http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The Crisis of Faith
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Published: December 7, 2007
Mitt Romney obviously felt he had no choice but to give a speech
yesterday on his Mormon faith. Even by the low standards of this
campaign, it was a distressing moment and just what the nation’s
founders wanted to head off with the immortal words of the First
Amendment: A presidential candidate cowed into defending his way of
worshiping God by a powerful minority determined to impose its
religious tenets as a test for holding public office.
Mr. Romney spoke with an evident passion about the hunger for
religious freedom that defined the birth of the nation. He said
several times that his faith informs his life, but he would not impose
it on the Oval Office.
Still, there was no escaping the reality of the moment. Mr. Romney was
not there to defend freedom of religion, or to champion the
indisputable notion that belief in God and religious observance are
longstanding parts of American life. He was trying to persuade
Christian fundamentalists in the Republican Party, who do want to
impose their faith on the Oval Office, that he is sufficiently
Christian for them to support his bid for the Republican nomination.
No matter how dignified he looked, and how many times he quoted the
founding fathers, he could not disguise that sad fact.
Mr. Romney tried to cloak himself in the memory of John F. Kennedy,
who had to defend his Catholicism in the 1960 campaign. But Mr.
Kennedy had the moral courage to do so in front of an audience of
Southern Baptist leaders and to declare: “I believe in an America
where the separation of church and state is absolute.”
Mr. Romney did not even come close to that in his speech, at the
George Bush Presidential Library in Texas, before a carefully selected
crowd. And in his speech, he courted the most religiously intolerant
sector of American political life by buying into the myths at the
heart of the “cultural war,” so eagerly embraced by the extreme right.
Mr. Romney filled his speech with the first myth — that the nation’s
founders, rather than seeking to protect all faiths, sought to imbue
the United States with Christian orthodoxy. He cited the Declaration
of Independence’s reference to “the creator” endowing all men with
unalienable rights and the founders’ proclaiming not just their belief
in God, but their belief that God’s hand guided the American
revolutionaries.
Mr. Romney dragged out the old chestnuts about “In God We Trust” on
the nation’s currency, and the inclusion of “under God” in the Pledge
of Allegiance — conveniently omitting that those weren’t the founders’
handiwork, but were adopted in the 1950s at the height of McCarthyism.
He managed to find a few quotes from John Adams to support his
argument about America’s Christian foundation, but overlooked George
Washington’s letter of reassurance to the Jews in Newport, R.I., that
they would be full members of the new nation.
He didn’t mention Thomas Jefferson, who said he wanted to be
remembered for writing the Declaration of Independence, founding the
University of Virginia and drafting the first American law — a
Virginia statute — guaranteeing religious freedom. In his book,
“American Gospel,” Jon Meacham quotes James Madison as saying that law
was “meant to comprehend, with the mantle of its protection, the Jew
and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and
infidel of every denomination.”
The founders were indeed religious men, as Mr. Romney said. But they
understood the difference between celebrating religious faith as a
virtue, and imposing a particular doctrine, or even religion in
general, on everyone. As Mr. Meacham put it, they knew that “many if
not most believed, yet none must.”
The other myth permeating the debate over religion is that it is a
dispute between those who believe religion has a place in public life
and those who advocate, as Mr. Romney put it, “the elimination of
religion from the public square.” That same nonsense is trotted out
every time a court rules that the Ten Commandments may not be
displayed in a government building.
We believe democracy cannot exist without separation of church and
state, not that public displays of faith are anathema. We believe, as
did the founding fathers, that no specific religion should be elevated
above all others by the government.
The authors of the Constitution knew that requiring specific
declarations of religious belief (like Mr. Romney saying he believes
Jesus was the son of God) is a step toward imposing that belief on all
Americans. That is why they wrote in Article VI that “no religious
test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public
trust under the United States.”
And yet, religious testing has gained strength in the last few
elections. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, has made it the
cornerstone of his campaign. John McCain, another Republican who
struggles to win over the religious right, calls America “a Christian
nation.”
CNN, shockingly, required the candidates at the recent Republican
debate to answer a videotaped question from a voter holding a
Christian edition of the Bible, who said: “How you answer this
question will tell us everything we need to know about you. Do you
believe every word of this book? Specifically, this book that I am
holding in my hand, do you believe this book?”
The nation’s founders knew the answer to that question says nothing
about a candidate’s fitness for office. It’s tragic to see it being
asked at a time when Americans need a president who will tell the
truth, lead with conviction and restore the nation’s moral standing,
not one who happens to attend a particular church.
--
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government
talking
about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order.
Nothing has
changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,
we're
talking about getting a court order before we do so"
-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004
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http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8827 (From Yang, AthD (h.c)
"I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has
become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years
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are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious
thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their
misfortune.
I’m registering Independent tomorrow."
Putsch: leading America to asymetric warfare since 2001
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