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"God" is Starting to Scare Me!
by Jack Ballinger
www.dissidentvoice.org
March 11, 2004
"At this point, I don't
even think of evangelicals or Christian conservatives as being a segment of
the Republican Party," Bauer said. "They are the Republican Party."
-- Former Representative Gary Bauer, on how President Bush must tend to the needs of religious conservatives to get re-elected this November. Newhouse News, Sunday, March 2, 2004
I've just read The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party, a public information project from TheocracyWatch.org.Adding the info in that report to what one finds in the mainstream media every day and you begin to realize how scary the new "American God" can be.
If those people with sincere and passionate religious beliefs who ALSO believe in a secular government don't start speaking up, these nuts are going to turn America into a Uber-Christian, intolerant and ignorant theocracy that would make the 1970's Iran look like an epitome of religious tolerance and ecumenical understanding.
In my half-century+, I've watched a lot of terminology turned on its head.
“Compassionate Conservative” means you hate the elderly, poor and disabled.
“Democrat” means you are too soft to lead a Nation at "war", even though every major war in the past 60 years were led by Democrats, with the sole exception of Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq. (The Republicans seem to think Franklin Roosevelt was in the GOP?)
“Pro-Life” can mean you choose the life of a single cell over that of the mother.
“Veterans” automatically don't know as much about war as those who hid from it.
“Scientists” are almost automatically pagans.
If you've worked faithfully for decades, but are now unemployed, it's your fault and certainly not that of the corporation that, after hiding its profits in a tax haven offshore, has now "outsourced" your job to a child in Bangladesh.
And the list can go on and on.
But more recently, the rhetoric has reached the point where if you are not a rabid, right-wing Republican, you seem to have no right to claim a religion at all. If you are a Catholic, or your religion is not based on Christ at all, such as a Muslim or Jew, Buddhist or Hindi, the fundamentalist Christians will seek your support, for now. But, without even getting into the horrors that they hope await you in the “Rapture”, I wouldn't want to be a non-Christian or a Catholic American in a decade or two, if the Pat Robinson's and Jerry Falwells have their way. Oh, and don’t believe that if you’re a Protestant you are going to be given a pass into their fanatic’s Heaven, because Pat Robinson will quickly disabuse you of that notion. "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists, and this and that and the other thing. Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist." (Pat Robertson, The Most Dangerous Man in America? Rob Boston, see: http://www.4religious-right.info/
Another voice snidely disparaging Liberals on religion, this time in the discussion of Gibson’s “Passion”, is William Murchison, writing in a column for the Dallas News.
I have a theory. It is that, from a 21st-century, U.S.-liberal standpoint, the kind of people who would go to such a movie – who, worse, would like it – aren't the kind you find working for anti-smoking ordinances and gun control. They probably wear fur and eat steak; favor school choice; vacation in Branson, Mo., instead of San Francisco; haven't rushed to judgment on Iraq; respect soldiers and religious leaders; regard church as the place to be on Sunday. And, perhaps worst of all, large numbers respect and, come November, might vote for that guy in the White House who called Jesus his favorite philosopher.
(Myrna Estep, Ph.D. pointed out the fault with that argument, so well, in her letter to the editor of The Dallas Morning News, in response to Mr. Murchison's column : "From all that is known of the historical Jesus, he was not a rich, meat-eating, smoking, drinking, tough, macho-posturing white male from Texas.")
If you do claim to be a Christian, these uber-Christians say you MUST be in favor of Bush's policies, including those harmful to the least amongst us. If not, you are (and may God have mercy on your soul) a *&^%$#@ LIBERAL!
It’s time, folks. Time for people to speak up. You can take back your government, your religion and America's place in the communion of nations.
And it can be quite simple to win the fight. Just use the ballot box to battle those who use religion as a business tool, with which to take control of the Corporation called "The United States."
Come November, VOTE!
Vote as though all you hold Holy depended on it.
Because, it just might!
Jack Ballinger is a Vietnam Veteran, with a Bronze Star, 2 Air Medals, a Combat Infantryman’s Badge (CIB) and a bunch of other pretty military ribbons. “I was Honorably Discharged in 1971. Both of my grandfathers fought in WWI, and both my father and my father-in-law were Marines in WWII.” He can be contacted at: NYCHASpotlight@netscape.net
Other Articles by Jack Ballinger
*
Turning the World Wide Web Into a Tower of Politically Sanitized Babel
*
All Part of the Plan
*
War Isn't Hell. Hell is for Those Who Send
Their Children to Fight Unnecessary Wars
* Freedom!
* Searching for the Breach in Alice’s Looking Glass World