What War on Religion?

[rug]

Editorial
Published March 02, 2012, issue of March 09, 2012.

The “war on religion” is back, making its quadrennial appearance on the American political stage. The actors are different this time — or, in the case of Mitt Romney, same man, new script. Rick Santorum’s rhetoric may be more strident than is customary, and Newt Gingrich has lifted the level of disconnect between word and past deeds to dazzling heights. Still, this “war” is a revival of sorts, a recurring theme brought to life by Republicans in national elections for the past 50 years or so, a convenient tool to separate the party faithful from the Godless secularists who have so heedlessly damaged religiosity in America.

Ironically, the trends toward tolerance and inclusion that are reviled by these candidates are the very reason two Catholics and a Mormon can run for the highest office in the land without their respective faiths presenting much of a political impediment. Either the candidates are all willfully ignorant of American history (even the historian!) or they believe the rest of us are.

So let’s review.

In his 2005 book, “It Takes a Family,” then Senator Santorum nicely spelled out the conservative rendition of what went wrong with America. It starts with the 1947 U.S. Supreme Court decision that first introduced into law Thomas Jefferson’s idea of a “wall of separation between Church & State,” and turned government neutrality on religion into a constitutional principle. Ever since, Santorum wrote, “The overarching impulse of the Court’s position has been to drive religion from the public square, to secularize our society from the roots up, all in the name of the constitutional principle of ‘neutrality’ — both among religions and between religion and irreligion. Of course, the term ‘neutrality’ does not appear in the U.S. Constitution.”

http://www.forward.com/articles/152330/

[DCKit]

1. The Right-Wing-Nuts don't have any principles, no convictions and even less morality.

The only thing they've got is attempting to portray themselves as victims to gain sympathy votes when, in fact, they don't agree on anything.

I say we put the Catholic Regressives, the Mormons, the Southern Batshits and the Fundamentalist Xians together in a stadium, and let them talk about it.

If you haven't thought about it before, this issue isn't coming from the respective religiously insane groups, it's coming from TPTB.... divide and conquer. The amalgamation of religiously opposed groups is a construct with the intent of building some kind of base for the election, nothing more or less.

The whole thing is a gag. On U.S..