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dogemperor [userpic]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]bodylotion)

Anyone know anything about the Thomas More Law center? I found this http://www.thomasmore.org/resources.html at their site. It includes free book covers with the 10 commandments, and a book marker with questions to ask biology teachers about evolution.

dogemperor [userpic]
A quote and a definition

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

In an article posted today on Talk To Action, writer Frederick Clarkson talks about candidate Jamie Raskin standing up to an overtly Dominionist legislator in the Maryland Senate:

Jeremy Learming, writing at the blog, Wall of Separation, tells the story of the Raskin's testimony (which was covered by The Baltimore Sun) at a hearing in the Maryland legislature on proposed state constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage. Raskin, a professor of Constitutional Law at American University had been asked to testify by Equality Maryland, a marriage equality organization. More dramatic than his tesitimony was his exchange with Republican State Senator Nancy Jacobs who said, "As I read biblical principles, marriage is intended, ordained and started by God - that is my belief, ... For me, this is an issue solely based on religious principles."

Raskin replied:

"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution," Raskin said. "They don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."


That quote is now on our front page, in the Wiki, and should be spread far and wide, because it is the quote which will take the Dominionist view of the law out of the picture, properly used.

Clarkson goes on to define Dominionism:

In a recent issue of The Public Eye, I noted that dominionism is a term used by outside observers to understand a complex yet vitally important trend. For people trying to figure out if a conservative politician, organization, or religious leader is a "dominionist," I noted three characteristics to listen for:

... Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.

Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.

Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.


To that last, it should be noted that dominionists believe that the Bible as an absolute, infallible source of God's word, and elevate it above even Christ and God. They worship the Bible. This is a critical difference, and when examining religious groups, their mission statements (or creeds) should always be checked to see where the Bible falls in their regard. If the Bible is first, then you are dealing with dominionists. Every change in the law they wish to force upon our government is driven by Scripture.

Go read the article. And its links. It's quite interesting.

dogemperor [userpic]
Anointing Senators seats in the name of 'Higher Law'

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

This Talk to Action article talks about some Dominionist folks doing a bit of pre-hearing religious cheating:

A group of three ministers who have a history of advocating that the Ten Commandments should trump the U.S. Constitution have told the Wall Street Journal that they entered an unlocked Senate hearing room in order to anoint with oil the chairs that will be used for the confirmation hearing next week of Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito.

"We did adequately apply oil to all the seats," said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who identified himself as an evangelical Christian and as president of the National Clergy Council in Washington. He was accompanied by Rev. Pat Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, and Grace Nwachukwu, general manager of a group called Faith and Action, of which Rev. Schenck is president and co-founder. Rev. Schenck, Rev. Mahoney, and Rev. Nwachukwu spearhead the National Ten Commandments Project, launched in 1996, and claim to have distributed more than 400 plaques of various sizes that can be seen in offices throughout the Capital.

Rev. Schenck was trained at the Elim Bible Institute in Lima, NY. Along with fellow Elim alum Randall Terry, Schenck helped found the underground Operation Rescue, which has invoked "higher law" to justify not only peaceful civil disobedience, but also bloody revolution with "real bullets" and "real blood." Schenck later founded the National Community Church, a charismatic Pentecostal congregation in Washington, D.C., whose members included the then-junior Senator from Missouri (and future U.S. Attorney General) John Ashcroft, along with Ashcroft's family and several congressional staffers.


Nice. Anyone for a counter-prayer to neutralize the noxious nonsense?

dogemperor [userpic]
Conservative Judge Chips at Religious Freedom

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]pdx42)

cross-posted to [info]liberal_bias
[LINK to article]

Judge Richard Suhrheinrich's ruling said the ACLU brought "tiresome" arguments about the "wall of separation" between church and state, and it said the organization does not represent a "reasonable person." The judge went on to say, “the separation of church and state,” which the ACLU referred to repeatedly, an “extra-constitutional construct [that] has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state. ... Our nation’s history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and[,] in some cases, accommodation of religion.... Thus, state recognition of religion that falls short of endorsement is constitutionally permissible.”

