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{"id":275,"date":"2011-09-11T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/09\/i-call-bullshit\/"},"modified":"2012-08-07T21:43:51","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T01:43:51","slug":"i-call-bullshit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2011\/09\/i-call-bullshit.html","title":{"rendered":"I Call Bullshit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I was taught growing up that we live in a secular nation where Christian speech is persecuted. This is bullshit. After leaving my parents\u2019 home, I found a surprisingly \u2013 and even officially \u2013 Christian nation.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Our state and national legislatures have chaplains and open sessions with prayer. \u201cIn God We Trust\u201d is on every piece of money I touch, and our pledge declares that we are \u201cone nation under God.\u201d The current and previous president have both quoted from the Bible in official speeches, evoked God and faith, and repeated \u201cGod bless\u201d at every event where they speak like a dogma. We are not supposed to be an officially Christian nation, but you know what? In practice, we are<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, I get that most Americans are Christians, and that Christianity is part of our national heritage, but isn\u2019t the government supposed to refrain from endorsing any sort of religion? Isn\u2019t that what freedom or religion is about? Beyond that, isn\u2019t that the very foundation<\/em> of freedom of religion? Great Britain has an established national church, the Anglican Church. We\u2019re supposed to be different. The government is supposed to stay out of religion and let people pick what to believe for themselves. It\u2019s not doing that.<\/em><\/p>\n

As an atheist, sitting here listening to radio coverage of the memorials, I feel like I am not represented. I feel like I am somehow on the outside, somehow less American, because of my lack of belief. As government officials \u2013 my <\/em>government officials \u2013 use official speeches to evoke a God I don\u2019t believe exists, I feel alone. I feel left out and forgotten. What about Americans who do not believe, what about them? What about Americans who do not believe in the Judeo-Christian God, what about them? I don\u2019t get it! <\/em>Can\u2019t they see that this only builds national unity by alienating those on the outside?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When my daughter starts school, I\u2019ll have to deal with the whole pledge of allegiance thing. I\u2019ll have to explain to my daughter that her nation \u2013 her nation <\/em>\u2013 officially endorses belief in God. Sally will have to decide what to do. Will she stand and say the pledge, stand and say all but that phrase, stand and remain silent altogether, or sit and remain silent?\u00a0I have heard stories of the phrase \u201cunder God\u201d in the pledge being used to humiliate atheist students, or at the very least setting them up for accusations of being un-American. Official school prayer was banned in 1962 and 1963 because students outside of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition faced just these problems. If the pledge creates problems for Sally, and wants to sue to remove the words \u201cunder God,\u201d I will do everything I can do to make this happen.<\/p>\n

I look back on what I was taught about the persecution of Christians and the secular nature of our government, and I shake my head. It\u2019s simply not true. The reality is that the government I had been taught was wholly secular in reality <\/em>endorses belief in a God I don\u2019t believe in, and is thus complicit in the building of a national identity that leaves me out entirely.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"