We’ve all read dystopian novels or watched movies or TV shows of dystopian worlds, or maybe even plays. We always read or saw them as though they were a part of another world. Something fantastical, that could never actually happen in our reality. Yet somehow, lately, it seems as though the governments, and all the bigots of the world (which, surprisingly – or unsurprisingly, a lot of them comprise said governments), have read or seen these works and are slowly applying them to our reality. And when something outside of those dystopian guidelines happens, it seems as though the whole world is beside themselves in outrage.
The separation of church and state was implemented in 1791 by the First Amendment of the Constitution. You’d think that, if in 1791, whether it was a half-assed decision or not since the U.S. is still ‘one nation under God’, we would be able to, in 2022, actually fulfill that separation of church and state and gain that independence from thoughts brought forth by religion rather than actual detached and objective logic. Of course, logic is a subjective thing, funnily enough, but what remains outside of that realm of subjectivity is human rights. Abortion, a person’s freedom in their sexuality, their gender, their studies and knowledge, that freedom to decide what one wants to do with their life and their body is a human right. And it seems as though, as the years go by, we are on a pendulum, and it’s swinging back to 1791, where segregation was still a thing (so interracial marriage was not allowed), where queer individuals were persecuted, and women were silenced into submission. We look at dystopian novels as nothing more than that, a novel; a story to be told to take you away from reality, but what happens when that dystopia and reality start to merge? Because that is exactly what is happening. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 talks about the withholding of knowledge, it’s happening; Handmaid’s Tale talks about the control of the masses, the stripping of women’s rights, the persecution of queer individuals, it’s also happening. All these things that we would not think would exist outside of the pages of novels and fantastical stories are jumping out of the page and becoming a part of our reality.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a classic dystopian novel that is almost always a requirement in high school English classes. One of its main points is the burning of books: how this affects a whole country and its culture and how the overzealous control of the government that legally enforced the burning of the books begets the ignorance that prevails in that fictional world. Admittedly, it is a work of fiction, but this has also happened in our world’s history, creating many of the plot holes that now exist, and yet, somehow, as Dr. Price points out in their work “Heather Has Too Many Mommies: Gay Children’s Books and the Christian Right Backlash”, in the 1990’s the government started freaking out because a lot of children’s books started including queer families in its plot, were based on them, and the Christian Right movements demanded action be taken against them. Children’s freaking books. They sought constitutional amendments to take these books out of rotation as to not create any grounds to contest the compulsory heterosexuality that’s been established in our societies. Very very tight vanilla reins to keep it in its suffocating position, to the extent that the Family Research institute said it would be “detrimental to children” (qtd. in Price) if they were raised by gay parents. It reminds of the ‘definition’ of marriage that these Christian Right activists held on to – and so the government did as well, for a bit at least – of marriage being the union of a ‘man and a woman’ because the Bible said so, even though marriage is, in essence, really just a legal agreement to pay less taxes rather than anything else – if you strip all the romantic shit out of it, of course. And even though there have been some strides made, like allowing gay marriage, now, it is as though we are regressing and those dystopian plot lines are domineering our everyday lives: since the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill and how several states have once again taken away the right of gay marriage and well, of course, let’s not forget about the overturning of Roe V. Wade. So just how in Ray Bradbury's dystopian universe had the burning of books, we have the Christian Right’s backlash against queer inclusive children’s books; Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill that has school systems wondering whether they should edit textbooks, teachers scared of the family pictures they have on their desks, wondering if they would get them in trouble and being required to forcibly ‘out’ a kid to their parents if they get even a whiff of queerness, and the banning of queer inclusive books from the public libraries; and the overturning of Roe V. Wade, taking away the personal choices from women about their bodies, and the backslide into disallowing gay marriages again. And so even though we don’t have the burning of books – yet, the level of control that governments, with the Christian right whispering in their ears, is inching closer and closer towards Bradbury’s dystopian universe.
