Religious prejudice overtakes racism in the United States

Editor,

In our country today, racism is being overtaken by religionism. That is quite a feat, because there are all these completely different races constituting our epiphenomenon of a nation. Discrimination based on racism is on the decline because the laws that apply are well-exercised by now. Not so with religionism, where there is dangerous regression.

Witness the new Indiana law allowing businesses to refuse service to customers born a certain way. That was these crusaders’ shot across the bow. It hurts because it is an actual law enacted by Christianist forces in their legislature who were emboldened by the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision.

That, in turn, was a scenario emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision to allow explicitly Christian prayers to be said right at the start of a town hall meeting in tiny Greece, New York. That further emboldened other townships to do the same, and has also emboldened actual judges in allowing and even unilaterally installing explicitly Christian monuments like the Ten Commandments right there on city government property.

The most unconscionable of these in these times of war is where a government-built war monument has been adorned with only Christian displays. Like its “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and not “Onward, American Soldiers”?

Yes, old discrimination in new bottles — only this time the wine is being handed down from Christian bigots literally of the highest order: our Supreme Court. Curious how this body, whose primary job is to check the constitutionality of lower decisions brought before it, is itself contradicting the First Amendment right there in the Constitution.

Sincerely,

Arun Anand Ahuja

UNM student