The "Gay Agenda"...?

At least that's what Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says is motivating a piece of legislation he has introduced in the ALabama legislature.

His bill would ban books by such well known authors as Truman Capote, Gore Vidal or Tennesee Williams would be culled from the shelves of Alabama's public libraries as well as school and universitiy libraries. He also wanted to ban Shakespeare's works from the bookshelves but withdrew that paragraph after "some criticism".

His legislation would also supress any mention of homosexuality as a genetic trait. Furthermore any books featuring gay or bisexual characters would be barred from libraries. Mr. Allen, apparently found homosexual content, and evidence of the "Gay Agenda" to turn the whole world queer, in every book he picked up.

This piece of legislation would have left library shelves empty and dusty, as well as throwing a number of librarians out of work. It represents nothing more than a good, old-fashioned book burning similar to that practiced by the Soviet Union after the communists siezed power...or Nazi Germany practiced with Jewish literature...or as Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia.

I think that Mr. Allen, and his fellow travelers should look to putting their own houses in order before they start tearing down the houses of others. Mr. Allen's legislation is probably a manifestation of his own doubts and fears regarding his own sexuality, and he either needs to just get over it or come out of the closet. Either one would suffice...at least he would stop bothering other folks.

And you may have noticed I used the past tense a couple of paragraphs back...Mr. Allen's legilation died on the floor af the Alabama legislature, as it should have.

American Traitors

In 2000, this nation had a $230 billion dollar budget surplus. By 2004, that surplus had evaporated, to be replaced by a deficit of $412 billion (1.).

In May of 2000, Japan held $337 billion in US treasuries, China - $60.4 billion, OPEC $48.3 billion. In total, $1,260.8 billion in US debt was held by foreign central banks. (2.) In February of 2005, Japan held $702.1 billion, China - $196.5 billion, OPEC - $67.1 billion. In total, $1,996 billion in US debt is being held by foreign central banks.(3.)

This amount of US debt in the hands of foreign interests represents a threat to this nation unimagined by our Founding Fathers over two hundred years ago, let alone two or three decades ago. Foreign interests, with their hands on America's purse-strings, may now have the power to devastate the US economy at any time of their choosing. This blade hangs over America, yet our elected, some would say selected, leaders refuse to acknowledge its presence...let alone their complicity...in bringing about this state of affairs.

This administration has presided over wartime tax-cuts, a free-falling dollar, and surging foreign trade deficits as well as the ever expanding federal budget deficit, estimated at some $512 billion for 2005 (4.) ( this doesn't even include the cost of ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq).

In placing our nations finacial health so firmly in the hands of foreign powers, this adminstration has betrayed its responsibility to the American people...It has abandoned any pretext of fiscal responsibility...It has turned a blind eye to war profiteers (5.)...In short, this administration and the Republican leadership in Congress have betrayed their oaths of office by ceding so much power over this nation directly into the hands of foreign agents. This is nothing short of treason, and its perpetrators should be brought to justice. It is time to stop coddling these vipers in our breast and name them for the traitors they are.

Break down barriers between church and state...?

Be careful what you wish for.

The consequences of embracing Tom DeLay's and Bill Frist's crusade against an independent jusidciary and their appeals to a particularly xenophobic form of Christianity are simple. The breaking down of the barriers between church and state.

While not explicitly laid out in the Constitution, it is implicit, as stated in Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. - Thomas Jefferson, Jan. 1, 1802

Further reading of the letter makes it clear that religious freedom is a matter of individual conviction, and not to be brought into the realm of politics. This ideal has enjoyed legal status throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and rather than stifling religion, has given rise to enourmous diversity in religious expression and practice in this nation, one not seen elsewhere in the world.

Also, the framers of the Constitution had a perspective on the merging of church and state that we do not have today. They needed only to look to recent history of Puritan Massachussetts to see the threat that a union of religion and politics posed. In Massachussetts, religious dissenters were hanged and "witches" were burned at the stake. The Founding Fathers looked to this and knew that it was not what they wanted for this nation. Recent history gives us the examples of Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iran, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Saudia Arabia, Indonesia, and others to show the flaws and instability inherent in the mingling religion and politics.

The separation of church and state has also benefitted religion in the form of property-tax exemptions for church owned property. And I don't see anyone suppoting the union of church and state supporting the imposition of these taxes on their churches. If there is to be more church in the state, there should also be more state in the church.

The democratic principles this nation was built upon are messy, and rely on compromise and concensus building amongst a variety of views. Religion, on the other hand, is built upon absolutes, undebatable dogmas and authority. There is no room for "...We the People..." to exercise any authority. Thus the only way for the two to co-exist is to do so separately. Religion remains in the personal realm and secularism prevails in the political realm.

The American Banana Republic

In Central and South America, authoritarian regimes which pay lip service to the rule of law have been the norm. And the US government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has clandestinely supported the ouster of democratically elected governments in favor of these authoritarian regimes.

Now, at the hands of the Republican leadership, America is at risk of becoming a banana republic. Granted, they aren't bribing judges and other government officials, they are cloaking their actions in the mantle of religion. Regardless of the rationale, the end result will be the same...Centralized, authroitarian power with no effective checks and balances and paying lip service to the concept of democratic institutions.

Banana republic status will be our future if these closet fascists are left unchecked, and gutting the judiciary is the final element of this agenda. Without a strong and independent judiciary, the Republic will become another banana republic and the dream of America will die. Make you choice, call your senators and tell them this must not come to pass...donnot impose the "nuclear option" and strip the minority of its last, best tool for standing against the tyrrany of the majority.

Justice Sunday...?

..."Just Us Sunday" would, I think be more approprpriate.

Senator Frist is playing a dangerous game with some of the most extreme elements of the Christian conservative movement in America. One that could, with any luck, kill his political career. In making television appearnaces today with a small and extreme, but incredibly vocal and politically savvy fringe of religionists, he launches an attack on any who stand outside this tent as being "un-Christian" and working to undermine Christianity.

You may have noticed that I failed to call these people "Christian"...And with good reason. I do this as the leaders of these religionists have abandoned their faith for political power. As they are unable to convince most people of the soundness of their agenda by means of reasoned argument, they are seeking to move their doctrine from the church to the legislature. There, they hope to have it enacted into law, thus imposing their agenda upon the rest of us...at the point of a gun.

They seek to undermine the judiciary, which provides a check to the unlimited exercise of power by either the legislative or executive branches. They wish to supplant a strong, independent judiciary with a rubber-stamp judiciary that will unquestioningly uphold their ideological agenda.

These religionists, rather than focusing on the heart of the teachings of Jesus have, instead, narrowed the discussion down to abortion and same-gender marriage.

...35:For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. - Matthew 25: 35-36

What has become of this message? It has been drowned out by those who would hijack religion and pervert its message to further their own political agenda, selecting only those passages which may be used to this end, excluding all the rest.

The assertions made by the Republican leadership and the leadership of these religionists are the seeds of theocracy, and if these people desire to live in a theocracy, they should gather up their belongings and move to one. Their attempts to create one from the secular republic established by the Founding Fathers is an affront to their memory and a subversion of their goals.

In closing I leave these politicians and religionists with this:

13: But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
14: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
15: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. - Matthew 23: 13-15

These politicians and religionists wear the mantle of Christianity, but they soil it in doing so. They preach Christian virtue yet fail to practice it. They mouth the words, yet fail to understand their meaning. They are the threat to this Republic.