More Evidence of the Religious Right's Turn from Constitutionalism
After my last post on the Religious Right booing Ron Paul, a Texas lawyer sent me the following email (she graciously permitted me to post the email along with her name):
Chris,
You wrote:
I may have to rethink the issues surrounding the Religious Right. I believe the arguments of my secular counterparts regarding the Religious Right may have more weight than I thought. There's no telling what this holy bunch will endorse during another national crisis. They're cheering our descent into tyranny.
If you had been at the Texas Straw Poll, like I was, there would be no "may" in your sentence. I got in as a guest in order to campaign for Ron Paul. This being Texas, the delegates were overwhelmingly conservative Christians.
The morning program prior to the vote was spent on pure pro-war propagandizing. There were videos celebrating the accoutrements of empire like aircraft carriers, destroyers, troops on the battlefield. In fact, there was no mention of the private citizenry that makes our country run. There was worship only of the State in the form of the military, police and firefighters.
Moreover, every speech prior to those of the candidates and after--from the videotaped speech of Gov. Perry to a survivor of 911 was clearly calculated to encourage the delegates to vote for a pro-war candidate. Mentions of God were interspersed between condemnations of "islamofascists who hate us for our freedom".
The most troubling speech was made by the survivor of 911 immediately before the delegates voted. He was in the military and assigned to the Pentagon. He told his story--magnified by pictures on the huge video screens of his freshly debrided burned arms and legs. He ascribes his survival to the mercy of Jesus--yet he did not seem to believe that such mercy should apply to Iraqi and Afghan civilians.
This was the most unsettling experience I have ever had. The establishment Texas Republican Party engaged in the most shameless manipulation of religious people I have ever seen.
The Republican Party has used the Christian Right--and it has allowed it.
Jerri Lynn Ward, J.D.
