Thursday, December 09, 2004
Evening open thread
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Note how everything the far-right says now is the infallible word of God
by John in DC - 12/9/2004 06:57:30 PM
Even a dork in a t-shirt in high school is now channeling God. Some kid puts on a t-shirt attacking gays, abortion, and Islam, and the school is supposed to let him do it because it's "religious discrimination" not to, according to the radical right.
Fine. We ought to raise money and print t-shirts for everyone else in the school that say:
1. God loves gays
2. Evangelical Christians are bigots
3. Pro-lifers hate America
I'm a Christian, and I think God agrees with me on every point. So clearly I'm speaking for God, or at the very least, this is my religious view that cannot be censored. So if some enterprising kid at the school wants to fight back, let's do it :-) Hell, someone should do it anyway at their own school, anywhere.
From the radical right propaganda organ, AgapePress:
...An Ohio seventh-grader wore a T-shirt to school earlier this fall that displayed a Bible verse as well as his viewpoint on homosexuality, Islam, and abortion. But school and district officials in Thornville deemed the apparel "offensive" and "potentially disruptive," and have prohibited James Nixon from wearing the shirt to school ever since. On Monday (December 6), the Alliance Defense Fund filed a federal lawsuit against the school district on behalf of the young student, alleging viewpoint discrimination. The case is "clothed in censorship," says ADF-affiliated attorney Frederick Nelson of the Orlando-based American Liberties Institute. "Everyone agrees that no disruption has taken place," he notes. "The Constitution does not permit censorship based upon what someone thinks 'might' happen." School officials had determined that the message on Nixon's shirt violated the district's Student Code of Conduct -- but Nelson says that is not the case. "[O]ther students wearing clothing in clear violation of the policy were allowed to remain in school and were not disciplined in any way," he points out. "Nixon has been singled out for his particular viewpoint, and that's not constitutional." He adds that school officials cannot treat religious speech as "second-class speech." ADF is involved in a similar lawsuit in the San Diego area in which a student was barred from wearing a T-shirt that expressed his religious views on homosexuality.
...
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6276308/
(Part four in a series)
Staying on the right side of a political movement
Conservative Christians — and their ideas — threaded throughout Bush administration
The influence of the conservative Christian political movement inside the Bush administration is exemplified by Kay Coles James, a former administrator at the Rev. Pat Robertson’s college who now runs the Office of Personnel Management — the federal government’s HR office.
Kay Coles James
...
You likely have never heard of Ed McAteer, but you know him by his works. Although he never held a formal church position, McAteer was the father of the religious conservative movement in American politics.
It was Ed McAteer, a Southern Baptist layman, who persuaded the Rev. Jerry Falwell to get involved in politics. It was McAteer who introduced Ronald Reagan to Christian activists in 1980 at a conference sponsored by his organization, the Religious Roundtable.
No less a figure than Falwell remembered McAteer this way: “What the press calls today the ‘religious right’ really was his dream.”
Ed McAteer died this month. But long before, he had broken with the Republican Party, which he said never delivered on the conservative Christian agenda. “We were dropped like a hot potato once they got out of these Christians what they wanted,” he said.
The God Squad takes a break
McAteer was not alone. The conservative religious leaders who led the charge during the 1980s and 1990s are seldom seen these days.
Falwell is largely on the sidelines, contenting himself with commentary and tending his ministry. So is the Rev. Pat Robertson, an early opponent of the war in Iraq. Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, declared five years ago that religious conservatives should “separate” themselves from politics. Franklin Graham, the fiery preacher who now runs his father’s Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, has been marginalized since he was quoted demonizing Islam after the Sept. 11 attacks. Ralph Reed left the Christian Coalition almost a decade ago.
But if “God is big into recycling,” as suggested by a sermon making the rounds on the Internet, then announcements of the death of the religious right are the proof. Such proclamations have been issued like clockwork during every national election cycle since Bill Clinton defeated President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
And they have always been wrong, no more so than today. The conservative religious movement has certainly moved into the background, but not because it is irrelevant. To a great extent, it has won the game. ...
More at link...and links to parts 1-3
