<<
>>> Max Sawicky writes:
>>>What's really in question
is bigotry towards non-left religious folk (especially white)
founded on ignorance of religion. Bigotry in this context
means a belief that religious faith is testament to a person's
ignorance, prejudice, or negative social role. The fact that
we single out the religious left for approval is no less
prejudiced: it simply says we accept you if you buy our
political views, even though we still think your
personal faith is a crock.>>>
>> I think the use of the term "bigotry" here is very dangerous. Right-wing Catholics use it to equate any criticism of Christianity (such as Terrence McNally's newly play, "Corpus Christi") with racism and anti-semitism. Their goal is all too evident: to drive any and all anti-religious sentiments out of the realm of permissible public discourse. I don't think "bigotry... means a belief that religious faith is testament to a person's ignorance, prejudice, or negative social role." To the contrary, I think that those are not necessarily unwarranted all conclusions that one might draw concerning people who still cling to 3,000-year-old sky-god cults or who babble in dead languages and engage in wierd cannibalistic rites such as the Catholic mass. Certainly, we wouldn't be so charitable when confronted by some fundamentalist Shiite militant. So why should we deal any differently with other branches of the great Abrahamic tradition?
Dan Lazare