The "extra-Constitutional construct" that the judge is referring to is commonly called the Establishment Clause, that interpretation of the First Amendment that basically says that "freedom of religion" is intrinsically tied to "freedom from religion", and gave rise to the term "separation of Church and State", which has its basis in the Federalist Papers, and Court precedent going back to the early days of this nation.

In defense of this decision by Judge Suhrheinrich to ignore the Establishment Clause, the conservative talking points of the day emphasize that the Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of modern law, and that the laws and liberties of the United States are an extension of that.

I don't buy it.

Only three of the Ten Commandments are codified in US Federal Law, and all three -- murder, theft, false witness -- are so basic that they have been codified by every culture as far back as there have been codes, and are so intrinsic to the social fabric that they legitimately fall within Rousseau's Social Contract. Three out of ten is not a good basis to say that modern law is based on the Ten Commandments.

The Magna Carta, on the other hand, is the first document in Western civilization to afford civil liberties to all noblemen formerly reserved only for monarchs, and was thus the basis for all subsequent laws that extended or expanded rights and liberties. For historical documents, the Hammurabic Code would be a far better example than the Ten Commandments of the early codification of laws that we now consider dear.

Furthermore, the display is clearly a display of historical documents intrinsic to the founding of the United States of America; the other major documents displayed are the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner". To include the Ten Commandments, one would have to first accept that the Ten Commandments is an historical document (a matter in dispute), and that it is an integral part of the United States' history, a claim with no real basis.

Third, the Ten Commandments, while intrinsic to two major religions of the World -- Judaism and Christianity -- does, when displayed in a courthouse, place a certain expectation on how the Court will view cases and defendants before it. The judge in this case is clearly looking at the display through his pious Christian eyes, rather than the eyes of a defendant, or even an attorney, who perhaps does not believe in the validity of all the Commandments, or perhaps has broken a few that are *not* codified into law. If I appear before a court in this courthouse that is endorsing the Ten Commandments on a par with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, will it work against me in this court if I have been disrespectful to my mother (Commandment #5), not kept holy the Sabbath Day (Commandment #4), or worshipped a different God (Commandments #1 and #2)?

By now, I am sure you have rolled your eyes at me so much that you're getting dizzy, but consider the reality of this. The Court has placed a religious document with only tangential relationship to our laws on equal footing with the actual historical documents upon which our laws and our liberties are based. How can that possibly not be seen as prejudicial and biased in favor of a certain religious view?

Current Music: Al Hirt
dogemperor [userpic]
awake! awake! fear! fire! foes! awake! awake!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]darkhawke)

This is a preliminary post - I found this referenced on Wikipedia and am trying to find corroboration right now.

The Honorable Richard Fred Suhrheinrich is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit serving in Lansing, Michigan. He made national news on December 22, 2005, when he ruled that the US Constitution does not include "a wall of separation between church and state," denying a claim by the ACLU and approving the continued display of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky courthouse.

They base the story on Catholic World News.

One chilling quote )

A PDF of the judgement can be found at the 6th District Court here.

The ruling/opinion includes:

The ACLU’s argument contains three fundamental flaws. First, the ACLU makes repeated reference to “the separation of church and state.” This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.

and

Thus, state recognition of religion that falls short of endorsement is constitutionally permissible.

I'm at work in a call center where research on this decision is problematic in the extreme, so I'm tossing the ball to you folks to take it and run with it. This ruling is just what the Dominionists and their ilk have been waiting for, I'm afraid.

Current Mood: infuriated
dogemperor [userpic]
Christian Reconstructionist Roy Moore officially announces candidacy for AL governor

Several people mentioned this on other forums, and Nagisa specifically called it here, but now it's official:

http://www.local6.com/news/5052104/detail.html

Roy Moore--known Christian Reconstructionist and golden-boy of the dominionist movement--has officially announced his candidacy for governor of Alabama.

a brief history of Roy Moore's hanky-panky )

There is already discussion on multiple forums--one which I think needs to turn into an organised campaign--to specifically see which churches and dominionist groups (with 501(c)3 non-profit status, such as how AFA and Focus on the Family are organised) are endorsing Roy Moore over the next few months and start filing reports to the IRS and state tax authorities of illegal politicking to have the tax exempt status of those groups revoked. (As Roy Moore is pretty much adored over and advocated/cheerleadered on by almost every dominionist group in the country--including a few specifically set up for the cheerleading of this idiot--it's possible that *most* dominionist groups could end up losing their tax exempt status if groups work in an organised fashion to monitor and report.)

