Moderate Fascism

Suppose you were born into a particular religion. Your parents, relatives, and everyone you knew was also a member of the same religion. As you grew up, practicing the rituals and observances of your faith, you gradually learned that the practices and beliefs of your religion included, among other things, the following:

Denouncing your religion and converting to some other religion was punishable by death.

The penalty for adultery was to be stoned to death.

Homosexuality was a crime punishable by death.

Members of other religions were infidels to be killed or subjugated.

Let’s suppose also that you are an American citizen, living in Minneapolis, or somewhere, the child of immigrants. You attend public schools, get your degree at the state University, go to work for Cisco as a network engineer, or start your own business. How would you feel about this religion you grew up with?

As an adult American citizen, you are not personally subject to any of these beliefs and practices. You are protected from them by the Constitution and by the history, traditions, and culture of the United States, unless of course you are a helpless teenage girl, living in a ghetto of fellow religionists, with old-fashioned parents who don’t like you dating those infidel boys. In that case, your life might be in danger.

There are limits to what can be sanely tolerated in the name of multiculturalism and diversity. Calling something holy doesn’t make it so. There is pushing and there is shoving, but, in the end, it is the responsibility of every individual to arrive at his or her own judgment of what is true.

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