Religious Right in America Prepares for Battle

[Khephra]

Religious Right in America Prepares for Battle
By REUTERS

Published: October 14, 2003


Filed at 8:09 a.m. ET

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Reuters) - God told him to do it.

That's what Thomas Bowman claimed was behind a decision last summer to leave Kentucky on a 455-mile pilgrimage to this sleepy state capital in the heart of the American South.

What the grizzled 40-year-old Louisville contractor found when he arrived was a small but spirited protest. Scores of like-minded Christians had gathered to try to block the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from a government building.

Their effort failed and the granite stone display was carted away in August to comply with a federal court order, but Bowman left Alabama convinced that America was headed for a spiritual showdown and that Christians must play a role in its outcome.

``This is a nation in decay and we have to do something about it,'' said Bowman, who recently joined a caravan of Christians on a five-state ``Spirit of Montgomery'' tour to raise awareness of the Ten Commandments battle and to register voters.

``We have to make our voices heard,'' Bowman said.

more............

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-religion-politics.html

[Parche]

1. NATION OF DECAY

He is right, this is a Nation of decay
thanks to the right wing religious morons
and the ignorant occupant of the whitehouse

Why dont those people just give up
we dont need religion pushed on us
WE NEED FREEDOM FROM RELIGION

[uberotto]

5. There's a reason the Age of Faith (AD 325-1300)...

is also known as the Dark Ages.

If you really want to see what a Nation (or Nations) in Decay looks like...

[peterh]

25. Decay as in….

Pat Robertson wanting to nuke the State Dept….

Decay as in…
Fred Phelps glorifying the murder of a homosexual…

Decay as in….
Jerry Falwell calling the Prophet Mohammed a "terrorist".

Falwell blamed the 9/11 events on judges who uphold church-state separation, abortion rights activists, gay people, civil liberties activists and others who are "trying to secularize America."

Decay as in…
Paul Hill
Jim Kopp
Eric Rudoph
Clay Waagner
Neal Horsley


Unfortunately, the depth of the decay is astounding….

[jus_the_facts]

2. LET US PRAY...."Oh Lord...Ooooh You are so Big....so absolutely HUGE.....

...."Gosh we're really impressed down here...I can tell You...Lord forgive us for this our dreadful toting....but You're just SO SUPER...AMEN!" *quoted from Monty Python's THE MEANING OF LIFE* :evilgrin:

[BarbaRosa]

3. Those people are always preparing for battle

As long as I can remember some religious right outfit was preparing for battle for some reason or another.

[Ratty]

4. I don't get why they hate our country so much

If it's so horrible why don't they move someplace else?

[denverbill]

6. Those anal fuckwads.

I swear, they can put a 10 Commandments monument in front of their church. They could put it on a billboard. They could put it on their own front lawn. They could publish it every day in the newspaper. They can paint it on their car. They can buy tshirts with it.

Why in the fuck is it so goddamned important that the stupid commandments be displayed on government property?

I swear these people have NO lives. Go feed someone who is hungry. Go build a church in Brazil. Jebus isn't there SOMETHING more important in your stinkin pathetic lives?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

16. NO!!!!!!

We have enough of these already. Take care of your own trash! :evilgrin:

[flamingyouth]

7. Interesting ... see this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=165541

Maybe the fundies can form a third party? Or better yet, just not vote - then people will stop catering to them (oh, I can hope, can't I?)

[asjr]

8. religion

They should start their own party and call it the Religious Wrong.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[northzax]

12. wow, you are correct

everywhere the ten commandments are forbidden, porn is flourishing. why just today, I walked into the Supreme Court and what did I see? nothing but girlie pictures, everywhere. There was a Debbie Does Dallas Marathon on the closed circuit televisions, and some guy (I think it was Scalia) was getting a hummer from some guy in the corner. and the schools, let me tell you, I was at a PTA meeting last week, and an orgy broke out. please. Homosexuals have no more rights than anyone else. in fact, in many places, they have fewer, since they can legally be fired for behaviour outside the office completely unrelated to their job performance. I cannot fire my assistant for being a Christian, but I could fire her for being a lesbian. how does that make sense, again? I can't fire her for having sex with a man, outside the office, but I can fire her for wanting to have sex with a woman. how is this logical? how does this give her more rights than anyone else? I can't fire her for shacking up with ten men and becoming their sex slave, but if she makes a lifetime commitment to a woman, and has been in a momogamous relationship for 30 years, I can fire her in an instant. yeah.

so please, before you leave this site, please tell me one instance in which "gays" have more rights than 'believers in God' please?

