"What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party, is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon – that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize."
~Barack Obama, June 3, 2008
Frankly, I think that’s been a problem afflicting our nation since the days of Joseph Mccarthy.
Religion should be a tie that binds, not a tool for political leverage. So-called conservative Christianity is neither genuinely conservative or at all Christ-like. It’s radical and legalistic, like the Pharisees who were constantly trying to trap Jesus in the Bible.
The Right-wing religion introduced into the public square by the likes of Jerry Falwell back in the 1980’s is about fear, anger, and a need to control culture. It’s about prohibiting and preventing. It’s against a lot of things- but what is it for? It opposes things but what does it propose? Does it propose we feed the hungry? Refresh the thirsty? Invite in the stranger? Clothe the needy? Visit the sick and imprisoned? What would Jesus do? (Matthew 25:34-45)
TRUE patriotism is standing up for the principals embodied in the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights- not just the flag or the pledge or a car magnet shaped like a ribbon. It's not a lapel pin.
Want to go back to the days of coat hanger abortions? Especially the girls who are victims of rape and incest?
Okay then, make sure you put all of your energy into preventing anything you don't like from happening. Keep trying to make sure those you distrust are driven underground.
Rather have the gay folks in freaky night clubs or airport bathrooms than in mundane, monogamous, tax paying domesticity?
Okay then, make sure you put all of your energy into preventing anything you don't like from happening. Keep trying to make sure those you distrust are driven underground.
Prefer those immigrants to be bringing all kinds of diseases, involved in crime, uneducated and wallowing in decrepit ghettos instead of working withing the system and contributing to, even though they're culturally different than you and me?
Okay then, make sure you put all of your energy into preventing anything you don't like from happening. Keep trying to make sure those you distrust are driven underground.
People accuse Liberals of being "elitist" snobs who think we're all better than everybody else. That's because we think things all the way through and don't oversimplify them into their most base black-and white forms.
Here's what I mean;
No one is truly "pro-abortion." I value life , I love babies, I don't think abortion should be used as a form of birth control. But the fact is that when more restrictions are put on abortions, then abortion rates go up.
The Bible may disallow homosexuality, but the Constitution guarantees equal treatment under the law, and Jesus cavorted with tax collectors and prostitutes, not religious and political leaders.
And by the way, immigrants come here for jobs and a better way of life, not to dilute or somehow undermine traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestant society. We should investigate employers who offer them jobs at bellow minimum wage with no benefits under the table so they don't have to withhold FICA and Social Security taxes. If we don't reach out to them in their native Spanish language, we increase things like TB and other diseases among them, and increase their crime rates and decrease their literacy rates. That makes them more of a drag on our society, not less of one.
"So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty. ~Malachi 3:5
Thinking things through is not bad, and it's not snobby or elitist. It is our duty as Americans and as Christians.
No comments:
Post a Comment