It’s been a long week. Seems like every time I turn around, some fool or another is getting into a new form of trouble, and dragging the good Lord’s name down into the mud with him.
First it’s the Nuclear Option. Then it’s Pat Robertson being his typical assy self by saying that federal judges are a bigger threat to America than al Qaeda. Then it’s Focus on the Family and the “ex-gay” movement. Then it’s ABC discriminating against my own United Church of Christ. Then it’s the Nuclear Option again. And Kansas. And North Carolina…
I’ve got so much religion & politics news on my brain I’m starting to get dizzy. What the fuck is going on in my country?
Well, for one, we’re drawing ever closer to the showdown on Capitol Hill over judicial nominations. Combine that with a pervasive sense on the Christian right that they won the election for W.–yet have little to show for it–and it begins to be clear that the leaders of the religious right feel a need to draw a line in the sand.
They got hosed by the executive and legislative branches on the Schiavo case, big time. They’re looking at an upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court, a bit nervously. This is the time to cash in whatever chips they may have accumulated, and try to guarantee a good outcome for their number one priority: a neutralized judiciary.
So it’s crunch time. No wonder things are starting to run a little hot.
But you know what? We’re going to fight back. In fact, some of us have already started. Check that link out: it’s a project that about eight Kosmonkeys, including myself and Fredrick Clarkson, have taken on. It’s meant to serve as a clearinghouse for information on the continuing battle against theocracy in our nation. It’s going to be good stuff, especially when we get Scoop up and running.
So take a long, deep breath, and say TGIF. Pat Robertson’s an ass, a joke. Send a letter to the network, asking why they bother to interview him, what with the credibility problem and all.
The expulsion of Democratic members of a Baptist church in North Carolina? A blip, nothing more than a flash in the pan.
ABC shilling for Focus on the Family? It’s irritating, but somehow I think my church will live. And if I don’t have confidence that it will, if I think that Mickey Fucking Mouse is going to take down my faith, well then, it’s not a very deep faith, now is it?
The battles over evolution in Kansas? That’s a little more serious, but we’ve fought–and won–this battle before, and I have every confidence that we will again. That doesn’t mean we should let our guard down. Of course we shouldn’t. But sanity has prevailed once before, and I’m confident that it will again.
The meshegas with the judiciary? That’s more serious still. But you know what? We’re going to win that battle. Bush and Frist simply cannot take on war, tax cuts, Social Security strangling, John Bolton, and a divisive SCOTUS nomination in the same year. What the hell you think Karl Rove’s stomach is made out of, titanium? Besides which, after Schiavo, the public is on the alert. They’re in no mood for getting too far out on a judicial limb.
All of which is to say the rumble’s coming, but not tonight, and when it does, we’ll be ready for it. So trollrate me for being a Pollyanna. I don’t care.
And here’s the cookies (because I know you came for the cookies): even if none of what I’ve said so far is true, we’re still going to make it.
Why? Because a church that has to cast out members in the political minority is not growing stronger. It’s growing weaker. It’s a community that just set off a bomb inside itself, and the damage has just begun.
A political organization that has to go to the lengths the Republicans have to try to get their agenda passed–lying, distortion, manipulation, cheap charges of victimization–is not growing stronger. It’s growing weaker. It’s a party that’s significantly overreached again and again, and the damage has just begun.
A religious movement that has to resort to divisive rhetoric to attempt to influence the society around it is not growing stronger. It’s growing weaker, and more afraid. It’s a faith that has lost the Spirit, and the damage has just begun.
And even if all that weren’t true, I still have, erm, faith that we will still win these battles.
Why?
Because we have the power of love on our side. Here’s a classic example, from the Talk To Action site. We don’t need to call names to win our fights. We don’t need to call some people in and some people out. We don’t need to change the rules halfway through the game.
Where there is hatred, we can bring love;
where there is hurt, we can bring forgiveness;
where there is cynicism, we can bring confidence;
where there is despair, we can bring hope;
where theres is darkness, we can bring light.
