Monday, April 25, 2005

Christian Conservative Activists Declare Holy War on the Nations' Courts

This week's Newsweek Magazine has an excellent article on the Christian Conservative Republicans' Jihad against the third branch of our government. This sort of rhetoric only serves to undermine the judiciary in the eyes and minds of the people. It is not healthy and serves only a portion of the American population.

That portion that would see our freedoms stripped away and replaced by religious inspired laws, limiting abortions, sanctioning discrimination against Homosexuals, introducing biblical verse and doctrine into public school curriculum, hanging the Ten Commandments everywhere, and silencing the Democratic Party, or anyone who dared speak out against their increasingly radical and intolerant views.

It is a sad frightening spectacle unfolding within the Republican controlled halls of Congress and within small-minded conservative organizations across the country. In my mind, they and not the Courts are the real threat to the American way of life and system of governance; they and not the Courts are the activist who would re-write our laws to suit their narrow view of life, and we, the majority must fight back!

There are some conservative Christian Republicans, Tom Delay and Representative Steve King who would fundamentally change the structure of the Court system. King recently stated: "We could reduce the size of the Supreme Court...It doesn't take nine judges, it only takes one. It would just be Chief Justice William Rehnquist with his card table." While it is true that Article Three does not speak to the size of the Supreme Court, any attempt to change the composition of the Court would cause (I would hope) tremendous upheaval in the electorate, because I dare say most Americans look to the Supreme Court as their last bastion best hope for justice. Congress would, at its own peril realign the Court.

It is ironic that while we have American troops dying oversea to secure the blessings of liberty for others, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are under sustained attack by conservatives here in America; that while we fight fundamentalist Islam oversea, fundamentalists Christians are on the march in America and threaten to do what Osama Bin Laden dreams of: bring down the American Republic and replace it with a Theocracy; that while the American government shouts platitudes about the rule of law abroad, the rule of law, and the cause of justice is under seize by religious zealots here at home.

Is this the America we want to live in, one dominated by religious zealotry? Is this the America we want to bequeath to our children, an America where the judiciary is stripped of real power by religious extremists and is but a rubber stamp of the Congress and President? What then of our rights under the Constitution? What institution will protect our fundamental and Civil freedoms? Will we all have to prey before class; will public office holders have to swear allegiance to God before being allowed to take office; will agnostics and atheists be persecuted wholesale? How soon before the U.S. slides into Third World nation status, and the bold experiment ended in failure because the ignorant shouted the loudest?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just WHO is confused? Calling a moral right wing exaggeration of facts a Jhad by you borders on a criminal act committed by you - an admitted atheist and faithful Democrat. But then, maybe you descend from Aesop. Descende en orcum

Rush Limbaugh