by Wesley Twombly
I was raised as a Roman Catholic in a county that was nearly 50 % Roman Catholic. Even in that community, I got a taste of religious bigotry. Fortunately the battle for having a non-red meat alternative for Fridays during Lent was fought before I started school.
However, one of the stories in the high school paper asked why Catholics prayed to statues - no pretense was made to actually understand Catholicism. I hope that no Catholics (or anyone else for that matter) in the audience or the community had to suffer through such indignities. Keep in mind, my experience was in a community where the largest denomination was Catholic.
When the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed, I was at a state university also in the Midwest, much like this town. As you may remember, the initial reports mentioned Arabs - the mosque in the town, less than 1 year old at that time, soon got bullet holes - probably by people who were painting Islam with a broad, bigoted brush. I am curious if those responsible felt and guilt or shame, even when they found out it was an "everyday" American that bombed the building.
This opened my eyes to other blatant religious bigotry, including an incident where the acting troop leader (and the person the previous troop leader named as his preferred replacement), was deemed by the church sponsoring the group to not be a "suitable moral role model" because he was not Christian, and the national BSA seemed to think the Church, as the sponsoring group was right to make this decision.
Many people in the audience and community may still be asking "how could this monument possibly impact me?" Look that the so-called Texas "football prayer" case - Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. It is worth noting that the case was not only about sectarian prayer at football games, but also about harassment based on religion going on at the school and other school events. Note that it was an unnamed Catholic and LDS (Mormon, if you prefer) family that filed the suit - unnamed because it was certain there would be repercussions if the names got out. Why were the Catholics and LDS the targets of bigotry in this case? Apparently because the were not the right kind of Christians, or not "true Christians," if you will. This kind of event is what I see as not only the possible outcome, but the likely outcome when religion and government become entangled.