Monthly Archives: March 2015

Pillarization in America

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In regards to something that Candy said about McKoon’s RFRA, I wonder if anyone has heard of the Dutch system called “pillarization” (“verzuiling”), the system of “politico-denominational segregation of a society” in which, according to Wikipedia, “societies were (and in some areas, still are) “vertically” divided into several segments or “pillars” (zuilen, singular: zuil) according to different religions or ideologies. The best-known examples of this are the Dutch and Belgian ones.

These pillars all had their own social institutions: their own newspapers, broadcasting organisations, political parties, trade unions and farmers’ associations, banks, schools, hospitals, universities, scouting organisations and sports clubs. Some companies even hired only personnel of a specific religion or ideology. This led to a situation where many people had no personal contact with people from another pillar.” Unlike South African apartheid and American Jim Crow, this wasn’t imposed with the collusion of the state and select religio-racial institutions against other religio-racial institutions. Instead, it was imposed by a society which sought to allow for “sphere-based” development along ethical-religious lines. The Calvinist Protestants built their own social safety net in a way which favored their own parishioners, and the Catholics duplicated the same for their own parishioners in order to prevent their working-class members from joining socialist trade unions and organizations which violated what we call “sincerely-held religious beliefs”.

Finally, the socialists built their own “pillar” separate from the other two in order to support fellow socialists (a system unique to Western Europe), while the liberals were left to the remaining nonsectarian public institutions which came to be called the “General pillar”. This system was in existence from the 1860s until the Cold War, when many Dutch citizens started to merge their institutions across sectarian lines and dismantled much of the century of pillarization. Little is left of it, while Belgium has largely retained it in the form of political/language-based pillarization. Here in the U.S., if Candy and other self-identified libertarians accommodate the RFRA’s argument of only going to places where you are welcome because of/in spite of your background, and we distinguish our services/non-profits/businesses by our religio-social allegiances/ accommodations/criminations, I think the pillarization system is where we might be headed.

If we are encouraged to only go to LGBT/woman/PoC/atheist/vegan/etc.-friendly businesses and services rather than “trouble”/”oppress” those business owners and congregations who see such identities and associations as “morally wrong” or “confused”, and reactionary Christians encourage fellow parishioners to only go to places owned or operated by fellow parishioners who advertise such a religious identity, we are segregating ourselves into our own spheres and losing sight of our shared humanity, which is most apparent in the public space.

I’m not just talking about LGBT minorities choosing only accommodative spaces. I’m talking also about the allies who would willingly choose such spaces in solidarity, or would exercise the same solidarity with other groups which are criminated by reactionary politics. In our solidarity and “talking with our feet”, are we also diminishing the public spaces which are most available? Are we also diminishing chances for societal change and access to such changes?

We’re stickering up and marking our accommodational lines – progressive, libertarian, reactionary, whatever – to the advantage of those who are cynical about the social contract and wish to see it ripped apart.

Something has to stand in the gap between (ir)religion and state

Politics, To Export 2, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

Reading this post by Winnifred Sullivan on the Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College decisions, I got the gist of her argument: that we, no matter our political persuasion, have extended the legal “religious freedom” idea to its logical point of absurdity.

But something caught my eye in this paragraph:

But when the church and the state went their separate ways—when the church was disestablished—the intimate articulation of political, legal, and religious fictions lost their logic on a national scale. They no longer recognize one another. The legal and religious fictions of religious freedom have become lies designed to extend the life of the impossible idea that church and state can still work together after disestablishment. There is no neutral place from which to distinguish the religious from the non-religious. There is no shared understanding of what religion, big “R” religion, is. Let’s stop talking about big “R” religion.

This perhaps best articulates the disconnect between religion and the state in which organized religion – and the various means of power which it can assume – is much more free to run amuck over the rights of individual human beings.

I think that, rather than being content with this current separation of religion and state, in which the two “agree” to separate from each other (which has stopped applying in many places), something should stand in the gap between the two. Some sort of fiction – not just an institution, but an entire legal fiction – should act as a buffer between religion and the secular state, in such a way that the state would be able to eliminate any reference to the words “religion” or “faith” from documented law and jurisprudence.

In fact, for any institution or fiction which considers itself secular or nonsectarian (such as education), something should stand in the gap between religion and such-and-such nonsectarian institution.

But what could be strong enough, conducive enough to hold together that wall of separation?

Can the interfaith/intervalues coalitions – those organizations which classify themselves specifically as explicitly welcoming of multiple religions – be part of that wall?

Perhaps

So its very important that some questions be answered! I am making this blog post to ask our LGBT activists, organizations and LGBT media to be that loud voice asking several questions of several people.

1. What are State Representative Allen Peake’s views on the legislation? Does he support it? Will he vote for its passage?

2. Will State Representative Allen Peake abstain from voting for this legislation and realize the conflict of interest because his business will be affected by the new law if it passes.

3. IF State representate Allen Peake does support this legislation and votes for its passage, what are the views and what would the course of action be by any of the parent companies that franchise restaurants to Allen Peake’s company, C&P Restaurants.

via Edric Floyd: Telling It like It is!: Will a restaurant franchisee support Georgia’s License to Discrimate?.

“Back then, they were called communists, or half-breeds, or outside agitators, sexual and moral degenerates, and worse, they were called every other name than what their parents gave them…”

Barack Obama on Selma

Read a YouTube comment board under a civil-rights-related video, and you’ll see people still flustered by the alleged sexuality of MLK or other marchers. The most authoritarian way to try undermining a social movement and its historical memory is to slut-shame protesters. #Selma50 #OccupyWallStreet

Last night, I learned that the reason why #Alabama’s 1901 constitution is the longest extant constitution in the world is because it has a whopping 856 amendments to limit local rule, preserve white supremacy and solidify the hold of the Jim Crow Democrats. To date, most of these amendments have not been struck down or repealed. It’s a f*cking embarrassment of a document, ya’ll.

I just called Senator McKoon’s office, left my name/work with PFLAG Columbus, GA/opposition to his bill (which goes up for a floor vote in the State Senate today).

All this time, I’ve thought that these sorts of protections for homophobic expression are hypocritical. They’re being passed only – ONLY – because LGBT people are working for civic protections under law.

It reminds me of how Jim Crow laws were passed after slavery ended in order to protect racist ideology and a vengeful social architecture.

For every inch gained by the debased, someone feels “attacked”. For every expansion of the social contract to the unwanted, someone’s morality is offended and needs civic protection. Let’s be more inclusive.