Religious law for some

There is a lot of talk on the right, often the American right, about how European states are allowing various aspects of Muslim religious law to be used by Muslim citizens in contravention of national laws - the dreaded Sharia. Criticism is also coming increasingly from the secular left (particularly British-based Iranian communists it would seem!) and the avowedly atheistic. But those who argue that there is a place for such parallel systems in society often cite Beth Din - Jewish law in the UK as a precedent. People argue whether this is a good parallel or not, but listening to From Our Own Correspondent at the weekend, they seemed to demonstrate an alternative parallel - polygamist Mormons in the US.

I watched a few episodes of Big Love when it started, but found it a bit boring - but I presumed that it was stretching fact to make good fiction. The only polygamists I had heard about were the really crazy ones like Warren Jeffs who married 80 women, lived in a 'compound' and was wanted by the Feds (he got caught and got 10 to life). But FOOC went to Utah (and watch the film clip at the top) where possibly 40,000 people are living in polygamist families. And they're not in the slightest bit shy about explaining how and why they break the law. Nor does the law seem very bothered about trying to stop them, seeming to take the position that there are simply too many of them to prosecute (it hasn't ever stopped the US govt. from trying to prosecute, say, drug users). The polygamists are campaigning to have polygamy legalised - FOOC quotes one sympathetic politician, Ric Cantrell (who appears to be "Chief Deputy of the Utah State Senate"), a Republican, saying:

"Your patriotism is unquestionable"... "and your faith inspiring. You have no hesitation to put God's law above the law of the state with a propensity toward civil disobedience and I find that very American."

Would it be so American if they were Muslim or Sikh or Jewish?

The Pope's funny view of the world

So the Pope is at it again, not quite spreading season's greeting - more accusing gender studies of threatening the future of mankind. You can probably accuse gender studies of all sorts of things (lacking a sense of humour at times for instance) but threatening mankind I think is something of a stretch. Only a man who has presumably lived a completely celibate life could think that hetero-sexuality needs protection from academic theory. Like American evangelicals who are so convinced that gay marriage threatens straight marriage - you have to really ask what is going on inside the mind, unless it a fear of modernity and loss of control more generally.

Benedict XVI said that the "Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected." Some have argued that this isn't an outright attack on gay people, but that will of course depend on what Benedict sees as the "order of creation". Very little of his previous high profile statements would lead one to suspect that this would be a liberal interpretation.

On a related note, Polly Tonybee notes some interesting research(towards the end) that suggests church goers are more likely to nick newspapers that non-church goers. Make of that what you will. But on that vaguely atheistic point, Happy Christmas to all.

Now it all makes sense...

(pictures, left: Lucifer - prince of darkness.
Right: Javier Solana - prince of Europe. Ask
yourself - have you ever seen them both in
the same room!?)

I've spent too much of today reading official EU documents and treaties. In fact any time reading them, is too much time for me - the process just seems to suck the very core of my soul out. But now I know why! It's not just that trying to understand "Permanent Structured Cooperation" is marginally less interesting than watching paint dry. It is that actually Permanent Structured Cooperation is the work of the Antichrist!

So who is the future target of this building of “emergency powers” being handed to this one man they call Mr. Europe? Would he really start a war against Jews and Christians worldwide?

I'd like to see Javier Solana take on "Jews and Christians worldwide", although my money would be on the Jews and Christians knocking out Javier by the second round.

