LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

From Pam's House Blend

If you want to get an idea of the desperation of the opposition to the bill, take a look at the relentless ignorant propaganda from the religious right. The claims of a threat to free speech and freedom of religion is at a fever pitch as the action alerts go out to the sheeple, with the cry that "a pastor's sermon concerning homosexuality could be considered an incitement to violence and punished with a fine or prison."

~In other news, House Judiciary panel grants immunity to Goodling.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's an excellent partial transcript of Mikey Weinstein's opening remarks at a debate he participated in at the USAF Academy.

Now I know I'm at war, and my legions are at war. We are not at war with Christianity and we are not at war with evangelical Christianity. Ah, but we are at war with a subset of evangelical Christianity with a long technical name that I hope won't take the rest of my time. I'll say it just one time today: it's premillennial, dispensational, reconstructionist, dominionist, evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity. I know it's a long name. We'll just call them Bob. Dominionist Christianity - the leaders you know very well: Robertson, Dobson, used to be Haggard - he's had a career change - D. James Kennedy, John Hagee, alot of people that I won't be going out to dinner with, and for a long time.

Ultimately what we have now in America - when this thing started at the AFA I thought that this was something that would be, you know, a Tiger Woods 2-inch putt to fix. Little did I know that it was something that is actually plaguing, in a massive way, our entire Pentagon. We now have 737 US military installations that the Pentagon acknowledges - it's actually closer to 1,000 - in 132 countries around the world and in everyone of them there is a presence of the Officers Christian Fellowship for the officers and Christian Military Fellowship for the enlisted. I'm sure some of you are here today. Now, the goals of these organizations are fascinating, and they're unabashed about it, and they view it as a higher goal than the oath they took, many of them here, to support and defend, protect and preserve the Constitution of the United States, which is our social contract, and was the very first time in human history that a governing document for a nation-state did not invoke the name of a specific deity.

The first goal is they want to see a spiritually transformed US military - I'm not done, goal number 2 - with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, and, number three, empowered by the holy spirit. My problem is the "in uniform" part and the "during the day" part.

March 1789, the Constitution finally is running our country. December 1791, the Bill of Rights is passed. The Bill of Rights contains of course the First Amendment, which has those 16 golden words which sets up the dynamic tension between the Free Exercise clause and the Establishment Clause.

I'm sure that my friend Jay has a different pespective about this concept of separation of church and state. But I'm gonna tell you from my perspective - we don't have time to put on evidence today - it exists. I view it as the separation of supernatural and natural, and the technologically most lethal organization ever created by homo sapiens, which is our honorable and noble US military. I am sad to report to you today as I come to you with the gun smoke in my face from this battle, that that wall is nothing but smoke and debris.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Great interview with Bill Moyers in the "Christian Century" magazine. Here's what he has to say about religion and politics:

So much is being written and said about the alliance between the religious right and the Republican Party. What role do you think religion should have in the public arena?

Whose religion? Christian? Muslim? Jew? Sikh? Buddhist? Catholic? Protestant? Shi'ite? Sunni? Orthodox? Conservative? Mormon? Amish? Wicca? For that matter, which Baptist? Bill Clinton or Pat Robertson? Newt Gingrich or Al Gore? And who is going to decide? The religion of one seems madness to another. Elaine Pagels said to me in an interview that she doesn't know a single religion that affirms the other's choice.

If religion is the voice of the deepest human experience—and I believe it is—humanity contains multitudes, each speaking in a different tongue. Naturally, believers will bring their faith into the public square, translating their unique personal experience into political convictions and moral arguments. But politics is about settling differences while religion is about maintaining them. Let's realize what a treasure we have in a secular democracy that guarantees your freedom to believe as you choose and mine to vote as I wish.

Some people on the left think the Democratic Party needs to be more explicitly religious. What do you think about that counterstrategy?

If you have to talk about God to win elections, that doesn't speak well of God or elections. We are desperate today for cool thinking and clear analysis. What kind of country is it that wants its politicians to play tricks with faith?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

This is a picture of our planet Earth taken from the voyager spacecraft over 4 billion miles away. That's it, just below the center line in the circle, a tiny pale blue dot bathed in sunbeam.
( More shall be revealed... )