Sheesh

As a religious person of a fairly orthodox theological persuasion, I am amused when people like me are accused of trying to make the US some kind of theocracy -- a place where our religious ideas will have the force of law. Dissent will be crushed, diversity eliminated, tolerance not tolerated and everyone will have the Ten Commandments mounted on their ceilings. Or something. I'm never sure what kind of religious government we're supposed to want to create, except that "all you evangelicals," which means me, I believe, want to make one.

OK, so I want a government and a society where a religious expression isn't mocked, belittled, marginalized and ignored. Which I more or less have now, although on some days and in some parts of the nation it's a lot less than more. But even if I had everything like that I wanted out of my government and my society, it wouldn't come anywhere close to a theocracy.

This, Good Reader, is a theocracy. Religious scholars determine that men are using pets as a way to "make passes at" women and "disturb" families. So the government enacts a law that dogs and cats may not be sold anymore. Period. Own a pet store? Out of luck, bucko. I'd give you a job sweeping sidewalks but without any dogs on them, there's not so much to sweep anymore. And I seriously doubt the law's effectiveness. A guy who's figured out how to make "I live with cats" a successful pick-up line is a guy who can probably adapt his tactics.

I don't think the distinction could be drawn any more clearly. In Not a Theocracy, a religious leader who called for a ban on selling dogs and cats because men were using them to make passes would get laughed out of his or her pulpit. As well as a serious talking-to by the church women's circles, which own more poodles per capita than any group in the world, and some pointed questions from the spouse about why they just had to rescue that pup from the pound. In Theocracy, the same fruit-basket-turnover of an idea is not only taken seriously as theology, it actually becomes law.

Sure we've got some nutty laws on our books. But at least we haven't blamed them on God.

(Edited when someone pointed out to me that using "over here" and "over there" gives impressions that don't have much to do with my point and might also be uncool)