Religious Tolerance: America's Final Frontier

This semester, in my rhetoric and civilization course, I decided to focus on the value and practice of religious tolerance. With tensions ebbing and flowing between America and ISIS, and with day-to-day tensions between Americans who share different beliefs, who wouldn't benefit from taking a moment to evaluate themselves? I decided it was time to explore an alternative view toward religion in America. Throughout my research, my personal views on religious tolerance evolved--often prompted by questions raised from my peers in the class.

History of Tolerance: Open-Minds and Open Doors

Tolerance has been a multifaceted concept since the Enlightenment. But, regardless of its many forms, tolerance has also always had a positive effect as America (and the world) transitioned through major historical periods:

• Industrialization: as Industrialization grew, tolerance was required on both sides (by industrial producers and by market consumers). Given, there are still some environmental issues with big manufacturers today, but imagine if big business manufacturers hadn't kept an open-mind about the effects of certain forms of production on the environment. Regulation Laws would never have been passed. Conversely, if consumers hadn't kept an open-mind about the material benefits of industrialized manufacturers, then we wouldn't have the technology or accessibility that we enjoy today. 
• Romanticism: this movement speaks for itself. Staying open-minded about how an individual can view themselves or any medium of artistic aesthetics is what made this clock tick. Respecting and appreciating the creative agencies of an individual (within the realms of the Constitution) is what drove the successful creation of cherished works of poetry, visual art, music, and prose literature.
• Nationalism: History tells an visceral story about the consequences of not having tolerance during the development of "Nationalism." WWI and WWII are the consequence of not keeping an open-mind to the rights and privileges of others (within the boundaries of a nation's legal and rational freedoms).       

Cut the Chauvinism

I'm all for patriotism, but when it turns into chauvinism I believe we need to cut it out.  Our excessive pride in country needs to be tempered so that we can accept the new people and their ideas.

Incurable Religion: Searching for Tolerance

      In March of 1890, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruled, in conclusion to the Weiss v. the District Board case, that bible readings and devotionals in public schools were unconstitutional. Justice H.S. Orton of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin noted the following after the ruling:

“There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter our civil affairs, our government would soon be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed….Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.”

      While Orton is “civically” correct, according to the civic philosophies of John Locke (made constitutional through Thomas Jefferson), I argue that he couldn’t be more wrong about religion within our education (or our “common schools,” as he puts it).