"A nation or state in which the clergy exercise political power and in which religious law is dominant over civil law."
Now, I'm not going to use hyperbole and try to say we ARE a theocracy. But, don't you get the feeling sometimes that there is a large part of the country that wants us to move in that direction and are actively supporting leaders and candidates that believe exactly that?
You have nutters like Terry Jones threatening to burn Qurans, that some Republicans took their time to criticize:
Pastor Jones was a high school classmate of Rush Limbaugh in Missouri. Interesting.
And most recently, you have what any sane person would consider an absolute religious zealot, Christine O'Donnell, win the Republican primary for US Senate in Delaware. Someone who I have no love for and can't ever remember agreeing with, Karl Rove, called her for what she was and has been systematically criticized by every other prominent Republican (including the aforementioned Limbaugh). It's become a wacky world where George Bush looks like a moderate.
O'Donnell is a long-time religious activist with laughable beliefs on masturbation and sexuality in general. Here are just some of her greatest hits:
- 90s video of Christine O'Donnell explaining her crusade against the scourge of masturbation
- and O'Donnell on several of Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect programs
The weirdest thing is that a lot of Christians don't even consider her a zealot. That's you know when there is a problem with the direction of our country.
Vjack on Twitter put it this way:
In our political climate, I bet a Christian extremist who publicly advocated bombing medical clinics could win a GOP nomination.
And Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo (joshtpm on Twitter)
US policy needs to empower moderate/peaceful elements within Republican party to isolate the radicals
If we are not a theocracy and there is separation of church and state, why does our President feel compelled to mention his Christian faith? What would the problem be if he WAS a Muslim or ... perish the thought ... an ATHEIST? Gasp!! The religious beliefs of one person should never inform the laws of everyone. We are going to become a backward, Creation-believing, science-denying, fundamentalist country no better than Iran if we don't start understanding this.
Woody Allen on masturbation: "it's sex with someone I love."
3 comments:
You're not there yet - but you're on the road.
Can you imagine a more invented issue than masturbation? I just have to wonder at a person's internal maladjustments to make an issue of this. (Like the xian view of sex generally, innocent folks are demonized for their critics' flaws.)
Our sexual behavior is so hard-wired--it has to be, for obvious reasons--that trying to attach shame and fear to it likely changes behavior not at all; all we get instead is the guilt that derails normal, healthy psychology. And to what end? We're frantically trying to double down on a bet every sensible person can see is a loser.
CK -- When people are getting into the minutiae of what God means by "purity" and how we should dictate that definition to everyone, we are going down a slippery slope. Let's face it, fundamentalism is fundamentalism. We have no moral high ground when criticizing the ridiculous ways in which religion dictates policy in Muslim countries when we are seeking to do the same here.
Post a Comment