Fred Clarkson asked me in this thread if it was possible to rumble with cookies. To which I respond: brbhchgh.
In other words: you bet it is.
It’s all good.
Pastordan, we of lesser faith are relying on progressive Christians like yourself to call out these Pharisees. When “Godless liberals” point out their hypocrisy, the fundies circle the wagons and claim that they are being attacked. When you do it, however (such as pointing out that their acts are totally the opposite of the teachings of Christ), the fundies must look inward. That’s when the Truth hurts them.
Christians have been through this before. Religious self-righteousness is just another form of hubris, and the Greeks discovered that hubris leads to downfall even before Christ was born.
There are a lot of progressive, tolerant Christians out there–probably more than the Fundamentalist, self-righteous, brain-dead type–and we need every one of them on our side.
Liberal Christians must realize that non-Christian liberals are not against them. Matter of fact, we stand by their right to worship their God as they please with the same enthusiasm that we stand by any other unalienable human right defined in the Constitution.
Our patriotism demands that we support you, even if we don’t necessarily believe exactly as you.
And the NERVE of those fuckers to claim that our American values must be couched in their narrow belief system!
My ancestors fought in the Revolutionary war. Most of them were God-fearing Christians, but I’m sure that, if they were to rise from their graves, they would be right with us, fighting the good fight.
May your God bless you.
As always, your support keeps me going.
But never forget: you have the power.
You’re talking with your mouth full of cookie, aren’t you.
I love this:
“Where there is hatred, we can bring love;”
I was just reading a report that Canada is ending troops to Sudan. Now there’s a country with its priorities in place. I hope we can emulate them, and we can begin by asking our country to do something positive like that too.
You and Fredrick and others are at work. Welshman is pushing his plan. There’s a lot of great energy coming from people like you.
Then, the other night, Don Cheadle was on Charlie Rose’s show. Cheadle said that it was he and his people who went to Nightline and got them to come to Darfur and Chad with them … Nightline ended up doing two shows on the tour that included several members of Congress. (I’d assumed it was the other way around.)
Don Cheadle, movie actor, goes to Nightline and gets them to do a news story. Far out.
then Cheadle challenged Charlie Rose to come with him when he goes back to Sudan. Charlie agreed. Don pushed him. Charlie insisted, “Yes, I’ll DO IT!” It was so cool.
I think the Canadian and Cheadle examples are critical because our country is immersed in so much negativity and the carnage going on in Iraq that we need a fresh emphasis on the right priorities. (I hope that makes sense. Am tired.)
We have so many great people in this country who want to do good, and are.
every day exceeds the level of my being appalled and outraged from the day before… and it’s been this way since the florida debacle in 2000… every day i say, “how much worse can it get?” and the next day, sure enough, it gets worse…
Sorry, I’m going to hate the bastards right now, and sharpen my pitchfork..uh…pencil.
Southern Environment Law Center
May 5, 2005
US Forest Service slashes protection for “roadless” national forests
Move would threaten ¾ million acres in Southern Appalachians
LTE tool Please write one.
I am going to the woods till Monday. I might feel better after.
I take ’em when I can get ’em.
Went to meet with some of my students tonight at a bar (semester’s over, we can party now). Most are very liberal and there were several political rants. One student, though, joined us and said, now I’m a Republican . . . .
I said, you guys have work to do. You need to take your party back. I want to be able to have an honest disagreement with Republicans like you, to be able to talk rationally with each other. Instead we’re all caught up with things like the Schiavo media circus and the attacks on judges.
She said, you know, since the election there have been a lot of things . . . well, I’m just starting to wonder.
Small sign maybe, but like I said, I’ll take what I can get.
bring the noise Dan!
Hmmn. I need some milk for these cookies. Mrghhmbf.
I read the Court’s opinion in the Maryland Sex Education Case, granting a Temporary Restraining Order blocking the proposed gay friendly sex education curriculum in Montgomery County Public Schools. The ruling is based primarily upon the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and affirms separation of Church and State, and cites Everson for the proposition that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment “was intended to erect a wall of separation between Church and State.”
