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THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT IS ANTI-AMERICAN And Mainstream Media is on Their Side

Thursday, December 27 2007 @ 11:51 PM CST

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by Ed Menken

As the primary election season heats up, and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee slug it out to prove to the religious right who is more religious, and therefore more worthy of their support, the mainstream media covers the wrestling match with the delicacy of someone tip-toeing through a minefield. And with just as much fear.

Enormous attention was paid to Romney’s recent “Faith in America Speech”, which was originally billed as an effort to clarify his Mormonism and appeal to voters – especially religious conservatives – to convince them that he’s the best candidate to continue and even broaden George W. Bush’s disastrous faith-based government. Introduced by Bush Senior at his presidential library at Texas A&M University, Romney had a running head start in the race to establish his religious credentials, and the media swallowed the blather like lap dogs gobbling up a bowl of Vittles.

The speech was praised by most commentators as something comparable to John F. Kennedy’s famous speech to an auditorium full of Baptist ministers in Houston in September, 1960. In that historic presentation, Kennedy’s purpose was to assure his audience, and the entire electorate, that his Catholic faith would in no way influence or interfere with his policies or governance, should he become president. However, Romney’s speech was anything but comparable to Kennedy’s. Indeed, Kennedy’s presentation included the following statement:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

When Romney delivered his speech, he tried to align himself with Kennedy by stating…

"Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president. Like him, I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.”

He then followed those reasonable sounding words with…

“As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America's 'political religion' - the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.”

Now, that statement is where it starts to get interesting. I’ve always understood that when one places his or her hand on the Bible while taking an oath of office, the promise to uphold and defend the Constitution is to the people, not to God, and that the hand on the Bible is intended only to assure the veracity of that commitment to the people. And the rest of that particular paragraph, while it sounds encouraging, is nothing more than a verbal “bait-and-switch.” After a few breaths and some more deceptive verbiage, Romney then began to ease into the contradiction…

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong.”

This is where Romney begins his unabashed pandering to the religious right. He, like virtually all of the right-wing religious zealots who want to impose their own beliefs on the rest of us, seems to be fond of repeating the lie about how those of us with different beliefs want to “remove from the public domain any acknowledgement of God.” He twists the intent of the founders – which was unequivocally to establish a secular nation – and echoes the words of some of today’s most extreme fanatics who insist that secularism is now a “religion.” These are words that are near and dear to fundamentalists and most Evangelicals. And they serve no purpose other than to elicit an “Amen” from those who would have this country officially declared a “Christian nation”, contrary to the clear and deliberate intent of the founders.

But the mainstream media won’t touch the fiery hot potato. Rather than expose the deceptions and distortions of the religious right, they sheepishly adopt their language, referring to “values voters” without questioning what those “values” are, and never, ever, challenging people like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and others, on their unmistakable defiance and absolute disregard of the Constitution. I refer here to Article VI, which states, “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Dobson, Perkins, Pat Robertson, and dozens of other right-wing Christian leaders like to wear American flags on their lapels, display Old Glory with great pride, and generally hold themselves up to be devoted, ultra-patriotic Americans. Indeed, they proclaim themselves to be better Americans than anyone and everyone who doesn’t parrot their views. But the clear and unmistakable fact is that their disdain and utter contempt for the Constitution is self-evident through their determination to establish their own religious test for all candidates. That test includes questions about abortion, school prayer, stem-cell research, gay marriage, the teaching of Creationism or “Intelligent Design” in public schools, assisted suicide, abstinence-only sex education, and other issues that are undeniably rooted in their religious beliefs. And if you don’t pass their religious test, you’re an atheist, a “God-hater”, “anti-Christ”, or – even worse – a Democrat!

