Taming the Dragon

SINGAPORE—I’ve been following the march of the gays into Jerusalem closely. It reminds me of the devil’s intrusion into Moscow in the Master and Margarita and, in particular, the scene when Woland is at the circus, whipping the citizens of the city into a terrifying frenzy by removing their clothes and turning them into animals.

For merely allowing the gay pride parade (August 9-12), the ruling coalition faced a no-confidence vote in the Knesset.

Orthodox Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch then proclaimed that Hezbollah’s missile launches ought to be blamed on the pride festivities. An Arab-Israeli member of Knesset fired further, not only noting causality, but promising it: “If they [gays] will dare to approach the Temple Mount during the parade, they will do so over our dead bodies.”

As the apostle Paul put it, may his body then be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

These fundamentalists, meanwhile, are behaving like drama queens. They're throwing a tantrum and gossiping away with dour smugness, all because there's a party in Jerusalem, and they're not invited.

Fundamentalism redefined: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.

What is surprising however, is the amount of the city's seculars (69% by one count) who also oppose the parade, though less out of revulsion and more to avoid trouble.
 
Here’s the rub however: the parade is not actually passing through the Old City or the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. It does not even come close to any holy site. It will be happening in the “free”, universal, non-ghetto part of the city, the part that the ultra-Orthodox and Arab residents keep away from anyway.

All they have to do is keep keeping away on August 10.

Yet the parade was cancelled last week. With the war in the north, the police claimed they couldn’t provide the many officers needed to protect the event from religious people who might disrupt it. Jerusalem, my beloved poet Yehuda Amichai once wrote, is a place where even the dead are granted the right to vote.

This is a pretext. The authorities have been biting their nails for weeks now on how to move the parade elsewhere. Earlier on in the month, the city’s police issued this quite embarrassing statement: “in Tel Aviv, they are more accustomed to such large events, so it would be better to hold this even there.”

There is simple conclusion: given the chance, extremists seized the opportunity to intimidate a gay pride parade from happening in Jerusalem and seculars, not wanting trouble, supported them.

Which brings us to Barack Obama. Last week, the senator gave a heavily-lauded speech, proclaiming that Democrats must be less suspicious of religion and that some breaches of the wall between church and state were permissible ("Context matters".)  As political antidote, it makes sense; but as a political model, it is fraught with danger.

Obama wants to be St. George. He wants to let the dragon into the court and then slay it. Or, at least, tame it.

This being America, the dragon is already partly inside. Take for example, last week’s House debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga) said, “I think God has spoken very clearly on this issue”. When contradicted, he replied, “I refer the gentleman to the Holy Scriptures.”

In America, that's supposed to mean the Constitution.

Religion cannot be tamed by politics because it is not subject to the rules of politics. It derives its power precisely from the absence of tangibles: not money and power but the eternal and the infinite.

Religious beliefs then differ from other beliefs in two ways: in degree and reach. They are more intense and more likely to demonize the opposition. When one side claims to have God on its side, it is easy to infer that the Devil is on the other.

Religious arguments in America also penetrate a larger basket of issues than other political frameworks. Whereas a supporter of gay marriage is not particularly likely to be an environmentalist or a fervent advocate of affirmative action, with religion you are likely to get a whole basket of issues: if one is against abortion, he is also likely to be against gay marriage, stem-cell research, and euthanasia.

The combination of intensity and reach make religion in America fundamentally different from other special interests.

Its union with politics transforms the latter into something akin to a pampered whore: passionate at will, too certain of its own ends, unwilling to compromise and ultimately, too unreasonable.

The only thing that was stopping Jerusalem from prohibiting the gay pride parade was the Israeli constitution, which forbids discrimination. But at the slightest sign of trouble, the authorities bailed. Why?

Because it was routine for religious arguments to be made in the public square, they were accepted as acceptable. In a time of flux, consideration for offended people, even in a Western-style liberal democracy, ultimately overrode the maintenance of freedom of expression.

So pardon my suspicion of religion, Mr. Obama. This dragon cannot be tamed.


Sahil K. Mahtani ’08, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is a history in Winthrop House. Sahil likes to host tea parties.