A Return to God & Morality

At times, I despair of the call for America to return to God & morality.

The idea that this country was founded as the new Jerusalem, rooted in a quest for religious freedom, is a myth, a testament to our ability to rewrite & re-interpret history & indoctrinate our young people into believing the myth as fact.

This country was founded by men & merchants seeking gold & the opportunity to cash in on the continent’s riches.

That is not to say that the founding fathers (note that there are no founding mothers – how these men gave birth to anything without females is beyond me) did not consider freedom of religion an interesting & necessary concept – they also considered the right to bear arms and the right to participate ein the democratic process (as long as you were male & a land-owner) & the right to expect represntation with taxation necessary components for the new nation they envisioned. They were not opposed to slavery.

So the call for a return to God & morality baffles me.

As if there was anything moral about this country's attempt to wipe out the indigenous population, anything moral about the original requirements for voting, anything moral about slavery, anything moral about the way we treated specific groups of immigrants, anything moral about Jim Crow laws or segregation, anything moral about rounding up & interring American citizens of Japanese descent, anything moral about the Vietnam War, anything moral about the myth of the Cold War, anything moral about standing by as ethnic genocide is still practiced around the globe, anything moral about either invasion of Iraq, anything moral about allowing members of the Bin Laden family to fly out of this country when the skies were empty except for the military after 911, anything moral about greed as a motivating factor in conducting business, anything moral about Americans dying & suffering for lack of affordable, adequate health care, anything moral about the struggling middle class carrying the burden of funding our government, anything moral about the fact that my 75 year old mother, who has paid taxes for over forty years, has to prove her citizenship in order to get a photo I.D. so a hospital will admit her for insurance covered day surgery, anything moral about the increase in hate crimes, an increase in crimes against women & children, anything moral about the fact that as a country, we have the ability to feed the entire world & American children still go to school & to bed hungry.

I love this nation, I love the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Separation of Powers. But I refuse to romanticize Her.

Women seldom enjoy being romanticized – we want & need & deserve to be accepted & respected for the flawed beings we are. Admired for our strengths, forgiven for our weaknesses.

America is no different.