Liberty Institute, a religious-right group based in Plano near Dallas, is still screeching about the mythical “war on Christmas.” Here’s an excerpt from a fundraising email the group sent out on Friday:
I hope your Christmas was merry & joyful, because the hounds are snarling again.
…
The sad truth is that while you and I were celebrating, others were plotting. While we celebrate they look for “threats to their freedom” in every crèche and public Christmas tree, every religious carol and candy cane. In many ways I feel sorry for them. But when they are as angry and vindictive as snarling hounds that won’t be silenced, it sends me back to our rich religious heritage, the Constitution, and our court cases defending religious liberty.
Liberty Institute’s fundraising campaign — and raising money is what the mythical “war on Christmas” really is about for such groups — is based on a lie.
No one is seeking to eliminate “every crèche and public Christmas tree, every religious carol and candy cane.” Every person has a right to celebrate Christmas as he or she sees fit. Evidence of that freedom during the Christmas season can be found on a walk down almost any street in America, in visits to thousands of houses of worship, in simple greetings many wish each other as they go about their day, and in so much more.
But in the nightmare world imagined by groups like Liberty Institute — or, at least, the world they want their funders to imagine — celebrating Christmas is threatened by “snarling hounds” — you know, atheists, civil libertarians and the like.
There is, of course, an important principle obscured by such nonsense: that the Constitution bars government from favoring or disfavoring any particular religious beliefs over all others. That simple but key constitutional principle has protected religious freedom in America for more than two centuries. Indeed, it protects the freedom of Americans to celebrate Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, Eid Al-Fitr and all other religious holidays throughout the year. And it protects the freedom of those who choose not to support any religious observances.
But Liberty Institute wants government to pick and choose which religious beliefs to favor. If you don’t — if you support the Constitution and its protections for religious liberty for all — then they call you a “snarling hound.” And they want you to be “silenced.”
I would add that the separation of government and religion is the reason religion has thrived in the United States, like nowhere else, while its has been dying elsewhere. Many of those places where the Christian fath is dying are precisely those places where the Christian faith and the government are one and the same. Organizations like the Liberty Institute yearn to make American government and so-called “Bible-believing Christianity” one and the same in this country too, and the Chritian faith will then start dying here. It amazes me that these fruitcakes cannot see the great harm to religion that would result from such stupid actions.
P.S. I always say “Merry Christmas.”
Get ’em Fido! Rip the cuffs off their pants!
And what are we make of this fiscal cliff nonsense?
“Patriotism is supporting your country at all times,and your government when they deserve it.” Mark Twain
The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives wanta couple of things, but which one they valur the most and for how long are unclear:
1) Right now they are claiming to be opposed to the fiscal cliff bill that Senate Republicans agreed to on New Year’s Eve, suggesting that we will stay at the bottom of the fiscal cliff for some unspecified length of time.
2) Conventional wisdom says that they wanted to go off the fiscal cliff so everyone’s taxes will go up. This will then allow them to pass some other bill of their own creation where they can claim to have saved the country by REDUCING our taxes rather than raising them. Then they can run to their petty little god, Grover Norquist, and say:
(Excited dog sounds):
See Grover!!! See Grover!!! See what I did. I’ll fetch a stick for you Grover!!! See master!!! I am your true Fido!!! You can give me a full cup of food tonight rather than taking all my food away!!! You can let me live master!!! I promise that I will never sin against you master!!!
But I have to ask a question here:
Do any of you fine TFN Insider readers and posters remember any instance in American history where a single, unelected, nonwealthy, private citizen [Grover Norquist in this case]OWNED an entire political party in Congress as his personal property to do with as he pleases?
Feeling sorry for others is a fundamentalist trademark. After all, they’re special and we’re not(meaning everbody else, mainstream Christians, other religions, anyone who isn’t a Biblical literalist advocating use of scripture to justify any position).
And, if you’re not with them, you’re a “liberal”…………
Who knew? I thought I was a moderate conservative!! 🙂