EDIT: A fairly full history of Moore's misbehaviour is here.

dogemperor [userpic]
Ten Commandments judge to run for Alabama governor

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]nagisa_kaworu)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was fired in 2003 for disobeying a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse, said on Monday he would be a candidate for governor of Alabama in 2006.

Moore, a fundamentalist Christian from northern Alabama who supports school prayer and opposes gays, pledged to fight against higher taxes, tighten restrictions on illegal immigrants and improve education if elected.


"It is a crucial time to run for office when rights and liberties are being eroded, taxes climb, the education of our children declines and morality erodes while judges tell children they cannot pray," Moore said at a rally in Gadsden, 63 miles northeast of Birmingham.

"I believe that God is leading me to uphold the laws in Alabama and guide its policies," Moore said in an interview after he announced his candidacy.

Elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2000, Moore rose to national prominence in 2003 when he refused to remove a Ten Commandments display from a public area in the state judiciary building in Montgomery.

U.S. District Court Judge Myron Thompson had ruled that the 5,000-pound (2.3-ton) stone marker, installed by Moore and his supporters in 2001, violated the constitutional ban on government promotion of religion.

Moore contended the order was unlawful because it countermanded his constitutional obligation to acknowledge God.

more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100300998.html

dogemperor [userpic]
View from elsewhere in the religious landscape

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]hummingwolf)

A pair of Supreme Court rulings dealing with the display of the Ten Commandments on public property are only the most recent illustration of the power of the Decalogue (from the Greek, meaning ten words) to illuminate philosophical, religious, and cultural fault lines. For two thousand years, it has served as a potent symbol of the clash between moral cultures.

The identity of the cultures has changed, but this most familiar of all biblical law codes has remained the ultimate token of victory: He who controls the meaning of the Ten Commandments and the purpose to which they may be put, has won the culture war. Ancient Christians and Jews, 20th-century fascists, and 21st-century political liberals and conservatives have all understood the stakes in the tug-of-war over the Decalogue.

That this would prove to be the case wasn t necessarily obvious to the first people to hear the Ten Commandments....


New column from David Klinghoffer, author of Why the Jews Rejected Jesus.

dogemperor [userpic]
And the dominionists are at it again trying to wreck the constitution...

...as if that "Flag Desecration Amendment" wasn't bad enough (which has, unfortunately, passed the House)...

http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/PressReleases.asp?did=1657
http://www.witchvox.com/wren/wn_detail.html?id=13331
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0037064.cfm (warning: triggering to walkaways)

Yes, they're trying to pass yet another amendment to *reverse* court decisions (and mind, the court decision was still regarded as allowing religious monuments if in historical context with *other* documents--aka you can show the Ten Commandments with, say, the Code of Hammurabi or the Six Nations' Accord of the Tree, but *not* as a strictly religious thing (as was attempted in KY).)

They are specifically going after constitutionally reversing the decision in KY, in which dominionist parties explicitly were putting the Ten Commandments in courthouses as a religious statement (as an aside--KY, especially those same counties, were also in a court decision that removed the Ten Commandments from being *required* to be posted in schools--yes, few people know it was required by *law*, and yes, the dominionists are *still* raising hell about it).

(And before people ask, yes, this is by far not the first time this has been tried--Istook has been trying to get this damn thing passed since at least 1997. http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/cs/blcs_rfa.htm as well as http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/rfaup.htm list previous efforts, and the asshat's own page (at http://www.house.gov/istook/religiousfreedom/) also details a history.)

