[What you’re about to read is a mock interview with a fictional morally bereft liberal from a fictional morally bereft left-wing advocacy group. Any similarities between actual morally bereft liberals, or actual morally bereft liberal advocacy groups, are strictly coincidental]
This month’s OTPE interview is with Anita Mann, founder and president of the Dynamic Order of Ultimate Child Housing Experts Bitching About God (or DOUCHEBAG). DOUCHEBAG is a not-for-profit group that works closely with federal, state and local governments around the country, in order to promote “child welfare”, and is also committed to eliminating public funds to faith-based welfare programs wherever they exist. Ms. Mann is a graduate of Fumco University , where she earned her B.A. in B.S.; she also attended Hubris where she earned her PH.D., and finally, earned her BBQ in Poultry from Yucatan State
OTPE’s ContraSuggest: Anita Mann, welcome to the OTPE Interview Series.
Anita Mann: Thank you for the opportunity ContraSuggest.
CS: Let’s start at the beginning, what first motivated you to start DOUCHBAG?
Mann: Well, it was really my early life experiences that eventually led me to form DOUCHBAG. My parents divorced when I was only seven years old, my mother leaving my father for another woman. She had been a closeted lesbian during the intolerant 1950s and only married my father for financial security. My father, a Minister with the Universal Church of Jebus, was actually a woman at birth and was the first woman-to-man sex change operation recipient in the country. My mother was aware of this when they married, thinking she could have the best of both worlds. Things didn’t work out. In the course of the scandalous divorce proceedings, my father was stripped of his ministerial duties and excommunicated (as we know now, the Church of Jebus
CS: I understand how these harsh childhood experiences have caused you pain, but why do you insist upon faulting “traditional marriage” and “organized religion”? A lack of personal responsibility and imprudent choice-making on the part of your parents must enter into the equation. No?
Mann: Not at all. It wasn’t my father’s fault that he was a man trapped in the body of a woman, nor was it my mother’s fault that she was a lesbian. They could no more control those factors than you can control the color of your eyes. If it wasn’t for the rigidness of 1950s society, embodied in the institution of traditional marriage, none of these horrible things would have befallen me or the other members of my family. I blame society, and children are the biggest victims. Only with the aid of organizations like DOUCHEBAG, and the Obama administration, can the full force of government be brought to bear on these insidious forces arrayed against children. It’s for the children.
CF: Well, there is a strong argument to be made that homosexual proclivity is not immutable, like eye color. Many people incorrectly believe that because an impulse is overpowering and ubiquitous in one’s mind, that it is automatically right to act upon. Every strong impulse that we feel is not necessarily correct, or beneficial to our well-being. Unfettered emotional reactions can often lead us astray in dangerous and unforeseeable ways. But let’s get back to DOUCHEBAG; tell us a bit about the nuts and bolts of the organization, do you actually employ lobbyists; if so, what do you specifically lobby for?
Mann: We’re a registered 509(a) NPO (non-profit organization). At the center of DOUCHEBAG is a half dozen policy experts, our Policy Bureau, or “Politburo” for short. These specialists have years of experience in government lobbying and utilizing their contacts in the various state legislatures and in Washington
CS: For the benefit of our readers who aren’t aware, The Freedom of Choice Act is a bill currently pending in congress, that president Obama has said he will sign into law. If it passes, the measure will give the force of federal law to the Roe v. Wade decision; making abortion on demand (even for minors, without parental consent) legal in all 50 states. It will also compel all healthcare clinics that are the recipients of federal aid, including those run by religious organizations opposed to abortion, to provide the ghastly procedure. Ms. Mann, does DOUCHEBAG really support unfettered abortion for all?
Mann: Oh yes, certainly. One of the reasons why it is so difficult to properly care for children is because there are so many unwanted little ones out there.
CS: So one of the solutions to the child welfare problem is to kill children in the womb?
Mann: You’re mischaracterizing the issue; women must have the right to exercise their constitutional right to choose.
