“Taking of Jersualem by the Crusaders, 15th July 1099, ” by Emil Signol. This beautiful painting depicts a very different ethos once espoused by European civilization.

Author’s Note: this essay contains mild spoilers for two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm: “Ski Lift” and “Palestinian Chicken.”

No matter how idiotic, harmful, or ridiculous a religious belief or practice may be, a deeply engrained social more and value of religious tolerance has emerged in the modern world in the past few decades. According to this false god of religious tolerance, such beliefs and practices, no matter how stupid, destructive, or unsavory, are beyond the purview of criticism, let alone ridicule and scorn. Just as the “free speech” clause1 of the First Amendment is not just a proscription against government censorship, but an avatar for “free speech” as one of the highest normative social values in the modern Anglo-American world, the establishment clause in the same amendment has had a similar effect with religious tolerance; the establishment clause not only acts as a legal proscription against state power curtailing freedom of religion, it has helped establish and advance “freedom of religion” as a widely held normative and social value. Such “freedom of religion,” a phrase often mistakenly attributed to the actual text of the establishment clause2, has become something sacrosanct that few think to question. Indeed, this value of “religious tolerance” is nothing other than abject, radical pluralism. A brief survey of unsavory religious views and practices further reveals this is a grave error.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is nothing more deserving of ridicule and scorn than embracing or exhibiting bizarre, harmful, or ridiculous religious views or practices. Just as someone should be ridiculed and mocked for asserting, for example, that a person could ever change sex, a person should similarly be criticized and even denigrated for clinging on to wrong-headed and even preposterous superstitions that should have been jettisoned centuries ago. This iconoclastic ethos is admittedly exhibited by a particular breed of leftist who holds all denominations of Christianity in contempt, no matter how reasonable or pragmatic a particular theological interpretation may be, or how practical the application of such religious belief is in normal, everyday situations. Aside from very few exceptions, the left never turns such sharp, biting vitriol towards Judaism, Islam, or other religions and superstitions. This is because those religions are embraced by non-white peoples around the world, “fellow whites,” i.e. Jews, excepted, of course. Christianity, too, is a world religion, but it flourished in Europe and is most closely associated with European civilization and its diaspora.

Judaism is particularly immune from any criticism because of how accusations of so-called anti-Semitism have been weaponized as a sort of blunt instrument to bludgeon any criticism or complaint into silence, often with the most severe consequences for anyone who dares transgress such prohibitions in public. Separate some of these practices and beliefs away from the modern taboo of criticizing or mocking religious absurdity, particularly as such absurdity pertains to Judaism, and consider what some of these things are intrinsically. Such a standard would seem to be a fair equivalent to the idea of judging someone “not based on the color of his skin,”—as if race were only about skin color!—”but the content of his character.”

Various practices and beliefs embraced by Orthodox Judaism seem particularly vulnerable to such criticism and even ridicule. Orthodox Jewish practice related to a kosher diet, known as kashrut, is just an absurdity. This practice requires two sets of dishware, one for milk and one for meat, with the two strictly separated. A milk dish “contaminated” with meat and vice-versa require an elaborate cleansing process, known as “koshering.” This entails a waiting period of 24 hours, as well as boiling for metal utensils, pots and pans, and the like, heating for other types of cooking ware, dishes and utensils. Items of a porous nature such as earthware and ceramic must be discarded, while porous materials such as a wooden cutting board depend on “rabbinic opinion.” An episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, “Ski Lift,” famously mocked the absurdity of this, although it characterized the practice of burying plates as part of the koshering process. That seems to be a myth, but may have been followed by some Orthodox Jews in the states.