We can skip over a few minor issues such as that the writer of this deep prophetic insight was writing in 2007 about a text that had been rejected by voters in France and Holland two years earlier, or that the the EU becoming shock troops for the UN is about as likely as, well, Jesus deciding to stage his second coming in my back garden tomorrow afternoon. Presumably if God works in mysterious ways, so must the devil. And when you have spent your day reading things like this:

The permanent structured cooperation referred to in Article I‑41(6) of the Constitution shall be open to any Member State which undertakes, from the date of entry into force of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, to:

(a) proceed more intensively to develop its defence capacities through the development of its national contributions and participation, where appropriate, in multinational forces, in the main European equipment programmes, and in the activity of the Agency in the field of defence capabilities development, research, acquisition and armaments (European Defence Agency), and
(b) have the capacity to supply by 2007 at the latest, either at national level or as a component of multinational force groups, targeted combat units for the missions planned, structured at a tactical level as a battle group, with support elements including transport and logistics, capable of carrying out the tasks referred to in Article III‑309, within a period of 5 to 30 days, in particular in response to requests from the United Nations Organisation, and which can be sustained for an initial period of 30 days and be extended up to at least 120 days.

(and that is just Article 1!) you would probably also come to the conclusions of its diabolical origins.

Sunday morning godless heathen post

On Sunday mornings more American go to church than in any other advanced democracy worldwide, but the standard narrative of Religious Right is that the country is becoming godless, and that Christianity is under attack. But did you know that in the 1770s only 17% Americans were church-goers? I didn't until I happened to listen to this interesting interview with Prof. Gary Wills of Northwestern University in the U.S. He points out that America was really at its least religious at its founding and that religious observance has increased in waves ever since, although interestingly there has always been a secular push-back after each of these evangelical waves. It's worth a listen if you are interested in the role of religion in state formation and politics (the 17% quote about 5 minutes into the interview).

A new extreme right: Dinesh D'Souza and the theocons

It's an old cliché that when the extremes go far enough to the political right or left, they end up meeting around the back. How really different were Nazism and Stalinism? Or indeed your skinhead neo-fascist football hooligan and the masked, Starbucks-smashing, anti-globalisation anarchist? But Andrew Sullivan, reviewing The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 by Dinesh D'Souza in The New Republic, demonstrates a new version of this - where the American (and this is predominantly an American phenomenon) religious right, the theocons, have fetishized their social conservatism to such a degree that they starts to see the up-side in the fundamentalist Islam of the Saudi Wahhabis or international Islamists more generally.

Sullivan argues that D'Souza is, like the Islamists, actually more interested in the earthly, political structures that he feels his religion requires, than in the actual religion itself.

In the goal of maintaining patriarchy, banning divorce, outlawing homosexuality, and policing blasphemy, any orthodoxy will do. D'Souza's religion, in a sense, is social conservatism. He is not going to let a minor matter such as the meanings of God get in the way of his religion.

Sullivan accuses D'Souza of then cynically sugaring the Islamism-isn't-all-bad pill for his fellow conservatives by saying that it was the actions of American liberals/progressives/lefties/what-have-yous who are responsible for making the Jihadis hate America by producing an ugly, morally repugnant and vacuous culture, and therefore bear ultimate responsibility for the attacks.

It would be comforting to say that D'Souza is just plainly f**king nuts. But he isn't. Nor is he stupid. He does though have a very, very weird outlook on the world. It would also be comforting to call him a marginalised extremist, but this doesn't appear to be true either. Although the book has taken some stick from many conservatives, other serious conservative figures have defended him and it has serious publisher and D'Souza himself is all over the media. Sullivan lists D'Souza's recent speaking invitations, and the one that jumped out to me was the U.S. Air Force Academy. For those who take an interest in the Christian Right in the US, that the Air Force Academy had invited D'Souza might not come as any great surprise after the scandals of recent years where cadets who weren't fundamentalist Christians claim to have been made to feel unwelcome by other students and members of the faculty. Nevertheless it's seems slightly alarming that an extremist like D'Souza gets to lecture the future guardians of the US nuclear forces.

