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Oregon Daily Emerald
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor
Travis Willse
Thursday, December 4,2003
EDITORIAL.
Society must
address issue
of hate-based
violent crime
This week, several campus advocacy
groups, along with the ASUO, sponsored a
"Transgender Day of Remembrance" to
honor transgender people who have been
brutally murdered around the world in
sickening acts of irrational hatred.
On Tuesday, students may have seen the
signs around the EMU depicting those peo
ple who died and their respective personal
histories.
According to the "Remembering Our
Dead" Web site, 17 of the 37 people who
were killed in the last 14 months have been
from America, where a battle currently
rages over whether two people of the same
sex should be able to affirm their love in a
binding legal agreement.
That debate, as well as the hate-motivat
ed deaths of transgender people, has shown
a disturbing trend of fear toward non-het
erosexual persons that often leads to vio
lence. The mentioned statistic alone shows
that there's something deeply awry in the
modern human consciousness.
In fact, that groups must dedicate special
days to remember victims of hate is indica
tive that something is definitely wrong with
this picture.
According to the Web site: "We live in
times more sensitive than ever to hatred
based violence, especially since the events of
Sept. 11. Yet even now, the deaths of those
based on anti-transgender hatred or preju
dice are largely ignored. Over the last decade,
more than one person per month has died
due to transgender-based hate or prejudice,
regardless of any other factors in their lives.
This trend shows no sign of abating."
All in all, days like this week's "Transgen
der Day of Remembrance" help bring
awareness to a major problem this society
has with discrimination against many dif
ferent groups.
But it is important to remember that a lit
tle more open-mindedness can go a long
way — and beginning locally is the right
way to start changing the way things are.
EDITORIAL POLICY
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Brad Schmidt
Editor in Chief
Jan Tobias Montry
Managing Editor
Aimee Rudin
Freelance Editor
Ayisha Yahya
News Editor
Travis Willse
Editorial Editor
Eric Layton Illustrator
Have faith in doubt
This article originally began as my political
tirades typically begin: With a (supposedly)
humorous or appalling antidote emblematic
of the subject — this time, the eroding sepa
ration of church and state.
But, like the cliche of a lecturer at the podi
um ripping up his carefully prepared speech
in order to speak clumsily from the heart, I
have pushed those paragraphs down and,
perhaps, out of the column entirely, so that I
might write more personally about religion
and government.
As an undergraduate, I majored in religious
studies. 1 usually get one of two questions
when 1 mention this: Either "Are you going to
be a priest?" or "What's your religion?" When
I respond that I'm agnostic, I usually get a
strange look — again, for one of two reasons:
Either they don't know what agnostic means,
or they can't understand why somebody who
doesn't belong to a religion would spend
four-plus years studying it.
As an agnostic, I believe that human beings
are too small to answer with certainty the big
questions that all religions claim to answer.
While atheists feel God cannot exist, agnos
tics feel certainty cannot exist. Ours is the reli
gion of doubt.
But I feel that many agnostics go astray by
abandoning religious questions along with
the answers. They are throwing the baby out
with the bath water. We might not be able to
achieve certainty, but questing for religious
answers is what gives life meaning.
That is the wonderful paradox at the center
of our mortal existence.
When religions are at their best, they em
brace this paradox dirough faith. Doubt and
faith go hand in hand. True faith is about hu
mility; it is a positive emotional response to
uncertainty. Too often, however, religion per
verts faith into spiritual absolutism and
moral rigidity. That is why the separation of
church and state is so important.
When I louse Majority Leader Tom DeLay,
R-Texas, — you remember him, he's the guy
who blamed the Columbine shooting on
working mothers who take birth control pills
— was asked why he entered politics, he said:
"To promote a Biblical worldview."
DeLay believes his mission is to take
America back "to absolute truth that has
been manipulated and destroyed by a liberal
worldview."
Biblical vs. liberal. Past tense vs. present.
Revealed vs. discovering. The absolute truth
of religion vs. the ever-changing truths of sci
ence. This is what DeLay refers to as "the great
civil war of values raging in America today."
David Jagernauth
Critical mass
And he couldn't be more correct. The clash
between traditional and modem (or religious
and secular, however you want to couch it)
will define 21st century America and reshape
politics as we know it.
Take the issue of gay marriage, for example.
I cannot think of a domestic issue in which
the opposition holds such diverse support.
Majorities in all parties, religions, races, sexes
and socio-economic conditions are against
gay marriage. On the face of it, this is every
thing that liberals claim to hold dear — mul
ticulturalism, bipartisanism, a coming to
gether of broad cross-sections of Americans
— and yet it is wrong, dead wrong.
You might think these issues aren't impor
tant enough to reshape politics. Sen. Rick
Santorum, R-Pa., in a letter on behalf of the
Alliance for Marriage, said that the threat of
gay marriage is a crisis as large as the threat
posed by terrorists because both target cor
nerstones of our culture and faith. He is far
from alone in this opinion.
Justice Antonin Scalia, the president's fa
vorite justice, once said that democracy has a
tendency to "obscure the divine authority be
hind government." In other words, he be
lieves that law in America should be based on
Christian divinity rather than on secularism.
His divine law includes capital punishment
for children and all felons including, accord
ing to Scalia's own out-of-touch account,
"horse thieves."
Meanwhile, back at the executive branch
(or ranch, as the case may be), the Bush ad
ministration is quietly undoing policies
based on sound science in favor of policies
based on religious certainty alone.
The examples are too numerous to men
tion, but here are a few: Faith-based initiatives
that allow taxpayer money to fund religious
discrimination, Christian fundamentalist ju
dicial nominees and attacks on abortion, pri
vacy, gay rights, the First Amendment, alter
native families, health science and
comprehensive sex education.
Is it too much to ask that the leaders of a
secular government have a belief that science,
too, is sacred in its own right?
The separation of church and state — the
idea that government should stay out of the
absolute truth business — is an unpopular
idea that liberals must figure out how to sell
to the American people.
We can start this holiday season, the time
of year when the colorful falling leaves turn
our thoughts to the profound — life and
death, family and humanity — by reflecting
on the beauty of faith and doubt.
Contact the columnist
at davidjagemauth@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily represent
those of the Emerald.