Gang Signs: Abortion, Evolution, Homosexuality

by bernardpliers

Thu Sep 06, 2007 at 01:49:23 PM PDT

Why is it that abortion, evolution, and homosexuality
form a block of issues for the GOP base? I will cut to
the chase - these are not religious issues, these are
issues of tribal identity.

We know that the people who worry the most about these
issues seem to have little real regard for children,
little interest in science, and they like to get
freaky at least as much as anyone else. And despite
their self proclaimed religious motivations, surveys
show their knowledge of religion is surprisingly poor.

On these issues, they can not be swayed by rational
persuasion, religious debate, or even the naked
hypocrisy of their leaders. Despite the shaky
foundation of their belief system, their resistance is
surprisingly powerful. These issues move Americans to
violence but barely register in other other countries.

Meanwhile, European Islamists get upset over things
that seem comical to us, like, well, comics for
instance.

Why do these issues move people to violence, while
they barely register to the rest of us? Why do kids
shoot each other hand signals they flash on the
street? These are gang signs, this is how people
establish their group identity and declare their
willingness to use violence against anyone that
threatens their turf or the unity of their group.

The issues don't really matter, because tribes and
gangs are all about territory, turf, controlling
resources, and bringing overwhelming intimidation
against people who flash the wrong signs, the wrong
tattoo, or the wrong circumcision.

Even though this is supposedly all about religion, do
these people understand the details of their churches'
doctrine in the way that church doctrine has
preoccupied most religions? No, they are not defining
their religious identity by their churches rules, they
are defining their belief by how they treat others.
And if they go to another town, they don't have to
worry about finding another church that teaches the
same doctrines, they just have to find people that
share their tribal identity based on
Abortion/Evolution/Homosexuality.

Interestingly enough, this is how Christianity got
started. It wasn't about volumes of scripture to
memorize or a complicated set of new rules,it was
about how they treated others. Jesus told people to be
reserved and to treat their neighbors as they would
treat themselves, not to go peeping in their windows
and looking for reasons to persecute them.

Early Christians struggled to be inclusive and bring
in people from other tribes who literally were from
other tribes in an epoch where tribe and clan mattered
above everything else. Being inclusive was the only
way to grow. Christ's followers were also bound
together by the persecution they faced at the hands of
the Romans and others.

Tribalism in the modern era still depends on its sense
of persecution and isolation. Because Christians are
the majority, Dominionists must create an enemy to
unite them. And so they take an approach opposite to
Christ's inclusiveness, peeking through windows and
looking for minorities to persecute. The Anti
Abortion/Evolution/Homosexuality tribe goes to absurd
lengths to prove that it is a persecuted and isolated
group that must struggle to protect the safety of its
members in a hostile world.

In the absence of real enemies, a tribe will readily
create imaginary enemies to unite them, and without
concrete evidence of persecution, the tribe must often
create an enemy with supernatural powers. The Puritans
of Salem united in ritual violence against witches,
the boys in Lord of The Flies formed fierce tribes
against the imaginary Beast, the Nazis fought their
imaginary all powerful Jewish Conspiracy, and the Anti
Abortion/Evolution/Homosexuality tribe are fighting
the Homosexual Agenda, the Secular Humanists, the
Liberal Media, and the Dirty Hippies who never grew
old. It is this battle that gives the tribe its identity.