Category: Entanglement

October 15, 2012
image showing Wall between Church and State

A Google alert caught my eye on Sunday. It was to a post on a website called LifeNews.com and it was titled “Liberals Are Trying to Intimidate Your Church This Election”. So of course I had to read about this very important issue. The post basically was the standard conservative scare post. Naturally none of their information was correct. What I did find interesting was links to two voter guides. I didn’t know that a church was so concerned with obviously non-religious issues like energy, Voter ID, and Iran.

October 12, 2012
image of VP Joe Biden & Rep. Paul Ryan
VP Joe Biden & Rep. Paul Ryan

Thursday nights Vice Presidential debate between current VP Joe Biden and GOP nominee Rep. Paul Ryan contained topics from domestic issues and foreign affairs. Toward the end of the night debate moderator Martha Raddatz asked, since both men are of the Catholic faith, about abortion. Each man’s answer drew a sharp contrast on the relationship between faith and public policy. I thought Vice President Biden had the correct view.

This is from a transcript hosted by the website Plunderbund but I did view the debate and vouch for the text in this transcript:

October 5, 2012
created image showing The wall between church and state

Back in August I did an interview with the website Progress Planet about me and this blog. I was also invited to write a guest post for them and it was posted today. The topic is the two recent federal court rulings that were related to church state separation. Please check it out.

September 24, 2012
clip art showing Preaching from the Pulpit

On Sunday October 7th, Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative evangelical Christian group, will be promoting ‘Pulpit Freedom Sunday’. It’s an event where the ADF says it has 1,000 pastors pledged to violate Federal tax laws by preaching about the election, endorsing a candidate, and sending a video of their sermon to the IRS. Their stated point is that the tax law prohibiting endorsing specific candidates violates the pastor’s freedom of speech. Once again the religious right is wrong.

September 15, 2012
image of FRC logo with Hate Group written on it

I’ve written before about the Values Voters Summit, which is sponsored by the hate group Family Research Council (FRC). I really don’t want to waste energy on their hate but I feel an informed voter is a defender of democracy and hate groups like FRC shouldn’t be allowed to fly under the radar. FRC isn’t just a group with different ideas, their ideas are the polar opposite of this country’s values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I don’t like to write these strong words but the Family Research Council’s goals are no different than the goals of the Taliban in Afghanistan. People need to know the truth and need to know about the people who consort with the kind of sedition the FRC calls for in their words and deeds. Voters need to know that people like Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan believes that one’s Christian religious beliefs should trump the US Constitution.

August 25, 2012
image of Mitt Romney
The 1st amendment won’t allow me to id this guy

Both Mitt Romney and President Obama gave lengthy interviews to the National Cathedral’s magazine, “Cathedral Age”. I believe that we live in a secular republic where the government ought to be religiously neutral. There is no religious test to hold office but this interview did gives us a case study in Christian privilege that some like Mitt Romney believe they deserve. While he tore into the wall between church and state, in another interview he tried to use his religion as an excuse not to reveal his tax returns.