Theocracy Watch

You just know an article that bandies about the word theocracy in the title is going to be a real treat.

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.

Free from religion is usually a code word meaning to be free from others with religious views. That you can be religious all you want just don’t express it publicly or let your life be informed by it. And of course she offers no evidence or even antidotes for how the "radical right" is doing this. The movement of asking for prayer in school has been concentrated on allowing kids to be able to do silent prayers or a moment of reflection. Not to lead the class in a specific prayer. I would guess off hand that a moment of reflection would be easily amendable to Christians, Muslims, and Jewish children. Of course the bumper sticker joke is that as long as there are tests in schools there will also be prayers in school.

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.

Aren’t the Jewish so-called neocons part of the religious right? Besides a recent study said that 85 percent of americans identified themselves as Christians you might think that would would somewhat support the label even if those same 85 percent don’t exactly always live a Christian life. Even those on the religious left believe there is only one true religion – the one that they hold. Though I don’t quite understand the snipe at "orthodox Christianity" since orthodox means right doctrine.

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.

This paragraph occurs only a few lines after she says the "Radical Right" engages in "character assassination." You can be sure that whenever you see this phrase you will then see some good examples of character assassination committed by the same author.

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.

Now which way is it. The left attacked supporters of Terri for publicizing a mother’ grief and at the same time say that this one mother’s grief should be very public. Exactly who are the members of the religious right condemning Cindy Sheehan? Sure people have criticized the media circus that eschewed or some of the anti-Semetic and silly statements that she has made, but who exactly has condemned her or her right to protest the war? Every commentator I have read or heard makes the distinctions between condemning Cindy Sheehan and some of the ideas she has expressed. I do remember thinking it was pretty funny when Maureen Dowd said that Mrs. Sheehan had "absolute moral authority." Who knew that Maureen Down believed in absolutes, much less in connection with morals. It does make me wonder if two mother’s who have both lost a son in Iraq, but have opposing views on the war, which one’s moral authority is more absolute? There was a time when the words Cindy and Crawford used together brought to mind a super model and not an exploitive media event taking advantage of a grieving mother.

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 idiot that did that did that was not defended by anybody I am aware of. Though since she asks if I can remember similar events, why yes I can and you would think a reporter with Lexus-Nexus access would be able to determine that memorials to the unborn have been desecrated many times across the country. In fact earlier this year not just one idiot with a pickup truck but multiple vandals damaged 3,000 to 4,000 crosses at LSU. This same thing happened in my own diocese where crosses dedicated to the unborn were destroyed at the site of the first Mass in America. Pro-life displays have been ripped-up or destroyed time and time again all over the country. So yes I can recall the same and worse happening.

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?

I should have know that the writer would turn out to be a Catholic, but yes I do believe that the motives are other than just religion. Just from a purely pragmatic motive it is done to receive a larger number of votes. The fact that some blacks and Hispanics are feeling alienated by the Democratic Party just makes it easier for the Republicans to attract them. The study from the Pew Research Center released today said that only 29% of respondents view the Democrats as religion-friendly, down from 40% just a year ago.

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 Theocrat’s. They should leave the Democrats and Republicans to fend for themselves. Such defections have happened before. (See Whigs).

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.

I really remember the rousing cry of defense for Pat Robertson in the conservative blogosphere, well actually he was pretty much slammed just like almost every time he opens his mouth and says something stupid (though maybe that is repetitive). Though Pat Robertson is not the right’s Michael Moore. He is more like the nutty grandfather that might be part of your family, you just kind of put up with him. Michael Moore gets to sit next to President Carter at the Democratic Convention and his nutty conspiracy theories are almost never condemned by the left. Of course when Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the assassination of Saddam Hussien in 1997 I also don’t remember the liberal media outcry. that

Anyway the whole idea of the religious right wanting to establish a theocracy is just so much conspiracy hot air more appropriate to wearers of hats made by Alcoa. What do you get when you put 20 Christians in a room? Disagreement. One of the last things Christians would ever want is a theocracy. We can’t even agree if it is permissible to baptize babies yet we are all going to get together to impose a theocracy? We are just doing all we can to keep from having and atheocracy imposed where only secular-humanism is endorsed by the state and religious faith must be kept private.