[Originally posted on goofyblog 11.03.06]
This article is for Republicans who’ve thought they were voting for officials (from Bush on down) to deliver principles of compassionate conservatism or any kind of conservatism other than that of a Christian Taliban. As George Washington said in 1796:
The government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
Any idea that we were a Christian nation at inception is an idea of fiction. However, our government became a Christian government at Bush’s inauguration and continues to this day. Kay James, former dean of Pat Robertson’s Regent University was made head of the White House Office of Personnel. She then placed evangelicals throughout the Federal government bureaucracy. Evangelical organizations were allowed to draft bills that were then passed by the Republican Congress.
Below, I’ve created a synopsis of specifics (this comes form much longer article in the New York Review of Books found here):
Faith-Based Justice. Pentacostal Christian John Ashcroft, in a speech at Bob Jones University the separation of church and state was a “wall of religious oppression.” One of his first acts was to put an end to the task force set up by Janet Reno dealing with violence against abortion clinics. He did nothing when attacks on clinics went from 215 to 795 in the first year as AG.
Ashcroft used the Civil Rights Division, which had always focused on racial injustices, to protect religious discriminators such as The Salvation Army, which was requiring all employees to embrace Jesus Christ or be fired.
Faith-Based Social Services. Under the guise of “faith-based initiatives,” large grants were given to such religious causes as abstinence-only forms of sex education and to groups headed by Chuck Colson and Pat Robertson.
James Towey, the second director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (the first director resigned, complaining that the office was being used for political purposes) appeared at Republican-sponsored events in close races in 2002, showing African-American ministers how to apply and receive grants, in an effort to influence the black vote there.
Faith-Based Science. Bush urged schools to teach “intelligent design” along with Darwinism. Intelligent design is a religious, not a scientific concept. It would be the same as urging schools teach the Ptolemaic system (all planets revolve around the Earth) next to the Copernican system.
The National Park Service authorized the sale of a book at the Grand Canyon that claimed the canyon was formed by Noah’s flood. When scientists protested this, James Dobson’s Alliance Defense Fund threatened suit if the book was pulled.
In 2003, the White House had cautions against global warming removed from a 2003 draft report on the environment as it apparently conflicts with evangelical doctrine concerning the end times and Jesus’ return.
Faith-Based Health. Although abortion is still legal in the US, the President has used his powers to curtail abortion in the Third World by controlling the dissemination of aid. He restored the gag rule on organizations that counsel women in those countries. 30% of the AIDS money sent to Africa was solely to promote sexual abstinence while 0% was for condoms.
Meanwhile in the US, $170 million was spent promoting “abstinence-only” policies in schools in 2005 alone. And the CDC removed findings from their Web site that “abstinence-only” programs do not work. A study showed the “a-o” programs exaggerated the failure rates of condoms, spread false claims about abortion’s health risks and perpetuated claims that HIV could be transferred via sweat and tears.
The promise of embryonic stem cell research had to be beaten back and Bush was the go-to man for that. He spent time with Jay Lefkowitz, the White House liaison to the evangelicals, to find a way to cut off research. When Bush decreed that only stem cell lines already in use could be funded, he claimed there over 60; there were at most 16 and even those mostly unusable. Bush’s only veto blocked the stem research bill passed by Republicans.
Faith-Based War. When Gen. Boykin started giving lectures in churches (in full combat uniform) saying things like “[Bush’s] in the White House because God put him there for such a time as this” and calling all Muslims satanic, did Bush remove him (as Kennedy had done to Gen. Walker when he started promoting the John Birch Society to NATO troops)? Evangelicals rallied around him and no, that didn’t happen.
Those recruited to serve in the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) were asked if they had voted for Bush and for their view on abortion and capital punishment. The head of personnel of the CPA trolled conservative foundations, Republican congressional staffs, evangelical schools and relatives of prominent Republicans for staff. Instead of competence, the right moral attitude was what mattered.
Case in point: the first director of Iraqi health services, a veteran of disaster relief in Kosovo, Somalia and Kurdish Iraq, was replaced by James Haverman, whose experience consisted of running a Christian adoption agency that discouraged women from having abortions. Haverman’s first emphasis was on preventing Iraqis from smoking while ruined hospitals went wanting.
Evangelicals make up 1/3 of the population. Yet they are everywhere in our government. Now while a vast majority of Americans want a different direction, they are there to insure the US is headed to a theocracy. Think about that on November 7th.
