With all the nonsense over Virgil Goode, and the smearing of Keith Ellison, because, - gasp - he's a Muslim! - it's not been reported nearly as much that 2 Buddhists have been elected to Congress!
As a Buddhist, (Zen, Rinzai tradition), regardless of whether others have diaried it, I want to note my extreme happiness at this turn ov events.
The Boston Globe editorializes:
What part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" does congressman Virgil Goode not understand?
Goode, a Virginia Republican, displayed his contempt for the US Constitution in a letter he sent to constituents this month, criticizing the first Muslim elected to Congress for planning to use a ceremonial Koran instead of a Bible to swear his oath of office in January. In the letter, Goode writes that the election of Keith Ellison , Democrat of Minnesota, represents a threat to traditional American "values and beliefs."...
In the 1980s, Massachusetts legislator Barbara Hildt, an Amesbury Democrat, would decline to swear the oath of office with her 159 fellow House members every two years. Her Quaker faith prohibited it, so she "affirmed" her allegiance in a separate ceremony. The Commonwealth did not crumble.
Indeed, the entering 110th Congress will feature more religious diversity than ever, with not just the first Muslim but the first two Buddhists: Hawaii's Mazie Hirono and Hank Johnson of Georgia, both Democrats. Strangely, Congressman Goode seems unconcerned about the Buddhist threat to American "values."
And indeed he should be.
We Buddhists do not "believe" generally in a god who wants to take over government and act through the Republican Party.
Interstingly enough, Hank Johnson became a Buddhist some 30 years ago and is affiliated with Soka Gakkai International, which has itself been known to be somewhat exlusivist amongst Buddhists, but has been evangelizing to African Americans, and yes, Johnson's not only among the first 2 Buddhists elected, but he's also - gasp- the first African-American Buddhist elected! It's also odd because in Japan, Soka Gakkai has been affiliated with right wing politics. But not in America. I'd doubt Tina Turner, SG's most well-known practitioner is a rightie.
I wonder if he will take the oath of office on Nichiren's writings - or the Lotus Sutra. I'd guess the latter, and if you don't know why, look it up. Google will tell you in a heartbeat.
Mazie Hirono is a member of Jodo Shu Buddhism, a sect whose general form is the largest sect in Japan, and Hawaii.
So, I'm glad we finally have Buddhists in Congress.
I hope we elect more, as long as they're not corrupt, and are committed to religious liberty.
Update: I wondered what the esteemed Dennis Prager had to say about us. As you can see from this bit from 2005, you can understand why I was not disappointed:
In most of these essays making the case for Judeo-Christian values, I have contrasted Judeo-Christian values only with leftist values: secularism, liberalism, socialism, humanism, environmentalism.
I have done so for two reasons.
First, secular and leftist values are the dominant values of most of the world's elites. If the editors of the major newspapers of the world assembled, they would agree on almost every moral and social issue. The same holds true for the world's academics, whether from America, Latin America, Europe or Asia.
Keep that in mind folks: this guy thinks having clean air to breathe and water to drink is anti-Christian and anti-Jewish.
But I digress a bit...
One theoretical alternative is Eastern religion. Having studied Buddhism under a prominent Buddhist, I came to respect Buddhist and related Eastern thought. Some of its insights (such as having few or no expectations) have benefited me greatly, and I cite them in my book on happiness.
But Buddhism and related Eastern value systems are not contenders for shaping humanity. On the practical level, Buddhism is losing ground to secularism even in Asia. And in the West, a minuscule percentage of the population takes it seriously and in a form often so Westernized as to be unrecognizable to its Asian practitioners.
On a philosophical level, Buddhism is more of a philosophy designed to enable the practitioner to achieve enlightenment than a societal way of life to combat evil and promote good.
Prager, as usual, is not being honest with his audience: all of the precepts are precisely aimed at avoiding the practice of evil and cultivating the practice of good, where evil would be defined as greed, hatred, and ignorance, and good would be defined as generosity, compassion, and wisdom.
Oh, and he's saying "on a practical level," Buddhism shouldn't "be a contender" because "it's not popular." It is, though growing much faster in the US than many Christian sects, including the Catholic and Baptist sects.
And that's Prager for you.