The Passion of the Nice by Trace William Cowen
“a greater understanding of this widespread intolerance”
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Being introduced to your current partner's parents is, at best, both dicey and humiliating. One particularly harrowing experience for me, and one that inspired a series of poor dating decisions for several years after, involved - albeit, indirectly - unfortunate bigot-at-large, Mel Gibson. What Gibson did for the Christian community has resonated for years since the release of his melodramatic ode to guilt-inducing violence, 2004's truly ridiculous The Passion of the Christ. I live in Alabama - what some might playfully call the buckle of the bible belt - and I recall very starkly the reception of Christ upon its release among churches, family, and fellow angst-ridden teenagers. The reaction was, simply, a repeated chorus of "As a Christian, you HAVE to see this movie." As with all Christian-based "shame trends" (i.e. WWJD bracelets, DC Talk, the dangerously dumb Left Behind series), this guilt train slowed to a virtual halt within a year or so, but many older "fans" of the film (how could you be a fan of a film like this? That's like someone saying Ted Bundy is their favorite serial killer. WHY do you have a favorite serial killer?) continued to cling to its shame-based scare tactics (admittedly, mostly derived from "fans" of the film and not the film itself). Little did I know, as a paralyzingly awkward though staunchly anti-everything 17 year-old, that Mel Gibson's horror opera would resurface in my own life, nearly 7 years later, in the form of a coffee table book.
We had been dating for a relatively strong and smooth two months, and the "time was right" to meet them, she would say to me often. And it certainly was. I was understandably anxious to get the whole thing behind me, as her dad was a preacher. As an atheist, I always cling to the hope that those who are essentially the exact opposite of myself will have enough human decency to simply let the differences be just that and nothing more: differences. Everyone has differences, yes? But, I suppose his very livelihood rested (and still rests, I presume) on the very ideas I railed against (at the time, I railed against them with a meandering local presence via a Tumblr blog full of, given the benefit of hindsight, admittedly pretentious poems and short blurbs about existential awakenings, etc.). Still, I held onto that hope of acceptance. The most-hyped (to me) parental meeting of the year was going remarkably well, in theory, until my then-girlfriend and her mother left the living room to do something in the kitchen. I had my assumptions that their exit was more than likely a planned occurrence meant to inspire direct man-to-man conversation between myself and her father, the pastor. Earlier, upon entering their house, I had noticed a large photo book on the coffee table entitled The Passion, with a realistically (I mean, kudos to the makeup and effects team in that movie, I guess) bloodied Jim Caviezel on the cover. I thought nothing of it, as that sort of book existing in the house of a Southern Baptist pastor was as surprising as, say, my copy of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, which I have less prominently displayed on a bookshelf in my apartment. I was waiting on the inevitable string of interview questions - "So, what do you do?" "What do your parents do?" "Are you in school?" - when he blindsided me with the book itself, opening it up to a clearly predetermined page featuring, you guessed it, a severely injured Jim Caviezel. "What do you think of this?" he said, pointing his finger somewhere near Jim Caviezel's face. I paused, pondering all the honest responses I could give, none of which were likely to go over well. "It's a great behind-the-scenes shot," I said. "Do you know what this means?" he responded, making me immediately aware that he had, in fact, done some pre-meeting Googling of my name and had, in an act of sitcom-level misfortune, most certainly read my blog, maybe even browsed my Twitter feed. I didn't say anything, instead directed my eyes to the floor. They did have remarkably clean carpet. "What do YOU see here?" he said, not taking silence for an answer. The playful asshole in me wanted to say something along the lines of "the death of Jim Caviezel's career," while the lo-fi martyr in me wanted to say something along the lines of "Absolutely nothing." I held, instead, to my silence. Needless to say, I didn't see her parents again, and we would eventually break up less than a month after the Gibson incident.
Though I don't blame that pastor or the coffee table book or Jesus or even Mel Gibson for the swift deterioration of that ultimately brief relationship (to employ an oft-overused sentiment of Christianity, it simply "wasn't meant to be"), I do point to the higher issue at hand here - intolerance - as something that can - and often does - inspire both disdain and social misery in the hearts and minds of myself and others like me. It's, inarguably, much easier to carry on as an atheist in, say, the culturally rich and generally better-educated environments of New York City, Los Angeles, or even Atlanta than it is in, say, Alabama. As someone who grew up in a largely Christian household and family and even went to a Southern Baptist church until I was 11 years old (my parents essentially grew into what might best be described as more "modern-leaning" Christians), I can say with relative certainty that I have seen the inside of the beast and it's just as disgusting as other atheists would simply assume it to be. One size doesn't fit all, of course. I can say with confidence that not all churches in the South, Southern Baptist or otherwise, employ the promotion of racism, homophobia, dangerous political stances, and a general intolerance for all things "different," but a very large amount of them do.
When I attempt, and occasionally achieve, a greater understanding of this widespread intolerance, I am reminded of a controversial statement Barack Obama made in 2008 when speaking in Pennsylvania. Referencing small PA towns with rising unemployment issues, Obama said that residents of such environments, not surprisingly, "get bitter; they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." These statements, of course, caused an outrage, particularly on the Republican side of the never-ending static of an argument that is politics. Though Obama's statements were ill-placed, and though he wasn't directly referring to the South, those statements could certainly be applied to not only the buckle of the bible belt (my home state of Alabama), but the entire damn belt. I won't bog down this writing with a slew of statistics, but even the smallest amount of Googling will reveal - with no surprise whatsoever - that people in Alabama make a great deal less per hour, per month, per year than citizens of other states. The high school dropout rate is higher than in other states. The treatment of the non-religious (and I don't just mean in smaller, almost comical examples like my Passion story) has reached, in my opinion, feverish heights that, if reversed, would inspire Christians to band together, mobilize, and - in all likelihood - achieve some form of legal interference, perhaps even on a federal level. The "problem" (I say that in jest) with atheists is that we, viewing all religions and gods as equal in that each one is a different variation of the same lie, don't care to band together. We don't send hate mail. And we certainly don't imply that those who don't believe as we do are doomed to spend eternity in some vaguely described pit of fire. Atheists, as a whole, are a tolerant and genuine community. We have some “flakes” on our side, just as the Christians do, but the worst attribute our active or prominent "flakes" have is a slight tendency to occasionally become so frustrated with the dialogue at hand that they slip in hurtful, intellect-questioning terminology into their refutes of biblical "facts." The "flakes" on the Christian side, well, I won't even bother with examples, because you know that road always leads to Jerry Falwell and the like. The politics of the South are mired by faith-based thinking that has not only effected obvious targets such as abortion rights, marriage equality, and freedom of speech, but even healthcare.
As I draw closer and closer to the reality that I do, in fact, want children of my own, I am faced with the very serious question of: do I want them anywhere near such continually supported, seemingly well-funded institutions of intolerance? My answer to this changes daily, as I continue to cling to the same hope that led me to that pastor's doorstep years ago: a hope for acceptance. As an atheist, I'm not really trying to "convert" anyone. You do you, I'll do me. Can't the two just co-exist? Can you refrain from words like "right" and "wrong," and just ask yourself: is this just or unjust? Is it fair to shame atheists or other sectors of "non-believers" for simply not joining you in your chosen delusion? I will cling to that hope for as long as I can. I'll keep hoping, for my sake and for my future children's sake, for a better and more promising South, a New South - unbuckled by kindness and seduced by true freedom.
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Trace William Cowen is an artist, human being, and self-proclaimed "student of pop culture" hailing from the buckle of the bible belt - Alabama. The irony of his staunch atheism is dually noted.