Sunday, October 28, 2007
Church and State
I know the concept of the separation of Church and State seems to be one that Evangelical Fundamentalist nut-jobs seem to have a real problem with. The term that is coming to be used for many of the leaders of this movement is Dominionists. This is the 'Christian Right' that seems to believe that this country was founded by a men of 'high value' Christian morals. (Say like Ted Haggard or Larry Craig.) Men who were beyond reproach; and who followed every tenet of G-D's law. Men like George Washington, who had more maids in his residence during his Presidency than he had years in his Presidency and he also had quite the reputation as a ladies man, Thomas Jefferson, who is well know to have had a long term relationship with one of his slaves (whose name escapes me at the moment) as while the US Ambassador to France she essentially was treated as his wife by the French, Benjamin Franklin, a man who was so morally upstanding that he had an illegitimate son live with his family for a while before arranging for him to become a Royally appointed governor.
Yes, I know George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin were all very brave and forward looking people, but men of high value Christian morals? They raised arms in rebellion against their rightful King (George III of England). As I am sure you know, many at the time believed that Kings rose to power by divine decree and that the actions that they took were by divine providence. If all of that was the case, then we should all be English, and George, Thomas, and Benjamin probably would be footnotes in world history.
So what brought this rant on today. I was looking for an article for my wife, and it happened to have been published in 2002 by the US Department of Health and Human Services. While attempting to find said publication on the HHS website I came across this page: http://www.hhs.gov/fbci/Publications%20&%20Resources/. Why is this page important, you ask? Well, because it contains a number of articles that were published by the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. Under normal circumstances the I try to ignore this ridiculously named skein of the great American experiment. I happened to open one of the articles, more out of curiosity than anything else, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, not a government generated article on how the Faith Based Initiatives were to be implemented, but a document (48 pages long) written by a church. This seems to me to be a clear attempt to establish some kind of state religion, in violation of that damn inconvenient piece of parchment.
Oh well, I suppose we should just let the Constitutional violations continue. After all, what is an undermining of a secularly established democracy between friends.
Yes, I know George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin were all very brave and forward looking people, but men of high value Christian morals? They raised arms in rebellion against their rightful King (George III of England). As I am sure you know, many at the time believed that Kings rose to power by divine decree and that the actions that they took were by divine providence. If all of that was the case, then we should all be English, and George, Thomas, and Benjamin probably would be footnotes in world history.
So what brought this rant on today. I was looking for an article for my wife, and it happened to have been published in 2002 by the US Department of Health and Human Services. While attempting to find said publication on the HHS website I came across this page: http://www.hhs.gov/fbci/Publications%20&%20Resources/. Why is this page important, you ask? Well, because it contains a number of articles that were published by the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. Under normal circumstances the I try to ignore this ridiculously named skein of the great American experiment. I happened to open one of the articles, more out of curiosity than anything else, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, not a government generated article on how the Faith Based Initiatives were to be implemented, but a document (48 pages long) written by a church. This seems to me to be a clear attempt to establish some kind of state religion, in violation of that damn inconvenient piece of parchment.
Oh well, I suppose we should just let the Constitutional violations continue. After all, what is an undermining of a secularly established democracy between friends.
Labels: Democracy under assault
// posted by Little Wolf @ Sunday, October 28, 2007 
