As we all know, the president of the United States is
elected and swears to serve all citizens of this nation by protecting and
defending the Constitution rather than the Bible or any other religious text.
America, founded by men who in some instances proclaimed Jesus as their God,
was created to assure the freedoms of religion and conscience without regard
to an individual’s personal beliefs, creed, or worship practices.
The Republican Party appears to have abandoned any
commitment to this tenet of the Constitution and is positioned to elect a
preacher- in-chief whose first loyalty will be to the dogmas of Christian
Fundamentalism.
And they have a constituency. Across the country
sprawling corporate religious “lifestyle centers” serving more as Christian
country clubs than as houses of worship have produced congregations who foster
a blend of ostentatious piety, self-righteous intolerance, and unyielding
arrogance. For these parishioners, voting Republican is de rigueur.
Unprecedented amounts of wealth have been amassed in many
of these churches, not in small part as a result of the wealth-redistribution
policy of the Bush and Republican faith-based government programs established
in this century. The threat of losing this power and money may in fact be
looming large in the selection of the party’s nominee and in the desperately
pious tone, manner, and attitude of the Republican presidential acolytes.
Not to be outdone, the media, particularly cable
television punditry and radio talk show hosts, are reliably helping to advance
the idea of establishing a religious test. Although the last Republican
debate fielded questions created by viewers of You Tube, those questions were
vetted and selected by officials at CNN. Thus, all Republican presidential
candidates were asked by Wolf Blitzer if they believed in the inerrancy of the
Bible. (Any guesses as to how the pack of them answered?)
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a proud member of
God’s Own Party and an ordained Baptist minister, may be the most flagrant
offender against the Constitution. Mr. Huckabee recently told a group of
students at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University that his astonishing rise in
the Iowa polls is an act of God. He has also received letters of endorsement
from Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series which extols the
Rapture as an imminent end-of-the-world phenomenon. Huckabee has stated on the
record that he does not believe in evolution and lists among the most urgent
issues facing the country the perils of abortion and gay marriage, as well as
threats to the unlimited rights of gun-owners. His frequent statements of
religiosity are delivered with a jocular smile and a sense of humor —
designed apparently to seem non-threatening to anyone who is not a believer.
As if this country hasn’t suffered enough division, enough
religious hypocrisy, and enough self-righteous intolerance in the last seven
years, now we have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, an ex-moderate of
sorts, hastening to join the ranks of Christian soldiers in the Republican Party
and seeking like the rest to impose a religious obligation on political service.
His immediate motivation, amplified by concern about rival Huckabee, is to gain
the White House at any cost, but the ultimate result of his apostasy from reason
is to further decimate the wall of separation between Church and state in this
country–something most Christian fundamentalists disbelieve anyhow as a myth
concocted by them God-hating secular liberals.
Scarified by Huckabee’s surge, Mormon Romney has ramped up
his attempt to sway the fundamentalist crowds and seems determined to try to
one-up Preacher Huckabee. He may indeed have trumped Huckabee with this
mind-bending assertion: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires
freedom—-Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” Can Romney
really not know of the suppression, torture, and murder of heretics and infidels
by Christians (and members of virtually every other religion) throughout
history?
When candidates like Romney, Huckabee and others ratchet up
their effort to destroy the wall of separation built by the founders, it
requires somebody to ratchet right back. After all, it is an election that will
be held in America next November, not an altar call.