Unfortunately the proposed curriculum cited several moderate or liberal denominations (i.e., Unitarian Universalists and Quakers) with approval and castigated fundamentalists and Baptists in addressing the question of whether homosexuality is a sin. Consequently, teaching it as presented in public schools would amount to an Establishment of the preferred sects.
I do not fully agree with the Court’s free speech analysis, but it was not the gravamen of his ruling. Basically, he said he wanted to hear more on the issue. I think he was most concerned that in addressing whether homosexuality is a sin the curriculum opened a door but only allowed one viewpoint through.
You can access the opinion here, http://www.mcpscurriculum.com/May5doc-2.pdf
It is truly odd to see Falwell and his ilk arguing an Establishment Clause case when they are claiming on other fronts that there is no separation of Church and State. They had to rely on the “school prayer” line of cases. Of course they do not mention that in any of the press stories covering the ruling where they are crowing about their victory. No victory could be more Pyrrhic.
The Court also expressly rejected the Plaintiff’s arguments that allowing the proposed curriculum would lead to increased homosexual sex and that homosexual sexual activity is more dangerous than heterosexual activity, noting that “the harm that Plaintiffs posit is highly speculative and attenuated.”
The curriculum ought to be redrafted to be neutral on religion, and not to favor the denominations cited affirmatively in it.
This is not only a Christian issue. Ask anybody who has tried to talk about this subject to devout Muslims, Hindus, what you got?
The processes of human reproduction, sexual preference, transmission of disease organisms are hardline extremists in their absolute refusal to consider religious faith of individuals in their biochemical activities.
The only way to crush this insurgency is to teach the scientific aspects of sexuality without benefit of religious context, fight fire with fire, as it were.
Moral and ethical values related to sexuality can be taught in the home in covert operations, where the sperm can’t hear and disrupt.
War needs religion to thrive. Always has, always will.
If I can convince you that your God wants you to give me your son and your gold so that I may go forth and conquer the kingdom across the river, my chances of success are good. Much better than they would be if I explained that the kingdom across the hill has big chests of jewels, which I would like to have for myself.
I am sorry to say I think the North Carolina church will prove to be something of a Fort Sumter.
While the coming domestic conflict will be more about ethnicity and economics than religion, there will be a strong religious component as well, and there is no guarantee that the economic split will trump its comrades in causus.
To refer again to the previous US domestic hostilities, poor white men fought for the rights of their wealthy white oppressors to remain wealthy and in a position to oppress them.
Love will be in increasingly short supply, and all that you can manage to stockpile will be needed.
Why or why does the MSM continue to have assholes like Robertson, Dobson and Falwell on as ‘decent’ people yet Michael Moore is almost banned from the media and considered too radical? I don’t recall him ever promoting hate.
It’s seems rather laughable that the so called pastor from the church in N.C. said his decision wasn’t political…excuse me all to hell but what exactly would you call it then? And is the IRS going to revoke this yahoo’s tax exempt status or even investigate this church in that context? Any bets on this?
As someone upthread mentioned there is only so much I can do to be taken seriously as I am non-religious. This immediately makes me suspect and attributes all kinds of stupid ideas to motives on my part. So to deflect the whole whacked out fake religious right the fight to be taken seriously by the public will have to have the face of all progressive religious people including people who are religious just not christians.
I think in a way you’re right pastordan in that the more outrageous people like the N.C. pastor become the more this means that in a rather convoluted way they are going to lose by trying to force THEIR puritanical, theocratic mindset on the whole country.
I think the only silver lining(can’t believe I’m writing silver lining in context with bush) in bush being president is that is has rather unleashed all the crazies(religious and otherwise) to come out of hiding. They will become more and more demanding and strident so that hopefully the public will finally realize how dangerous these people our to the country…and how undermining this is to our Constitution and religious freedom.