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University
Peace Rally, November 14, 2004
MORAL
VALUES
Dr. Robin Meyers Oklahoma
As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower
Congregational Church
in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace
and Justice church in
northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric
at Oklahoma City
University.
But you would most likely have encountered me
on the pages of the
Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist
for six years, and hold the record for the
most number of angry letters to the editor.
Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry,
because I have watched
as the faith I love has been taken over by
fundamentalists who claim to
speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything
but Christian. We've heard a lot lately about
so-called "moral values" as having
swung the election to President Bush. Well,
I'm a great believer in moral values, but we
need to
have a discussion, all over this country, about
exactly what constitutes a
moral value -- I mean what are we talking about?
Because we don't get
to make them up as we go along, especially
not if we are people of
faith. We have an inherited tradition of what
is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does.
Let me give you just a few of the reasons why
I take issue with those
in power who claim moral values are on their
side:
--- When you start a war on false pretenses,
and then act as if your deceptions are justified
because you are doing God's will, and that
your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking
in faith, there are some of us who have given
our lives to teaching and preaching the faith
who believe that this is not only not moral,
but immoral.
--- When you live in a country that has established
international rules
for waging a just war, build the United Nations
on your own soil to
enforce them, and then arrogantly break the
very rules you set down
for the rest of the world, you are doing something
immoral.
--- When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of
your life, and yet fail
to acknowledge that your policies ignore his
essential teaching, or turn
them on their head (you know, Sermon on the
Mount stuff like that we must never return
violence for violence and that those who live
by the sword will die by the sword), you are
doing something immoral.
--- When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians
are not as important
as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse
to even count them, you
are doing something immoral.
--- When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam,
and then question
the patriotism of someone who volunteered to
fight, and came home a hero, you are doing
something immoral.
--- When you ignore the fundamental teachings
of the gospel, which
says that the way the strong treat the weak
is the ultimate ethical test,
by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among
us so the strong will get stronger and the
weak will get weaker, you are doing something
immoral.
--- When you wink at the torture of prisoners,
and deprive so-called
"enemy combatants" of the rules of
the Geneva convention, which your
own country helped to establish and insists
that other countries follow,
you are doing something immoral.
--- When you claim that the world can be divided
up into the good
guys and the evil doers, slice up your own
nation into those who are with you, or with
the terrorists -- and then launch a war which
enriches your own
friends and seizes control of the oil to which
we are addicted, instead of
helping us to kick the habit, you are doing
something immoral.
--- When you fail to veto a single spending
bill, but ask us to pay for a
war with no exit strategy and no end in sight,
creating an enormous
deficit that hangs like a great millstone around
the necks of our
children, you are doing something immoral.
--- When you cause most of the rest of the world
to hate a country
that was once the most loved country in the
world, and act like it doesn't
matter what others think of us, only what God
thinks of you, you have
done something immoral.
--- When you use hatred of homosexuals as a
wedge issue to turn out
record numbers of evangelical voters, and use
the Constitution as a tool of discrimination,
you are doing something immoral.
--- When you favor the death penalty, and yet
claim to be a follower
of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the
old way, not the way of the
kingdom, you are doing something immoral.
--- When you dismantle countless environmental
laws designed to
protect the earth which is God's gift to us
all, so that the corporations that
bought you and paid for your favors will make
higher profits while our
children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic
world, you have done
something immoral. The Earth belongs to the
Lord, not Halliburton.
--- When you claim that our God is bigger than
their God, and that our
killing is righteous, while theirs is evil,
we have begun to resemble the
enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is
immoral. We have met the
enemy, and the enemy is us.
--- When you tell people that you intend to
run and govern as a
"compassionate conservative," using
the word which is the essence of
all religious faith-compassion, and then show
no compassion for anyone
who disagrees with you, and no patience with
those who cry to you for
help, you are doing something immoral.
--- When you talk about Jesus constantly, who
was a healer of the
sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone
who is sick can go to see a
doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in
her pocket, you are doing
something immoral.
--- When you put judges on the bench who are
racist, and will set
women back a hundred years, and when you surround
yourself with
preachers who say gays ought to be killed,
you are doing something immoral.
I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm
a Christian, I must be a
supporter of President Bush -- or that because
I favor civil rights
and gay rights I cannot be a person of faith.
I'm tired of people saying
that I can't support the troops but oppose
the war -- I heard that when I
was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging.
We knew that that war
was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong--the
only question is how many people are going
to die before these make-believe Christians
are
removed from power?
This country is bankrupt. The war is morally
bankrupt. The claim of
this administration to be Christian is bankrupt.
And the only people who can turn things around
are people like
you--young people who are just beginning to
wake up to what is happening to them.
It's your country to take back. It's your faith
to take back. It's
your future to take back.
Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down
when your friends begin
to tell you that the cause is righteous and
that the flag should be
wrapped around the cross, while the rest of
us keep our mouths shut.
Real Christians take chances for peace. So do
real Jews, and real
Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists---so
do all the faith
traditions of the world at their heart believe
one thing: life is precious.
Every human being is precious.
Arrogance is the opposite of faith.
Greed is the opposite of charity.
And believing that one has never made a mistake
is the mark of a
deluded man, not a man of faith.
And war -- war is the greatest failure of the
human race -- and thus
the greatest failure of faith. There's an old
rock and roll song, whose
lyrics say it all: "War, what is it good
for?"
And what is the dream of the prophets? That
we should study war no
more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares
and our spears
into pruning hooks.
Who would Jesus bomb, indeed? How many wars
does it take to know
that too many people have died? What if they
gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we
will find out.
Time to march again my friends. Time to commit
acts of civil
disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and
refuse to participate in
the madness.
My generation finally stopped a tragic war.
You can too!
"Only when it is dark enough, can you see
the stars.
" Martin Luther King"
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