I also understood Yov's post to mean as you describe, but his analogy is still inapt. The environmental movement may be hypocritical in many ways but not for this reason - that it is religion masquerading as something else.nerdanel wrote:As I understood it, he was suggesting that many within the "environmental left" (to which I do not belong, btw, yov) have similar spiritual/metaphysical/emotion-driven/made-up views on the worth of animals, and that they use their views to further a political agenda in much the same way as the Religious Right, while complaining that the Religious Right is trying to bring their (religious) ideology into the government.
... Perhaps as a minority, I might be more likely to support racial minorities or minority-friendly politicians for office. But these are identity-driven notions, not quasi-religious ideological notions. So I'm not sure that I see your analogy.
If I have understood yov's argument correctly, I agree with the hypocrisy that he was pointing out.
It is hard to think of a political movement in the United States that is not motivated by some underlying moral consideration. The African Americans who joined the Civil Rights movement may have been identity driven, but their appeal to the larger society was made on moral grounds. And when we evaluate the religious right, I think that the first thing we have to concede is that priests/ministers etc. have the right, in the context of spiritual education, to tell their church members what their religious tenets require of them. So if the Catholic Church opposes abortion, for example, they have every right to tell Catholics that they should vote in favor of laws prohibiting abortion.
But when churches pay lobbyists they are doing something that no other tax-exempt organization is allowed to do. They are hiding, as it were, behind the first amendment to accomplish a purpose different from the purpose for which they were founded and for which they receive tax-exemption. No environmental organization is allowed to do this. If they lobby, if they engage in political advertisement, etc., they are not tax-exempt.
Every organization with an environmental tax i.d. was founded to promote environmentalism, and they hold no claim over their membership beyond voluntary adherence to this particular cause. The churches hold claim over their membership far beyond political issues, and to use this claim to coerce political action is ... well, it's unethical in my view. That bishop who said he would not give communion to John Kerry or anyone who voted for him had stepped beyond his role as a minister of his faith and required his parisheners to do something that their faith in fact does not require. And it was also, in my opinion, illegal.
My identity and my religion may be driven by the same underlying moral considerations, but that does not mean that organizations which I join because they reflect my identity are no different from religious organizations. Religion enjoys a special status under our constition which other kinds of organizations do not enjoy.
Jn