In public spaces, Jewish Orthodox individuals are known to ostentatiously and obnoxiously exhibit their extraordinary –and extraordinarily ridiculous—dietary requirements to anyone and everyone, with no qualms about imposing on others what is ultimately their self-imposed burden. Orthodox individuals are known, for example, to brandish elaborate lunch kits bifurcated in two sets marked “milk” and “meat,” to ensure that all the coworkers, Jew and gentile alike, know this individual is an observant Jew. Offices in New York City and other certain areas with notable Jewish minorities are known to feature two separate microwaves in certain break rooms, one marked “kosher” for the observant Jew whose predilections are indulged with his own separate microwave, and the main microwave for the rest of the staff that uses that break room. It is noteworthy that despite assertions that “freedom of speech” is robust in this country, federal laws concerning workplace discrimination have created quite the “chilling effect” that First Amendment jurisprudence otherwise deems anathema to the Constitution, such that neither employee, nor the boss, nor even owner of a company would ever dare make any negative remark or complain in any way whatsoever about such an imposition as to accommodate select individuals of a minority faith with their own microwave ,or the elaborate lunch kits in two sets for “milk” and “meat” with which they make themselves such a peculiar spectacle. Such utterances would, after all, create a hostile working environment.

As alluded to above, one of the few cultural phenomena that has been allowed to express strong criticism and even repudiation of various expressions of Jewish religion and Jewish identity is Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, with the aforementioned episode “Ski Lift” being one of the more memorable forays skewering Orthodox Judaism in particular. With David’s interactions and observations driving the narrative, the show generally offers sharp, biting satire and commentary regarding absurd Jewish practices and characteristics, both in relation to Jewish Orthodox and secular Jewish identity. This has been largely without controversy because David is Jewish himself; any gentile commentator or writer who dared to mock and ridicule the various peculiarities Curb has explored over the years would be met with shrill cries of “anti-Semitism.” The exposure of any number of horrible behaviors of secular Hollywood Jews could easily make for a modern successor to Der Sturmer or even Jud Süß. The episode where some Jew accosts him on the street for whistling Wagner is unforgettable. So too is the aforementioned episode “Ski Lift” from season five, which mercilessly lampoons, and even ridicules and mocks Orthodox Jews. This episode concerns a ruse whereby David seeks to curry the favor of Ben Heinemann, an Orthodox Jew, militant Zionist, and staunch supporter of Israel who is the president of a kidney transplant “consortium” that oversees the donation and assignment of kidneys for transplant. This is done because Richard Lewis, also Jewish and a friend of David (in real life and the show), needs a kidney transplant sooner than his place on the waiting list is likely to avail him, or he will die. The favoritism that Heinemann bestows on Larry David once he professes his strong love and support for Israel while schmoozing on a weekend ski trip is shocking, as David’s ruse convinces Heinemann to place Lewis at the front of the waiting list (at least until David has the misfortune to be trapped with Heinemann’s nasty adult daughter Rachel on a stalled ski-lift just before sun-down). Heinemann couples such unethical conduct (moving a patient list to the top on account of personal acquaintance, friendship, or favor) with lip service about being a deeply pious, religious (Jewish) man. This is, to put it mildly, what Kevin MacDonald calls the “moral particularism” that is the hallmark of Judaism.

The exposition and chastisement of such unethical and possibly illegal conduct only complement the despicable range of behavior examined and lampooned by David: behavior that is part and parcel to Hollywood as a predominantly Jewish institution and subculture, including Jeff Greene’s constant womanizing (given his repulsive appearance one cannot help but think of Harvey Weinstein). The insufferable antics of Greene’s foul-mouthed shrew of a wife, Suzy, also fit certain stereotypes of middle-class and rich, affluent Jewish women. Another favorite episode, “Palestinian Restaurant,” concerns a chicken specialty restaurant with Palestinian proprietors renowned for particularly delectable offerings, with David and Greene eating there, despite the proprietor’s hostility towards Israel. Most in David’s circle steadfastly refuse to eat there at all, however, and even organize a protest when the restaurant opens a second location next to “Goldblatt’s Deli,” all replete with hysterical histrionics about Israeli Zionism that reveals what most charitably describe as having “dual loyalties.” One subplot concerns two friends, both married to another, having an affair, and choosing to rendezvous at the Palestinian venue on the basis that no other Jews would ever eat there. As an aside, this excerpt from Larry David’s monologue on Saturday Night Live reveals him to notice certain trends among his kind in relation to the Harvey Weinstein and other “#metoo” scandals.

Curb is of course an outlier if not the single solitary instance of popular media that portrays both Orthodox and secular Jewry in such a negative light, permitted and countenanced only because of David’s own Jewish identity, as well as the cloak of humor in which such criticism is clothed. These and other Jewish practices not explored by the hit show go beyond merely being objects of ridicule, but impose positive harms on society as they offend anyone with a moral conscience.

One harm arising from such religious tolerance relates to how modern society is required to subsidize the kosher marketing system, which has created a lucrative industry3 for Jewish concerns to certify that most all food stuffs consumed by the entire population conform to their bizarre dietary superstitions: an enterprise not subsidized by those Jewish enclaves that require them, but passed off on to the public consumer at large. Tolerating kosher dietary requirements has also facilitated barbaric animal cruelty in kosher-observant slaughterhouses. A video presentation by Devon Stack concerning the establishment of a kosher slaughter house in Postville, Iowa is noteworthy not just because it exposes sharp business practices that destroyed a rural, exclusively white town, but for its exposure of the cruel, barbaric manner in which cows are slaughtered. This modern innovation to make kosher slaughter more benign does not weaken but instead strengthens the call for intolerance of contemptible religious views and practices.

Less pervasive but far more egregious than the barbarism characterizing kosher livestock slaughter ritual is the Kapparot atonement ritual exhibited in certain sects of Orthodox Judaism. In this ritual, a person waves chickens over his head, transferring the individual’s sin to the chicken before the chicken is killed. Chickens seem less sentient than cows, who are reasonably intelligent animals with greater sentience than chickens, but the Kapparot practice is barbaric nonetheless, and cannot be characterized as anything other than animal cruelty. Indeed, it is of note that the article exposing this practice includes a condemnation by a rabbi:

“Even though there are other people who do it in my community (and they’re good people), treating a chicken like this on the eve of Yom Kippur, when we’re asking God for compassion… and we’re not treating this animal with compassion, what are we doing?” — Rabbi Donn Gross

Why must this article by an animal rights organization and other condemnations of this barbaric practice seek permission or agreement from other Jews? Why cannot those on the right, who harbor legitimate grievances and criticism against Jews collectively (no different than how any other group is capable of agitating or transgressing other groups in inter-group conflict) be allowed to express such grievances in what is regarded as polite, respectable society? A bold, proper response would quote the likes of “noticers” like Devon Stack, Kevin MacDonald, and the like, and not seek permission from a rabbi to condemn such practices.

The practice of circumcision also warrants condemnation. No conclusive evidence has ever demonstrated a clear unequivocal benefit, as it diminishes pleasure sensory in the human penis.4 Kevin MacDonald describes circumcision as a “bizarre ritual in which sharp instruments slice up the most intensely personal part of the male body, right after birth, and for which is there is almost no legitimate medical explanation.”5 This barbaric practice has of course been exported to much of the gentile population in the States, but it really should not be allowed to be performed on any human being—absurd Jewish practices and beliefs be damned.

Metzitzah B’peh is probably the greatest outrage of any absurd, ridiculous, and harmful religious practice currently tolerated. In Metzitzah B’peh, a “mohel” uses “his mouth to suck blood away from the baby’s circumcision wound as part of the circumcision ritual.” There is no other context in which society would ever countenance an adult placing his mouth on the sex organs of an infant or a child. Aside from the repulsive and bizarre fetishism centered around genitalia, this practice regularly leads to infection of herpes, HSV-1, and other diseases. A salient quote from a statement not from Stormfront or Andrew Anglin, but the New York City department of health reads as follows:

Public health experts have found that metzitzah b’peh can put babies at risk of getting a harmful virus called herpes simplex virus type 1 or HSV-1. Some of these babies became seriously ill. Some developed brain damage, and others have died. There is no proven way to eliminate the risk of HSV-1 infection from direct oral suctioning, though there are options to reduce the risk.

The written statement continues:

Many adults carry HSV-1 in their bodies. They may have no symptoms or only mild symptoms, such as cold sores. Unlike adults, babies are too young to fight the virus. When a baby gets the virus, they could have brain damage, develop a lifelong disability or, in some cases, die.

