An
Open Letter To The Christian Right
By Robert Weitzel
31 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
I am writing to you because you
are my last hope.
Let’s understand each other. I am an atheist. I believe that if
all fundamentalist religions disappeared tomorrow, we would be in a
better place the day after. That said, I think it’s possible for
atheists and the Christian right to put aside our mutual antipathy and
join in common cause to protect the sanctity of human life.
The idea for this unlikely collaboration came from a recent New York
Times op-ed piece written by James Dobson of Focus on the Family. He
wrote about a meeting in Salt Lake City at which he and fifty other
Christian right leaders voted unanimously to join in supporting a minor-party
candidate “if neither of the two major political parties nominates
an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human
life . . ..”
In the 35 years since Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, your side has
been tireless, some would say ruthless, in the defense of the sanctity
of potential life. Along the way, you have acquired the clout that makes
politicians ask, “How high?”
No more than a cursory glance at your accomplishments is sufficient
to convince the most skeptical atheist of your worth as an ally.
You have succeeded—in many states—in dismantling reproductive
rights in all but name. Your muscle has pushed politicians to pass legislation
allowing health care providers to refuse a patient legal services related
to abortion, sterilization, and other forms of contraception. Even in
cases of rape and incest, you have supported laws that allow medical
personnel to refuse victims access to emergency contraception for religious
reasons.
You have been successful in replacing comprehensive sex education programs
in public schools with faith-based, platitude-laden, abstinence-only
programs, which study after study have shown to be ineffective, if not
counter-productive. More to the point, you have convinced the government
to fund these religious programs exclusively.
By far your biggest success to date has been cowing the Bush administration
into recognizing the “rights” of a blastocyst—a mass
of undifferentiated cells—over those of human beings suffering
from Alzheimer’s or spinal cord injuries or any number of diseases
whose treatment and ultimate cure may be enhanced by stem cell research.
In your battle to protect the sanctity of life, you have often triumphed
where reason and basic humanity would have dictated otherwise. Now you
have the opportunity to use your considerable clout to accomplish something
that any reasonable, humane person would consider categorically good,
though we’ll need to tweak your no compromise definition of life
to include postpartum humans of all ages and races and nationalities
to be successful.
What I am proposing is nothing less than a constitutional amendment.
We’ll call it the “conscience clause”— think
rape victim and emergency contraception and religious beliefs.
It reads as follows:
Amendment XXVIII
Section 1. No citizen of the United States shall be forced to support,
through taxation or other levies, any government agency whose actions
disregard the sanctity of human life, if said action is contrary to
that individual’s religious beliefs or moral convictions.
Section 2. Citizens of the United States shall have the right to allocate
their tax dollars to government agencies proportionately as their conscience
dictates.
What this amendment would mean for Americans who value the sanctity
of human life regardless of race, creed, national origin, or neocon
ideology is that they could choose to redistribute the 27 percent (a
conservative estimate) of their federal income tax now going to the
military—and its life-threatening mission—to a government
agency whose mission is life-enhancing.
To get a visual of the impact this amendment could have, go to the interactive
tax chart at www.nationalpriorities.org. If you paid $15,000 in federal
taxes last year, $4080 was dedicated to the destruction of human life,
$675 to education, $390 to nutrition programs, $225 to environmental
protection, and $285 to housing. Now, reallocate your tax dollars according
to your conscience.
This “conscience clause” amendment will allow the American
people to decide our national priorities. If we choose life, we will
pay for it. If we choose death, we will pay for it. Either way, the
credit or the blame for our priorities will rest squarely on our heads.
We will no longer be able to hide our culpability in a corrupted political
process.
My question and my challenge then: can Atheists and Fundamentalists
put aside our significant differences and work together to protect the
sanctity of all human life?
I have to be honest here. I need you guys. You know how to get things
done.
If you’re on board, we’ll need to act quickly and decisively.
Every indication is that the “faith-based” administration
you’ve supported these last seven years is about to expend more
of our gold and our children’s lives on a new round of bloodletting
in Iran.
Robert Weitzel is a freelance writer whose essays appear
in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He has been published in the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel, Skeptic Magazine, Freethought Today, and on popular
liberal websites. He can be contacted at: [email protected]
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