Monday, April 25, 2005

Who let the dogs out?

Link please work.link

This was buried pretty deep, but I’m almost surprised in today’s climate, that it made it in at all. The money quote, for me, is in bold.

…ideologues on the right have now set their sights on religion, and specifically Christianity, as the means to promote their political agenda. And as the promoters of tomorrow's "Justice Sunday" national telecast have demonstrated, there is no depth to which they won't sink in their campaign to seize the country….
To suggest Democrats are out to get "people of faith" is despicable demagoguery that the truly faithful ought to rise up and reject.
But will that occur in American pulpits tomorrow? The Christian right counts on the religiously timid to keep their mouths shut. So why not exploit religion for their own ends? They will if we let them.
And that's just it. Americans of faith -- and those lacking one -- ought to vigorously resist attempts by power-hungry zealots to impose their religious views on the nation. That means standing up to them at every turn.
It means challenging them when they say of Americans who support a woman's right to choose; the right of two adults to enter into a loving, committed, state-sanctioned, monogamous relationship; the right to pursue science in support of life; the right of the aggrieved to launch aggressive assaults against racism, sexism and homophobia, that they are not legitimate members of the flock. Where do those on the religious right get off thinking they have the right to decide who is in and who is out? Who appointed them sole promoters and defenders of the faith? What makes them think they are more holy and righteous than the rest of us?
They are not now and never will be the final arbiters of Christian beliefs and values. They warrant as much deference as religious leaders as do members of the Ku Klux Klan, who also marched under the cross.

May I please just say that Christians, as a group comprising all denominations who claim that name (regardless of my personal opinion as to their Christianity), are the least persecuted group in America. These spokespersons are not persecuted for being Christians. They are rejected and scorned for being hateful demagogues who project there own issues onto the rest of the world and who live in abject fear of a God of their own creation. There. I said it.
May I also get on my high horse for a moment to amend that statement? In their vision of a theocracy, there is no room for anyone’s God except theirs. Period. Make no mistake-you will only be a Christian if they say you are. Those of us who reject that vision of God as Christians have a dog in this fight. Those of us who reject that vision of God as followers of other faiths and spiritual paths have a dog in this fight. Those of us who reject any vision of God at all have a dog in this fight.
As a person called to the ordained ministry, I am beginning to understand my responsibility to release the hounds.

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