Why is the 'religious right' unwilling to come out against this administration's deceptive nature?
478099
This is another long one, sorry, but asking complicated questions and expecting short simple answers, isn’t realistic.\n\nThe religious right has two issues with Democrats; abortion and homosexuality.  Their need to impose their beliefs onto others is their motivating force behind supporting the Republican Party.  \n\nI am against abortion, but instead of creating laws which take control of a person’s beliefs and body out of that person’s hands, I believe in working harder to create a world where teenagers don’t get pregnant with unwanted children, where fathers don’t rape their children, and life is considered a gift from God.  Instead of being so determined to force a person to give birth to a child who will live a life of abuse and neglect or be dumped in a trash dumpster, they should work harder to create a world where people want to keep their children.  I believe they have given up on the power of faith and prayer.\n\nAs for homosexuality, most Christians don’t understand what the Bible says about homosexuality; they keep quoting a scripture from Leviticus which is alongside scriptures which condemn wearing cotton, shaving, and eating shell fish.  None of these Christians follow those rules, but still quote good old Leviticus to condemn something Jesus said nothing about. \n\nUsing watered down versions of the Bible which replaces the words for male prostitutes and rapists with homosexuals (a word and a culture which did not exist during the writing of the Bible), the Christian right are lost in a sea of misinformation.  \n\nInstead of following what Jesus commanded, they use the scriptures to justify what Jesus warned them not to do;  throw the first stone and judge in God’s name.\n\nUnfortunately there’s a lot of truth to what “bring ‘em on” says.  Up until the mid 1940’s modern day Republicans were Southern Democrats.  When Truman betrayed the party’s agenda of a segregated America by introducing the Fair Deal, they switched to the Republican Party.\n\nThe Republican puppeteers use the issues of abortion and homosexuality to instill fear into well meaning Christians in order to gain support for their agenda of a white, rich, segregated America.\n\nThe history is long and complicated and most people don’t have the desire to study Plato, Shakespeare, and read the philosophies of a man by the name of Emanuel Kant.  They don’t know who the Bones or the Skull and Crossbones are or how they originated.  It was no accident Roosevelt stayed out of WWII until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor or that every American city named Delano is almost 100% white. They take the word of their leaders and don’t know much about underlying philosophies of their party.\n\nTo learn all the history, or study a man named Erasmus, or understand how the Bible came about, takes years of research and can’t be found on some propagandist web-site.   The answer to your question is written in the history of mankind by philosophers, religious leaders and world rulers, but is like a mystery which you must unravel.
912554
because they thought by doing this the religious institutions in america will continue to support them despite the war in Iraq.  they were wrong.
777437
I certainly can, in our civil society religion shouldn't matter.  In fact however, it does and I prefer to know not so much the religion but how devout the politician is--the more devout, the less I like them because the more likely they are to let their religion color their decisions.  I don't want anybody forcing their religion or the implicit results of their religion on me.
777173
When were the religious Republicans repudiated? You got me.  I know it these last elections, 90% of conservative initiatives/referrendums were passed (8 of 9 states banned gay marriage, and on that didn't was because they had constructed it way too strictly; similarly certain abortion matters were constructed to push the envelope and were far too stringent even for religious republicans).  The real matter at issue in this last election was the war and corruption; it was primarily a referrendum against president Bush.  Many people overlooked the Republican candidates without even considering the issues.  Additionally, many of the Democrats stealing away Republican seats are religious individuals, who support those things you disapprove of.  It's not a party thing.
1026841
Yeah he is trying and it is making me turn against my church. I have been Christian all my life but after 2000, I completely stopped going to church. Neocons don't seem to understand what being a Christian is. I believe it is trying to be as Jesus... of which I can't see any actions of this administration being that way.
1000280
Because they pick and choose areas of the republican agenda that they like. Such as religion. Remember, S.Carolina and Arkansas are in the bible belt. \n\nPraise God, and pass out the welfare!!\n\nThese are your basic morons who believes an invisible man in the sky wants Bush and company to lead the country into the rapture. They are also too lazy to work while waiting for the second coming, and too stupid to think for themselves, so since Bush says God told him to president, well then, "I'm is an apublican too, by golly."
1124770
If my history lessons and further study of history are correct the US is a secular nation and its founders believed that no religion should be put above any other religion. Quite the foresight if I might say as they put this provision into the Constitution to protect the country from the various sects of christianity not the various religions in the world. The controversy you state is only a controversy in your head as I could care less about your religion. However, if any religion tries to usurp the US Constitution it is within the rights of any one to question and eventually put a halt to their actions. Christians have no more rights nor less rights than anyone else. So, if you see a problem with someone who doesn't share your religious views you have not read the first amendment properly. Get over it.