The establishment clause, at least as it has been interpreted, obliges American society to tolerate this. This among other tragic flaws in the revered document should dissuade irrational fetishism for the Constitution that is so typical of mainstream conservatism, as it reveals that much of it will have to be jettisoned if Europe and the West are ever to disabuse themselves of false gods like “religious tolerance.”                                                                            ◊

While shrill accusations of anti-Semitism are best met with the retort “yes, and?,” collective ire and scorn should not be directed solely on absurd and harmful Jewish practices. Certain Christian denominations—what some more mainstream denominations denounce as heretical sects—entertain absurd beliefs so very deserving of ridicule and censure as well. However, given the animus towards European peoples embraced by elite institutions, such ridicule either barely raises an eyebrow, or hardly receives any condemnation as religious intolerance or “bigotry,” as it invariably would when sharp criticism is lodged against other religious groups. So-called “young Earthers” are utterly preposterous in their assertions that the Earth is only 6-10,000 years old, and deserve some modicum of ridicule, as they receive by many segments of the left. The fossil and geological records soundly repudiate such childish musings. However, as Robert Heinlein explicates in Job: A Comedy of Justice, a mischievous creator could have fabricated these and other records as a sort of test, so their beliefs, as ridiculous and silly as they are, are not completely indefensible as the evidence disproving their beliefs do not quite transcend Cartesian doubt. Certain Christian sects that espouse flat earth theories should not be received so charitably, however, as the machinations of a supposed creator feigning the overwhelming evidence that the Earth is round would have to be far more elaborate than creating false fossil and geological records that could deceive man into thinking the Earth is millions of years old when it is in fact a few thousand years old, as hypothesized in Heinlein’s A Comedy of Justice.

So-called “Christian healing” and more particularly the belief in this practice leading to the refusal of vital or even life-saving care is another example that belies the wisdom of “religious tolerance.” Society has had a peculiar and decidedly disjointed reaction to religious objections to the provision of medical care by certain Christian sects, particularly Jehovah’s witnesses and Christian scientists. The case law and legislative history surrounding this controversy is long and complicated. Some parents with such beliefs have been convicted of manslaughter for not providing what would have been life-saving medical care to their children—at least 50 such cases—while others have been acquitted. The short article “Christian Scientists in the Courts” summarizes the legal status on this matter as follows:

[I]n 1974, the federal government granted the Church a religious exemption from child neglect and abuse laws, to prevent parents and practitioners from being charged. Within 10 years, all 50 states had passed similar religious exemptions. However, after many high-profile manslaughter cases in the 1980s and 1990s, several states decided to remove these laws. Still, as of 2016, 34 states continue to exempt Christian Science parents from liability for refusing to provide medical assistance to their children.

Public policy has arguably been less accommodating to such beliefs because of “overt hostility” that many mainstream Christian denominations regard these sects, but that seems limited to the context of parents who would deny their children life-saving or otherwise vital medical care. Adults subject to such delusions seem free to indulge them in ways society otherwise does not countenance. The new ethos of religious intolerance advocated in this essay dictates that society has been far too tolerant of these beliefs, which have directly led to sickness and even death unnecessarily. While not exactly mainstream, faith healing is not limited to Jehovah’s’ witnesses and Christian Science, but is practiced in certain instances of evangelism and Protestantism as well.

Questionable practices and beliefs that ought to be subject to far greater criticism and censure also include the requirement and expectation of donating some ten percent of a family’s net income. Martin Luther’s condemnation of the Catholic Church as a “churnery” seem equally applicable to such a money grab. This problem is particularly egregious in the context of so-called televangelists, such as Kenneth Copeland, who have amassed incredible wealth from what is nothing less than a scam. A list of the wealthiest televangelists demonstrates why this phenomenon should not be tolerated, even as both operative clauses of the First Amendment render both the state and society seemingly powerless to do anything about it:

• Kenneth Copeland between $350-700 million
• David Oyedepo $150 million
• Pat Robertson $100 million (mitigated to some extent by his sensible position concerning feminism)
• Joel Osteen $100 million
• Rick Warren $25 million
• Jesse Duplantis $20 million
• John Hagee $5 million (a preeminent Christian Zionist who tirelessly advocates for the end of the world)

Such scam artists are roundly criticized across many different political and ideological perspectives, but public policy, particularly given the establishment clause and its limitations on state power, would never consider going so far as to prohibit such exploitation under the guise of consumer protection or other legal rationales, which would be the proper remedy in any sane society.

