Church and State: The Gap is Closing

I love potatoes.

I love them not just as a form of sustenance, but also as the sacred representation of my connection to the earth, through which I am connected to and responsible for all other life as we know it. As I can define the tenets of this faith, my reverence for potatoes easily qualifies them for deity status by most commonly-acknowledged definitions of godhood. I believe in the Holy Potato Trinity: Baked, Mashed, and Applebee’s Fully-Loaded Skins.  It’s my personal belief that the Anti-Carb will be defeated in our lifetime, and true family values will be restored unto our table by the grace of pomme de terre.  With butter and pepper forever, amen.

Then one day, the entire state of Idaho decided they would grow no more potatoes forever. With Monsanto finally releasing the new pest-resistant corn seed that sprouts perfect 1-gallon cans of ethanol every 3 weeks year-round, the margins are simply not there for the lowly ground apple.

“How can you do this?” I cried.  “By stopping production, you interfere with my constitutionally guaranteed right to practice my religion. The power of starch compels you!”

I recruited volunteers at the next Potato fellowship, and they collected enough signatures to put a farm subsidy on the upcoming ballot. After all, if we routinely pay farmers not to plant anything, we can certainly support a few thousand acres of potato crops in the interest of faith diversity.

“Dear cuckoo lady,” said my senator, “you’re welcome to grow your own potatoes and scallop or mash to your heart’s content. We don’t prevent you from practicing your faith, but you can’t expect the government to underwrite a crop that is as unprofitable as it is unfashionable with the wives.”

“Hey, nut job,” said my local farmer, “I think your potato god is ridiculous. But this is America. If you want to pray to a head of cabbage or a bag of dirty socks, it’s no skin off my knuckles. At the same time, you can’t force me to engage in a losing business venture for the sake of your goofy religion.”

While we potato parishioners ponder the future of our faith, we must be able to adjust our expectations. We look to eggs, for example. From custard to meringue, every state is glorious. Those strong and beautiful proteins bring impossible enemies together. Yet, if white and yolk merge carelessly, their individual power breaks down and they become something else entirely; something base and crude suitable only for breakfast casseroles and diner flattops. Eggs are magical and deeply mysterious in all they can do. Of all the arguments for Intelligent Design, the egg story seems most compelling to me.  Still, we never hear it.  The radical liberal media obviously has a stake in keeping us closed off to these culinary miracles, and I’m certain their anti-carb tyranny is at the heart of our new potato famine.

Okay, my little allegory is over the top. But is it really?

More than a handful of my tax dollars are being diverted to support faith-based organizations involved in everything from homeless outreach (thank you) to terrorizing family planning clinics (no, thank you). Every new layer of that onion is more irritating than the last one: I’m ashamed that, for as rich a nation as we are, we can’t take care of our own people without having to engage the religious factions. I’m furious that our government is so afraid of its own reelection shadow that religion has now started to manage up: changing the rules for how wide the halls have to be in a clinic; letting publicly-traded businesses decide not to cover Plan B – and even regular birth control pills and devices – as part of its healthcare plan, citing the conflict with their faith or ‘morality policy.’ Religion is even driving legislation to tell people where they can and can’t go to the bathroom, for pete’s sake! Throwing out all the irrational anxiety, how are you going to enforce that rule? Will there be bathroom monitors doing genital checks? Does that not leave room for real perverts and compromise the very safety and privacy you claim to be protecting?? Or perhaps you’ll rely on the honesty of bullies and mean girls. You’ll let them go home and report to the helicopter moms who will fly off any available handle in the interest of insulating their kid?

All this to comply with some 2000-year-old text with little basis in fact and no connection to today’s reality. When considered objectively, it actually makes more sense to worship a potato! I’m far more inclined to see divinity in the Yukon gold than in the ramblings of a few long-dead white dudes who needed a way to control the masses when the police state became unwieldy. “Paint those chapel ceilings however you want, Michelangelo,” Pope Julius said. “As long as it makes people feel small and fearful.”

I’m infinitely grateful to the good ones, but the bad ones are spoiling it for everyone.

My advice to our leadership: I didn’t hire you to govern my soul. You’re not qualified. It’s not as if you can sneak faith into our lives like mom hiding kale in a casserole. You will not legislate your way into heaven by converting us en masse and against our will. Our constitution says there will be no religious test for governmental fitness. If I can’t demand that my senator is a Christian, I also can’t demand that she be an atheist – and she can’t ask it of me!

I expect governmental leaders to have some personal spirituality. I also assume their decisions will be seen through the lens of that spirituality, and that their actions may even be influenced by those principles. But as an elected official, they are representing ALL people in their jurisdiction; judgement calls need to be based upon facts and rational objectivity, not their personal relationship with a Jewish carpenter or their love of baked potatoes.