Text 68, 128 rader
Skriven 2005-05-15 16:51:30 av ceri@twmba.net
Ärende: And Now For Something Completely Different:
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From: Ceri <ceri@twmba.net>
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Well kinda <g>

Some rather interesting comments here.


The Rise of the Christo-Fascists

http://www.intelligencesquad.com/id115.html

Over the last few years, a band of conservative Christians has been 
quietly waging a religious war on American society that only recently 
has broken out into a full-fledged "hot" war.

These bigots, not to be confused with mainstream  Christians, have 
decided that the government, indeed all of American society, must be 
organized around their brand of Christianity, with no deviation allowed 
whatsoever. We refer to these fundamentalists as "Christo-fascists."

YOU MIGHT BE A CHRISTO-FASCIST IF.

	Believing that God created individually each life-form that ever 
existed on Earth is not Christo-fascist.
	Trying to alter the definition of science so that religious-based 
theories of the origin of species can be taught alongside the theory of 
evolution in high school biology classes, as the state of Kansas is 
currently considering doing, is.

	Believing that abortion is a sin against God is not Christo-fascist.
	For a pharmacist to refuse to dispense legally-prescribed "morning 
after" contraception - because it violates his religious beliefs - and 
expect to keep his job, as several around the country are currently 
doing, is.

	Believing that certain people would be better judges because of their 
religious beliefs is not Christo-fascist (though it comes close).
	Accusing a political party of being against certain judicial nominees 
because of those nominees' religious beliefs, as a major gathering  of 
Christian leaders did last month (with the participation of the 
Republican U.S. senate majority leader), is.

	Airing a commercial produced by a Christianity-based organization is not.
	Airing a culturally conservative commercial by a Christianity-based 
organization, while refusing to air a culturally liberal one by another 
Christianity-based organization (and lying about the reason why), as the 
ABC television network is doing, is.

	Celebrating a "culture of life" by trying to keep a brain-dead woman 
alive, even in contradiction to her expressed wishes, is not.
	Celebrating a "culture of life" by sitting idly by while hundreds of 
thousands of people get slaughtered for being of an ethnic-religious 
group different from those in power, as is currently happening in Sudan; 
or while tens of thousands of people are destroyed in an unprovoked war 
you launched, as is currently happening in Iraq; or while hundreds of 
people are slaughtered for their politics following the destruction of 
the government which your actions precipitated, as is currently 
happening in Haiti; or while countless people are sentenced to death for 
crimes they did not commit, as is currently happening in the United 
States, is.

	Believing that homosexuality is a sin against God is not.
	Trying to cancel an entire sex-ed curriculum because one section of it 
(accurately) cites certain religious groups as being non-receptive to 
gays, as is happening in Montgomery County, Maryland,  is.

	Airing television dramas with explicitly religious themes, like "Joan 
of Arcadia" or "Touched By An Angel," is not.
	Pandering to a revivified fundamentalist audience with mediocre and 
corny melodrama like "Revelations," as the NBC television network is 
doing, is.

	Voting for one presidential candidate because you believe he is a 
"better Christian" than the second is not.
	Excommunicating people from your church because they voted for that 
second candidate, as took place last week in East Waynesville, North 
Carolina, is probably the hallmark of Christo-fascism.


This current wave of fundamentalists follows in a long, sad tradition of 
the perversion of Christianity for socially destructive purposes. To the 
Spanish Inquisition, the European Crusades, the African slave trade, the 
hanging and burning of women at the stake in Europe and the U.S. for 
various forms of heresy, pre-Renaissance attacks on European 
helio-centric scientists, and Southern Baptist participation in Jim Crow 
segregation in the American South, we may some day wind up adding the 
turn-of-the-21st-century American Christo-fascist movement.

One particularly unnerving aspect of this current wave is that it has 
managed to co-opt for exploitation by the Republican Party a sliver of 
the otherwise most loyal Democratic voters: African-Americans. Pandering 
to strong antipathy in the black community towards gays with feints 
toward amending the Constitution to outlaw gay marriage, and exploiting 
the lesser financial resources available to the Black Church with 
"faith-based" payoffs, the GOP peeled off a handful of black voters from 
the Democrats in the 2004 election. In a time when the president 
struggles to gain the support of half of the voters, this accomplishment 
looms particularly large.

Those of us who hadn't realized that the war was on, and would prefer 
that the influence of these radicals advance no further, would do well 
to take up verbal and ideological "arms" against the invading army, lest 
we awake one morning to find that the United States has been transported 
back to the 17th century.

Then the LORD said to me, "The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. 
I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are 
prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the 
delusions of their own minds."

-  Jeremiah 14:13

Knowledge Is  Power

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