April 20, 2007 6:39 AM

Everybody wants to rule the world...these folks think they actually do

For God’s Sake

TPM: Is This Monica Goodling?

Gonzales’s Former Assistant Causes Turmoil As U.S. Attorney

In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”…. Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration…. The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ which is very different from simply being people of faith ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.

There’s nothing wrong with people of faith who want to go into public service. After all, public service is a noble and honorable profession. Where the line should be drawn, however, is with people of faith who go into public service and view their work as some sort of righteous crusade designed to further their goal of turning this country into a functional theocracy.

No matter what the Fundie zealots happen to believe, the federal government is a SECULAR institution. That’s not to say that Christians have no place in government. I am saying that using Christianity as a foundation of policy decisions has no place in government. When policy decisions are made based on the “What Would Jesus Do?” equation, you’ve entered the realm of poor policy and religious discrimination.

Perhaps a quick history lesson is in order here. It seems evident that too many Americans, and in particular the Fundie zealots, have forgotten that AMERICA WAS FOUNDED BY PEOPLE FLEEING RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. So what’s happening now? We have collection of religious zealots recreating the reason the pilgrims fled England 400 years ago. Truly, those who do not know and understand history are condemned to repeat it…and repeating it they are.

But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge….

For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer.

Or consider, the presidential appointee at NASA who told a Web site designer to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, to leave open the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.” He turned out not to have, as he claimed, a degree from Texas A&M.

One measure of just how many Bushies were appointed to promote a religious agenda is how often a Christian right connection surfaces when we learn about a Bush administration scandal.

There’s Ms. Goodling, of course. But did you know that Rachel Paulose, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ three of whose deputies recently stepped down, reportedly in protest over her management style ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ is, according to a local news report, in the habit of quoting Bible verses in the office?

Or there’s the case of Claude Allen, the presidential aide and former deputy secretary of health and human services, who stepped down after being investigated for petty theft. Most press reports, though they mentioned Mr. Allen’s faith, failed to convey the fact that he built his career as a man of the hard-line Christian right.

Nowhere has it been said that Christians cannot be effective public service. As long as a Fundamentalist Christian recognizes that he or she works for a SECULAR government, there’s no problem. The separation of Church and State is a real and customary tenet of American governance. God isn’t a Republican…or a Democrat. Most Christians believe that God has better things to occupy His time than partisan politics. For most Christians, God simply IS, and that should be enough.

There’s an increasingly virulent strain of Fundies, led by Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © , who believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are Conservative Republicans. These folks believe that the fact that they’re now in power is proof positive that God had blessed their agenda and charged them with turning government into an entity reflective of His will…which apparently involves enabling and enriching Conservative White Republicans.

And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people.

You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins.

Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.

These are the people currently wielding the levers of power in Washington. Yes, the November, 2006 election dealt a major blow to the Fundies, but they’ve by no means been defeated. They’ve infiltrated the federal government (as well as many state governments) at the most basic levels, to the point where far too many decision makers are Christian zealots basing decisions concerning the use and disposition of tax dollars on their narrow religious beliefs.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with a public servant being a Christian. The problems begin when public servants begin to view their belief systems as giving them the absolute right to work toward turning our system of government into a de facto theocracy. This is what will most likely be the longest-lasting and most damaging legacy of the Dubya years. Too many of these zealots are very well acquainted with the “In God We Trust” part, while somehow managing to conveniently ignore the “With Liberty And Justice For All” part…and most of aren’t Fundamentalist Christians. Some of us don’t even believe in God (GASP!! HORRORS!! INFIDEL!!!!).

America is not the playground of wealthy White Fundamentalist Social Conservatives, nor should it be. When Fundies control the levers of power, we’re not all that far removed from living in a theocratic police state- the very sort of thing Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © frequently condemns Iran for. We always hate what we most fear in ourselves, eh??

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on April 20, 2007 6:39 AM.

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