Jamelle Bouie has some thoughts on atheists in Congress. Specifically: why there are none. The whole thing is worth a read, but I’ll just yank a sample section:

For an “unaffiliated” House candidate, the landscape is a little less harsh. Since nonbelievers tend to live in urban areas, it’s conceivable that an openly atheist candidate could find a large enough base to support a primary or general election run against more religious competitors. Even still, given the relatively small number of unaffiliated, this isn’t very likely.

I think this partially ignores– or forgets, or is ignores of– the mechanics of running for office. I don’t think Jamelle is wrong, but I think there’s something he fails to consider.

People don’t simply decide one day that they’d make a great politician. They see a problem, they talk about it, they fume about it, and eventually one of their friends and neighbors tells them to shut up and fix it already. But to get there, they need a network of friends and neighbors. Politicians are invariably the most connected members of their community. The major function of a religious organization? Connecting people. Churches are a major source of community building. Synagogues will hold singles mixers. Churches do charity dinners, and mosques will, um, do music nights*. Even most of the pagans and atheist I know will choose to get married in a Church (usually Universalists Unitarian) because the infrastructure is pre-existing.

It’s not that atheists and agnostics don’t have strong networks of friends, but campaigns- especially local ones- are won and lost by meeting people. If a church attender and a non-church attender square off for city council, the attender will have just a few more people to meet every week, one more avenue of attack, one more tie to the community. That adds up. And who tends to win congressional elections? People who hold local office. A small difference in community support can utterly demolish someone’s chance for higher office.

All of that, before we even mention the self-described anti-atheist bias of the American electorate.

*Yeah, I stretched that alliteration to the breaking point. Sorry.

I’ll admit that any two Jews will have three opinions, and that Jewish thought has more than one opinion on this subject, but stay with me.

The Gemara, from which a lot of Jewish law is derived, says that you may not set up a fishing net too close to another person’s fishing net, making all the fish that would have gone into the original person’s net fall into yours. And while Starbucks doesn’t sell fish, this story simply says, don’t compete for the same business in the same town. While a bunch of rabbis later came on to dispute this claim, others created rules on which competition is allowed including: you are forbidden to open a store at the entrance of a dead-end alley if a similar store is already located farther within. These rabbis consider such competition unfair business practices because passer-bys will walk in the first business, but not see the other one father in the alley.

In downtown San Francisco, there are two Starbucks across the street from one another. Elsewhere, I’ve heard rumors that Starbucks purposely sets up shop near local coffee shops because they know that’s a good location for coffee, and hope to take that business. Obviously, Starbucks is not living up to the high Jewish standards of fair business transactions.

And yet! The other rabbis that dispute these claims, they believe that all “local” competitors are unrestricted in their ability to open a rival business. In this global age, I’m not sure local is a word I understand any more, and maybe Starbucks’ bad coffee is a Jewish enterprise after all. Or maybe it isn’t. We’ll never really know, though. We thrive on lively debate of our religion and daily (coffee) practice.

Edit:
A friend of mine pointed out this article, which says mom and pop shops are often helped by Starbucks being near them. While this may be true, it still doesn’t make them a Jewish enterprise. Christian, maybe, since Christians believe in love and good will much more (or, rather, in a different way) than Jews. So maybe Starbucks is an accidentally Christian enterprise, but they still doesn’t wear a kippah on their heads.

1. Arming yourself with the Bible
A minister, whose white color reflected his holy status, found himself without a pad of paper and too shy to ask his neighbor. He was armed with a pen, the agenda, and – thank God – the Holy Bible. God must have surely intervened, for without the Bible backing, the inspiring and non-prescriptive words of our panel would be lost. The Bible served as a great tablet, even if his pen may have slipped a time or two.

2. Praying, technologically speaking
When the Bishop popped out his iPhone to check notes during his opening panel, I figured the poor man had been up all night, and couldn’t remember the basic facts of his organization. Generally a wonderful speaker, he was just shy of inarticulate that day. Yet, when the Rabbi led closing prayers from his iPhone, I realized this must be a growing trend with religious leaders. Check the weather, google naked girls, write a sermon, see if you have any e-mail. All within a day’s work. I knew that iPhones were amazing, but can they supply me with spiritual counseling, or absolve my sins? I’ll take one please!

3. A great place to meet a date
My San Francisco break-out group had 20 activists sitting in a circle, 18 of which were female. While some of them were taken out of the running because their religious oaths prohibits copulation, and others hand rings on their fingers, others you could say were “up for grab”. With so much networking going on, there were no unattached non-ministers to pick up on socially-conscious chicks. It wouldn’t have been considered out of place in a basement where so many business cards were already changing hands. Boys, all you got to do is show up!

The California GLBT movement is waiting. The California Supreme Court should hear oral arguments in late February sometime. Because they identified gay and lesbians as a “suspect class”, they need to look very closely at laws that concern this group of people and to make sure that they are above and beyond fair. This idea came from the civil rights era, and it will be interesting how the California Supreme Court sees the case.

In the meantime, I’m compiling a list of gay-friendly religious organizations and doing some work with them in the next few months. In the bay area alone, there are over 300 GLBT-friendly places of worship. While this makes my work significantly harder (you try individually addressing over 300 different religious leaders), I am thankful that my community is so welcoming. Even our local Catholic church marches in the gay pride parade.

Estimates vary, but between 13-17% of Californian Jews voted in favor of Proposition 8. The Jewish community is very largely in favor of GLBT rights, and I think that they will be a great resource and tool for fight that has already begun. Ironically, though, there is no marriage equality curriculum with a Jewish perspective. There is an “interfaith” training, but that really means it’s an educational curriculum with a Christian perspective, as many “interfaith” documents are.

Equality California is holding a Lobby Day on Tuesday, February 17. Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) have both proposed bills to overturn Proposition 8, SR 7 and HR 5 respectively. No matter what happens at the Supreme Court level, we need to maintain a civil rights movement. Discrimination is wrong, and discrimination can happen in other places than a courthouse. There are many laws that need to still come, and there are many laws that must be kept in place.

(P.S. The title of this is indeed a Buffy reference.)