The New York Times > Washington > Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Judicial Issue
i think this says it all:
"The issue of the judiciary is really something that has been veiled by this 'judicial mystique' so our folks don't really understand it, but they are beginning to connect the dots," Mr. Perkins said in an interview, reciting a string of court decisions about prayer or displays of religion.
"They were all brought about by the courts," he said.
why mr. perkins fails to understand that what he calls 'judicial mystique' is what everyone else calls 'constitutionality' is incomprehensible to me. but what comes through very clear, other than the fact the GOP is quite willing to scrape the bottom of the PR barrel to get their way, is that the alliance between the christian right and the republican party is one that will have serious repercussions for people of faith, as well as those who aren't.
by theoretically aligning our courts with religious sentiment, the veil between church and state virtually disappears (and, please, everyone shut up about how church and state was never explicitly separated in our constitution - that's how our constitution has been traditionally interpreted for the past two centuries; if it's not explicit, our custom makes it so now.)
as a christian woman i don't want to see civil law mixed in with religious law. under religious law, my body is not my own. under religious law, most of my friends and associates are religious criminals. we are living in a secular society, right? a pluralistic society?
when did this happen? when did private acts of faith become public authority? i wrote about this before, but it's frightening that our more conservative christians can't see what's about to happen.
then what the hell is going on with this and what can we, as people of faith, do to stop it? i'm serious. i'm asking because this is seriously disturbing (as is the virtual DEAFENING SILENCE coming from the dems on this one.) why aren't the mainline denominations coming out against this? where are the progressives of faith about this? am i reading the wrong things? is it just me in the dark here?
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Hey Ding,
I was big-time freaked out by that article too. Certainly we can all just forget about the Democrats when it comes to a response to this. Maybe we need to start an overtly religious party in the U.S.; something like "Christians for the Seperation of Chuch and State" (CSCS, or CS2 for us math wonks). CNN would probably find the name interesting enough to give us some coverage, and can you picture their consternation when they realize that not everyone who calls themselves a Christian believes that the universe is 5500 years old? Sometimes I get really steamed that I bunch of people with views very different from my own have hijacked the name of my religion.
And all the time these days I am very frightened about what those people are in the process of unleashing. About 100 million people died in or as a result of WWII. Is there any reason to think that the conflagaration that the "Christian" right wants to unleash will claim any fewer lives?
What to do? Not shut up, that's for sure.
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