Religious extremism is rearing its ugly ahead once again.
On Tuesday,
the Associated Press reported
that ISIS, the Sunni extremist group that recently declared an Islamic
state in parts of Syria and Iraq, has ordered shop owners in Mosul to
cover the faces of mannequins with veils.
The shop owners were told to cover the faces of male and female
mannequins, so that they were in line with their interpretations of the first commandment that prohibits "graven images," including statues or
artwork that depict the human form.
Similarly, ISIS also believes that women must be subservient to their
husbands at all times, and that they should be covered up when in
public.
While these kinds of religious extremist delusions may seem like they're limited to groups in the Middle East, they're not.
That's because we have our very own ISIS and very own Taliban right here in the United States.
It's called the christian wingnuts, and they've been in America for a very
long time, and they're pushing delusions that share a worldview and a face
with those of ISIS and the Taliban.
On Tuesday, repugicans down in Georgia's 10th Congressional District
voted for baptist shrieking head and wingnut hate speech radio show hack Jody Hice to be the repugican candidate for that seat in November's midterm elections.
And, if Hice makes it to Washington, there's little doubt that he'll
be the most lunatic fringe religio-wingnut in our nation's capital.
In 2012, Hice published the book
It's Now or Never: A Call to Reclaim America,
in which he argued that America is a "distinctly christian society."
And, he wrote that if we wanted to "reclaim America," then we needed to
ban abortion, ban same-sex marriage, repeal hate-crime laws, and expose
"radical islam for the clear and present danger that it is."
But Hice's extreme religious delusions don't stop there.
In a 2004 article uncovered by the folks over at Right Wing Watch,
Hice argues that women should have to receive permission from their husbands before running for political office.
He said that, "If the woman's within the authority of her husband, I don't see a problem."
While Hice's extreme wingnut religious and political delusions are
appalling, dated and incredibly ignorant, they're nothing new for
America.
That's because the delusions of the christian wingnuts in America today
can be traced all the way back to when the puritans landed on Plymouth
Rock in 1620.
Back in the 1600's in England, many British citizens, including the puritans, were fed up with what they saw as a degenerate society.
In response, between 1620 and 1640, nearly 20,000 English puritans
left the "vice" they faced in England behind, and colonized
Massachusetts.
The puritans in the UK were led by a man named Oliver Cromwell, a
strict puritan military and political leader at the time, who, back in
England in the late 1640's, led an uprising against the Stewarts, the
royal family.
In 1653, after successfully beating back King Charles I and the royal
family, Cromwell made himself the 1st Lord Protector of the
Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.
With those powers, Cromwell pushed his strictly puritan religious delusions on the rest of the British people. Cromwell banned sports. He
banned women from wearing make-up. He banned colorful dresses. He even
played the role of Scrooge and banned Xmas.
Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, the new puritan settlers were also making their extreme religious delusions known.
They created laws that banned women from wearing lace, and that established what kinds of dresses a woman could wear.
And they had laws that made it a crime for people not to attend cult.
In fact, you could be fined, imprisoned, and even whipped and tortured for not going to cult.
Meanwhile, females who were considered "loose women" or who cheated
on their husbands faced severe punishments, including imprisonment,
public shamings, torture, and even death.
The puritan-led Massachusetts Bay General Court declared adultery a
capital crime - punishable by death - in 1631, and they enforced it, at
least against women.
Basically, the puritans fled what they perceived as "secular
wickedness" in England, and came to Massachusetts and created their own
system of religious wickedness.
And any settler who dared to go against puritan beliefs was kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The puritans also didn't have much tolerance for the Native Americans who already called America home.
On May 26, 1637, puritans, with the help from the Mohegan Tribe,
attacked a Pequot Tribe village in Mystic, Connecticut, killing
approximately 500 men, women and children.
The religious intolerance, violence and oppression in puritan-controlled Massachusetts was so horrific for so long, that not
only did it drive Benjamin Franklin out of Massachusetts, but some 170
years after the puritans first arrived, Massachusetts was forced to
change its laws and its constitution, before other states would consider
allowing it into the United States.
It may be 2014, but the religious extremism and oppression that the puritans brought with them to America in 1620 is alive and well today.
It's alive and well in people like Jody Hice, and other so-called
"christian" wingnuts, who still think that women should be
subservient to men and that only christians should participate in our
government.
Americans are rightly horrified by the religious extremism of groups
like ISIS and the Taliban in the Middle East, but the fact is, religious
extremism is also a very real threat right here and right now in the
US.
And our history proves that, if religious extremists and religious wingnuts are allowed to get in positions of power, the results are
pretty ugly.
