Molly Ivins once said: " Drag God into politics, and you'll ruin His reputation in no time."

[madfloridian]

If she were still with us today, she would be having a field day with all our catering to the religious right. I still miss her so much. She had a lot to say on the intersection of religion and politics.

I am going to keep on speaking up on this issue, because the appointment of a party chairman who thinks we need to speak openly and publicly about our religion has my dander up.

The choice of an invocation minister who feels women are inferior to men and who considers gays and lesbians to be living in a sinful life style...infuriates me.

Molly never spared words.

Here is one of her columns from 2004 about mixing religion and politics. I found it at a blog called No More Apples.

I long ago learned to shy away from the stink of sanctimony. We are all familiar with pietistic hypocrites and spiritual humbugs wearing dog collars. I doubt that the clergy is more afflicted with canting Pharisees than the legal profession is with sleazy chiselers, but neither type is exactly rare.

..."Two hundred years of not terribly rigid separation of church and state has given us one precious gift. As a quote attributed to James Madison (never been able to find the correct citation on it) put it, "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries." Religious strife is still soaking the soil with blood, isn't it, in Kosovo and elsewhere. To the extent that politics should be based on moral and ethical considerations, of course it has religious foundations. But dragging God into partisan politics is a sin.

Is it Christian to cut money for Head Start? Is it Christian to cut poor children off healthcare? Is it Christian to cut old people off Medicare? Is it Christian to write memos justifying torture? Is it Christian to cut after-school, nutrition and AIDS programs so multimillionaires can have bigger tax cuts? Historically, the Bible has been used to justify some stupefying crimes, including slavery and genocide. I see no indication that we are any better at divining the Lord's intent now than we ever were.

Ruining God's reputation

As regular readers know, I call upon the Lord rather frequently myself, often for patience in dealing with those who presume to speak in His name. To whatever extent each of us is affected by religion, I suppose we inevitably bring that into the public sphere. But I seriously question the wisdom of doing so in any organized or deliberate fashion. Drag God into politics, and you'll ruin His reputation in no time

Molly once talked to Bill Moyers about Texas Republicans and Christianity.

PBS transcript from 2003

MOYERS: I want to put this on the screen, so our viewers can see it. And then you tell me if it's true or not. These are the words of a state representative from Houston named Debbie Riddle. Quote: "Where did this idea come from, that everybody deserves free education? Free medical care. Free whatever? It comes from Moscow. From Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell." Now, do you know that that's true or not? Or is that just a work of fiction?

IVINS: No. That's absolutely true. That's one of our finer state representatives, not fully au courant on where the idea of free public education comes from.

MOYERS: You're talking about people who won the election. Republicans hold every statewide office in Texas now. They wouldn't be acting like this, would they, if they didn't have popular support?

IVINS: The Texas Republican party has been completely taken over by the Christian right. You're not looking at any kind of old-time Republicans. You're not looking at like, Poppy Bush Republicans, or people you would think of like that. These people really believe that public institutions should be destroyed. They're trying to destroy the schools. They're trying to destroy the welfare system. They don't think government should be used to help people.

And it's really not because they're mean. They really think that government is bad. And that we should be doing all this on our own, through the churches. Well, the fact that that's not doable, that it's impossible, that it's an absurd proposition, is not something you can talk to these people about.

She speaks out again on people who force their religion into public life. From a 2005 column.

Molly Ivins column at Free Press.org

I have said for years about people in public life, "I don't write about sex, drugs or rock 'n' roll." If I had my druthers, I wouldn't write about the religion of those in public life, either, as I consider it a most private matter. Separation of church and state is in the Constitution because this country was founded by people who had experienced both religious persecution and state-supported religions. I think John F. Kennedy's 1960 statement to the Baptist ministers should stand as a model of how public servants should handle the relation between religious belief and public service.

Nevertheless, we are now beset by people who insist on dragging religion into governance -- and who themselves believe they are beset by people determined to "drive God from the public square."

