I've picked this up belatedly from fellow bloggers. We're marking this Easter by uniting against the spread of theocracy in the American society.As I said countless times before, I am in Southern California, where much of the conservatism and theocratic policy are ethnic in origin. The heavy influx of Latin American immigrants have made Catholicism the law of the land here - along with its accompanying sexism, misogyny, and homophobia. There is a reason why Los Angeles is not quite San Francisco; "reproductive rights" and "gay rights" are as sorry a joke as anything gets here.
Outside the Catholic/Latino framework, the Koreans have done even worse, in the form of the Unification Church, which has corrupted American politics irrevocably, and in the form of other hate-filled megachurches throughout the landscape. While the rest of America grapples with the idea of W-imposed "faith-based initiatives," faith-based community services have been reality in Koreatown for decades; one cannot even go to a homeless shelter or a community kitchen unless s/he is a fundamentalist Christian.
These communities' support for Neanderthal Republican theocrats, such as Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, must not be ignored. And it's gotten to a point where the first question asked, when meeting someone new, is "which church do you belong to?" Fundamentalist Christianity is already assumed here. Ethnic newspapers eulogize the crime victims as "devout Christians" - as if non-Christians are fair game for crime.
The worst thing of all is the white liberals' denial about the ethnic theocracy of Southern California. They continue to paint California as an easy-going "blue" state, never mind that Southern California has always been Republican (the Reagan Revolution started here), and much of the conservatism is, again, ethnic in origin. They don't understand ethnic theocracy, and have no plans to combat it. This is what makes me feel hopeless; I cannot fight the theocracy alone, and unless the white liberal "elites" get their act together, I am basically on my own.
