LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY metaphorge)

It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.

But now we know.

"Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice.

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

( Read more... )

(courtesy of vzd; original source)

For those of you just tuning in to this, this influence of Christian Dominionists upon the Bush WHite House is what I've been going out about for quite some time, and I feel it provides an explanation for the United States recent middle eastern foreign policy. It's not aimed at peace or stability of any sort, but at fostering conflict with the Islamic world, which has been recently equated to Satan by Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin (who is near the center of the policy that led to, amongst other things, the Abu Ghraib prison abuses).

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

If you are a Unitarian Universalist, or an atheist, or God forbid a Pagan of any sort, the federal government does not want to deal with you in any way, shape or form.

If you wish to gain non-profit status as a religious group, or utilize the 'faith based' funds that are available, you will be turned down. If you want to start a low power FM radio station that might cater to the alternative or diverse elements in your community, the tinest Christian church can doom your application to failure.

Even if you are Christian, if you're not the 'right' kind of faith, you will be turned away from gaining any of the funds or priveleges that certain evangelical sects can scoop up at will.

Most people are not aware of the slow, but steady takeover of positions of power and influence by people who cleave to the neoconservative religious right. They started with the school boards and city councils, and have worked their way up the chain to places like state comptrollers, and federal commissions. They have gone unopposed because of a combination of ignorance and apathy from those who could vote against them, and slid in on the power of lock-stepped blocs of carefully coached churchgoers.

Relegating the neoconservatives to the cultural sidelines or dismissing them as a lunatic fringe has enabled them to take over our country. The slow creep of their theocratic and restrictive governance has placed a stranglehold on many freedoms, and has deeply chilled the ability for anyone to criticize or protest this administration in any form, no matter how innocuous that protest might be.

Our country is being stripped of its unique heritage by the very people it was created to protect. We do still have some means to recover from this all-out assault on our freedom, but it will take a long time to remove these now-entrenched elements from power. The first step is to wake up and smell the smoke of our democracy going down in flames- and vote.

Sunfell