Time's Up! Law, Morality and Religion

It seems as though every aspect of life has been partitioned into an “us” v. “them” mentality. The most obvious example is black v. white--most obvious because it is so visually demonstrative. It has become the absolute metaphor for good versus evil, and right versus wrong. This is fine as far as it goes, but most of us do not live in an absolute world. Our lives are tinted by shades of gray.

The problem intensifies when we start applying that analogy to the real world, assigning goodness and evil to other people simply because they are different from us. This is particularly odious in the areas of morality and religion. And, no. They are not the same.

Moral values transcend religion in the same way that God transcends religion. To some that may seem incongruous, but the simple truth is that both God and morality existed prior to any concept of religion. Wrapping morality into one’s religious ideas, at least trying to make them synonymous, is an exercise in futility. It is certainly futile when one is in search of truth. At the same time, it is quite successful in creating a simplistic view for the simple-minded. But that has its own drastic consequences.

Several generations of white people believed that blacks were inferior. Some ignorant people still do. Who knows the actual root of such prejudice? Perhaps it was rooted in the economic and structural development of the Western world. But did such advances make the West more civilized? I suppose it depends on how one defines civilization. One thing is clear: The resulting prejudice defiled religion as believers sought to justify their bigotry in their faith.

A similar kind of discrimination occurred with women. In fact, choose your group and there is a prejudice to match. Many people of faith have continually twisted their thinking into knots to justify bigotry that has no rational foundation. And they have managed to complicate the matter even further.

Recently, people of religion have been making louder and louder claims to be the guardians of morality. Almost without exception, these claims to moral superiority are rooted in their religious values--values that are neither absolute nor universal.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against same-sex marriage. There is nothing inherently immoral about same-sex marriage, nor about homosexuality itself. The morality exists only by way of social construct. And those constructs, like all moral values, differ from one society to the next and are always in a state of flux or evolution between generations.

To claim that religion determines morality is like saying religion determines God. Wait a minute. That is exactly what many believers do! They can only accept and believe in a God who conforms to beliefs they already hold. They are not about to be challenged by God. By extension, they can only accept people who believe and act the same way they do.

How else to explain the absurd refusal of some fundamentalist Jews to recognize a non-Orthodox marriage? How else to explain the absurd claim by Christian fundamentalists that non-Baptized people are going to hell? How else to explain the absurdity of Muslim fundamentalists who say that a person who converts from Islam should be put to death? How else to explain the religious belief that same sex couples cannot marry—a religious belief with a very uncertain ground in truth and no claim on the mind or heart?

Enter the law. One of the beauties of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are that they are not based in any religious tradition. The Declaration transcends faith, at least beyond the general acknowledgment that certain unalienable rights are bestowed by God. The Constitution transcends the contextual limitation of social morality, at least insofar as those same unalienable rights are inherent in being human.

The result of the American experiment in democracy is that law is the all important and ultimate measure of our society. Neither morality nor religion can make that same claim. A certain credit must be given to those who vociferously claim that God is being pushed out of public life, schools, etc. They have managed to distract many people from the truth. Many people, but not the courts. So a certain gratitude also must be expressed to those judges that have consistently held that God does not belong in public life and schools. The United States is not run on Christian or any other religious principles.

In this country the law is the foundation of our society. It should not be capricious, nor should it be dictated to by religious whim. Our Declaration of Independence states that all are created equal and endowed with rights. The rights mentioned are not meant to be all-inclusive. What is all-inclusive is the all people have these rights.

I disagree with the religious position of the anti-gay movement. It is a skewed and false reading of the Bible. But it does not matter. The United States is not a country based on the Bible, and that is a good thing. It is a country based on the law.

All people have a right to marry, black and white, gay and straight. I would like to believe that anti-gay is the last great prejudice to be overcome by our society. History suggests that as soon as we succeed, something else will spring up in its place. There will always be those people who seek to cast a black v. white, a good v. wrong pall over the world of gray that is human life.

For now, times up! In the United States of America, law, justice and equality trump religion. Thank God! And thank the Founding Fathers!

Los Angeles Book Festival Award Ceremony

The Los Angeles Book Festival award ceremony at the Roosevelt Hotel was a great success. Honorees in attendance included authors from a variety of categories. Besides the winning book entries, there were honors awarded by DIY for filmmaking.

I had the opportunity to meet several other authors and learn what inspires and motivates them to write. Bruce Haring and his staff worked very hard to insure that this year's celebration lived up to expectations. By the end of the evening, they were clearly exhausted, but it was worth the effort. They did not disappoint.

The Great Southwest Book Festival

The Great Southwest Book Festival has just announced its winners. In the category of General Fiction, Shattered Triangle picked up an honorable mention. This is the third book festival to recognize Shattered Triangle!

Check out the festival website to learn about the many other winners. Congratulations to all the authors who won awards at this year's festival!

The Great Southeast Book Festival

The Great Southeast Festival has just announced its winners. In the category of General Fiction, Shattered Triangle picked up an honorable mention. The is the second book festival to recognize Shattered Triangle!

There are many good books that won honors. Check out the festival website for new reading materials. Congratulations to all the authors who won awards at this year's festival!

The World of Film

Although I use this blog and website to share information about my book Shattered Triangle, I also want to acknowledge the other forms of art that enrich our lives and our world.

Last week I shared information about some young musicians, three from the United States and one from South Africa. Today, I want to identify two talented filmmakers. Although this level of craft and ability can be found in film schools around the world, it turns out that both of these artists are graduates of the University of Southern California.

Forget the blockbuster Hollywood films. They may be fun, some of them may be good--even very good. But there is more to cinema than blockbusters. Here are two of the young filmmakers of today. Hopefully, they will also be around tomorrow.

John William Ross is a writer and director. John's films tend to delve into the deeper recesses of the psyche. Working in a different genre from the tired and silly modern horror films, particularly zombie movies, John gives his viewers the opportunity to examine their own psychological responses to life's situations, both imagined and real. This is terror genre worth watching. Forget the question WWJD. Instead, ask yourself what you would do. Maybe we should be slower to condemn people who seem a little off. Maybe some people really do see things the rest of us don't. Jon is the writer/director of the award winning Things Are Really Insane.

Christophe Nassif made his mark on USC a few short years later. Specializing in sound and directing. Christophe received a nomination from the Motion Picture Sound Editors for his supervising work on the award winning, The Maiden and The Princess. He won Outstanding 1st Time Director from the DC Shorts Film Festival for What to Bring to America, a poignant drama of an Ethiopian woman confronting the time for her daughter's female circumcision. Follow Christophe @twittophe.