The United Faith State of America - At War!

It is with sadness, more than anger, that I observe a religious war having been officially declared against other minority religions and non-believing (or adhering) groups in the United States.
The concept of free thinking has been hijacked by several ultra-right, evangelical organizations, churches, individuals and groups who professed that only their vision of God knows what is right for everyone and they are the only ones endowed with the wisdom, message and power to force that vision upon all the rest of us.
As a member of one of those religious minorities, I can tell you it is a scary time in the U.S. We are drawing closer and closer to “one God” government, which is no different than the dreaded one world government these conservative fanatics rage against.
The targets are liberals (many of whom are Jewish and when evangelicals use code words like “those people” when referring to ACLU leadership, it is a covert form of anti-Semitism), homosexuals (because, for some reason, evangelicals believe all evils flows through same-sex relationships), Democrats (whom they lump together with the first two evils) and a xenophobic attitude toward Middle Eastern people.
By simply labeling all supporters as “people of faith,” meaning THEIR faith, any attack on their politics is an attack against God and righteousness. Hence, the ferocity of the counter-attack.
The intrusion into the political arena has been centered on the appointment of judges – and only for those who rigidly follow the evangelical way of thinking and who profess and confess to this doctrine prior to rulings.
Whether these conservatives give a good hoot about the president’s judicial nominations is questionable. It’s the power within the process that counts to them. They demand (no longer a matter of want) that Congress follow THEIR dictum or suffer the consequences at election time.
Kelly Shackelford, who leads the Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute of Plano, said in an article in the Dallas Morning News that "religious freedom, the misuse of the concept of separation of church and state, marriage and life” are under “attack.”
This is typical rhetoric from a group I now call the Persecuted Majority. It is unfathomable how Christians, who consist between 80-85 percent of all Americans, can claim that they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs when they are clearly in the majority. To suggest otherwise is a subtle form of bigotry against anyone who doesn’t believe in Christianity.
Ministers like Rick Scarborough, a Baptist pastor from Lufkin, and head of the poorly-named Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration, are part of a nationwide network of ministries and churches, dead set on denying open dialogue and free thinking in this country. And all this verbiage is cloaked with terminology of war.
“We’re lost enormous ground in this country morally as a result of the acts of judges,” he said. “We as Christian conservatives have concluded that the warfare right now is more in the courts than at the ballot box.”
Scarborough has enlisted several thousand Christian ministers for his Patriot Pastor network (funny, there is NEVER a mention of any Jewish rabbis in these groups; that’s because you cannot be truly Jewish and be evangelical).
Ohio-based minister Rev. Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church said at a recent gathering of 1,000 Patriot Pastors the issues surrounding the filibuster fight transcend partisan politics.
“We’re not Democrats; we’re not Republicans’ we’re Christocrats,” he declared in what could well become a third political party that has been sought in the U.S.
Others are prominent is this new war on ideology. You have the reprehensible Dr. James Dobson, who openly advocates paddling of children and strong methods for strict discipline, and his Focus on the Family (except for non-Christian or gay families) and Tony Perkins and his Family Research Council. Both groups were among a dozen or so organizations clearly labeled as anti-homosexual hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center of Montgomery, Ala. In its latest edition of “Intelligence Report.”
Why these people seem so hell-bent on destroying to lives of others who just want to be left alone is so mind-boggling. How can you profess to speak of a religion that profess to be about love when so much of the words concern hatred? It’s nothing more than bastardization of words for political power – pure and simple – as anti-religious as it comes.
There are so many other examples of religious warfare; it would take the entire New York library system to hold them all. One short example comes from the Kansas state school board’s hearing to force the teaching of “creationism” along side evolution in public school classrooms.
Of course, one is actual science, with data and evidence to demonstrate its validity and the other simply relies on faith, which is not universally shared by everyone – not even in Kansas. Belief in God is one thing, but to devalue science as a means to justifying a practice of faith is such a disservice, it is almost criminal.
The Kansas board deleted most references to evolution from the science standards in 1999, but elections the next year resulted in a less conservative board, which led to the current, evolution-friendly standards. Conservatives recaptured the board’s majority in 2004.
I could go on and on, from the evangelical takeover of the U.S. Air Force Academy and the breeding of hatred within the classes of potential officers to local issues, such as forcing non-Christians students in elementary grades to be forced to receive evangelical messages that run contrary to that individual student’s religion.
So when many people say that they might seek to live elsewhere, away from the United Religious State of America, if it gets worse, don’t laugh.
It IS getting worse. By the day.