The California Initiative

The next day Ewald flew to New York to give a speech at Cooper Union.  He chose the site because of its historical significance. A little more than one hundred sixty years before, Abraham Lincoln had delivered an address at the same hall. The country was threatened with dissolution when Lincoln spoke, and the threat of disunion hung over the country as Ewald stepped to the podium. 

The New England states and Pennsylvania and New York were threatening to leave the union rather to be a part of Rightway's Christian country.  If they left, then Ewald would have no choice but to seek California's separation from the union.  Washington and Oregon promised to follow if he did, and there would be at least three countries where one had flourished.

There was no threat of Civil War, for each of the sections had control over nuclear weapons based there, making the possibility of reunification by force unlikely, even for someone as fanatical as Reverend Rightway.  But there would be little harmony and co-operation between the two smaller countries and the larger Christian States of America, as Rightway was now calling his new country.

"Lincoln once stood on this stage where I am now standing," Ewald told the gathering.  “His mission that day was to find someway of holding the union together without compromising on the issue of slavery.  Our mission is just as important and momentous as his was.  We must find someway of preserving our country without ceding the cherished right to religious freedom.

"It may seem strange to you to see me become one of the most vehement defenders of the union when only fifteen months ago I was one of the first to propose secession if the problems of high unemployment and unrestricted immigration could not be resolved within the present political framework. Today I find myself in the odd position of arguing that I never would accept secession unless it was the only way of preserving the basic rights of the citizens of my state.

"That may yet come to pass, for there is a party in this country that is so convinced of the rightness of their cause that they are willing to destroy anyone or anything that stands in their path.  We do not have to guess the CRP's legislative agenda.  They have published it in vivid detail.  They will declare by law that ours is a Christian nation and anyone who is not a Christian will be denied full citizenship.  They say they are willing to make one exception in the case of the Jews because Christianity sprang from the seeds of Judaism.

"If I were a Jew, I would take scant comfort in this supposed tolerance, for it will be only a momentary respite.  In time the old Anti-Semitism that has always been a part of Christian fundamentalism in America will seep into official doctrine, and one by one the Jews’ rights and privileges will be taken away from them as surely as the CRP intends to take away the rights and privileges of other non-believers now.

"Only Christians can claim full citizenship in the Christian States of America, they tell us.  Will someone tell me what that statement means?  What percentage of citizenship is due to someone who is a Buddhist?  Is it fifty-eight percent? If so, what does that entitle him to?  Will he be able to vote?  Send his children to college?  Can he rely on the courts to respect his rights in the event of a lawsuit? 

“Will all non-Christians be assigned the same percentage of citizenship or will there be a sliding scale set up for various sets of non-believers with some enjoying more privileges of citizenship than others?  It is a mind-boggling and horrifying prospect, this business of devising two or more sets of rights based upon religious belief.

"We tried having two layers of citizenship in our country before, and it was one of the most dismal periods in our history. Separate but equal was its byword.  There was little that was equal about that arrangement.  The oppression blacks suffered diminished all of society.  By denying them the right to succeed and prosper, we limited our own success and prosperity.  The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's was as much an act of emancipation for the rest of society as it was for blacks.

"Why should Christians be concerned if the rights of non-believers are restricted or denied?  First of all, because the Bible tells us that we are our brothers’ keepers.  Let us make that one point perfectly clear.  What the Christian Religious Party is proposing is in direct contradiction of the teachings of the Bible.  And secondly, because experience had shown us that in the long run the only way we can preserve our rights is to protect and defend the rights of others.

"If a Christian nation is brought into existence, let me assure you that each year will bring new refinements to its policies.  New heresies will be discovered.  Old practices will be proscribed. We have only to look at the experience of other countries ruled by theocracies.  No other forms of government have been as successful at stamping out all traces of freedom of expression as the clerical states have.