I've often wondered what some on the politically active, religious right really have against Islamism. If we ignore bin Laden and co. and their violence aimed at the US, the more politically-inclined Islamists, be they the pro-monarchy Wahhabi sheiks of Saudi Arabia, or the more televisual Aljaazera imams of the Muslim Brotherhood, seem to be on the same wavelength when it comes to social policy. For example, the American politicization of homosexuality is particularly striking to Europeans; many argue that gay marriage was the issue that swung the 2004 presidential elections. D'Souza is with the Islamists on this issue; Sullivan's argues that D'Souza is unique only in having both the balls and gall to openly admit it. I've mentioned Ted Haggard on this blog before, and D'Souza thanks Haggard in the book (I wonder if it had gone to print before Haggard's gay-prostitute-crystal-meth-party fall-from-grace had hit the headlines?), but in an interesting radio show last autumn on Haggard's scandal, the journalist Jeff Sharlet noted:

Now the other villain, of course, for most of twentieth century evangelicalism was the communist…And then in 1992, in the early 1990s, the communist very quickly disappeared as a viable enemy…I noticed that a lot of these chastity organizations had all started, in fact, in 1992. And then as I started talking to them, they were quite plain that they felt that with the Cold War over, there was now room to focus on sexual issues. And, at the same time they felt that gay liberation had had some success and so they felt like suddenly, the gay man, and I always say the gay man singular, sort of an archetype, because they’re not really talking about real people…The gay man sort of rose as this looming figure who could be anywhere, just like a communist. Looks like us, moves among us, is in our schools…And so it’s an omnipresent threat that you have to be constantly on vigilance for. And this is a great organizing tactic, this is the ultimate fear tactic.

Sharlet went on to note that there is actually discussion within certain parts of the religious right, post-9/11, as to whether Muslims or gays are more dangerous for America. D'Souza appears to have taken a very public stand on this issue and is clearly more scared of gays.

Sometimes you are just left shaking your head at the utter weirdness of all.

(See also this earlier post.)

Pentecostals, Episcopalians and Ali G in da' house

I seem to be being followed around by fundamentalist Christians today, not literally mind, but still enough to be a bit spooky. Firstly I'm still ploughing through the Economist Christmas double edition that has lots of long special articles including one on the rise and rise of Pentecostalism. The article is here but I'm afraid you need a subscription to read it. I had heard before that the Catholic church in Latin America was in competition with various protestant sects, I just hadn't realised how big a phenomenon Pentecostalism has become - in Guatamala for example its now thought a third of the country is Pentecostal.

Then I read on Phil's blog, Finland for Thought, that 25 percent of Americans think the second coming will happen this year. This can't be true... can it?

On the bus home I read another Economist article about the splits in the Episcopal (American Anglican) church, with some of the oldest influential churches looking to leave their current dioceses and get a new Archbishop, probably in Nigeria. Why? It's all about that great threat to civilisations once again - boys kissing.

"The schismatic parishes included two of the oldest and richest in the country—Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in the town of that name—which occupy property worth a combined $25m. The Falls Church once numbered George Washington among its vestrymen. It is now the church-of-choice to Washington's conservative power elite, including Michael Gerson, George Bush's former speechwriter, Porter Goss, a former head of the CIA, and Fred Barnes, the executive editor of the Weekly Standard .

The breakaway congregations are putting themselves up for adoption by Anglican archbishoprics in the developing world. One would-be parent is a Nigerian bishop, Peter Akinola, who runs the largest province in the Anglican communion, and who has pronounced views on homosexuality: he supports legislation that would make it illegal for gays to form associations, read gay literature or even eat together."

And then finally back to the Pentecostals. On NPR's Fresh Air they had an interview with Sacha Baron Cohen on the making of "Borat - the Movie". It's the first interview I've heard with Baron Cohen not in character either as Borat or as Ali G and very interesting. But he mentions part of the film where Borat goes to a Pentecostal Church in the US and they try to "save" him. He recounts it as being a very over-awing experience but notes that just in case you don't go with the experience quite enough, you are held down by strong men as part of the ceremony and they shake you vigorously and this is what gives rise to the phenomenon of people supposedly writhing on the floor as the demonic possession (or whatever) leaves them. He also recounts another rather scary sounding experience of 60,000 Alabama American football fans yelling "faggot" at him. Perhaps the actions of the churches in Falls Church and Fairfax are just politer versions of the football fans' directness.