So-called Christian Zionism is a particularly loathsome expression of the Christian faith, as its adherents blindly support Israel and do so as a catalyst to bring about “rapture,” that is Armageddon. What sane society tolerates advocacy for the end of the world? Such nuttery should at the very least be subject to what John Derbyshire calls “the smack of firm government” at the very least, the bare brunt of strongarm, jackboot, and even a little automatic weapons play at worst—or should one say at best?

Above, the family of Amy Coney Barrett, including two black adopted children.

Equally troubling as Christian Zionists who openly and shamelessly advocate for the end of the world, many expressions of Christianity seem particularly susceptible to the multi-cultural creed, with many evangelicals and Catholics going on missionaries to the third world, black Africa in particular. This has often led to tragedy. These same propensities lead a certain sort of Christian couple to adopt children outside of their race, particularly Asian and black children. Transracial adoption is objectionable for many reasons, not least of which is the “lost opportunity” for white orphans who need families. Beyond that, the adoption of children of different races presupposes that race is a trivial matter, that race really is just skin deep, that black children in particular are in effect interchangeable with white children. White Christian couples who do this are touting received orthodoxy that multiculturalism can and should work. Many of them do so to “virtue-signal,” to demonstrate what good, color-blind people they are. Others are doubtlessly indulging in “white guilt,” either to atone for the history of slavery, of colonialism, or some other imagined evil that whites are supposed to share collective guilt for. And just as race is part of identity and culture for whites, so is it for other races, and placing children of different races removes them from their race and their identity. Unfortunately, there are doubtlessly a dearth of suitable black families who want or are able to adopt, but that does not override these objections. Racially aware Christians object to such characterization of the Christian faith, but it seems incontestable that the thesis of Christianity, that each and every individual can be redeemed from his fallen state by accepting Jesus Christ as his lord and savior, is strikingly universalist at its core. This is tempered of course by the parable of the Tower of Babel and other select quotations from the bible. Both Amy Coney Barrett and house speaker Mike Johnson adopted black children as a direct and explicit extension of their Christian faith.

Speaker Mike Johnson, his wife, and their adopted black “son,” on the left. As the wife seems much more attractive than her husband, the couple might be befuddling to some who are not familiar with the Ned Flanders phenomenon. The couple might also remind those who watched Better Call Saul of Betsy Kettleman (pictured left, for the benefit of readers) and her doofus, milquetoast husband, Craig (insert). Concerning the Johnsons, there are dark murmurings on 4chan and another undisclosed platform suggesting a cuckold fetish (the “son” was adopted as a teenager, and has been in various legal entanglements). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, however, of which little has been produced to substantiate this particular claim.

Much of the ridicule of and contempt for Christianity in popular culture does not focus on absurd, ridiculous, or abjectly stupid practices, but stems from a blunt mean-spiritedness and contempt for any religious piety by Christians writ large. Compare and contrast Larry David’s observational humor on the absurdities of Orthodox Jewry and the contemptible, despicable behavior of secular Hollywood Jews with some of his more objectionable comedic efforts focused on the Christian faith. The most notorious example is the infamous episode in which he inadvertently urinates on a portrait of Jesus Christ that is (for some reason) hanging on the wall directly over the toilet. A Hispanic woman sees the drop of urine and interprets this as a divine sign, that Christ’s tears have materialized on the portrait through a divine act. The episode, which was met with significant controversy and even outrage, does take aim at certain Christian elements that see holy images in mundane things, often as a ploy for personal enrichment, but the plot nonetheless involves David, a Jew, urinating on a Christian symbol—namely a portrait of Christ himself. While his skewering of both religious and secular Jewry is laudable, as he also mocks certain elements in Islam, it is obvious neither he nor anyone would attempt observational humor that involves urinating on or otherwise desecrating Jewish or Muslim religious icons in such a brazen manner.

