Reasons not to vote for Bush - Dominionism

[ck4829]

649. The Bush-Cheney campaign is buttonholing Christian churches nationwide to serve as virtual party precincts in the Republican drive to turn out voters in November. The campaign has sent congregation volunteers marching orders -- a schedule of 22 "duties," beginning with the submission of local church membership directories to party headquarters, the better to compare them with voter registration lists.

The Bush team maintains that this ham-handed proselytizing is legal and somehow nonpartisan. That is hard to comprehend, given that other "duties" for pro-Bush volunteers include lobbying congregation groups to talk up the Bush-Cheney ticket and producing "voters' guides" on hot issues. Ministers are being pressed to create registration drives and speak out about "all Christians needing to vote."

682. Evangelical lobbyists used to talk about access to previous Republican administrations. Today, they can say with confidence: "Who needs access when we are already on the inside?" The influence of the Christian right on the Bush White House is self-evident. As well as George Bush, cabinet members Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft and Don Evans all consider themselves to be born again. This administration has embarked on a bold agenda to roll back liberalism in the US, and won't let up if it gets a second term.

707. Americans are sealing themselves away from each other in thicker boxes than ever -- on war, on race, on religion, on just about everything.

719. The Bush administration has stepped into the Supreme Court's next big church and state case, seeking to force some states to spend tax money on college students' religious education.

722. Under Bush, the CDC has muddied the line between church and state by awarding grants to religious institutions, even though their methods go against recognized science.

724. House Republicans included two amendments in this year's $15 billion bill to help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, which passed on 2003-05-1. The first provision would require one third of the money to be used to promote abstinence (a favorite cause of the religious right). The second would permit religious organizations that receive program funding to reject AIDS prevention strategies they find objectionable (such as instruction in the use of condoms). This action, combined with the "global gag rule," creates a double standard in the degree of control the U.S. government seeks to assert over activities and speech that it does not fund.

741. Most important, by wrapping themselves in the mantle of religion, the GOP leadership has made themselves a vehicle for the growing religious fundamentalist upsurge parts of which can accurately be described as a fascist movement. Having god on your side means you are always right, no matter what other people may think or how events may fall out.

766. The Rev. Eliezer Valentin Castanon, of the church's General Board of Church and Society, outlined the denomination's position during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing June 6. Castanon said the church cannot support the charitable choice provisions of the Bush plan because they violate church-state separation, subsidize religious discrimination and threaten the independence of churches.

768. Many supporters of Bush's proposal have insisted that faith-based institutions are better, and far more successful, than secular service providers. However, little empirical research supports these claims. Few studies have examined whether religious ministries are more successful than secular groups in providing aid or producing better results, and it is unwise to launch a major federal initiative with so little research in the area.

769. Religion could be forced on those in need of assistance

773. Bush's faith-based' initiative plan violates the separation of church and state

774. Since the founding of the nation, all religious groups have stood equal in the eyes of the law. With a separation between church and state, government has been neutral on religious issues and no specific faith tradition received favoritism or support. The Bush plan, however, calls for competition between religious groups. For the first time in American history, religious groups will be asked, indeed encouraged, to battle it out for a piece of the government pie. Pitting houses of worship against each other in this fashion is a recipe for divisive conflict.

800. As governor, Bush proclaims Jesus Day, claiming all religions revere Jesus

820. The Bush administration's enlightenment on AIDS treatment has not, alas, been matched in AIDS prevention programs. Spurred by the religious right, the administration and Congress have fenced off one-third of the nation's international AIDS prevention funds to be used for abstinence programs starting in 2006, even though such programs alone are insufficient. The administration is using pseudoscience to justify its decisions. Randall Tobias, its AIDS coordinator, has said numerous times that condoms are not effective at preventing the spread of AIDS in the general population. He repeated this assertion while testifying in the House of Representatives in March, citing the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Mr. Tobias is wrong. The dean of the London School wrote to him to say that the school had never produced any such report, and that its research shows that condoms do work.

1150. For George W. Bush, "Bob Jones University" is becoming a quick phrase that could saddle him with some serious baggage. Bob Jones University is a Christian school in Greenville, S.C., the heart of a conservative tract in the state's northwest corner. In the 1970s, the university lost its tax-exempt status for failing to admit blacks. To this day, it bans interracial dating and marriage among students. Bob Jones Jr., the son of the school's namesake, once labeled the Pope "the antichrist" and the Catholic church a "Satanic cult."

1206. Wading deeper into the church-and-state debate, Bush wants to further his program to help religious groups win government contracts to administer social programs such as soup kitchens and rehabilitation programs for drug addicts and alcoholics.

1223. The American Civil Liberties Union today strongly criticized the latest revision of President George W. Bush's faith-based legislation. The ACLU called the changes in the bill's language, made at the behest of skeptical Republicans, even more dangerous for civil rights and religious autonomy in America. "It may be hard to believe, but the Administration has actually made this bill even worse," said Terri Schroeder, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "If this new version were to become law, faith-based discrimination against people in need would become the norm. The changes can in no way be called a compromise."

1437. Bush deliberately dresses his war rhetoric in language designed to appeal to the Christian Right, the key building bloc of the conservative arm of the Republican Party. And not only his refrain about evil and evildoers; he repeatedly draws God into an explicit alliance with the administration's agenda.

1454. One of the uglier aspects of the Bush administration's assault on women's reproductive rights is its concerted undermining of the United Nations Population Fund based on the false accusation that it supports coerced abortions in China.

The fund supports programs in some 141 countries to advance poor women's reproductive health, reduce infant mortality, end the sexual trafficking of women and prevent the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS. Yet under pressure from conservative religious groups, the administration is expected to withhold the $34 million that Congress appropriated this year for these vital efforts, much as President Bush blocked the $34 million Congress approved in 2002 and last year's $25 million allocation.

1473. David Hager, a physician, refuses to discuss contraception with unwed female patients. Now he's part of the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee at the FDA. An outcry forced Bush to withdraw Hager's nomination to head that panel, which, under Clinton, played a major role in legalizing RU-486, the drug that can terminate a pregnancy at the zygote stage. With the religious right pressing for repeal of that authorization, it remains to be seen who will chair this crucial committee.

From the http://www.thousandreasons.org/listB.html">One Thousand Reasons

[rkc3]

1. 1454 (second to last on the list) was taken up to help Neil Bush

continue his trips to the Far East.

[barbaraann]

2. Jack Hanna, the animal guy, talked about "dominion over the animals"

on Larry King yesterday. (might have been a rerun)

I just caught bits and pieces of it but he came a across as very religious and I wonder if he is technically a "dominionist."

Some info:

"It wasn't until I attended church with Jack and Suzi in Columbus—New Hope Reformed Church—and talked with Julie and their pastor, Steve Norden, that I saw another side of Jack Hanna—a husband, father, and Christian believer."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/6r6/6r6020.html