CS: I’m a college dropout, Ms. Mann, but I have read the constitution on numerous occasions and can find no clause in it that directly or indirectly confers a right to abortion. I have a copy of the constitution in front of me right now; can you direct me to the part where that right is stated? Or perhaps point out any recorded statement by the framers of the constitution that spells out this right or even implies it? I would like to print it here in order to educate my readers.
Mann: If you’re familiar with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision then you would know that women have the constitutional right to choose. For too long women have been treated as second class citizens in this country and have always been the victim of laws created by men who will never know what it is like to cope with an unwanted pregnancy. It’s time that we changed the law once and for all to codify this universal right.
CS: Many constitutional scholars, far more learned than I, have said that the Roe decision is bad law furthered by an activist court, which granted an imagined right to the children of the sexual revolution. And I object to the use of the word “choice” in describing a procedure that amounts to infanticide. I’m sure we could debate this all day long, for now let us get back to the interview. Another thing that puzzles me is DOUCHEBAG’s opposition to faith-based self help programs. By all accounts, faith-based programs are hugely successful in helping the drug-addicted and the downtrodden. Why the staunch opposition?
Mann: Well, as you should know, the Constitution provides for a separation between church and state. Any time a religious organization receives government funds, the wall between church and state has been breached. Religion has no place in the public square. When faith-based organizations receive government funding, there is a great danger that those funds will be used to proselytize, amounting to government mandated religion. DOUCHEBAG is committed to stopping this sort of theocratic bent from taking hold in our country.
CS: Once again Ms. Mann, you’re either misreading the Constitution or attributing intentions to its framers that are false. There is no “separation between church and state” in the U.S. Constitution, nor is there any “wall between church and state.” I defy you to quote the article, section or amendment where these things are laid out. The Constitution deals directly with religion in only one place: The First Amendment; it reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… That clause was designed more to protect religion from intrusive government, not the other way around. It is flatly erroneous to say that religious expression is not, or should not be permitted in the public square; the vision of the Founders and 250 years of practice to the contrary, illustrates this.
Mann: Well, thank God, I mean- thank god… no, I mean- thank heaven, shit! I mean- fortunately, there have been numerous Supreme Court decisions that defined and defended the separation of church and state in this country. It would be a return to the dark ages if women, gays, transgender and pagan Americans were ruled under a despotic theocracy run by intolerant, right-wing Christians. Let’s not forget the Inquisitions in Spain , and the Salem Witch trials in early America
CS: Christian religion has done a lot more good than bad, and the barbarism of the Inquisition has been greatly exaggerated over the centuries, beginning during the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, though we are out of time. Anita Mann of DOUCHEBAG; thank you for joining us.
Mann: You’re welcome.
Editor’s Note: Most OTPE interviews are conducted via the internet, some, like this one, with SKYPE image cams. We would like to note that at the conclusion of the interview, Ms. Mann chewed through the ropes of her straight jacket, combed her hair with a chocolate bar, and proceeded to ride away on a tiny tricycle.
Please join us next time at the OTPE for an in-depth interview with some other genius.
Funny stuff. Anita Mann, clever. I'll comment on one of your (serious) points.
ReplyDeleteThe principle of separation of church and state is derived from the Constitution (1) establishing a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office and the First Amendment provisions constraining the government from undertaking to establish religion or prohibit individuals from freely exercising their religions. That the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and, upon learning they were mistaken, reckon they’ve discovered a smoking gun solving a Constitutional mystery. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to name one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
James Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
It is important to distinguish between the "public sphere" and "government" and between "individual" and "government" speech about religion. The principle of separation of church and state does not purge religion from the public sphere--far from it. Indeed, the First Amendment's "free exercise" clause assures that each individual is free to exercise and express his or her religious views--publicly as well as privately. The Amendment constrains only the government not to promote or otherwise take steps toward establishment of religion. As government can only act through the individuals comprising its ranks, when those individuals are performing their official duties, they effectively are the government and thus should conduct themselves in accordance with the First Amendment's constraints on government. When acting in their individual capacities, they are free to exercise their religions as they please.
The Constitution, including particularly the First Amendment, embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion.
Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx