Religious freedom and freedom from religion

To preserve peace & sanity, every country needs an equal balance between allowing great religious freedom while also ensuring that one has freedom from religion.

I don't think that most right-wing Christians understand the concept of either. Most recently, this ignorance was demonstrated with the uproar over the Park51/Cordoba House (or so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"), some idiot pastor's idea to burn the Qur'an, and the Burqa ban in France. Let's look at each of these incidents from a religious freedom/freedom from religion angle:

The "mosque" in question is not located at Ground Zero. It's actually an Islamic community center, located two blocks away, and not even visible from Ground Zero. But try telling that to Christian zealots who distort facts to suit their black/white worldview.

Let's pretend for a moment that there ARE plans to build a mosque directly on Ground Zero. So, what? We have freedom of religious expression in this country, and as long as it's not a government-sponsored building, and there's equal representation of other religious beliefs (and non-belief) on the site, then who cares? Even if it was a Catholic church or Mormon temple on site-- as long as there's equal representation and no government sponsorship, then who cares?

Well, the teabaggers and Christian bigots would like to have us think that all Muslims are terrorists. The Onion does an amazing job of turning this into satire, but it's sort of sad because there are people who fervently believe this shit. If even I understand that not every Christian is a James Dobson-worshipping, dominionist, anti-science asshole... then why do these people continue to assert that all Muslims are evil/violent? Why not turn that mirror around on yourself and your own religion?

Conclusion for freedom of religion: Just as we allow any other institution of faith to be built in this country, we should allow the building of this totally innocuous community/prayer center.
Conclusion for freedom from religion: The community center is not government sponsored, not even on (or visible from) Ground Zero, and nobody is forcing you to go there and convert... so you are still free from religion.

Further reading: A friend of mine, Mike R., wrote an opinion piece in the student newspaper, entitled, Bigotry against Muslims has reached a new low :

All summer, we as a nation were subjected to much manufactured outrage over the Park 51 Muslim community center set to be built in lower Manhattan, a few blocks away from the former site of the World Trade Center towers.

The vast majority of New Yorkers weren’t against it. It was established over and over that the owners of the site (which now is home to a derelict Burlington Coat Factory) have every right to build whatever they please on their property. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the New York City imam who would lead the new community center, has been demonized in the right-wing media as a terrorism-connected monster. But he was quickly revealed to be a Muslim leader with stellar moderate bona fides.

To the people protesting against Park 51, none of this matters. To them, the project isn’t a community center complete with basketball courts and a swimming pool, comparable to a YMCA (whose initials, some often forget, stand for Young Man’s Christian Association), it’s an insidious invasion by a terrifying foreign menace. Forget that Imam Rauf has been living in New York City since moving there as a child in the 1960’s, or that he was chosen to assist with Muslim outreach in the Middle East by George W. Bush’s State Department. A decade of scapegoating has led to all Muslims being treated as “others” to be hated and feared in the minds of millions of Americans.

While we should not forget the responsibility that radicalized, politicized Islam has for motivating terrorists to kill, we must not let fear and prejudice get the best of us. We must recognize that there is a difference between the kind of Islam that drives disaffected young men to strap bombs to their chests and the kind that lives up to the ideals of peace and gentleness preached by mainstream imams. A similar difference exists between the kind of Christianity that motivates volunteering at a soup kitchen and the kind that inspires the assassination of doctors who provide abortions.

Not recognizing this difference leads to disastrous consequences, recently demonstrated in Sidney, N.Y. when the town board sought an injunction to stop the burial of Muslims in a graveyard owned by another Muslim house of worship. This would be appalling by itself, considering that the town council approved the land for use as a cemetery by the mosque in 2005, but the locals are so blinded by their hatred of all things Muslim that they are even demanding that Muslims already buried there be disinterred and moved outside the city limits.

This kind of bigotry is corrosive to a free society. If your hatred of anyone is so powerful that it extends even beyond the grave, it may be time to get some help. Your family and your country will thank you.

As for the pastor who wants to burn the Qur'an? He just wants attention and shock value. As an atheist, there's nothing shocking to me about someone burning a "holy book." You may be offending my Muslim friends, but if that's how you want to exercise your First Amendment rights, then fine. I'll exercise mine by burning your King James Bibles along with all other holy books. But I think this has less to do with the pastor's hatred of Islam than it has to do with racial hatred of Muslims.

This isn't about religion any more. This is the same kind of race hate that folks saw during WWII with phobias about the Japanese, culminating with Japanese internment camps. Disgusting.

Since I have determined that this isn't even about religion, then writing a conclusion for freedom of/from religion is sort of non-applicable. This has to do with freedom of speech/expression. Since we allow all manner of obscene and hateful speech in this country, then nothing is stopping the pastor from his tirade of race hate against Muslims. His actions only hurt himself because he reveals himself as a racist and an idiot who can't see the violence and hateful passages contained within his own holy book.

As for the Burqa ban in France, the rationale behind this is 1) that these women are coerced into wearing the burqa and must be "liberated" from their male-dominated religion and 2) that wearing the burqa creates a security risk because it totally conceals the wearer's identity.

I would like to refute both of these.

1) Although it may be true that a great majority of women wearing the burqa are coerced into doing so or "brainwashed" -- that does not necessarily mean that it is our job to "liberate" them. There are some who even wear it of their own free will. We are, after all, talking about Muslim women living in France, not Saudi Arabia. They are afforded (almost) the same rights, opportunities, and treatment as men as citizens of France, and we should not automatically assume that the burqa is a sign of oppression in their lives.

As a feminist, I have assumed that the burqa (among other religious garb for females, such as the nun's habit, etc) IS a sign of oppression or religious delusion, but I understand that it is not my place to tell these women what to believe and FORCIBLY liberate them. People must come to liberation of their own free will. And it is not the government's job to tell anyone how to dress or express their religious beliefs. There is no harm done to anyone by allowing Muslim women to continue donning the burqa, even if it is recognized as a symbol of oppression among Western women. But the question is whether it is actual oppression, and not merely a symbol? Probably not.

An example of actual oppression would be forcing these women to remain indoors, arranged marriage, and forcing wives to act totally subservient to their husbands. An example of actual oppression would be the practice of stoning women to death if they are seen in the presence of another man. An example of actual oppression would be the practice of women burning themselves once they become widows. These are all good examples of having the government step in to intervene or to liberate.

I have friends who CHOOSE to wear the hijab and others who choose not to. What they have in common is that their choice makes them happy and does not bring psychological or bodily harm to them or to others. So, if we are to respect religious freedom, then we must respect that.

2) The assertion that the burqa creates a national "security risk" is just a distraction from the larger issue -- that the government has overstepped its boundaries and intends to criminalize harmless religious expression. By criminalizing an article of clothing, we criminalize the wearer (the woman) and her religion and create an atmosphere of suspicion and intolerance. The illusion is created in the public mind that all burqa-wearers are security risks => therefore dangerous => therefore terrorists.

If a government can have someone arrested for wearing a burqa, then what is to stop them from arresting someone for dressing "immodestly"? You cannot have one extreme without the other.

And, finally, to those who harp on about sacrificing liberties for the sake of preserving national security, I quote Benjamin Franklin:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

and a modern, more familiar paraphrase,

"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."

Conclusion for freedom of religion: If France (and other European nations) is/are to allow religious expression in other forms, and the vestments of other faiths, then they must also allow Muslim women the choice of wearing the burqa or not.
Conclusion for freedom from religion: Unlike Saudi Arabia, the French government does not force women to wear the burqa. They have freedom from religion if they so desire, and avenues to help them obtain freedom from patriarchal oppression. That is why it is unnecessary to institute a ban on this religious garment.