Islam provides an equally if not more “target rich” environment that invites rebuke and ridicule, and yet is rarely the subject of criticism or rebuke from any mainstream figures at all. Similar to abhorrent ritual slaughter practices mandated by kosher law, Islam imposes equally onerous requirements in how animals are slaughtered. Halal requires invoking the name of Allah before using a sharp knife to swiftly cut the throat of the livestock animal, before the animal’s blood is fully drained as the animal lies conscious while dying. This needless animal cruelty should simply not be tolerated, whether it stems from sincerely held religious belief or not.

This ethos of religious intolerance applies to many other Islamic practices as well. The prohibition of consuming pork might be acceptable for dietary considerations relating to health and physical training (lean pork is fine in moderation, providing protein and other nutrients), but should be met with abject hostility when stemming from absurd religious superstition, as it pertains to both Islam and Orthodox Judaism.

Prohibition of alcohol from religious superstition should also be mocked. Alcohol is a cornerstone of European culinary traditions and centuries old festivities, holidays, and other cultural customs cherished by the sons and daughters of Mother Europa. Abstention of alcohol should similarly be shunned, as religious groups that espouse this idea should be marginalized and stigmatized. Just as a person who insists on drinking O’Douls at a party serving beer and alcohol would be regarded as peculiar if not chastised outright, and just as a person invited for a drink at a rough and tumble Irish bar patroned by off-the-boat Irish would be met with derision and hostility for not having a drink with his fellow bar patrons, those who adhere to absolute abstention from alcohol are similarly an affront to European traditions and customs, particularly when such groups are part of alien and racial ethnic groups that do not belong in any case. That members of alien religions condemn a cornerstone of European culinary and social traditions further proves they do not belong and must not belong in The Occident.

The Islamic requirement to pray five times a day seems equally absurd in the fast-paced life of the modern world. As this is unfortunately a society where people are summarily fired for looking at a mobile phone while checking messages from friends and loved ones and that tolerates the ridiculous, demeaning conditions Amazon has imposed on its warehouse workers, why should that same society tolerate a religion in our midst that requires its adherents to pray five times a day? Why should this society allow employers to torment its employees with the sort of onerous, even mean-spirited policies enforced at Amazon fulfillment centers, but force an employer to accommodate such breaks for prayer? Devout Christians who would make a public display of praying at work would probably raise eyebrows, why not a religion that requires prayer several times a day, five times in fact, which would necessarily require two and possibly even three prayer sessions during working hours? There is after all work to be done, and time is money. That managerial ethos, whether one considers it onerous or reasonable, seemingly applies to anyone and everyone who works at a place of employment that abides by this creed, except for when Mohammad wants to pray during the work day. The best result would be labor standards that outlaw the sort of onerous conditions imposed on workers in Amazon warehouses and other places of employment, while still making no accommodations for the supposed need to pray five time a day. Those who absolutely, positively require such accommodation should remigrate to Islamic countries, as should they all in any case. A similar rationale applies to absurd accommodations of the Sabbath for Orthodox Jews. Those who balk at such considerations should consider how wall street and big-law firms impose grueling hours on their associates, sometimes with no day off at all in 60-80 and even as much as 100 hour work weeks, with no dispensation for what secular or non-religious people may regard as very important. Orthodox Jews however are granted every Saturday off, no questions asked.

The manner in which Islam segregates the sexes and imposes onerous dress requirements in women is equally antithetical to European civilization. While female emancipation has arguably, potentially gone too far, burdening women with a burka or even a hijab is barbaric, is not compatible with how women have been celebrated in European culture and civilization through the centuries, and should simply not be tolerated, whether or not such barbaric customs are only visited on their beastly women. Finally, rather than an object of ridicule or derision, what many reasonably interpret as the Islamic mandate and command to convert infidels to Islam or eradicate them further implores not religious tolerance, but the very opposite.                                                                           