This division has been in part created by and certainly aggravated by those seeking political advantage. It is a recipe for an incredibly damaging and serious split in this country, and I believe we all need to think long and carefully before doing anything to make it worse.

As an 1803 quote attributed to James Madison goes: "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."

I wonder what she would have to say about our House Democratic committee recruiting all those anti-choice Democrats to run in 2008.

"The anti-abortion pitch is standard fare in Alabama’s Second Congressional District, a deeply conservative area that President Bush carried twice and that has been represented in Washington by a Republican for four decades. What makes the spot unusual is that Mr. Bright is a Democrat. And that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has been pushing hard for Mr. Bright’s election, paid for it.In fact, Mr. Bright is one of a dozen anti-abortion Democratic challengers the party has recruited to run for the House this year and has aggressively supported with millions of dollars and other resources in culturally conservative districts long unfriendly to the party.

That is the highest number of anti-abortion candidates the party has fielded in recent memoryto run either for open seats or against Republican challengers, according to party strategists and a leading anti-abortion organization.

I wonder what she would have to say about Rick Warren giving the invocation at the inauguration.

But on the signal issues of the religious right he is, as he himself has said, as orthodox as James Dobson. And as inflammatory. Warren doesn't just oppose gay marriage, he's compared it to incest and pedophilia. He doesn't just want to ban abortion, he's compared women who terminate pregnancies to Nazis and the pro-choice position to Holocaust denial.

I am sure she would not remain silent if she were here to see the socially liberal chairman of the party being replaced with an admitted social conservative.

[bertman]

1. Recommend. Excellent piece. Molly, a national treasure.

[madfloridian]

2. Yes, she was truly that.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

3. Molly referred to JFK's speech in 1960 about separation of religion and government.

Here is the link and some excerpts:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600

""But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

...For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

...That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it."

[LWolf]

4. Yes. I miss her so much,

I have no doubt that she would not be rejoicing to usher in a center-right Democratic administration.

[madfloridian]

5. Agreed.

I am having trouble believing it myself.

I feel so foolish for thinking we made a difference. :shrug:

[madfloridian]

6. Will never forget this column by Molly in 2004.

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/17931/life_without_dean/

"Meanwhile, the punditry is busy cranking out mostly pro forma hail-and-farewells to my man Howard Dean. I hate whining and life is not fair, but I still think a whole lot of people who should have known better freaked out over Dean, treating a mostly mild-mannered, perfectly sensible and quite cheerful fellow as some kind of anti-establishment antichrist. I mean, he was governor of Vermont for 10 years, not Lenin.

But he did tap into some real political anger, and look how many people turn out to be just scared to death of that. This is not the fake, pumped-up indignation of Rush Limbaugh's dittoheads over gay marriage -- now there's something that'll cost you your job -- but real anger about being lied to over war.

What was so scary about Howard Dean? Could it be because he (and some very bright young people who worked with him) found this way to raise real money in small amounts from regular people, and that just threatened the hell out of a lot of big corporate special interests? And out of an entire political establishment that is entirely too comfortable with the incestuous relationship between big money and politics? For just a moment in time, Dean was ahead of the pack -- and no one owned him. Go back and look at whom that scared."

[BobTheSubgenius]

8. Yet one more example of her spectacular writing.

[BobTheSubgenius]

7. One cannot do better than Molly Ivins.

There is "different from", or even "similar to", but not "better."

[tavalon]

16. there was another Texas woman who could be called "as good as"

Ann Richards. If there is a heaven, I hope they are up there kicking asses and takin' names.

[madfloridian]

21. What was it she said about Bush? "Poor George, he can't help it...

he was born with a silver foot in his mouth"

Did I get that right?

So funny. Richards was a Karl Rove victim.

[tblue37]

28. Yep. She also said he was born on third base and thought he

had hit a home run.

[tavalon]

35. If you didn't get it exactly, you got it awfully close

Ann Richards suffered no fools but she took them down like a southerner. As I'm sure you know, living in Florida, "Bless his heart", coming at the end or beginning of any sentence has nothing to do with blessing and everything to do with a pretty machete to the knees. Ah, we southerners, so genteel, so effective in our "critique".