Even worse, there is a growing movement by dominionists to actually have Roy Moore considered as a candidate for Supreme Court Justice (including multiple petition attempts):

http://press.arrivenet.com/pol/article.php/663019.html
http://www.conservativeusa.org/JusticeRoyMoore.htm (one of the offending petitions; reportedly the "Constitution Party", a dominionist party formerly called the US Taxpayer's Party that makes the Texas Republican Party platform look downright liberal in comparison (seriously--the "Constitution Party" is blatantly Christian Reconstructionist; http://glaivester.blogspot.com/2004/10/constitution-party-and-christian_08.html notes that one of the actual founders was Rushdoony *himself*; Randall Terry, who runs "Reclaiming America" and formerly operated Operation Rescue, is also a co-founder) also has a petition drive to get Roy Moore as a Supreme Court justice)

This is Bad All Around (especially since Roy Moore is blatantly Reconstructionist; I think if (gods above, gods below, and gods in between *forbid*) he DID manage to get in as a Justice a *lot* of people would suddenly have very good grounds to apply for political asylum in Holland; I know *I* would be moving that "plan B" into place)...it does NOT help that he's presently the "Golden Boy" of dominionists (http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=11927)

More info on this at MooreWatch, http://www.bravesbeat.com/bravesjournal/warliberal/archives/get_your_moore_on/roywatch/index.html

The "Constitution Party", of course, has links to racist groups all around, both from Moore and other members who address the modern version of "white citizen's councils" (http://www.bravesbeat.com/bravesjournal/warliberal/archives/2004/10/more_links.html as well as SPLC's reports). They're also known to be linked to militia groups, including "Christian Identity" and "Christian Patriot" groups (such as Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph are suspected of having been involved in).

As it is, Roy's been a bit of a liar all around: http://mediamatters.org/items/200506290001 notes how he actively lied regarding the criteria the US Supreme Court used in the Ten Commandment cases in KY, and apparently the IRS has rejected nonprofit status in past for Roy Moore's groups (http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/112029583832200.xml&coll=2).

Still...it's not going to be a smooth ride at all. People *need* to be contacting the ACLU and SPLC and likeminded groups. Unless, of course, Holland and Canada want to see a lot of asylum cases in future :P

dogemperor [userpic]
The Oklahoma Republican Party Platform

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

Want a sneak preview of what life would be like should Dominionist-ridden Republicans totally take over? Look no further than the Oklahoma GOP. Here's what Left2Right has to say about this platform:

The Oklahoma party calls for state and federal legislation to prohibit same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships, and also a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man and one woman. I'm not sure if this is to leave states the room to adopt civil unions, or just carelessness — the party thanks "the members of the Platform Committee who gave two long Saturdays to produce this document" — but I'd prefer to think it's the former. (And yes, it could be carelessness: in short order the platform supports and opposes the same Taxpayer Bill of Rights for the state.)Read more... )

dogemperor [userpic]
Another Cultural Warfare Update

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]britzkrieg)

Here's today's cultural warfare update from [info]solarbird. Topics include:

* Decision against divorced Wiccan couple upheld by higher court. Both want to raise their son in their faith, but a lower court ordered in the divorce decree not to "expose" their child to their religious beliefs because that might "confuse" him since he goes to a Catholic school. An appeal is in process to the Indiana Court of Appeals.

* Focus on the Family calls the end-of-term Ten Commandments decisions "dangerous."

* Focus on the Family complains about CDC school survey about sexual activity.

* Focus on the Family report on "threats to religious liberty" -- including marriage rights, abortion rights, and "secularism in culture."

* "Christian" groups plan to install 100 Texas-like Ten Commandments displays in cities across the country, in reaction to the recent Supreme Court rulings.

* Concerned Women for America blacks the new GBLT-themed television cable channel LOGO as an "assault on children."

* The Traditional Values Coalition attacks the latest Supreme Court decisions as "attack[s] on religious freedom."

She also includes the following update on Love in Action from Focus on the Family's webfeed:

Frightening Love in Action Update )

I hope you all find this informative.

dogemperor [userpic]
Christian Groups plan more monuments

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

The Washington Post talks about ongoing efforts by religious groups to erect more religious monuments in government buildings:

Within hours of yesterday's Supreme Court decision allowing a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, Christian groups announced a nationwide campaign to install similar displays in 100 cities and towns within a year.

"We see this as an historic opening, and we're going to pursue it aggressively," said the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Defense Coalition, which organized vigils outside the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo died this year.

Although disappointed that the court ruled in a related case that two Kentucky counties could not hang framed versions of the Ten Commandments in their courthouses, Mahoney said the Texas decision was sufficient to "open up a whole new frontier" for preserving the United States' "Christian heritage."

Groups on both sides of the issue predicted that the pair of Supreme Court rulings, rather than clarifying a gray area of the law, would spawn more disputes over Ten Commandment displays in parks, town halls and courthouses. They said the displays are now the front line of a proxy war, standing in for the bigger issue of the place of religion in public life.


Here's the website of the "Christian Defense Coalition": Renew America. It's an interesting look at a parallel universe.

dogemperor [userpic]
US Supreme Court issues split decision in Texas 10-Commandments case

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]moirawolf)

The Texas monument to the Ten Commandments gets to stay.

It seems the key issue is the "Prominent Display" thus advocating one religion over another. The Supreme Court, in it's court room, has a copy of the Ten Commandments in a Freize over the court... HOWEVER, it also has Mohammed and Confucius as well. Thus, the Ten Commandments are not *prominently* displayed as the sole source of law.

Kentucky's got to take them down... Texas gets to keep them.

And there were *no* announcements of any retirements either. Court is now Adjourned.

dogemperor [userpic]
Supreme Court sides with ACLU on 10 Commandments

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]moirawolf)

In a 5-4 vote (O'Conner was the swing vote) the Supreme Court has just ruled that the 10 Commandments are NOT allowed on goverment property in the case of the Kentucky framed copy of them in Federal Court Houses.

They have yet to decide on the Texas issue where it's a monument on State Capital grounds.

(This breaking news per CNN)

dogemperor [userpic]
10 Commandments decisions expected today

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]seshen)

The Supreme Court will decide if a granite monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol and framed copies of commandments in two Kentucky courthouses are allowed.

dogemperor [userpic]
Theocrat of the Week

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

From Frederick Clarkson's blog:

Periodically, we here at FrederickClarkson.com are compelled to recognize an individual in American politics or government whose efforts on behalf of theocracy are, well, extraordinary. This week we recognize the efforts of U.S. Rep. John Hoesttler (R-IN) who has pushed through legislation in the House that would deny funding to enforce the ruling of a federal court which declared that a display of a monument to Ten Commandments in a court house in his district was unconstitutional. He also declared on the House floor, that "Democrats cannot help denigrating and demonizing Christians." Finally, in a House committee meeting, he referred to "the mythical wall [of] separation between church and state that's been erected by the courts." (Although he did not say this last item this week, our judges have ruled that it counts since the remark came to our attention this week.)


Details at his blog.

dogemperor [userpic]
Roy Moore runs for office

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

From Boston.com:

Conservative's popularity may be problem for GOP

Ex-Alabama judge eyes governorship
By Nina Easton, Globe Staff | June 14, 2005

WASHINGTON -- As Republican strategists weigh the party's prospects for 2006 and 2008, they are increasingly worried about a political confrontation with Roy S. Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who became a hero to religious conservatives when he refused to follow a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state's judicial building.

Moore, a Republican who enjoys widespread support in his home state, is poised to run against a vulnerable Republican governor. If he wins, some party strategists speculate, he could defy a federal court order again by erecting a religious monument outside the Alabama state Capitol building. With the 2008 presidential race looming, President Bush would then face a no-win decision: either call out the National Guard to enforce a court order against a religious display on state grounds or allow a fellow born-again Christian to defy the courts.Read more... )

dogemperor [userpic]
Congress Assaults the Courts, Again

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

From the NYT Op-ed pages:The theocrats continue to chip away at the courts...