And the mainstream media is absolutely complicit in the radical religious right’s conspiracy to destroy the Constitution and turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. Instead of challenging those who are engaged in demanding that the presidential candidates submit to their religious tests, the media encourages the unconstitutional process and gives it tacit approval. In fact, the media, by giving these sociopaths disguised as “Christian leaders” a forum to spout their anti-American poison, are thereby disqualifying themselves from the deference otherwise afforded them in the “freedom of the press” provision of the First Amendment. They “report” on the fact that one-third of the Republican base is Evangelical, and leave unchallenged the fact that the “voter’s guides” put out by the religious right are merely the results of their religious tests. They politely ignore the direct relationship of the Christian right’s concrete positions on social policy to their biblical beliefs, without ever reminding them that their tests contradict the Constitution, and instead delicately refer to those anti-Americans as “Christian conservatives.”

And then there is Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas, whose deliberate appeal to the Christian right, both in his advertisements and public statements, has catapulted him to the top of the Republican heap in Iowa, and near the top nationally. His sudden rise is due in large part to the media’s adoration of his “folksy” style, his “soft-spoken nature”, and his “impressive performances” in the Republican debates. Obviously, the media likes him a whole lot, and he is benefitting enormously from that fawning affection. But no one has yet said, “Wait a minute! If he’s obviously appealing so strongly to religious conservatives by positioning himself as a ‘Christian leader’, and promoting his background as a Baptist minister, and espousing policies and ideas that are clearly rooted in his fundamentalist/Evangelical beliefs, why aren’t we questioning him about the specifics of those beliefs?”

Under the circumstances, the American people have a right to know, for example, whether Huckabee believes in the “Rapture”, when all “good” Christians will suddenly be whisked away to Heaven, while everyone else is left with a one-way ticket to Hell. His close relationship with Tim LaHaye, co-author of the “Left Behind” series of books and films that promote the Rapture, shouldn’t leave much doubt. We also have every right to know whether he believes in the Book of Revelations, and in the inevitability of Armageddon. Because, if he does, then the American people – both Christian and non-Christian alike – must decide whether Mike Huckabee, as president, would pursue actions that could make that prophesy self-fulfilling…like a religious war against Islam, couched as a “crusade for freedom.” And the only way we can get answers to those, and other critical questions, is if the mainstream media asks. But if the experience of the media’s avoidance of those tough questions of George W. Bush during both of his presidential campaigns is any indication, they won’t. And that will be the worst betrayal of the American people by the media since their failure to challenge Bush, both about his specific religious beliefs, and about his claims of WMD’s in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Indeed, it would likely be much worse.

Consider, for example, Huckabee’s recent sermon at the San Antonio Cornerstone mega-church of John Hagee, the ultra-right pastor whose staunch support of Israel is a thinly disguised effort to do all he can to instigate Armageddon through an all-out battle between Israel and all of the Arab nations that surround it, leading, Hagee prays, to a global holy war with Islam. During that sermon, Huckabee referred to Hagee as “one of the great Christian leaders of our nation.”

We have already witnessed the disasters of Bush’s evangelical presidency. We have seen the consequences of his absolutism. We know of his utter disregard of the Constitution. We have experienced his religiously-driven actions for the past seven years, and we have been the victims of those policies time and again. But the worst victims, by far – apart from the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children, who lost their lives, and the millions who have been displaced from their homes -- are those brave and dedicated members of the armed forces who gave their lives and limbs, not in defense of our freedom – as Bush to this day claims – but to the religiously-rooted megalomania of an extreme right-wing Christian evangelical president who has been conducting a religious war right under our noses, and squarely under the nostrils of the once-respected and independent American media.

Although the story should have been given front page attention in the U.S. print media, and “top of the news” placement in broadcast news, George W. Bush’s claim to have attacked Iraq because “God told him to” was all but completely ignored. Bush made that claim to the former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, and the former Prime Minister and now Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, during a meeting with them in 2003. According to both men, and notes from the meeting, Bush said the following:

“I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,’ and I did.”

No, that story didn’t get much attention here in the U.S. But it definitely should have. It was covered in the international press quite well, but we in this country don’t give much credence to what the international media has to say. Had we read and heard more about that alarming statement by Bush, and had the U.S. media been as responsible and courageous as we have every right to expect them to be, Bush might well have lost the 2004 election, and we’d be out of Iraq by now. But they weren’t, and we were kept virtually in the dark about Bush’s lunacy, and we’re still there.