There are other objections to the special status afforded to religious beliefs and practices, as that special status affords those who hold them special privileges and immunities not afforded others. Why should opposition to so-called gay marriage and transgenderism only be countenanced if stemming from “deeply held religious conviction?” As some may be aware, this author teeters between atheism and agnosticism, but a right-wing variant more prevalent in Europe and the European political schematic that understands and discerns the importance of “race, blood, and soil” as a first principle, and that articulates a right-wing populist and ethnonationalist worldview on a reasoned, secular basis. Indeed, this author has repudiated transgenderism, so-called gay marriage, and many other social ills on a secular, rational basis, using the faculties of reason and discernment to articulate why these phenomena are harmful and should not be tolerated. A rebuttal of transgender lunacy based on reason and logic—that men and women cannot change sex, that so-called gender affirming care provides a very poor imitation of the genuine article, that tolerating let alone condoning this mad delirium only serves to normalize it is a far more effective and convincing method of attacking this menace than appeals to religion and religious conviction ever could. And yet, under current First Amendment jurisprudence and the onerous body of so-called civil rights laws, a person like this author who correctly—righteously, even—decides to refuse to make a so-called “transgender cake” or refuses to rent out property for so-called gay weddings or even interracial marriages—would likely have no legally cognizable protection under the first amendment because these objections are rooted in reason and discernment, as such objections stem from secular reasoning, rather than religious conviction. Why should rejection of these evils, not based in religious belief, or what some may regard in some instances as religious superstition, but rooted in reason and discernment be taken far less seriously than such objections based in religious conviction alone? If society must cling to these absurd notions about pluralism, religious and otherwise, the standard should simply be “sincerely held belief and conviction,” not merely “sincerely held religious belief.”

Indeed, placing religious conviction in a special status largely immune from social criticism and deeming it the only legally cognizable defense against demands to “bake the cake, bigot” and “make that floral arrangement, bigot” create a sort of perverse incentive by which opponents to these and other evils resort only to religious objection, all too often without ever bothering to articulate substantive reasons why one objects to these and other affronts to decency and sanity: reasons rooted in intellect and logic. Despite this essay’s overt hostility to ridiculous, absurd, and harmful religious beliefs and practices—it must be stressed that such hostility is only directed at such religious beliefs and practices that are ridiculous, absurd, and harmful. Nothing in this essay should be construed in a way to diminish or belittle the religious conviction of men and women like Jack Phillips, owner of the famous Masterpiece Bake Shop that has been targeted by the rainbow mafia: LGBTQ-Yuck activists for many years. By all accounts his religious conviction is sincere, and devout, and persons such as himself are better for it. But why is the expression of opposition to baking a “transgender cake” only limited to such personal religious conviction? Why do he and other litigants thrown into the onerous legal process by malicious elements that seek to ruin him and everyone like him only express objection in terms of religious conviction, without articulating, as far as this author is aware, the secular reasons why someone ought to oppose transgender lunacy, or so-called gay marriage?

The line of cases surrounding compelled utterance and usage of fantastical, customizable pronouns that do not align with another’s actual sex and gender are also instructive. Most teachers and other similarly situated plaintiffs such as students and the parents of students have usually, with limited exceptions, asserted their claims on the basis of deeply held religious conviction. Most have not based such claims on a proper understanding of and passionate commitment to basic rules of grammar and scrupulous adherence to grammatical rules in accordance with biological reality.6

As stated, this normative value that discourages and shuns sharp criticism and even ridicule of preposterous, absurd, and even harmful religious beliefs, stems from the establishment clause of the First Amendment and the value of religious freedom underpinning it. Such beliefs and practices are disproportionately promulgated by religions which are intrinsically alien and hostile to Europe and the Occident and should have no place here. Consider perhaps that not everyone—or rather not every group—should be entitled to religious freedom. Certainly such “religious freedom” should not be afforded to an alien blood cult like Orthodox Judaism or Europe’s century-long adversary in Islam that subject livestock to cruel, barbaric slaughter practices. Nor should such indulgences be extended to the absurd ritual of circumcision, as Judaism writ large has not only held this procedure as intrinsic to Jewish identity, but has seemingly exported that abomination to the wider gentile population as a whole. Indeed, the establishment clause seems to be one of the first installations of pluralism as a normative value in Western civilization. The establishment clause led to Supreme Court decisions like Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993), which held that animal sacrifice rituals were protected under the First Amendment. The animal sacrifice in that case is practiced by what some might call a cult rather than a religion practiced by millions like Judaism and Islam. Defenders of such “religious liberty” argue the animals subject to sacrifice rituals at issue are killed quickly and humanely, just as Jewish and Islamic groups contend that halal and kosher methods of livestock slaughter are humane. One should be skeptical of such claims, and if laws in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States require the animal to be stunned before slaughter, no such exception should be allowed for religious purposes. Stated another way, none of this should be tolerated or countenanced in the slightest. Indeed, many of the laws for which various religious groups are granted blanket exceptions stem from moral convictions held by society at large. This is most readily evinced by laws requiring animal livestock to be stunned prior to slaughter: a moral conviction that unnecessary animal suffering is anathema. Those moral convictions are no less valid than concerns by these religious groups; indeed, they are far more valid and should take precedence in these and other contexts.

