Primary Day on March 2 will provide a good indication of just how much Texas Republicans really respect religious freedom in America.
Republican primary voters will be able to register their opinions on five resolutions — a proposed voter identification law, a measure limiting government growth, a call for cuts in federal income taxes, a requirement forcing women seeking an abortion first to undergo and view a sonogram, and this one:
Ballot Proposition #4: Public Acknowledgement of God
The use of the word “God”, prayers, and the Ten Commandments should be allowed at public gatherings and public educational institutions, as well as be permitted on government buildings and property.
YES or NO
We wonder if, while they’re at it, Republicans will also let us know their opinions about other freedoms protected by the First Amendment: speech, press, the right of peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government.
Seig heil.
Texas Republican Party says:
“The use of the word “God,” prayers, and the Ten Commandments should be allowed at public gatherings and public educational institutions, as well as be permitted on government buildings and property.”
Actually, this statement is amazingly honest and a bit refreshing. The Republican Party in Texas and its supporters—at long last—are pubilcly acknowledging their belief that the United States should have an OFFICIAL NATIONAL RELIGION. We all know which one that is. The only thing left after this vote will be for the state government of Texas to decide WHICH TEXAS CHURCHES TO EVENTUALLY CLOSE DOWN because some politically active, half-literate country preacher believes they are apostate. You can bet your last dollar that the following churches will be on the official government hate list. Check the list below and see if yours is here. Pat Robertson has already publically declared that the first church on the list is an instrument of the Anti-Christ:
United Methodist Church
Roman Catholic Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Episcopal Church
American Baptist Churches in the USA
Moderate Southern Baptist Churches
United Church of Christ
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
Reformed Church in America
International Council of Community Churches
National Association of Congregational Christian Churches
North American Baptist Conference
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
Moravian Church in America, Northern Province
Moravian Church in America, Southern Province
Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church
Congregational Christian Churches
Moravian Church in America
African Methodist Episcopal Church
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
Greek Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Jewish Houses of Worship
Churches of Christ (Campbellites)
Sieg heil.
So do you think they would have problem if someone acknowledged Mohammed and prayed to Allah at public schools and events?
Oh, I see, you can’t acknowledge anything that isn’t part of extremist Protestant Fundamentalism.
Citizens of Texas shall abide by the First Amendment.
YES or NO
You left the “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” off the hate list.
and the Unitarian Universalists
and …
As I mentioned in another post, even the “privileged” sect will find it’s freedom usurped by a state religion. Ultimately the issues of the state are about power, and the religious doctrines imposed will simply be a function of that power. Coercion will result in the coerced adopting the state doctrine out of fear, rather than belief.
If the facts of history serve as a guide, it will be seen that eventually the state founded on that coercion is ultimately not sustainable, and chaos will ensue.
It’s stupid from every way you look at it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Oh, I forgot. The rapture….
@David
I very much agree.
I also think that our founding fathers knew all of this very well. They knew their European history — the many wars in Europe between Protestants and Catholics — the persecution of Jews. They knew the history of religious struggles in theColonies between Quakers and Congregationalists (in Massachusetts I believe) and Catholics and Baptists.
Why would they wish such struggles on this new nation they were constructing?
Sorry Jim. No one is perfect. You are correct. The Southern Baptists and other evangelicals/fundamentalists have long defined the CJCLDS, Christian Scientists, Seven-Day Adventists, etc. as non-Christian cults. They despise them more than the traditional mainline Christian denominations that I listed. Please feel free to add any churches or religious organizations that you would like to the list. With the fundies and conservative evangelicals, hating other expressions of faith in Christ or no deity at all is an equal opportunity affair.
Funny. It seems as if Rocky and Bullwinkle would say something profund to end this message, but I am not sure what they would say.
This is why it is incumbent upon every freedom loving constitutional paleocanservative to vote in the Republican primary and strike downs these perversions of the American way of life and take back the Republican Party from the Seccessionist and Confederate sympathizers.
But wait Charles, you forgot the smiling beer bellied Buda, and the Quackers, neither of whom have a savior, the Sufi’s, not to mention the filed teeth, baby blood drinkin’ terrorists, whatever religion that is.
Anyone want to take bets on how many of these ballot propositions, including #4, make it to the general?
In addition to all your very good points, I would also like to ask this one:
Who pays for these mandatory sonograms? The patient? The insurance company? Hard to believe insurance companies wouldn’t fight this law tooth and nail. Which will be interesting. I’ve never ever heard anyone address the issue of payment.
That’s right, just like when Bush was putting the WAR FOR OIL on the tab, along with Medicare part D, the tax cuts for the super-wealthy (anyone who doubts the boom years for the super-pigs should do a study of the sale of yachts over $5 mil apiece during the last 10 years, or yacts over $50 mil for that matter).
Or “no child left behind” ‘s unfunded mandates.
Did I mention that this idea is stupid? Stupid, stupid, stupid?
As I’ve mentioned before, the further to the straitjacket/rubber room and tin-foil hat RIGHT these “lose a game of checkers to a dung-beetle” folks can take things before the election, the better. That will give some sane person, ANY sane person, a wide path to the election.
It’ll be a cold day in Hades and the Styx River will have an 8-lane bridge across it before the health insurance companies will submit to paying for these sonograms. The only way to do it would be to force the patient to pay it or levy a special tax on the people of Texas to pay for it. Either way, it is a new tax. Do you hear that people of Texas? The Texas Republican Party has plans to levy a special sonogram tax on the people of Texas. With the highest teen pregnancy rate in the United States, a direct result of your hair-brained abstinence-only sex education policy, the people of Texas are going to pay through the nose for every pregnant teenager in Texas. Pull out your wallets men and women of Texas. It’s a comin’.
No new taxes!
No new taxes!
No new taxes!
Those tax and spend conservatives…
Why I oughtta….
Pick two…
Maybe Perry and his developer cronies could put a toll road on that bridge.
Hmmm…
Maybe I’ll suggest it.
Ballot Prop No. 4 surely stems from insecurity and paranoia. Does any Texan in his or her right mind really believe that Texas, with its abundance of houses of worship of every possible sort, needs government help to protect religion? Wise old Ben Franklin wrote over two centuries ago that “When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Promoters of mixing religion and politics would do well to read up on what the US Founding Fathers had to say on the subjects of religion and religious freedom, such as in my 23-page article of that name available from Americans for Religious Liberty.
Meanwhile, all who care for the future of religious freedom would do well to support the Texas Freedom Network as generously as possible.
Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty
Thank you, Charles, for answering my question about payment. That’s exactly the point I was trying to make in my posting: the hypocrisy of the RR.
They STILL won’t answer the question: what if the woman is too poor to pay for her sonogram? After all, even if she is insured, under new health care “reform” (and those quote marks should be in the largest print), insurance companies won’t be allowed to pay for her abortion. Does that mean they also won’t be allowed to pay for her sonogram? So that sends the invoice right back to the patient. Or to us taxpayers.
Nailed the RR. Nah nah nah nah nah….