I will just let Chuck Muth speak.
SEPARATION ANXIETY IN TEXAS
"Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man," said son Ron Reagan Jr. at his father's sunset funeral service at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley on Friday. "But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage."
Apparently those remarks were blacked out in Texas, as the Texas Republican Party decided to wear its faith on its collective sleeve and stir up a new political holy war less than 24 hours later by adopting the following religious statement into its official party platform at its state convention: "The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States of America is a Christian nation...founded on fundamental Judeo-Christian principles based on the Holy Bible."
Good grief. There they go again.
While this is a nation whose citizens are primarily Christian (including yours truly), this is decidedly NOT a Christian nation...any more than it is a "white" nation just because the vast majority of its citizens are white. Indeed, the fact that we are NOT a Christian nation was affirmed in official U.S. policy during our founding. You could look it up.
The Barbary Treaties were agreed to in Tripoli on November 4, 1796 and ratified by the United States Senate on June 10, 1797. They were signed by one of the Founding Fathers, John Adams, who was President of the United States at the time. Article 11 of the treaty reads, in part: "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…"
The treaty was adopted unanimously. No debate. No dissension. Case closed.
We are a constitutional republic, not a theocracy. Yes, most of us are Christians. But that does not mean most Christians want to live in a Christian version of Iran. We wish to freely practice our religion, not impose it on others. This kind of crusade by the Texas GOP is not helpful and only serves to stir up a religious hornet's nest unnecessarily. It’s hard to imagine this is something Ronald Reagan, "a deeply, unabashedly religious man," would cotton to. They ought to knock it off.
Couldn't have said it better.
Although I am an ultra-liberal Democrat and find nothing inclusive or appealing about the GOP, I wish to add my opinion. The United States is a nation that clearly forbids the establishment of Religon in the Establish Clause of the First Amendment. Although the founding fathers did acknowlwdge the existence of God, they specifically provided that the United States would not be a nation guided by the principles of any religon. They had seen how religious wars had torn Europe apart during the 15th-17th centuries and did not want that to happen to the newly formed American nation that they had worked so hard to establish. What is going on today is nothing short of a religous war (minus people being killed) in this country, something the founding fathers specifically wanted to avoid. Think about it!
Posted by: Juarez Brennan at June 27, 2004 10:38 PM"so perhaps you shouldn't jump to conclusions"
Molotov - the point of your post wasn't entirely clear to me - that's why I said "apparantly"
"Yet you want to take away the backbone of our culture and strip it of meaning and moral passion."
No - God has a way of helping us all, in time, come to realization that no matter how strong, no matter how good, no matter how much we've been blessed in life, we will eventually need to rely on her for support in our personal lives,
I just don't expect God to argue public policy on my behalf - it's a dead end - and over the course of human history, such a reliance has been bloody.
So, secular humanists are evil? Who else should we add to the list? Feminists? Liberals? Arabs? Muslims? Catholics?
In truth, the people who have made these lists - are using us.
Posted by: dorsano at June 18, 2004 05:59 PMDorsano --
Your claim that "in a Democracy, we are challenged make our case without relying on God" sounds laughable to most black Americans. Look at Pew Research Center polls). For most black Americans (the majority of whom are also evangelical Christians), religion and democracy GO TOGETHER. Had we waited for secularists to take action, we'd still be slaves. Had we waited for secularists during the civil rights movement, we'd still have no rights. Or would you suggest that Dr. King, Malcolm X, and civil rights marchers should've whitewashed their religious rhetoric when talking about black voting rights? Yet you want to take away the backbone of our culture and strip it of meaning and moral passion.
By the way, I support equal rights for gays (read my blog) so perhaps you shouldn't jump to conclusions. Perhaps if white gay activists weren't so busy pimping black history to promote their case, they'd have more black folks on their side.
Posted by: molotov at June 18, 2004 09:47 AMRegarding the Texas GOP...read Molly Ivins. Yes, she's liberal as hell, but she calls it like she sees it, and I trust her with the facts and with the opinions more than I trust Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter (both of whom get their facts so mangled and screwed up it's obvious they've never been in a library before, poor things).
Regarding homosexuals...as long as they pay taxes, obey the traffic laws, and leave molestation and rape to the heterosexuals, I don't have any problems with them.