[Khephra]

17. The Anti-Christs?

Just who do those happen to be?

(Kef looks around...)

I ain't seen no anti-Christs in this country, unless you're talking about Falwell and Robertson and Bush?

[tom_paine]

29. * is very likely the AntiChrist

9-11 and the way he was all smiles and smirks everytime the topic came up.

It was VERY creepy in a "Dead Zone" sort of way, but no moreso than his "crocodile tears" photo-op about 3 days after 9-11 when people began to ask q1uestions about the Emperor's lack of emotion and weird responses. Shortly thereafter, of course, the Emperor* "cried".

Staged and scripted? Like virtually everything else the Emperor does, this has been revealed time and time again on other items, such as the "Made in Amerika" stickers on boxes filled with Chinese Goods.

[wabeewoman]

18. Pleeeze!

Shocked are you? Noone snuck into this country-you holier than thou's have always been here. And you've always been kept in your place mostly by your own hypocracy and actions which reveal you have so much to work on in your own lives that you don't need bother the rest of us. Work on getting a little compassion, empathy and understanding for your fellow man and you might even find the real God!!

[DCDemo]

19. A response, hope you can understand it

Ok...so there now Anti-Christs? Really? How many? Where? How are they manipulating the world, claiming to be prophets of God, controlling the population, forming a one-world government? If there are more than one Anti-Christ, are they working together, or are they in competition to rule the world?

I was not aware that Gays and Anti-Christs have all the rights. I have all the rights afforded my by the Constitution of The United States of America. I was not aware that there are more rights out there that I am missing....please inform me so I can be freer.

Uh...newsflash, God doesn't need any human being's permission to be anywhere...by the very definition of being All-Powerful and All-Knowing, God can go anywhere, be anywhere. God is not affected by Human law, he is above that.

There are actually many regulations on pornography - what can be shown, where it can be shown, what time it can be shown, how it can be advertised, and many more restrictions. There is not a State or Federal Courthouse in the land that has pornography on display for all to see as they are walking by.

Demanding that a Government host a tribute to YOUR belief system is un-American, and demanding special rights above and beyond your fellow citizens.

First, there is the property issue. As a private citizen, I do not have the right to put ANYTHING in Public Property. And I certainly cannot expect it to stay where I put it. If so, I could demand that I be allowed to put 10 million empty soda cans in the House and Senate which would prevent them from using the rooms, moving, talking, and governing.

While the lump of granite in Alabama isn't going to stop governance, if every religious (and to be true to the LAW, you'd have to accept ALL Federally-accepted religions in this country) group demanded to have a similar statement on where they think the rights and laws come from, the courthouse would be full, and nothing would get done.

Third, the statement that the 10 Commandments somehow were the predecesor to our Laws is historically inaccurate. Our laws and the concept of the rule of law date back to the beginning of civilization, with Hammurabi's code, prior to the Jewish religion and the Bible. You also might want to look at the commandments more closely - many of them are ILLEGAL in America, and many are violated by most of this monument's suppporters. Like for instance, the PROSCRIPTION against graven images....which is in fact what that item is!

On 9-11, I was about 20 blocks from the WTC, and I did not say Oh God. I sad "Fuck this shit, I'm outta here" as soon as I saw the second plane hit the second tower. Even if I had said "Oh God", that is a colloquial expression..many cultures have similar expressions that, although they are literally saying "Oh God", are more of a linguistic device to show shock and alarm.

As for your last two sentences, nothing has "snuck into this country". Read your history - not the biased synopsis presented by activists from either side, but from assorted history books, especially cultural history. You will find something AMAZING. This argument, these core issues, are not new. They never have been. Conservatives have railed about "the decline of moral society" since the beginning...and guess what, we're still here, and still the greatest country on this planet. Read and learn a bit to get some more perspective.

Finally, on your last point, I am glad that you are shocked by things you read here - it is a great testament to this exercise of our Constitionally-given right of Freedom of Expression. That's one problem in this Conservative-Liberal battle - Liberals want all the facts out in the open so that an informed decision can be made, whereas Conservatives like to obscure inconvenient facts (that old black or white idealogy)so that decisions can be made that are convenient. When a Conservative such as yourself encounters different ideas, interpretations, and opinions, you get shocked.....instead of learning and growing, you get more insular and convinced that you are correct.

Newsflash buddy - there are few universal truths, precious few.

[BeFree]

27. Write on....... DCDemo

That graven image in that Alabama courthouse. And those prostrate before it. It's a wonder lightning didn't strike then and there.