[truedelphi]

9. And the choice of someone who came up with the decisions that

Helped bring Citibank to its record losses is not a decision packing much wisdom either. But hey, Obama why not appoint Rubin to whatever position his Rockefeller pal tells you he should have. "Somehow the all-seeing Rubin didn’t notice the toxic mortgage-derivatives on Citi’s books until it was too late"

I do wish Molly was around to comment on these goings on.

[tblue37]

29. many years ago Alan Alda starred in a very good political movie

entitled The Seduction of Joe Tynan. In it he played an idealistic politician who, by the time he worked his way up to where he was in a position of power, found he could not do any of the things he meant to do, because every step in his rise to power either compromised him or in some way backed him into a corner where he had no choice about what he could do.

[truedelphi]

30. I'll check that one out. Was it a bit comedic or strictly dramatic?? n/t

[tblue37]

31. Strictly dramatic. The character had an affair with a campaign worker,

played by Meryl Streep, and Julie Harris played his wife. He was actually very much in love with his wife, but ended up cheating on her anyway. The whole affair with a campaign worker bit was clearly intended to point up that politicians end up getting into power positions that make it easy to succumb to such temptations, but in fact sexual affairs are not the main "seductions" involved in politics.

[Demeter]

10. Nobody Said It Was an Easy Job, Being "Not Average"

And "Not Average" means not being White Male Christian Bigot, still.

Because that's where the money is. And the power.

It will take a new political party to push us beyond that fallacy. I thought that maybe the Democratic Party would be that new party, this time around. But with Pelosi and Reid in charge of Congress, we're still in the glacier stage.

[Norrin Radd]

11. kr

[VaYallaDawg]

12. Thanks so much for posting this.

It really makes me sad to realize how much we all miss her. One of Texas' two greatest ladies, along with Anne Richards.

I hope they're having a good cocktail and a laugh at all of us somewhere up on cloud nine!

[Time for change]

13. I see this a little differently than Molly Ivins

I see the root of the problem not so much bringing God into politics, but rather people trying to use God for their own personal and selfish purposes.

I used to belong to a church that preached against the Iraq War (the first one). I didn't have a problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with politicians talking about God. Many of our earlier politicians, including Lincoln, used to do that a lot. There is nothing in our Constitution or laws that prohibits them from doing that. God was often used in the anti-slavery movement. I don't have a problem with that.

The problem as I see it is the purpose for which too many of our politicians use God. When God is used to justify slavery or when He is used to justify policies that repress the poor or our imperial and violent interventions in other countries, or repression of minority groups then yes, that gives God a bad reputation. But when He is used to justify the abolition of slavery or feeding the hungry or peace making, then that gives Him a good reputation.

[madfloridian]

18. When his name is used to diminish the rights of women and gays...

then his teachings are diminished.

And when people are in visible important positions in our party who don't believe in those rights....they diminish all of us.

[mojowork_n]

33. Do you, really ------> ???? --------> Is it that difficult to follow?

I think what you wrote is pretty much along the same line that any honestly motivated, rational person would follow.

At least anyone old enough to know how stupid it is to try to be too zealous, or dogmatic about anything as vague as "spiritual values." (What the heck are they?)

That first sentence encompasses and summarizes quite a lot.

From the excerpted quotes in the O.P., and the careful order in which they were laid out, I think most reasonable folks would agree, it's not "The Deity" that's at fault -- or any specific "spiritual values" (love, mercy, truth, compassion, for instance) -- but the blatant, egregious, naked exercise of "power" or "authority," that makes a mockery of those values...

"...people trying to use God for their own personal and selfish purposes," you wrote.

Arguments that ignore that reality are like discussions about the primacy, or superior qualities of "bicycles" to "Tuesday," or the inadequacy of "fish," compared with "Planck's Constant."

