The Religious Right - America's Taliban

The Religious Right in America comprises both a religion and a political arm of the Republican Party. What I am fond of calling the American Taliban. The Taliban has experienced such an enormous growth in influence in our country, and the Republican Party in particular, that the current crop of presidential candidates, both Democrat and Republican, must first convince these religious zealots that they, the candidates, uphold the strict and narrow interpretation of biblical stories and writings held as absolute truth by these Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Only then can the candidates address the myriad problems facing this country such as the Iraq war, universal healthcare, fighting terrorism, social security (I'm 62), renewable energy, etc.

I see no problem with their beliefs if they would keep them within their religious congregations. However, these Right Wing demagogues demand their way or the highway and are pressing to make their beliefs the only religious beliefs (violates Freedom of Religion) and to be incorporated as the law of the land (separation of Church and State). They are getting dangerously close to realizing their ambitions as they have the Republican presidential candidates jumping through hoops with the Democrats not too far behind. For three of the last four major elections (2000, 02, 04) there were only two items that caught the voter's attention and these were same sex marriage and abortion. That is until the Iraq war finally got center stage in 2006 and some Democrats actually unseated Republicans in key Republican states because the war energized the Independent and Moderate voters and got them to the polls.

While the Religious Right is a large group in the Republican Party (approx. 30%) they are not a majority of Americans. They are a group of narrow minded, close minded, small minded, religious zealots who, in the past thirty years or so since Jerry Falwell began his idiocy campaign to dumb-down America, have been chipping away at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in an attempt to control the dispensing of our inalienable, universal Rights, granting those Rights to those who meet with their approval and withholding Rights from those who do not. Breaks down this way: Straights - get Rights: HOmoSEXuals- get No Rights, instead get shaft lined with razor blades that drops straight into hell.

The Religious Right are so narrow, closed and small minded that they fear and deny science and scientific knowledge man has gained over the centuries. They believe that all the knowledge man requires was given to him by God in the words of the Bible. Their “knowledge base” has been stagnant for over two thousand years and is built on the writings of schizophrenics that wrote what the voices coming from the caves and the heavens, and occasionally the pet pterodactyl were telling them to write (I mention dinosaurs here because of the Religious Right Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky – what a hoot. It will have you rolling on the floor, laughing). Or their “knowledge” is comprised of fables told by warriors and diviners who lived a thousand years before the birth of Christ and who told tall tales around campfires long extinguished that extolled and embellished feats of heroism and good deeds. In short, these people are nuts and we are allowing them to exert an enormous influence on our political processes that will slowly but surely destroy our Constitution and our democratic system in the United States.

Who gave the keys to the safe containing our Rights to these mindless trolls anyway? Why do they call the shots on who gets Rights and who does not? They are incapable of thinking rational thoughts because they discard any thought that is younger than two thousand years.

They have been wrong on their strongly held beliefs before. For many years the Religious Right anti-intellectuals condemned the inter marriage between people of color and Whitey. They based this on biblical taboos and the word of God delivered through the pages of the bible. Now we know that this notion is ridiculous, but for many years the Religious Right purists kept the white Americans above and separate from Americans of color. Here's a rare case where their beliefs were rectified and updated to the twentieth century but only after an incident where one of their religious leaders was praying intently, flailing his arms wildly in a show of religious fervor, shouting an occasional “Halleluiah” and “Boo-Yah” when suddenly he was certain he heard Jesus say to Mary Magdalene "wife, we are going to Mother’s for Kwanzaa!" It became obvious to him as it has been obvious to the rest of us that Jesus was a man of color as determined by the land of His birth, and if He can love a white woman, well…

The radical Right has backed off their criticism of inter-racial marriage. It’s now true that most of the hate coming from these dim-witted malcontents results in the condemnation of homosexuals and women who have abortions. However, there is a problem in that homosexuality and abortion were never directly condemned by Jesus in the New Testament, and the religious zealots can’t point to passages in the life of Jesus that support their decrees of sinfulness. Instead they use passages from Leviticus and other books of the Old Testament, written by early ancestors of Larry Craig, Ted Haggard and Mark Foley to condemn homosexuality and abortion. Then there was a former president that counted himself a member of the Religious Right who, when asked if he had a problem with the fact that Jesus did not condemn these two "sins", said “no, Jesus felt we weren't ready for such knowledge and wouldn't understand His condemnation of them. He knew we would come to the correct conclusion by studying our bible and prayer." All I can say is "Holy Crap!"

I guess my question and subsequent argument is, if Jesus never condemned homosexuality and abortion on His watch, what gives the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists the right to do it now? Could they possibly be wrong about something they absolutely hold as the two worse sins because God Himself let them slide? They are no more right, or wrong, when it comes to religious beliefs than the rest of us. We all know what we believe as far as a supreme being(s) is concerned and we try to live our lives conforming to those beliefs. Sane people do not need to have their beliefs validated by everyone they meet and when their beliefs are challenged, assume God's authority and send the non-believers straight into the bowels of hell.

Now that we have seen that the Religious Right’s beliefs are just hot air mixed with sacred sounding bullshit, their hatred and divisiveness should be kept in check as much as possible; at least as far as politics and the development of laws is concerned. They have the right to preach their brand of religious doctrine to as many people as they wish. They do not have the right to impose their beliefs on the rest of us by making those beliefs the laws of the land. That is forbidden by the Constitution under separation of church and state and I see no reason to change that. Freedom of speech does not abrogate the separation of church and state, either. So don’t go there, holy rollers.

Let me conclude by stating that I am not a bible scholar. I am basing my assertions on the teachings of those who are bible scholars and who know about what they speak. My statement that Jesus never directly condemned homosexuality and abortion comes from a series on the History Channel concerned with the study of the bible by these scholars; men and women of differing faiths who discuss the writings in both the Old and New Testaments and who have devoted their lives to understanding those writings. It is they who pointed out the absence of condemnation of homosexuality and abortion by Jesus.