On social issues, God seems to be the vehicle driving the Republican agenda, but the forward motion might be losing steam, according to a Pew Research Center report that finds one in five of us are not affiliated with a religion. The day is coming when we’ll have constituencies that want God out of politics.
Promoters of repressive legislation rely on religious fanatics who’ll agree to any infringement of civil liberties (especially if it involves women) on the basis that pious sensibilities dictate it. Abortion? Under no circumstance. Contraception? Not if you can’t afford to buy it out of your pocket. Same-sex marriage? Homosexuality? Our God says no. So what if your god doesn’t agree? If you don’t agree?
How ironic it is that the alleged Christianity agenda is so startlingly anti-Christ. The notion that a gaggle of repression-mongering hypocrites appeal to so many Christian voters boggles the mind. These modern-day charlatans, not unlike the Wizard of Oz, stand behind the curtain, hoping no one is paying attention to the nonsense they’re spouting, and guess what? Lots of folks apparently don’t.
I’m not religious, but during eight years of Catholic school education, I learned something about Jesus– you know, the one Christianity is named for? For sure he wouldn’t be a Republican if he were alive today. He certainly wouldn’t approve of their ambitions regarding removing the innards of the poor, and using them to feed the money machine.
When Jesus said suffer the little children, he didn’t mean make them suffer. But we do. As of two years ago– and it’s worse now– twenty-two percent of our children were living in poverty. That’s over 16 million.
Who doesn’t know what Christ had to say about wealth, the real god of Republicans? In case you’ve forgotten, he advised an extremely wealthy man to give everything to the poor, if he wanted to get into heaven. Notice he didn’t say steal from the poor and give to folks who don’t lack for a thing.
Jesus knew how hard it is for people to let go of their money. He said it would be easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. I guess the super-rich, knowing an impossibility when they see one, are doing their best to have it all right here.
What do the right want to spend our resources on, if not the poor and middle class? War, for one thing. They want to send the sons and daughters of poor people to die in foreign countries, while their own sons and daughters attend private schools. Never mind that we’re killing innocent people, or that the rate of suicide among members of the armed forces is skyrocketing. After all, lots of corporations benefit from war.
And if they can’t go to war, and can get neither an education nor a job, they can feed the prison industry.