Pluralism is of course disastrous, as it balkanizes and fractures society by placing alien and disparate peoples with little in common under the same polity. In this author’s mind, the establishment clause and the underlying value of religious freedom is yet another feature of the Constitution that has been positively harmful to Europe and the West, this along with its failure to stymy the vice of pornography, the tragedy of the 14^th Amendment to be worded the way it is granting birthright citizenship to anchor babies when the intent was to simply confer citizenship to the offspring of emancipated slaves, along with a whole litany of other undesirable traits. Many will argue that this was not the intent of the Constitution, or, more precisely, the First Amendment’s mandate that “Congress shall make no law. . .. respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That may or may not be true, but it seems inevitable that such language would eventually become the same vehicle for pluralism regardless.

Some may balk at this, arguing in particular that protections like the establishment clause protect white Christians from persecution by their enemies. Others might object that “religious” freedom is a “human right,” even though the recognition of such “rights” is aberrational to the history of civilization and human nature itself. Such naïve musings fail to discern that such protections are only good until opposition has the political mandate and will to simply disregard such “inalienable rights” in the same way they have promulgated so-called hate speech laws and vying to exempt so-called “hate-speech” from First Amendment protection altogether. Beyond that, just as the proper response to the fear of an edged weapon being used against one’s self is to take up that edged weapon himself, these fears demonstrate the need to seize and wield such power, rather than shy away from it, foolishly hoping ideological enemies will reciprocate in kind.

Indeed, jettisoning these absurd sensibilities is the first step in defending Europe against third world invaders. Before full-scale, mass remigration can be implemented, revoke special religious privileges, such as accommodating multiple prayers a day and bizarre, barbaric animal ritual slaughter rituals. The revocation of such privileges not only bolsters public policy on a range of matters, from fostering a productive workplace environment, military procedures best suited to the inherently dangerous conditions of war and combat, to advancing moral convictions about animal cruelty and the obligation to slaughter livestock in as humane a manner as reasonably feasible. Furthermore, consider how historical events and figures like the Spanish Inquisition and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s7 drastic but necessary measures to protect Japan from European colonialism and other hostile, foreign incursion reveals the answer to many of the existential threats facing Europe and the West. These and other reactions were not characterized by such pluralism and tolerance, but the very antithesis of such mad delusion. This consideration alone demonstrates the necessity of exorcising the false god of religious tolerance.

Tolerance, pluralism, diversity and other such mantras are founded on a fundamental misapprehension of human nature, and Europe and the West will never defeat the existential threats at hand unless these mad delusions are dispensed with. And so it is with religious tolerance, both as a legal proscription and as a societal norm and value. The notion that absurd, ridiculous, harmful, and despicable beliefs and practices that would otherwise be objects of ridicule and chastisement are suddenly immune from strong criticism and rebuke only because they stem from religious belief (what some might call superstition) is a most absurd one. To the contrary, absurd, foolish, and morally repugnant beliefs and practices that do stem from such religious belief should be particularly open to such ridicule, chastisement, and even legal proscription. If a person cannot ridicule another for absurd, foolish, and destructive religious beliefs and practices, what can a person criticize or even ridicule another for?

Other articles and essays by Richard Parker are available at his publication, The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective, found at theravenscall.substack.com. Please consider subscribing on a free or paid basis, and to like and share as warranted. Readers can also find him on twitter, under the handle @astheravencalls.

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