All in the Family

All in the Family
http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/558/1/89/
[excerpt]

Liberty Magazine - Silver Spring,MD,USA

Behind closed doors at a Religious Right strategy session in Washington,
D.C., last spring, James Dobson sounded more like a hardball political
operator than a Christian family counselor. Impatient with President George
W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders for failing to move quickly
enough on the Religious Right’s agenda, Dobson issued a pointed directive.
“We voted for them,” said Dobson, “and now they need to get on with it.”

Demanding action on the confirmation of judges and a range of other
legislative and policy concerns, he added, “We only have about 18 months to
get this done, because after that George Bush will be a lame duck
president. And we’ll be in a new election cycle, and he’s not going to have
the power that he does now…. If we let that 18 months get away from us—and
then maybe we’ve got Hillary [Clinton] to deal with, or who knows what—we
absolutely will not recover from that.”

Dobson’s remarks and other developments at the Family Research Council’s
(FRC’s) 2005 Washington Briefing at the historic Willard Hotel reveal a new
pinnacle of power for religious activists in the nation’s capital—and a
movement that is hungry for more. Some 300 activists gathered to hear from
top congressional leaders and to plot strategy for exerting influence not
only over the White House and the Congress but also the Supreme Court and
other governmental posts throughout the country—all with the goal of
repealing church-state separation and ushering in a regime that reflects a
fundamentalist Christian viewpoint.

The March 17-19 FRC event shows that the Religious Right already has
extraordinary influence in Washington. Speakers and guests at the event
included Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and then House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), as well as Senator Sam Brownback
(R-Kans.), Representative Bobby Jindal (R-La.), Federal Communications
Commission Chair Kevin Martin, State Department official John Miller, and
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Senator Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and
Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) were scheduled to appear but had to cancel
because of a series of special budgetary votes in Congress.

DeLay brought up an issue that is dear to the hearts of activist Christian
forces: federal tax law revision. At present, churches, like other
nonprofits, are forbidden to get involved in partisan politics. Houses of
worship may freely speak out on issues, but they may not endorse
candidates.
A congressional measure removing the threat of IRS intervention drew
DeLay’s endorsement.

“If they go after and get a pastor, then other pastors shrink from what
they should be doing,” he said. “It forces Christians back into the church,
and that’s what’s going on in America.…That’s not what Christ asked us to
do.”

Religious Right forces are already working to build a church-based
political machine despite federal law. The FRC holds an annual pastors’
conference to train clergy, and the group is working with ministers’ groups
in Ohio, Texas, and elsewhere to set up political action organizations.


The Reverend Laurence White, pastor of Houston’s Our Savior Lutheran
Church, told the FRC gathering, “I believe within the depths of my heart
and soul that pastors are the missing component in the coalition to take
back our America. They are absent without leave from the Lord Jesus Christ
in the battle for the soul of our nation. That has got to change.”

Former FRC president Gary Bauer took up a similar theme.

“We’re electing a lot of fantastic Christians who happen to be Republican,”
said Bauer, a former GOP presidential candidate, “and these guys are
fighting for our values. We just have to elect a lot more of them. The way
to judge elective bodies is not how may Rs [Republicans] there are, but how
many Cs [Christians] there are next to their names. When we get majorities
in some of the legislatures and Congress of people that take their faith
seriously, then I think that a lot of these issues go the right way.”

If that sounds a lot like a crusade for theocracy, the FRC and its allies
don’t seem to mind. Speaker after speaker used the most inflammatory and
divisive language to rage against federal judges and other Americans who
fail to toe the Religious Right line on abortion, gay rights, and
church-state relations. All those are legitimate topics for debate, of
course, but these activists demonize those who disagree with them,
sometimes literally. Opponents, to them, are not just misguided, but
enemies in a culture war.
[end excerpt]



***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:

The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm

American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm

The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html

[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]

HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/

[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]

***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote

"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"

That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.

It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.

*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:00:25 -0500, buckeye-elo.RemoveThis@nospam.net wrote in
alt.atheism

