Faith-Based Intimidation
So it's come to this.
Pastor Chan Chandler of the East Waynesville North Carolina Baptist Church in North Carolina ejected nine members of his congregation because they did not vote for George Bush for President. 40 other congregants left his flock in protest.
Welcome to the perversion that is George Bush's vision of faith America. The $8 billion Faith-Based Initiative sanctions discrimination by its recipients while involving the federal government in the functions of religious groups. In 2004, the GOP essentially turned evangelical churches into a tax-free arm of the Republican Party. Judges are threatened, and likewise, exiled from their own houses of worship for their legal decisions. Religious leaders paint the President's opponents as waging hostile attacks "against people of faith." And in Kansas, a state school board emboldened by the Bush ascendancy seeks to ignore a century of scientific consensus on Evolution and proselytize Creationism in the public schools. The prodigal chickens, so to speak, are coming home to roost.
These are dark days indeed for the United States. But there are glimmers of hope. The overwhelming American backlash against the Republican leadership's interference in the Schiavo case is one signal. The growing condemnation of judicial intimidation is earning the far right new moderate enemies. Robertson, Dobson, Perkins and the rest of the American Taliban are beginning to pay the price for their over-reaching pride.
The wall between Church and State has been breached. It's not too late, though, to rebuild it.
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