Regardign theocracies...yes, they've done wonders in Europe and the Middle East, haven't they? Spain did such a wonderful job purifying their country for Catholicism that all the Jews needed to keep their finances going (true Catholics aren't allowed to handle money affairs as usury, correct?) either fled or were killed, and the country went from overseas empire to bankrupt within two generations. Iran's theocracy has done a marvelous job of keeping control of the military, otherwise their kids would have thrown the boring old stiffs out last decade. And oh, the Taliban was so delightfully wonderful, the only group that could make the Iranian theocrats seem moderate and warm&fuzzy by comparison.
In a country where Methodists and Presbyterians and Lutherans and Unitarians and Quakers and Shakers and Amish and Jews and Sufis and Sunnis and Shiites and Hindus and Sikhs and Buddhists and Shintos and Treehuggers try to get along, seeing the Baptists and the Pentecostals and the Evangels go ape-shit over what they call secularism (AKA 'oh our relgion gets treated like all the other religions and it's not fair'!) seems more pathetic than anything else. But now we've got Catholics using communion as a loyalty test. I have a friend who's convinced the End Times are here (haven't they been saying that since the 900s?!) Fear, not faith, isn't so much creeping into our religious culture as it is throwing up a pup tent in the parking lot and refusing to leave.
One more rant: don't be surprised by what you see this election year. Bush/Cheney/Rove are going to get so desperate to survive we're going to see every possible boogeyman and faux excuse and outright lying than ever before.
Intrepid wrote ...
"You act like the majority of Americans are supportive of homosexuality"
No, we act like the majority of Americans are willing treat us as Americans even if they do not subscribe to our lifestyle and even if they think that we have lost our way.
Posted by: dorsano at June 16, 2004 11:25 PM
molotov wrote ...
"This country was founded largely on Christian principles, yet secularists want to strip our history and replace it with moral relativism"
This is a Disney Land (make believe) argument.
For those of us who are religious or spirtual, nothing can divorce us from our religious beliefs or our spirtuality. It is part of who we are. It informs all our public and private decisions whether we state so publically or not - and everone knows that.
In a Democracy, we are challenged make our case without relying on God.
My coversations with God tell me that he has created Gay and Lesbian Americans in his own image and that he expects them to be treated like Americans.
Your conversations apparently tell you something different.
Trying to formulate public policy around such a debate is pointless.
If our arguments are correct, we shouldn't need God to defend them.
They will stand on their own.
Posted by: dorsano at June 16, 2004 11:21 PMI apologize for the personal attack, no edit button. but my main point still stands
Posted by: Intrepid at June 16, 2004 03:15 PMThis blog just gets funnier and funnier everytime I bother to read it.
Dennis: You aren't a republican, you obviously want to change the republican party to support your views (mainly homosexuality).
You act like the majority of Americans are supportive of homosexuality, HAVE YOU BOTHERED READING ANY POLLS? Please tell me that you're not the fucking idiot I think you are. Why, in the liberal bastion known as California, did 60% of the people vote to ban gay marriage? And you complain about Texas, but even most of the democrats disaprove of gay marriage here. Hell, I think the last poll i saw showed that 78% of Texans supported a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
So stop trying to change people's views and join the democratic party, which is where you belong (although if you wish to vote for Bush, I won't stop you)
I must strongly disagree, and most other blacks (who are hardly GOP partisans) probably would disagree with you as well. I wrote about it on our black moderate-conservative blog. In fact, most AMERICANS regardless of background hold views similar to what's in the Texas GOP's religion plank. Look at Pew Research Center studies on the issue.
This country was founded largely on Christian principles, yet secularists want to strip our history and replace it with moral relativism. No one is talking about an Iranian theocracy here. What will folks do next, strip Dr. King of his Christian oratory or whitewash the Christianity behind the anti-slavery movement and further trample on values that most black Americans hold dear? No wonder our communities are further tanking.
Posted by: molotov at June 16, 2004 12:39 PM"Do you agree with the Texas party resolution? Is it helpful to inflame Christian religious passions here in America at the same time the U.S. is fighting radical Islamic passions around the world? And shouldn’t a political party worry about politics and let the churches worry about religion?"
What would Ronald Reagan have done?
A grand question.