Conservatism
Book Review: Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom by Barry Lynn
(out of 5 stars)
Reverend Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSCS) and United Church of Christ minister, has long been a leader in the fight to maintain Thomas Jefferson's 'wall of separation' between Church and State. Piety & Politics is Lynn's effort to describe the state of this fight (in 2006) as the Religious Right expands its attacks on the vital separation.
Lynn opens the book with a bit of history of the concept of freedom of religion with a focus on the United States. He firmly establishes that, despite his own belief in a Christian worldview, he is utterly opposed to religious intrusion into public education. Being personally involved in numerous lawsuits (as the director of AUSCS), Lynn has a fascinating perspective of the fight, including that over Ten Commandments displays on public property.
The George W. Bush creation of faith-based initiatives is attacked head on, and hypocrites such as Pat Robertson and the deceased Jerry Falwell are exposed on the issue. Lynn then goes into the Religious Right's war on sex and sex education, and uses the issue to show how divisive and descructive abstinence-only and poor sex education have created worse problems. Finally, censorship is discussed, and Lynn makes it clear that information must be freely available even when many, if not most, people in the affected area disagree with the ideas (Lynn himself argues that books by Falwell, Robertson, and others should be stocked in libraries even though he personally does not agree with many of their views).
Theocracy is a dangerous political system, one which the Christian minister Lynn has no desire to see become reality in this nation. It is clear, though, from Lynn's experience, that Religious Right leaders are focused on bringing theocratic policies and organizations to power in this country, and it is only through exposing and directly challenging these movements can the nation's commitment to freedom of religion be maintained. Highly recommended to anyone interested in how the modern Religious Right strategies are affecting everything from education to politics. Four stars.
Glenn Becks Plays with Dolls, Claims Gay Marriage Leads to Polygamy
We all know Glenn Beck has the critical thinking skills of a screwdriver (but isn't nearly as useful), but he goes off the deep end (again) in claiming that gay marriage will naturally lead to polygamy (see video at the bottom of this post). He does not address how exactly this happens except to say that 'changing the formula' will make any number of other marriage arrangements legal (it would not). He also conveniently forgets the numerous examples of traditional marriage's Biblical ties to polygamy.
In the Bible, numerous icons of Christianity were polygamists.
- Genesis 4:19 - "Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah."
- 2 Samuel 12:7-8 - "Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms."
- 1 Kings 11:3 - "He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray."
- Genesis 26:34 - "And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite"
- Genesis 29:21,30 - "Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her. (...) He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife"
- Judges 8:30 - "And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives."
- Genesis 16:1-4 - "Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai ... gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived."
- 2 Chronicles 24:3 - "Jehoiada took for him two wives..."
There are other examples of God-sanctioned polygamy in the Bible, none of which required the existence of gay marriage to come into being. Abraham, Jacob, and Gideon are some of the most respected figures in the Judeo-Christian canon, and all were allowed by God to be polygamists.
Not once, repeat, not once is gay marriage explicitly mentioned in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 7:1-4 and Ephesians 5:23-33 (and others) spell out marriage as one man and one woman, but by the listed examples above, the accepted, God-sanctioned polygamy of Abraham and others clearly shows the Biblical concept of marriage to be contradictory at best.
Homosexuality is clearly 'immoral' in the Bible (see Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27, and others), but never does God say same-sex marriage is disallowed. Homosexuals are already sinners in the eyes of God, there was no reason to doubly damn them over gay marriage. Polygamy, however, is clearly acceptable to God at times, though, as usual, God's stance isn't exactly crystal clear here.
But it is too much to expect a bloviating moron like Beck to know all this. He's doing really well to remember how to get to work each day. His reasoning here, like his reasoning on pretty much everything, follows the time-tested logic of the Underpants Gnome model:
Phase 1: Gay Marriage
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Polygamy!
Michael Savage: The Tool Leading the Tools
Michael Savage, the racist homophobe champion of extreme right-wing dogma, was recently included on a list of people banned from entering Britain due to his tendency to incite hatred and violence. Savage, in turn, urged his radio audience to boycott Britain and avoid buying British products. In response to Savage's tirade against his bannishment, Britain's Home Secretary produced a littany of quotes from Mikey showing his extreme and dangerous rhetoric:
Listed among Mr Savage’s statements was the view that "children’s minds are being raped by the homosexual mafia", and he told listeners that they faced a choice with regard to Muslims as to whether "we disappear or we die. Or would you rather they (Muslims) disappear and they die?"
News for you Mikey: If they don't want you on the big island, they don't want your mentally-challenged followers either. You have every right to hold these opinions, but what sickens me most is that anyone would willingly give this ignorant tool a channel to voice said opinions.
