Are religious people "excluded" from practicing their beliefs?

Many Christian fundamentalists -- and a growing number of other believers, including Jews and Muslims -- like to say that their "religious rights" are "under attack," or that they are being "discriminated against." But your WEBMASTER has an idea on how we can examine these claims. Just pick up the phone book!

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Listen to Pat Robertson the "700 Club," or even the Pope announcing the latest Bull, and you are often given the impression that for religious believers, America has become a mean and nasty place. Mr. Robertson's latest fund-raising telethon, for instance, had a slick video piece which at first glance looked like a cross between "Bladerunner" and a Sylvester Stallone movie. The scene opens with a group of sinister looking commando types armed with high-tech rifles and laser sights. The jerky camera shots are punctuated by the staccato of radio communications.

"Take no prisoner!" declares an anonymous voice.

A door suddenly kicked down, and the black-clad raiders burst into a room with people sitting in a circle, a lone light shining overhead. Gunfire erupts. (Is this a scene from "Cops," I wonder?) The victims are frantically running, and only one seems to escape up a stairway. No good. The lone would-be survivor meets a bullet on the roof of a building -- and drops something. One of the attackers, his face behind a dark, sinister-looking visor, picks it up. It is a bullet-ridden copy of the bible.

Fade to Pat. "Could this happen in America?" the avuncular Robertson asks.

This may be a classic case of psychological projection, where one ascribes to an enemy the characteristics and even yearnings in one's self. At the very least, it is "balderdash".

When it is prayer in schools, or the building of a religious display in a public square during Christmas, Hanukkah or Ramadan, religious enthusiasts throughout America are declaring that, somehow, government is constricting their religious freedom. The debates rages on; but I think that I've found -- if not THE answer -- at least part of it.

What do your fingers tell you?

Try picking up the yellow pages directory for your area. (This works especially well if you live in a major metropolitan region like New York or L.A.). Turn to the section listed under "Churches." Start counting.

You may find, especially in those fatter directories, dozens of pages. I once lived in a city with some 500,000 inhabitants; its yellow pages could boast of nearly a dozen pages listing the name, address and phone number of every church. There were hundreds of them.

The Christian Coalition is trying to organize 60,000 churches in the nation into its political muscle machine. And that still doesn't include all of the churches, chapels, monasteries, shrines, temples and cathedrals where the "people of faith" (a sweet-sounding term the Christian Coalition likes to use) may pray, chant, sing, burn incense, dance, gyrate, dip into holy water, take communion, kneel, genuflect and do whatever they feel has to be done in order to appease and propitiate the god or gods of their choice. That's not counting synagogues, temples and mosques which may cater to the "minority religions" in America; nor does it include the small, ad-hoc congregations that dot the landscape meeting in private homes or motel hospitality rooms.

The point is this: the religious folk have ample and abundant opportunity to pray and practice their peculiar religion.

So, why do "people of faith" insist that everyone else be subjected to their religion in public? Would they want everyone from school kids and the local city council to attend meetings of the U.S. Congress to include religious ritual, even some sappy prayer or benediction? Surely a religious office-holder could find time to pray before or after public meetings. What's the big deal?

Maybe it involves confusion over those evil-looking commando dudes. A little role-reversal, perhaps? During periods of religious zealotry, the "people of faith" and their armed representatives were, literally, breaking down the doors of people thought to be heretics and non-believers. In many Islamic nations today, you can end up like writer Salman Rushdie -- with a price on your head -- for not conforming to the religious line, or daring to criticize religion.

I suspect that with Pat and some of the more vehement "people of faith," the issue isn't religious freedom for them, but making sure that everyone else doesn't get to exercise their freedom from religious doctrine. Why else would they insist -- with all of those churches around -- that religion be sanctioned and institutionalized in what should be secular settings?

Hey, maybe I'm wrong about all of this. Maybe it's not that there are too many churches, but that there are not sufficient followers to fill them on Sunday morning. Even with multiple services -- and assuming that generous audience of a couple of hundred people could fit into every single church and chapel -- only a small percentage of the population is bothering to go. The majority of people have other things to do, from sleeping in to mowing the lawn, or having a leisurely breakfast. About 10% of us don't go to a church, or a mosque, or a temple because we simply do not believe in a deity. We have no religious belief. We, and everyone else, should not compelled to support, endure, or participate in religious exercises and rituals.

There's opportunity a-plenty for religious believers to "do their thing;" what they should not expect, however, is for others to be forced to participate. I know. I let my fingers do the research!

--WEBMASTER, Feb., 1996

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