An affront to humanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Those who know me, even just through this blog, know what I think of organized religion, and of Christianity in particular.

Well, let me be blunt.

If, as Glenn Beck suggested, taking the baton from Rep. Steve King, one of the more extremist Republicans on Capitol Hill, voting for health-care reform on a Sunday, perhaps this Sunday, is "an affront to God," then Beck's "God" can shove it.

Because it would mean that his "God" thinks that millions and millions of Americans, those who have inadequate coverage or no coverage at all, those living in poverty or struggling with debt, unable to pay their bills and put food on the table and take care of their children, should be excluded from America's unfair and unjust health-care system.

"They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God," said King. Please. First, there's the separation of Church and State. I know conservatives don't believe in it, but it underpins American politics. Second, this isn't about Christianity, just as America isn't about Christianity. And third, the deists who founded the United States way back when might have a thing or two to say to King and Beck about what is and what isn't in the public interest. The theocrats of the right may object, but they, to me, are among the most un-American of Americans.

If you want an affront to humanity, look no further than Glenn Beck himself, or the likes of Steve King, hardly alone in the GOP. But the real affront to humanity is America's health-care system, and while reform wouldn't fix all the problems -- the Senate bill, with "patches," is flawed and doesn't go far enough but is not only much better than nothing but a significant historical achievement -- it would go a long way toward making it far more fair and far more just than it is now, with power taken away from the interests of profit and given to those who at present have no liberty at all in a system that either denies them coverage, and care, or subjects them to the bottom line of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, providing them with inadequate coverage and care at exorbitant prices. It's liberty, of a kind, but only in some right-wing Hobbesian state of nature, where life is nasty, brutish, and short, and massively profitable for those in a position to oppress the rest.

How is any of that "Christian"?