959513
When they feel they have God "on their side," some people will trample the rights of others with impunity.  \nTo me, a good example of this is the same-sex marriage debate - since the state gives all rights associated with marriage like taxation and adoption, religion should have no say in the matter.  Yet many people cite religious reasons for maintaining such hatreds and prejudices, and think it perfectly OK.  I wonder how they miss completely how hypocritical this is . . .
320235
You underestimate the Christian Right.  They will rather modify the prayer and explain why Bush is right than impeach him.  Remember they believe he's the  President because God made him so.
248112
Exactly my point, my friend. The thing is, and I'll try to avoid sterotyping Americans as they so carelessly do with Arabs. It is un-"American" to strip so many of their liberty in the name of "freedom". It is un"Christian" to disrespect a fellow human the way that has been done. It is extremely naive to think that the Bush administration is trying to help, knowing that Bush's family has gathered so much wealth through the exploitation of petroleum. I don't see how people don't spend more time on questions like these. Questions that matter. Thank you very much, my friend. (BTW, I'm an American Citizen of a Christian Church)
1092019
What you've written is what organized "theocracies" have perpetrated since the dawn of recorded history. While the Catholic Pontiffs of yesteryear have acted particularly egregiously, they are not the only examples of how "Cows, Pigs, Wars, & Witches" (- the title of an anti-religious anthology of anthropolgical, cross-cultural studies, written in the 1970's) have come to be enlisted to create fear in the masses and exact control over protracted periods of time. Look at what the "Religious Right" want to do in this country. I suggest you read a book by Kevin Phillips entitled "American Theocracy." In there you can derive the sense that even a country such as ours is vulnerable to these age-old tactics... for example, think on just how effective the "culture of fear" trumped up by the present administration has been in creating an effecient "smokescreen" or deversionary force to escape the public's otherwise probing eyes.
151099
Religion is just an ideological disguise.  Wars are always about territory and power.  The only reason that the US is in the Middle East right now is because this administration, following in the footsteps of the Reagan and Bush Sr. adiministration, has a serious comitment to creating and maintaining a US military stronghold in the Middle East.  Jimmy Carter laid it all out for the American people in an interview on NPR.  This "war" we are fighting is solely for maintaining economic and political control of an oil-rich territory.  The whole Isreal thing is a bogus excuse.  God will support the righteous--yeah right, what are you smoking.  According to the Bible, God instigated more wars than anything else.  He commanded massacres and genocide.  Isreal was formed, according to the Bible, because God commanded the Hebrews to kill all the Cannonites and take over their territory.  The modern state of Isreal was formed by the Allied powers after WWII because none of their countries wanted to take in all the Jewish refugees, so they picked their "historical" homeland, disposesed all the people already living their at that time and forcefully created a new state of Isreal.  Religion has always been and will always be an intricate screen to hide power-hungary facist regimes.  If people keep buying into the Bush administrations lies that we, a Judeo-Christian country that symbolizes all that is good are fighting Muslim countries because they symbolize all that is evil, the cycle of violence will perpetuate itself, and those people will only strengthen the ideological forces that promote this war.
868849
Because Republicans have so well positioned themselves using religion.  People look for guidence through religion and questioning your own religion to the faithfull would be like questioning God.  That's great when its your local pasteur saying they need more volunteers for the soup kitchen, but deadly when its used to lead a nation into war.\n\nThis was the whole reason our country seperated church and state for the first 200 years.
476770
Its just right wing fear mongering.  That is one of the things they are good at.  I thank my stars we live in a country still where you have the freedom of speech, the right of assembly and the right NOT to have a religion if you choose.  Its also a freedom FROM religion. \n\nI am reading posts here that seem to support a theocracy and are not content to mind their own business.   I have no use for Talibornagain Christians.  I don't get all this gay paranoia in our society.
419167
They aren't doing it behind our backs.  They are doing it right in front of us.  They don't care what people who don't agree with them think about the issue.  The wording of the CRA is frightening.  It basically sets the stage for a theocracy.  It would allow religious discrimination, because an official who denies service to someone based on religious principles would not be able to be sued in federal courts.\n\nOf course the Act would be declared unconstituional, since it clearly violates the First Amendment, but that it was even introduced is not a good thing.
962927
Would that it were so.  Unfortunately, I think the religious right still wields an inordinate amount of sway in the United States and will continue to interfere with government's ability to deal with more pressing issues.
701592
because nobody can logically prove whether it is or is not valid. and religion is a touchy subject, politicians don't want to isolate anyone.