"Why is the Religious Right so loud and vocal?"  So asked a person at my atheist discussion group the other night.  This person has long been troubled by the "Religious Right's" (like every broad designation for a particular viewpoint, the term Religious Right doesn't necessarily account for every nuance of opinion among those who generally identify themselves as conservative Christian Republicans) almost hostile approach, as he saw it, to those who disagree with them.  Although he has no problems with religious people expressing their opinion in a public forum, he is uncomfortable with the way that some of these people insist that because their view is the view of God, it is the only one that is correct.
     It's a legitimate complaint.  Americans do not live in a theocracy.  They live in a democracy, a highly pluralistic society, one in which all viewpoints are given equal time and respect.  Although no one needs to agree with every viewpoint, everyone needs to recognize that those expressing them have the right to hold to them.  Above all, we honor the fact of human dignity, marvelous beings who have been created in the image of God.
     It's difficult, but we would not have it otherwise.  We all want to be free.  And so does God.  We must tread very carefully when we insist that we know God's will, and even more so if we insist that everyone must agree with it.  God doesn't insist; why should we?  Because by their very nature religious viewpoints speak out of transcendence and mystery, we finite humans must step into them with tremendous caution.  Who are we to say that, in every, absolutely every circumstance, we really know?
     Understand the religious person's zeal, I told my atheist friend, but understand as well that God is a God who speaks, as Elijah found on Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 17-19), with more wisdom and gentleness than we can imagine.
    We, we beings of reason, are only passing through.