© Merle Harton, Jr. | About | XML/RSS

Since leaving the New Orleans area, I have really been out of touch with the more disgraceful parts of life in Louisiana. Witness, for example, David Duke, who on April 15 entered the Federal Correctional Institution in Big Spring, Texas, to start a 15-month sentence after pleading guilty to charges of mail fraud and filing a false tax return. I just found out, too, that he had received an honorary doctorate from the Inter-Regional Academy of Personnel Management, a non-state higher education establishment in Ukraine. I remember the anguish I felt in the 1991 Louisiana governor's race, when he edged out incumbent Buddy Roemer and won a runoff spot against three-term former Gov. Edwin Edwards—imagine having to choose between a Nazi on the one hand and a corrupt career politician on the other. I won't tell you how I voted. Now they are both in prison: Edwards went to jail last year to serve 10 years for extorting riverboat casino applicants during and after his fourth term in office. Louisiana has a way of spawning such odd fellows.

My first encounter with David Duke was by way of a biographical newspaper article back in the 1980s. I thought it was interesting that he and I were close to the same age and that we had children with remarkably similar names; beyond that, though, there was nothing else we held in common. At some point, he left his home in Metairie and moved to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, to suburban Mandeville, where I was living. He liked Mandeville for its "demographics." He moved to the Beau Rivage subdivision; I was then living in the nearby Beau Chene subdivision. By that time it was pretty much common knowledge that Duke made a career of running for public office (any public office, in fact) and lived on the donations of his supporters—well, that and his speeches and books. I haven't read his book My Awakening, but then I also haven't yet read Mein Kampf either.

The trivia in all of this is that not long after he moved to Mandeville he started working out at my gym, Franco's Athletic Club, in Mandeville, and for a few weeks he kept the same weight-training schedule as me. He was tall, not really in great shape, very pale, and I honestly didn't see why women found him at all attractive. He was joined in his workouts by a beautiful, blonde, well-endowed, slim young woman that I mistook for his daughter. I mean, the difference in ages between the two of them was wide and it did not occur to me that she might be his girlfriend. It turns out that she was the twenty-something Christy Martin who would later turn him in to federal authorities (or so it is said).

People still ask me why I don't move back to Louisiana.

Now here's a way to get your own religion up and running absolutely free of charge—simply become an ordained member of the Spiritual Humanist clergy. Why give time and money to Scientology when you can do what L. Ron Hubbard did and just make up your own religion? Break away from the pack at the local Unitarian Universalist Church—hey, you don't even need a congregation to get this religion going! And what is this great new faith? Spiritual Humanism is a "religion based on the ability of human beings to solve the problems of society using logic and science." At last, reason, empirical science, and a process for solving all of our social ills finally come together in a religion that we can all agree on. Is that cool, or what? It's almost like a religion for a new Enlightenment. And the Church of Spiritual Humanism is set up as a 501(c)(3) non-profit religious organization.

Of course, you'll have to "check with state, country, and provincial authorities before performing ceremonies like marriages, etc.," but what the heck: ordination is for life, there are no hidden fees or costs, and all you have to do is piggyback onto Science for canonical doctrines (that is, if you choose to have any at all). Maybe you can be the leader of Daniel Dennett's recently renamed flock of brights. You certainly won't need to proselytize: you can easily take in followers merely by nabbing freshmen at the end of their first year of college.

You will need some of the common trappings of an organized faith—you know, ID card and ordination certificate—and if money is no object you can get all of these things.

In the Basic Clergy Pack (for $19.90 with S&H) you get a Deluxe Ordination Certificate, wallet ID card, a booklet about Spiritual Humanism, and one blank certificate, in case you officiate over a baby-naming, a marriage, or an "affirmation of love" ceremony. Oh, you also get some "Get Ordained Free" cards, so you can go on an ordination spree.

With the Advanced Clergy Pack (for $44.90) you get all of the above plus two more blank certificates, twice as many "Get Ordained Free" cards, the "Officiant's Manual, 2nd edition" and a Reference CD containing marriage laws of all 50 US states, the necessary files for printing your own ceremonial certificates, and 15 important humanist reference books.

The Deluxe Clergy Pack ($94.90) gets you all of this plus 5 more "Get Ordained Free" cards, 22 more blank certificates, and a "Letter of Good Standing" (in case your jurisdiction should question your status with the Church of Spiritual Humanism). The best part of this package, though, is that you get your choice of an "official church title." Choose from sixty-one (61) such neat names as Apostle of Humanity, Brahman, Druid, Swami, and Disciple; for a more traditional feel, you can be Chaplain, Deacon, Father, Friar, Minister, Monk, Priest or Priestess. If your taste is a little left field, you can go for Lama, Magus, Mystic, Patriarch (or Matriarch), and even Thanatologist. Perhaps you are more mainstream (or you really want to confuse people) and prefer to be known as Rabbi, Imam, Monsignor, Right Reverend, or Vicar. If this still doesn't feed your interest, you have 37 other titles to pick from. Personally, I think Magus trumps Right Reverend any day—but, hey, that's just me.

Lost in space with the lights off. Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett's July 12th New York Times Op-Ed piece, "The Bright Stuff," is a messed up effort to call attention to a new group created not just to find a wider home for atheists and nihilists, but also to give these ideologues a new, polished group identity. Just as the (derisive) term "gay" renamed the homosexual, so too do they expect the term "bright" to give some linguistic oomph to the stodgy terms usually applied to those with a naturalistic, nonsupernaturalistic world view. This is all set out in a new website www.the-brights.net, where a copy of Dennett's article is also reprinted.

While it is surely another issue entirely whether Humanists, Scientologists, Universalists, Darwinists, and others bent toward naturalism in all things that really matter will want to think of themselves as "brights" and eventually walk in "bright-pride" parades, Dennett's naive intent is to gather these people into a political force. Since brights, as he says, "disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life," it is simply not credible (i.e., incredible) that this group will be the cohesive social force he envisions.