Whatever happened to separation of church and state? Regardless of the lack of religion in Bradbury’s novel, the government presents itself as a sort of cult leader, and as my high school Psychology teacher once said, “The only real difference between a cult and a religion is that the religious leader is dead.” With that in mind, if you’ve ever seen or read Handmaid’s Tale, these new governmental developments in oppression and the enforcing of these mandates (that seem, a little, if not too much like church-friendly ideals) will seem mighty familiar. If you haven’t, in essence, Handmaid’s Tale is this extremely fucked up dystopian reality where, because of global warming and the harmful shit in our food and environemt, etc., most people are now infertile or bear stillborn or diseased children. And so, with the concern that the human race will die off, they rename the U.S.A., Gilead, where fertile women become handmaids, A.K.A. women that live with infertile couples to be raped every month in the hopes that they’ll bear children for these couples. Once they do, they are passed on to another couple that needs children and forced to leave their kids behind. Yes, this is an extreme possibility in its openly public and widespread acceptance and practice of it (since it is based on things that have actually happened, primarily to people of color and poor women), but with all the backstory that is given in this dystopia, it also begins with the overturning of Roe V. Wade, with the hatred towards difference and queer communities, the complete merge of church and state, and many other things that are now happening or in the process of happening.
According to Impact, a news account on Instagram, “1 in 7 hospital beds are now controlled by the Catholic Church,” in which they threaten reproductive rights as they deemed “a number of reproductive rights procedures ‘immoral’ including: vasectomies, postpartum tubal ligations, other forms of sterilization contraceptives, abortion, treatment options during miscarriages, treatment options during ectopic pregnancies.” It’s come to the point where about 4 out of the U.S.’s 10 largest health systems are now Catholic (Instagram: Impact). It is as though we are regressing back to the 1800’s, where the separation of church and state was in name only. If someone chooses to pray to God when they get the flu instead of getting antibiotics or whatever the hell else doctors prescribe for the flu, then that is their own choice, but that choice should not be taken away. And with pregnancy, it’s the same thing; with experiencing gender dysphoria, it’s the same thing. If someone has an unwanted pregnancy or has a pregnancy that risks their life, they should have a choice between praying the kid cells will go away and not risk their life, or that they’ll survive the birth, or going to a hospital to take a medical route for their choice. If someone is born with a certain anatomical part but feels as though they identify with a gender outside of their assigned one, they should be able to have the choice of pursuing a medical solution or a spiritual one or whatever other choice/decision they want. Churches and religions cannot be telling you what to do or what not to do with your body, whether you adhere to said religion or not, nor can the government, because at the end of the day, it’s your body and no one else’s. If you want to go to a Catholic hospital, then go to a Catholic hospital, but you should have the choice of whether going to a religiously affiliated medical practice or a secular one.
The fact of the matter is that with the recent developments of public outrage when a gay character appears in a cartoon movie or show for T-minus 3 seconds or children’s books with gay characters, Florida’s implementation of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the push for gay marriage to be banned once again and interracial marriage added there in the fine print as well, the overturning of Roe V. Wade, the Catholic church system taking over hospitals around the country, it seems as though these dystopian novels are slowly coming to pass. It is as if the governments around the world read or saw these dystopian works and made a “How-To” on how to slowly get there while setting the world ablaze. Because if you really think about it, all these things that have deemed to be wrong, abortions, queerness, the abolition or deviation from gender roles, have been done so because religions have deemed them deviations from the norm. For example, in the Middle East, women have been continuously killed and/or tortured for merely disobeying their husbands or refusing to wear their hijabs, because their religion said that they had to. All these pervasive ideas within the far right that seem to be jumping out of the ‘Old Testament’ and into our current society, turning our reality into far scarier versions of those dystopian novels seem to stem from religious ideals. At this point, the separation of church and state seems to be becoming nothing more than our society’s wet dream. Tomatoes to those pulling the strings in enforcing people’s oppression. Tomatoes x10.
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