Now, back to Huckabee, who certainly deserves the careful scrutiny that the media never gave to Bush. Huckabee was the keynote speaker at the Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City in 1998. During the evening before the event began, he told a group of pastors…

"I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."

And, when he delivered his keynote address the next day, his closing words were…

"I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."

It should be a further warning to all of us that in Houston recently, a rally was held for Huckabee that was sponsored by Stephen Hotze, a hard-line right-wing Christian zealot who wrote in a Houston Chronicle op-ed piece not long ago…

"If we are to survive as a free nation, and if justice and liberty are to be restored in our land, then biblical Christianity, with its absolutes, must once again be embraced by our citizens."

Of course, “biblical Christianity” was never embraced by the founders, and was never intended to be. But Hotze’s blatant revisionist history and deceitful claims are now rampant throughout Evangelical circles, and it appears that Mike Huckabeee, candidate for president, subscribes to the same distorted, dishonest, and deceptive narrative.

As People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch recently said, “Given that the vast majority of Huckabee's Religious Right backers are borderline theocrats, it remains to be seen just when, if ever, Huckabee is going to be called to account for the types of people with which he is surrounding himself.”

Thus far, no mainstream media outlet has dared posed the critical questions to Huckabee. And we shouldn’t be too hopeful that they will. We have only a corporate, greed-driven media to contend with in this country today, and none of them have much more credibility than Fox Noise.

And no one can expect any of the Democratic contenders for their party’s nomination to challenge their Republican counterparts on the subject of religious extremism. Democrats are already shy about the matter of “faith”, and have abdicated their integrity through their silence on the matter. Here again the media has been dancing to the religious right’s music by allowing only Republican, right-wing Christians to be referred to as “the faithful”, and permitting the impression to be solidified among Christians of all stripes that Democrats are not religious. Shame on the frightened Democrats! And shame on the cowardly media!

The dangers of electing another religiously-obsessed president, whether Mormon or Evangelical, are so great that the possible “World War III” that Bush spoke about recently should not be ignored. The neo-cons who gave us the Iraq war are all Republicans. The “Christian leaders” who get the media’s attention are all Republicans. And the voters and caucus participants who will determine the Republican candidate for president are, in large measure, Christian evangelicals who believe that more than a worrisome economy, more than our moral standing in the world, more than health care for all Americans, more than an intelligent foreign policy, more than an urgency about climate change, and more than an effective plan to combat terrorism, we need to have a “true believer” in the White House who will give them at least the de-facto – if not official – Christian nation they yearn for. And with enough continuing propaganda to convince them that Muslims want to “destroy our way of life”, they’d be ready and willing to send off their sons and daughters – and ours -- to do battle as Christian soldiers in a new Crusade. The one that George W. Bush started.

This is not a rant against religion, or religious people. Nor is it an objection to “people of faith” holding public office, though the zealots we should all be wary of would like it to be seen as such. It is, on the other hand, a warning and a call for courageous scrutiny of those who would lead this nation, and, as commander-in-chief, have control over the most powerful military in the world. It is a plea for the kind of close examination of a candidate’s most strongly held beliefs that can, if the individual arrives in the White House, determine the very future of America….and the world.

Given the failure of the media to display any courage in this presidential campaign, given the fact that they pay more attention to a candidate’s haircut and another’s wardrobe, given the fact that their questions to the candidates are never more than superficial, it might fall to the blogs and the independent writers on the Internet to shake the trees, pound the ground, and make enough noise to force the media to finally do their job. Because if no one else does, and the country elects another anti-American, religiously-driven right-winger who talks to God, and hears God talk back, we may well then be on our way to Armageddon after all.

Are you ready for the rapture?

Ed Menken

Houston, TX



http://www.opednews.com



Authors Bio: Ed Menken is a former public relations executive and media consultant, and a life-long, self-described, "unapologetic progressive."

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