>
>All in the Family
>http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/558/1/89/
>[excerpt]
>
>Liberty Magazine - Silver Spring,MD,USA
>
>Behind closed doors at a Religious Right strategy session in Washington,
>D.C., last spring, James Dobson sounded more like a hardball political
>operator than a Christian family counselor. Impatient with President George
>W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders for failing to move quickly
>enough on the Religious Right’s agenda, Dobson issued a pointed directive.
>“We voted for them,” said Dobson, “and now they need to get on with it.”
>
>Demanding action on the confirmation of judges and a range of other
>legislative and policy concerns, he added, “We only have about 18 months to
>get this done, because after that George Bush will be a lame duck
>president. And we’ll be in a new election cycle, and he’s not going to have
>the power that he does now…. If we let that 18 months get away from us—and
>then maybe we’ve got Hillary [Clinton] to deal with, or who knows what—we
>absolutely will not recover from that.”
>
>Dobson’s remarks and other developments at the Family Research Council’s
>(FRC’s) 2005 Washington Briefing at the historic Willard Hotel reveal a new
>pinnacle of power for religious activists in the nation’s capital—and a
>movement that is hungry for more. Some 300 activists gathered to hear from
>top congressional leaders and to plot strategy for exerting influence not
>only over the White House and the Congress but also the Supreme Court and
>other governmental posts throughout the country—all with the goal of
>repealing church-state separation and ushering in a regime that reflects a
>fundamentalist Christian viewpoint.
>
>The March 17-19 FRC event shows that the Religious Right already has
>extraordinary influence in Washington. Speakers and guests at the event
>included Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and then House
>Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), as well as Senator Sam Brownback
>(R-Kans.), Representative Bobby Jindal (R-La.), Federal Communications
>Commission Chair Kevin Martin, State Department official John Miller, and
>Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Senator Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and
>Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) were scheduled to appear but had to cancel
>because of a series of special budgetary votes in Congress.
>
>DeLay brought up an issue that is dear to the hearts of activist Christian
>forces: federal tax law revision. At present, churches, like other
>nonprofits, are forbidden to get involved in partisan politics. Houses of
>worship may freely speak out on issues, but they may not endorse
>candidates.
>A congressional measure removing the threat of IRS intervention drew
>DeLay’s endorsement.
>
>“If they go after and get a pastor, then other pastors shrink from what
>they should be doing,” he said. “It forces Christians back into the church,
>and that’s what’s going on in America.…That’s not what Christ asked us to
>do.”
>
>Religious Right forces are already working to build a church-based
>political machine despite federal law. The FRC holds an annual pastors’
>conference to train clergy, and the group is working with ministers’ groups
>in Ohio, Texas, and elsewhere to set up political action organizations.
>
>
>The Reverend Laurence White, pastor of Houston’s Our Savior Lutheran
>Church, told the FRC gathering, “I believe within the depths of my heart
>and soul that pastors are the missing component in the coalition to take
>back our America. They are absent without leave from the Lord Jesus Christ
>in the battle for the soul of our nation. That has got to change.”
>
>Former FRC president Gary Bauer took up a similar theme.
>
>“We’re electing a lot of fantastic Christians who happen to be Republican,”
>said Bauer, a former GOP presidential candidate, “and these guys are
>fighting for our values. We just have to elect a lot more of them. The way
>to judge elective bodies is not how may Rs [Republicans] there are, but how
>many Cs [Christians] there are next to their names. When we get majorities
>in some of the legislatures and Congress of people that take their faith
>seriously, then I think that a lot of these issues go the right way.”
>
>If that sounds a lot like a crusade for theocracy, the FRC and its allies
>don’t seem to mind. Speaker after speaker used the most inflammatory and
>divisive language to rage against federal judges and other Americans who
>fail to toe the Religious Right line on abortion, gay rights, and
>church-state relations. All those are legitimate topics for debate, of
>course, but these activists demonize those who disagree with them,
>sometimes literally. Opponents, to them, are not just misguided, but
>enemies in a culture war.

David Limbaugh, brother of radio pundit Rush Limbaugh, said, “We’re not
just in a war against terrorists, where we face external and internal
violence against our system, our culture; but we’re in a war against the
secularists in our own culture who have tried to supplant the
Judeo-Christian value base with their secular humanist value base.”

Kansas Attorney General Kline added, “We are in a war for the heart and
soul of America,” while Alabama’s former “Ten Commandments” judge Roy
Moore thundered, “You see, we’re not just in a war in Iraq; we’re in a
war right here.”

Bishop Wellington Boone, the only African-American on the speakers list
(and virtually the only one at the conference) dismissed the idea of
church-state separation as unbiblical and suggested that those who
disagree are agents of Satan.

When people call him a “Bible fanatic,” he replies, “I can see through
you; I know that behind you is your father the devil.”

Bauer even suggested that differences over social issues are a greater
threat to America than what he called the battle against
“Islamo-fascism.”

“I think we can survive planes that are hijacked and flown into
buildings,” Bauer said. “I am not convinced we can survive judges who
have hijacked the Constitution and are using it as a weapon against
everything we love and everything we hold dear.”

The fight over judges—especially the selection of new Supreme Court
justices—was an overriding theme of the FRC gathering.

Railing against Supreme Court decisions upholding church-state
separation in public schools, Dobson told the crowd that a vacancy on
the Supreme Court will unleash a bitter conflict that religious
conservatives must win.

“Folks, I am telling you all,” said Dobson, an FRC board member and
dominant force, “that is going to be the mother of all battles, and it’s
right around the corner.”

In the meantime Religious Right activists are working with allies in
Congress to try other tactics to corral judges who issue rulings they
don’t like. The FRC’s president, Tony Perkins, said he has been meeting
with congressional leaders to discuss a range of possibilities.

Impeachment, he said, has not worked well in the past, so other
possibilities include defunding the courts or limiting judicial
jurisdiction.

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” he said, “and there’s more
than one way to take a black robe off the bench.”

What does all this mean for America? The constitutional principle of
church-state separation and the independent judiciary that ensures its
vitality are very much at stake. While many Americans don’t realize it,
a resurgent Religious Right is quietly building an extraordinary
church-based political organization that could place freedom of
conscience and the rights of religious and political minorities in
jeopardy. This theocracy-minded movement has the potential of changing
the face of our pluralistic democracy.

Founder Thomas Jefferson said that the American people, through the
First Amendment, had built a “wall of separation between church and
state.” If Religious Right activists have their way, however, that wall
may turn into rubble.
___________________________
Joseph L. Conn edits the magizine Church and State. He writes from
Silver Spring, Maryland.

/end


--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.