| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fredric L. Rice" |
| Date: |
17 Apr 2005 05:48:51 PM |
| Object: |
Christian Right: GOP gets tagged as meddlesome party |
From The Quad City Times
http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?story_id=1049357&t=Opinion&c=22,1049357
GOP gets tagged as meddlesome party
By VIEWPOINT: Leonard Pitts
..
It was about 25 years ago that a magazine article first called to my
attention something called the Christian right.
The story depicted a movement of religious fundamentalists who sought
to radically restructure American life -- mandating school prayer,
creationism and censorship.
I remember thinking the article was a little alarmist.
..
Actually, it was prescient.
..
That realization crept over me much as Christian fundamentalism has
crept over American life: steadily.
The movement -- well-organized, well-funded and with true believer
zeal -- has made itself the primary ideological engine of the
Republican Party, climbing to power from school boards to state
legislatures to Congress to the White House.
..
And along the way, books were burned and banned.
Religion masquerading as science elbowed its way into classrooms.
Legislation requiring recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance became
law.
Pharmacists, citing religious objections, refused to fill
prescriptions for birth-control pills.
A lawmaker suggested unmarried pregnant women be prohibited from
teaching in schools.
So you will understand the sense of disconnect I felt upon the release
of a new Gallup Poll that suggests that people are a little concerned
about the power of the Christian right.
..
The proximate cause of this ripple of anxiety is the fight over
removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube.
Pollsters also found that Americans believe the GOP -- the party of
non-intrusive government -- is more likely than the folks across the
aisle to interfere in citizens’ private lives.
And 39 percent of us now say the religious right has too much
influence over the Bush administration; 18 percent believe it has too
little.
..
As USA Today points out, the new numbers represent a change from
previous polls in which roughly equal numbers thought conservative
Christians wielded too much power or too little.
Now "too much" leads "too little" by two to one.
..
I choose to believe it means people are beginning to have their doubts
about the new American theocracy.
Maybe they are looking at the theocracies of the Middle East and
Africa and asking if these are really models to which we should
aspire.
..
Yes this is, as the fundamentalists are fond of saying, a Christian
nation.
Thing is, it’s also a Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Hispanic and gay
nation.
..
The only way that works is if we inculcate respect for difference and,
more to the point, respect for the laws and customs that protect
difference.
The Schiavo case offered an up-close and unpretty look at the sort of
respect fundamentalists have for difference, in this case difference
of opinion.
And it wasn’t hard to imagine yourself in the position of Schiavo’s
husband, making a hard, painful and private decision no one should
ever be asked to make, only to find yourself intruded upon by an army
of religious zealots eager to substitute their judgment for yours.
And a government breaking its own rules to empower them.
..
So a few more of us are wondering, worrying and saying, Hey, wait a
minute.
I have just one question for them.
..
What took you so long?
---
http://www.ElmerFudd.US/ http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
http://PerkinsTragedy.org http://www.rightard.org/
"Bible scholar" is just a euphemism for "unemployed."
.
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