War of the Gods

The NYPD arrested a Moslem woman when she and two female neighbors fought over a parking space in front of her home. Yes, time was when a cat-fight made for juicy gossip rather than excusing official thugs from piling on (though the Islamic victim seems to be at fault: “she had called cops on [the neighbors] before”).

But the lady’s mug shot demonstrates even more graphically the USSA’s totalitarianism. Cops stripped her of her headdress before photographing her, despite the scarf’s religious significance: “[Mervat] Soliman, 53, wears a hijab, or veil, which covers a woman’s hair as a symbol of her modesty. … Soliman … [said its removal] was harrowing. ‘I feel like somebody took all my clothes off,’ she said.”

The NYPD’s response? Religion’s claims on us pale to nothing beside the State’s: “An NYPD spokesman said that arrestees cannot refuse to remove their religious head coverings…” The State, not Allah or God or Moses or Jesus Christ, is supreme; the State rather than Allah or God or Moses or Jesus Christ will decree our behavior and response to any situation, whether during a legal kidnapping or when we sell wedding cakes.

Speaking of which, another skirmish in this battle of the gods grabbed national headlines when Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to sodomites in Rowan County, Kentucky. There are a great many errors in her reasoning—why is any Christian “working” for Leviathan, given that the beast steals $80,000/annum from her friends and neighbors to “pay” her, first of all? Second, why would any Christian imagine the sacrament of marriage requires the State’s permission, let alone assist it in usurping the Lord’s place?—but the court’s insistence that she sacrifice her conscience to the government’s decrees is part and parcel of its ongoing contest to reign supreme over our hearts and lives. We may worship as we please, just as the ancient Romans did, so long as we first acknowledge the primacy of politicians and bureaucrats. Their whims and dictates supersede not only all idols but the one true God.

Of course, American governments have always tried to quash competitors for the serfs’ veneration and obedience. Brigham Young and his bigamist Mormons in the nineteenth century or the native Indian tribes that used peyote in their religious ceremonies can attest to that. But the tussle is intensifying, and it’s spreading from religious minorities to Christianity.

Which should terrify everyone, Christian, Moslem, Jew, or atheist. If the State can maul the country’s majority, what will it do to everyone else?

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11:07 am on September 17, 2015