Me? I'm a big fan of the 10C. Methinks if all those who really believed would just hold to all Ten, real hard like, the world would be a finer place.

[Bridget Burke]

20. anti-christs?

I thought there could only be one.

Does that make you a polytheist?

[bushisanidiot]

21. Gays Have All The Rights????? Why Am I not allowed to marry my

significant other then???? Where the hell is my right to marry?????!!

kiss my ass!!

[bushisanidiot]

22. Gays Have All The Rights????? Why Am I not allowed to marry my

significant other then???? Where the hell is my right to marry?????!!

kiss my ass!!

[bobthedrummer]

9. We have a Taliban here in Homeland

make no mistake.

[Forkboy]

10. bring 'em on!

:evilgrin:

[chromotone]

13. Help me with my history…

I was wondering about this regarding the 10 Commandments monument case: In 1963, after the SCOTUS ordered an end to public school desegregation, some locals resisted. Gov. Wallace stood in the doorway of U. of Alabama in defiance of a federal court order that barred any state court from interfering with the enrollment of black students. Pres. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard and sent it in to uphold the federal court’s ruling.

Again, 40 years later, we're back in Alabama. How will the 10C monument controversy play out? A federal appeals court has ordered the removal of the monument, yet, so far, no steps have been taken to enforce that court order. Instead we get news reports of the defiance of the locals, for the most part the religious right, Christian fundies, depicted almost as “heroes," in keeping the monument where it stands. Will this go to the SCOTUS? Does it even need to go to SCOTUS? If so, how will it rule? Will this act of defiance result in GW Bush federalizing the Alabama NG and sending it in to remove it?

Make make for high drama...

[lebkuchen]

14. Like I've said....

glad I don't live in the USA.

[Grins]

15. The 10-Commandments ARE ALREADY in every Courthouse

Only they're called THE BILL OF RIGHTS!!!

[tlcandie]

23. Let me see ....The shall NOTS include....

Lying

Cheating

Idols

Murder



My saying, "Be careful how you judge others lest that same judgment fall back upon you." In other words, before you judge others you had better be squeaky clean and have applied a LOT of oil, so all that mess coming back to hit you square in the face doesn't find some place to land.

EXAMPLE: Rush Limbaugh

[maxsolomon]

24. jesus was way cool

and his LIBERAL message of tolerance is so radical that puritans, especially ostrich-with-head-in-a-hole american fundamentalists, cannot comprehend it:

"GOD" literally IS love. agape is the true challenge for a christian, not condemning & rebuking those who stand in their way.

ANYONE can be a "christ", or the "son of god" if he/she achieves enlightenment. christ was a prophet, as the muslims know, & NOT LITERALLY the son of god, made with supernatural god-sperm.

once again, let me curse constantine & his co-optation of the early church & codification of the bible. that was a major screw up. could have left that whole old testament (and revelations) out, and then the radical message of jesus can't be obfuscated so effectively. but that wouldn't have served the interests of power as well.

[RainDog]

26. The bill of rights

is not the ten commandments. The whole issue is that the bill of rights were a secular document written by the founders of our govt to guarantee our rights as citizens.

They did not choose the ten commandments to state our rights.

If you are a Christian, you are more than free to worship in this country, to watch televangelists till you go blind, to talk among yourselves at will, to celebrate Christian holidays, and to vote as you please.

You are not allowed to cram your religion down my throat.

I was raised as a Southern Baptist so don't give me that junk about "anti-christs" and gays. Fundamentalists also opposed desegregation, and they were wrong.

Maybe, if the bill of rights doesn't suit you, you can go form your own country, a theocracy. But you may not cram your theocratic govt. down my throat.

If the Ten Commandments stays in Alabama, I want to go there and insist on a copy of the Koran, and a copy of the Torah scrolls, and a copy of Native American tribal law.

See, that's the issue...which I know you cannot and will not see, you who posted about gays and antichrists. You cannot accept that this country is not a theocracy.

Jesus said he did not come to establish a kingdom on earth, so why don't you practice what he preached and feed the hungry and educate the poor and minister to the sick? Why did Alabama, if it's so important for it to demonstrate its religious piety, act like Jesus and make sure that those with the least are served by those who claim to follow Jesus?

[enki23]

28. well, they probably have a lot of canned food and generators

left over from the great armageddon-like event Y2K almost was, only wasn't. so they're preparing to battle the infidel again. maybe they could get some tips from osama on how best to accomplish that.