Congress Assaults the Courts, Again
June 18, 2005

The House of Representatives took a little- noticed but dangerous swipe at the power of the courts this week. It passed an amendment to a budget bill that would bar money from being spent to enforce a federal court ruling regarding the Ten Commandments. The vote threatens the judiciary's long-acknowledged position as the final arbiter of the Constitution. It is important that this amendment be removed before the bill becomes law.

During consideration of an appropriations bill for the Departments of State, Justice and Commerce, Representative John Hostettler, Republican of Indiana, introduced an amendment to prohibit any funds from being used to enforce Russelburg v. Gibson County. In that case, a federal court ruled that a courthouse Ten Commandments display violated the First Amendment and had to be removed. Mr. Hostettler declared that the ruling was unconstitutional, and inconsistent with "the Christian heritage of the United States."[emphasis mine- ed]Read more... )

dogemperor [userpic]
News Roundup

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

Chuck Currie has a great blog post about the religious right adapting the tactics and strategy of 1930s Germany:

After listening to James Dobson and his evangelical Christian colleagues talk about controlling the federal judiciary through the Republican majority in Congress – to the extent of punishing judges and defunding courts – one can’t help recalling the events in 1930s Germany. The National Socialists removed judges who didn’t go along with the party program. Law became what they party said it would.

Dobson, speaking on his radio show it April, imagined political change proceeding this way: “The troublesome Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco could be abolished and then staffed by different judges immediately.” He complained that “Congress has not had the political gumption to take any such action.” House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has encouraged such views: “We set up the courts. We can unset the courts. We have the power of the purse.”

Dobson seems not to realize that an independent judiciary is essential to the rule of law. As one prominent jurist explains: “If we are to be a nation of laws and not of men, judges must be impartial referees… By insulating judges from external retaliation and from internal temptations of ambition [by life appointment and irreducible salary], the framers hoped that the judiciary would be free of pressure not only from the government by also from the people.” These words are not from the left-wing fringe; they belong to archconservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.


The whole post and some of the comments are definitely a must-read.

The transcript of the June 10 segment of "NOW" is up. It features an interview with writer Chris Hedges and the '10 Commandments Judge' Roy Moore. I may post the transcript seperately. There's lots of good stuff in it. Hedges wrote the article in the May Harpers about the Religious Broadcasting convention.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a feature about the 'holy war' against gays.

Here's an example of what might be called the "pro-discrimination" (or even the 'pro-hate') movement targeting homosexuals. More about it here.

dogemperor [userpic]
Article about Dominionism

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY [info]sunfell)

I found a link to a very interesting article about Dominionism (called here 'reconstructionism' by the writer) on the Mainstream Baptists site.

An excerpt:

Very few people in Oklahoma or in our entire country have any idea who Rousas Rushdoony was. Fewer still know the impact that his thought and writings are having on life in our society. Most of the people who have been influenced by him are loathe to admit that his ideas have had an impact on their thinking. Some, like John Whitehead who heads the Rutherford Institute and was a prominent advisor to George W. Bush during the legal battles in Florida after the last presidential election, acknowledged Rushdoony’s influence in their early writings, but have found it necessary to distance themselves from him as they acquired positions of public influence. Oklahoma is one of the few states where influential people have little fear that their credibility could be undermined by being openly identified with Rushdoony or with the Chalcedon Foundation that he started. I suspect that the Daily Oklahoman is the only major daily newspaper in the world to eulogize Rushdoony on its editorial page and State Representative Bill Graves of Oklahoma City is one of the few elected officials in the country who writes articles for the Chalcedon Report -- the Foundation’s monthly newsletter. Bill Graves has articles published in both the January and the March 2002 issues of the Chalcedon Report.

Openly identifying with Rushdoony and the Reconstructionist movement is problematic for people in the public eye because Rushdoony was an adamant opponent of the First Amendment to the constitution. His magnum opus, published in 1973, is an 800 page tome patterned after Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion that Rushdoony entitled The Institutes of Biblical Law. On page 294, Rushdoony gives an indication why he believes that the American system of pluralistic democracy is heresy. He wrote, “In the name of toleration, the believer is asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions.” Read more... )

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