This article is for Republicans who’ve thought they were voting for officials (from Bush on down) to deliver principles of compassionate conservatism or any kind of conservatism other than that of a Christian Taliban. As George Washington said in 1796:
The government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
Any idea that we were a Christian nation at inception is an idea of fiction. However, our government became a Christian government at Bush’s inauguration and continues to this day. Kay James, former dean of Pat Robertson’s Regent University was made head of the White House Office of Personnel. She then placed evangelicals throughout the Federal government bureaucracy. Evangelical organizations were allowed to draft bills that were then passed by the Republican Congress.
Below, I’ve created a synopsis of specifics (this comes form much longer article in the New York Review of Books found here):
Faith-Based Justice. Pentacostal Christian John Ashcroft, in a speech at Bob Jones University the separation of church and state was a “wall of religious oppression.” One of his first acts was to put an end to the task force set up by Janet Reno dealing with violence against abortion clinics. He did nothing when attacks on clinics went from 215 to 795 in the first year as AG.
Ashcroft used the Civil Rights Division, which had always focused on racial injustices, to protect religious discriminators such as The Salvation Army, which was requiring all employees to embrace Jesus Christ or be fired.
Faith-Based Social Services. Under the guise of “faith-based initiatives,” large grants were given to such religious causes as abstinence-only forms of sex education and to groups headed by Chuck Colson and Pat Robertson.
James Towey, the second director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (the first director resigned, complaining that the office was being used for political purposes) appeared at Republican-sponsored events in close races in 2002, showing African-American ministers how to apply and receive grants, in an effort to influence the black vote there.
Faith-Based Science. Bush urged schools to teach “intelligent design” along with Darwinism. Intelligent design is a religious, not a scientific concept. It would be the same as urging schools teach the Ptolemaic system (all planets revolve around the Earth) next to the Copernican system.
The National Park Service authorized the sale of a book at the Grand Canyon that claimed the canyon was formed by Noah’s flood. When scientists protested this, James Dobson’s Alliance Defense Fund threatened suit if the book was pulled.
In 2003, the White House had cautions against global warming removed from a 2003 draft report on the environment as it apparently conflicts with evangelical doctrine concerning the end times and Jesus’ return.
Faith-Based Health. Although abortion is still legal in the US, the President has used his powers to curtail abortion in the Third World by controlling the dissemination of aid. He restored the gag rule on organizations that counsel women in those countries. 30% of the AIDS money sent to Africa was solely to promote sexual abstinence while 0% was for condoms.
Meanwhile in the US, $170 million was spent promoting “abstinence-only” policies in schools in 2005 alone. And the CDC removed findings from their Web site that “abstinence-only” programs do not work. A study showed the “a-o” programs exaggerated the failure rates of condoms, spread false claims about abortion’s health risks and perpetuated claims that HIV could be transferred via sweat and tears.
The promise of embryonic stem cell research had to be beaten back and Bush was the go-to man for that. He spent time with Jay Lefkowitz, the White House liaison to the evangelicals, to find a way to cut off research. When Bush decreed that only stem cell lines already in use could be funded, he claimed there over 60; there were at most 16 and even those mostly unusable. Bush’s only veto blocked the stem research bill passed by Republicans.
Faith-Based War. When Gen. Boykin started giving lectures in churches (in full combat uniform) saying things like “[Bush’s] in the White House because God put him there for such a time as this” and calling all Muslims satanic, did Bush remove him (as Kennedy had done to Gen. Walker when he started promoting the John Birch Society to NATO troops)? Evangelicals rallied around him and no, that didn’t happen.
Those recruited to serve in the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) were asked if they had voted for Bush and for their view on abortion and capital punishment. The head of personnel of the CPA trolled conservative foundations, Republican congressional staffs, evangelical schools and relatives of prominent Republicans for staff. Instead of competence, the right moral attitude was what mattered.
Case in point: the first director of Iraqi health services, a veteran of disaster relief in Kosovo, Somalia and Kurdish Iraq, was replaced by James Haverman, whose experience consisted of running a Christian adoption agency that discouraged women from having abortions. Haverman’s first emphasis was on preventing Iraqis from smoking while ruined hospitals went wanting.
Evangelicals make up 1/3 of the population. Yet they are everywhere in our government. Now while a vast majority of Americans want a different direction, they are there to insure the US is headed to a theocracy. Think about that on November 7th.
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