...I'm probably being a little judgmental, myself, about the corollary misuse of people who misuse religion, by progressives who have an agenda of their own. With a self-serving thumb on the scale, conveniently out of sight, it's always easy to knock down the "straw man" in most any "religious" discussion (from either direction) -- but that's the point:

As St. Isaac the Syrian wrote (like, thirteen or fourteen hundred years ago, in some problematic Semetic dialect -- this passage has been written and re-translated and re-paraphrased a whole bunch of times, and I've just done it again), "As grass and fire cannot coexist in one place, so the 'balance scale' and mercy cannot abide in one soul’. Thus one cannot speak at all of God’s justice, or 'balance scale,' but rather of mercy that surpasses all justice: ‘As a grain of sand cannot counterbalance a great quantity of gold, so in comparison God’s use of justice cannot counterbalance His mercy. Like a handful of dust thrown into the great ocean, so are the sins of all mankind in comparison with the Love of God."

I'm sure there are D.U.'ers with Darwin reptiles crawling across the back of the trunks of their cars, who might cringe or instinctively turn away from a paragraph like that.

The same folks to whom you were trying to say you 'saw things differently than Molly.'

The bottom line, though, is we don't really know, so it's really not that important to disagree on "religion" versus "science." Certainly not in the same way the arguments used to be framed, between the Vatican and whoever or whatever was in charge of framing the Official Atheist counter-arguments. (The Politburo, the Third International, Ulyanov and/or Dzhugashvili?)

The materialist, clockwork, Newtonian, "balance scale" Universe has ceased to exist, or it's evolved into such a crazy-quilt patchwork of interwoven, fluid concepts, that it's pretty much unrecognizable.

Quantum mechanics, string theory, parallel universes (10 or 11 of them), and colossal unknowns like "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" -- no one knows what they are, but they make up most of the universe -- have upset that old apple cart.

Not that he could have known anything about any of that, but in the 7th or 8th century, Isaac the Syrian also wrote (echoing that Shakespeare dude, with the "protesteth too much" line), "Someone who has tasted the truth is not contentious for truth. Someone who is considered among men to be zealous for truth has not yet learnt what truth is really like: once he has learnt it he will cease from zealousness on its behalf."

Anyway, I've probably bit off way more than I needed to, here, but it's sort of been in the back of my mind since your "big white men" O.P. ...Just who, exactly, is on which side of what arguments? Who are the good guys and bad guys, or how do we even phrase questions like that?

[Bluenorthwest]

14. My Grand Dad

Had a colorful expression about politicians and prostitutes, and how a politiican who says "Praise the Lord" is like a prostitute who says "I love you." They both lie,he said, the difference being the Lord will forgive the prostitute. From another era he was. Some things never change.

[madfloridian]

22. Love that saying....

Sounds like something my grandparents would say. They were Christian but scoffed at the use of it in politics.

[tavalon]

15. Thank the Goddess she was with us as long as she was

She didn't suffer fools gladly but she did put them in their rightful place and with due haste. Amusingly, always amusingly.

[mnhtnbb]

17. I miss Molly so much. No voice will ever replace hers.

[bluedawg12]

19. No one can say she didn't warn us about trucking with the right.

[madfloridian]

20. She saw it happen to the TX Republicans, and now it is happening all over the US

She was prescient...she saw it from the start with the Bush Republicans in TX.

[bluedawg12]

23. She told us what shrub did to Texas and warned us that it would happen

nation wide.

He left Texas a shambles. Look what he's leaving now. Un-real!

[saracat]

24. K + R madflo! Excellent piece!

[madfloridian]

26. Molly had a way of saying things bluntly.

I love blunt people who speak out and don't pander. :hi:

[anonymous171]

25. Pure genius. Thanks for posting. nt

[McCamy Taylor]

27. The Israelis are giving God a terrible rep over in the Middle East right now

with their "God wants us to occupy all these lands by force" bullshit. The whole Old Testament needs to be tossed into the trash, IMHO. Way too much pillaging and murdering and stealing other people's stuff in the name of the Lord.

[xchrom]

32. kick

[argonchloride]

34. Nonsense...the bible ruined it many years ago.

:shrug: