Salon: The Right to Impose Christianity

[mcscajun]

The right to impose Christianity

The religious right worked itself into a righteous fury at "Justice Sunday," using the stalemate over judges to tar Democrats as enemies of God.

By Michelle Goldberg

April 25, 2005 | One of the most telling moments of Sunday night's Justice Sunday rally and telecast came right after Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, bellowed, "We will be disobedient altar boys! We won't be told to shut up and give it over to the secular left! Who are they to say that I don't have a right to freedom of speech?"

At the rally, held at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., the crowd jumped to its feet, whistling and clapping. In the small Long Island, N.Y., Christian youth center where I watched Justice Sunday with a dozen or so believers, people murmured their assent, as if Donohue had bravely spoken truth to power. Apparently, many ordinary Christians believe that some nefarious "they" is saying that believers don't have a right to freedom of speech.

(snip)

For an hour and a half, these right-wing eminences spun a political line that was blithely untethered from reality. Priscilla Owen, for example, one of Bush's blocked judges, was held out by Frist as a jurist admired across the partisan spectrum. No mention, of course, was made of the words of one of her colleagues on the Texas Supreme Court, who accused her of an "unconscionable act of judicial activism" in a case dealing with a minor seeking an abortion. The godless leftist who hurled this charge was none other than Alberto Gonzales, now the attorney general.

(snip)

What's fascinating, then, is that Owen, a judge known to put her politics before the law, is being held up as the cure for a supposedly ideological judiciary. For the orators at Justice Sunday, judicial activism in defense of biblical literalism is no vice.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/25/justice_sunday/

[BamaLefty]

1. They Will Answer To God One Day

I truly believe that. It won't be pretty either. Filthy hypocrites...

[smoogatz]

2. Highview Baptist Church should lose its tax exempt status.

They have every right to free speech. But as a taxpayer I resent being forced to subsidize their rabid anti-Americanism.

[stray cat]

3. The right to impose Fristianity

[HockeyMom]

4. If Donohoe wants to EMPTY the pews at Catholic Churches,

let him keep it up. As far as Long Island its concerned, ask him how many Catholic schools have shut their doors because they cannot get parents to send their kids to Catholic School.

[Catt03]

5. Disgusting

Bill Donahue is a truculent, sanctimonious, vitriolic, annoying, stupid man.

As a Catholic, I am livid at this man's behavior, which is even more unchristian than any of those he appeared with.

"William A. Donahue, president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has made 23 guest appearances on TV news programs in 2004. Donahue uses his appearances primarily to attack gays and progressives. He has referred to the "gay death style," remarked, "God forbid we'd run out of little gay kids," claimed that Senator John Kerry "never found an abortion he couldn't justify," and claimed that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular ... Hollywood likes anal sex."

www.Mediamatters.org

:grr: