this the other night, and he couldn’t seem to understand why I was so upset.

“They’re not talking about you,” he said. “They’re talking about people who give Christians a bad name. You should be mad at those Christians, not at the people who criticize them.”

“I’m mad at all of them,” I said. “It’s an unfair generalization. Most Christians aren’t narrow-minded jerks, and it’s not fair to talk about us all that way.”

“I just don’t see why it upsets you. They’re not talking about you.”

“How about this,” I said. “You know how you get upset when people in the crowd at McCain/Palin rallies yell things about Obama being a Muslim terrorist?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, they’re not talking about you, so why do you let that upset you?”

“Because it’s wrong, and it’s hurtful, and…” his voice trailed off. “Oh.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Here’s the thing, my blue-voter friends: Some of the things some of you are saying about Christians are remarks that, were you to substitute another word for Christian – say, I don’t know, Muslim or black or woman or Jew, for example – could be categorized as what one might call “hate speech.” In fact, some of you making those remarks about Christians would be the first to jump down the throat of someone making similar remarks about Muslims or African-Americans or women or Jews. Double standard much?

Besides, these people you’re criticizing – the ones who won’t vote for Obama because he’s black, or his middle name is Hussein, or who think all Muslims are evil – the problem isn’t that they’re Christians. The problem is that they’re ignorant, or ill-informed, or hypocritical, or just hateful. And they use their religion as a front for their ignorance or lack of information or hypocrisy or hatred. What they’re saying has nothing to do with Jesus. So criticize them for being ignorant or ill-informed or hypocritical or hateful. But don’t criticize them for being Christians. Because when you defame Christians, you’re defaming me and a lot of other good people – Democrat, Republican, third-party and independent alike.

It’s time to reprogram. You know how when people make remarks about terrorists and they just say “Muslims,” you want to correct them and make them clarify that they’re talking about “Islamic extremist terrorists who are not representative of the vast majority of the peaceful followers of Islam”? It’s time for American progressives to do the same thing. Only you’re not talking about “Christians,” you’re talking about “ignorant, ill-informed Americans who use Christianity as a foil to mask their own personal prejudices.”

And in case that doesn’t convince you, here are a few other people you might want to keep in mind you’re including when you talk smack about “Christians”: