LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The blog Balloon Juice (I love that name!) has their own take on the Dominionists little problem with persecution and the upcoming "Justice Sunday" broadcast:

Vote Republican Or You Hate the Baby Jesus

This is so patently offensive that I don't have adequate words to describe how truly wrong this is:

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees. Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

If you don't share our politics, you hate the baby Jesus.

If you don't share our politics, you hate religious people.

If you don't share our politics, you are evil.

Congrats, Republicans. Our leaders have now taken the traditional rhetorical demonization of our opposition and elevated it to heavenly heights. I assume my friends on the right are going to spend the week-end attacking me for being a 'religious bigot' because I rightly point out the inappropriateness of this behavior. The usual suspects are front and center:

Some of the nation's most influential evangelical Protestants are participating in the teleconference in Louisville, including Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

But why are you reading me? I hate religious people because I respect the role of religion in people's lives, but don't want religious texts or leaders dictating our domestic and foreign policy. And I really don't want them using God and religion as a weapon for petty partisan gain.

*** Update ***

I read this three times to make sure I wasn't missing a self-parody or an inside joke. I wasn't:

Is it the position of Frist's critics that it is illegitimate for the Majority Leader to give a speech to mainstream Christians? If so, then that is about as radical a tactic as we have seen in a long time --urging elected officials not to even speak to gatherings of the 40% of the country that attends church weekly. This is another outbreak of "religousrightitis", one that underscores the ongoing effort to delegitimize the right of people to vote their values if those values are based on a religious worldview, and it makes a mockery of the idea that Dems want to appeal to "values voters" when they are encouraging the equivalent of "shunning" by electeds.

Hugh Hewitt, at his best.

A.) He can talk to them all he wants. What frightens me is that you consider them mainstream Christians and that Frist agrees with their radical viewpoint that Democrats are voting the way they are because of anti-religious views.

B.) They can vote their values all they want. I vote mine. I just don't demand that their values be given the weight of law.

C.) How can they appeal to value voters? By your standards, there are none, because if you vote Democrat, you hate religion.

That last really got my attention- the Dominionist-ruled Republicans are teaching that if one votes for the other party- any other party, they are anti religious. Tell that to the hordes of church going Dems and independents that nearly unseated Bush. If the TheoCons hadn't b0rked the vote with partisan hackers on the electronic voting machines in Ohio and Florida, we might have our country back.

Bottom line: we are all 'values voters'. For my own part, I value freedom of religion as well as freedom from it- and it is precisely that last belief that puts people like me into hot water with the Dominionists and other True Believers. I am not allowed in their sight to have any freedom from their beliefs- they want the freedom to impose them upon we the unwilling. Not good, and this is the whole crux of the whole judiciary thing- the judges are the last bastion we have to prevent a total theocratic takeover and dissolution of the US and its secular Constitution, which protects all of us- even the foaming Dominionists.