REPUBLICANS KEEP CHIPPING AWAY AT THE BARRIER BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE

A great many people were very much offended by Bush funneling tax dollars meant to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina through the "faith-based" organizations set up by fake (if not satanic) preachers, like Pat Robertson and his disgraceful Operation Blessing. These right-wing political preachers are collecting money and votes for Republicans and being rewarded with unaudited public funds under the guise of alleviating the tragedy in New Orleans. This is particularly ironic in light of the speeches coming out of many of these delusional religionist bigots who seem to have convinced themselves that their primitive Old Testament wrathful God has called down the hurricane to punish gays and women who show their breasts in public. The only assistance the government should be giving these raving lunatics is Medicare so they can attend to their mental health problems. But Bush and his regime just keep shoveling our taxes in their direction.

Today my friend Jim, a Texan, sent me an article from the Austin Statesman about the extreme right-wing Governor of that state, Rick Perry, cavorting around with a deranged pastor at right-wing political events while the so-called pastor ranted and raved about how Katrina was Gawd's way to kill queers (and "purify" the nation). Perry didn't find this insanity offensive in San Antonio or Houston events he attended for the Texas Restoration Project (a GOP/religionist right powerplay to try to use churches to win power again. Take a look at the blog piece from a few days ago called FUNDAMENTALIST FASCISM VS AMERICA, which contains an incredible speech on that neo-fascist organization by Bill Moyers). The fake "reverend" was Dwight McKissic, a pastor-of-hatred from Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, a suburb of Dallas. "At some point, God will hold us accountable for our sins," he boomed. And referring to New Orleans, "They have devil worship. They advertise 'Sin City' tours. They celebrate Southern Decadence. Girls Go Wild in New Orleans. This may have nothing to do with God being offended by homosexuality. But possibly it does," he said. The
Texas Restoration Project, which seeks to recruit 300,000 new GOP voters, has drawn some 2,000 pastors and spouses to 6 events with Perry and politico-religionist leaders since May.

There were really excellent reasons why our Founding Fathers were so adamant about erecting a wall of separation between Church and State, a wall the Bush Regime and its allies have been seeking to dismantle every single day since they stole the 2000 election. Edwin S. Gaustad in his brilliant book FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: RELIGION AND THE NEW NATION writes "Across the ages, clergy have been interested [according to Jefferson] not in truth but only in wealth and power; when rational people have had difficulty swallowing 'their impious heresies,' then the clergy have, with the help of the state, forced 'them down their throats.' Five years later, he [Jefferson] wrote of 'this loathsome combination of church and state' that for so many centuries reduced human beings to 'dupes and drudges.' Sounds a lot like what we see all over the Old Confederacy 200 years on! Not that Jefferson, a near idol to both Republicans and Democrats, didn't warn us. In 1800 he wrote "The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man" and the same year, in a letter to Benjamin Rush, he wrote "The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion." And in 1813 he warned that "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." A year later he reminded Americans what so many need to be reminded of again today: "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." Does he sound like he's talking about Bush and Robertson?