http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/opinion/12494874.htm
Aug. 28, 2005
Religious right
Zealots are determined to create a theocracy
By Rhonda Chriss Lokeman
At this time in American history, there are considered to be two major
political parties:
Republicans and Democrats.
The former has been hostilely taken over by religious extremists.
The Radical Right has made mice of GOP moderates.
The moderates silently twitch their noses and watch the country creep
toward theocracy.
Similarly, religious zealots among the Democrats have divided and
conquered.
The party has become more ineffective than it ought to be as the
minority party in government.
Democrats and Republicans fear confronting the Radical Right because
it is well-organized.
While publicly preaching high morals, it also has proven capable of
using dirty tricks, character assassination and worse.
Democrats fear that to go against the Radical Right minority among
them is to risk losing the next election and what little power they
have.
Until Democrats realize these folks don’t fight fair, they will be the
nice guys who always finish last.
Neither party is able to do what’s best for the country while they are
distracted by these religious extremists.
The Radical Right keeps using religion as a wedge on almost every
issue: education, crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care,
energy and so on.
So long as the president is not a voice of reason during this
reformation, things will go from bad to worse.
What a waste of "political capital!"
This country is on the verge of a 21st century holy war.
Just as the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, so, too, does
it recognize the right to be free from religion.
The Radical Right wants prayer in public schools, but only Christian
prayers.
These extremists would scream bloody murder if Muslim schoolchildren
were to bow down and praise Allah or Jewish children were to lead
their classrooms in Hebrew prayers.
We are a nation of people who adhere to many faiths, including
Christianity.
But we are not a Christian nation.
But as far as the Radical Right is concerned, there is only one true
religion, orthodox Christianity.
These Christian soldiers are not marching as to war, they are at war.
Yet, their leaders contend that Christians are under siege.
This lie is spread by political allies in Congress as they attack
judges as "activist judges."
On the Radical Right’s enemy list is Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost
her son in the war in Iraq.
She and her supporters have camped out near the president’s ranch in
Crawford, Texas.
But the radicals can’t see her pain or get past her disagreement with
their spiritual leader, George W. Bush.
In another time, they might have burned Sheehan as a witch just to
shut her up.
The Radical Right pits mother against mother.
It hails Terri Schiavo’s mother, a Catholic, while condemning Sheehan,
also Catholic.
The disabled and deceased Schiavo became a symbol for the national
pro-life movement that had open support from Florida’s Republican
governor.
Sheehan’s son went from altar boy to casualty of war and then a symbol
for a national anti-war movement.
Sheehan uses the same symbolic crosses for her cause as have been used
for years throughout the country to represent unborn children lost to
abortions.
Can you recall anyone driving a truck over them, as happened with the
Crawford crosses?
The Radical Right won’t rest until they’ve converted -- or subverted
-- their enemies.
As a Catholic mother with children in religious schools, I find this
movement reprehensible and suspicious.
Do you really believe that the sudden interest Republicans have in
attracting black and Hispanic voters has to do with anything other
than religion?
Justice Sunday II was not about educating people about the judiciary.
It was a religious revival and fund raiser where Judge Roberts was
just a prop.
If churches continue to become political staging areas for extremist
movements, they should be taxed.
So what to do?
Allow them to subvert the Constitution and continue their bloodless
coup without a challenge?
No, we must urge them to form their own party.
Think of Greens and you think of the environment.
The zealots should call themselves Theocrats.
They should leave the Democrats and Republicans to fend for
themselves.
Such defections have happened before.
If a Theocrat like televangelist Pat Robertson calls for assassinating
a foreign dignitary, Republicans wouldn’t have to explain.
Let Theocrats adopt as their mascot a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
If the Theocratic Party succeeds, it will be through votes of the
people, through democracy, not deception.
Heaven knows, they’ve deceived us enough already.
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