I’ve had it
This morning on Today (actually last week by now), Katie Couric interviewed Newt Gingrich, who is promoting his latest ‘Contract with America’ book and some speculate feeling out the Republican primaries (yes, the 2008 primaries). I only managed to catch a few seconds of the interview due to this morning’s hectic schedule, but there he was, telling Katie that
“….our rights derive from God and what are we going to do about judges who don’t understand that?”
I guess I missed God’s signature on the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States.
What the hell is an activist judge anyway? How should the Constitution be interpreted? Do we need to make sure that not only are the laws constitutional but that they also pass the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John test too. Maybe the judges should just pray for God to come down and issue judgement. Hell, we should fire all the judges and hold ‘court’ in the church. God can speak to the accused, pass judgement and appropriately ’smite’ the guilty. Maybe then we wouldn’t be concerned about all the people who get released from death row due to new evidence or even someone else confessing to the crime.
Wait, wait… you know there is thing called seperation of church and state. When I was in school there were students who did not have to say the Pledge of Allegiance due to their religion. (They also missed out on PE and ’sex ed’ or human growth and development). Right now there is an atheist in California who is challenging the words ‘one nation under God’ in the Pledge. Should one man be able to take out those words? Those words that have been in the Pledge since the beginning, er I mean since we decided that the Communists in Russia must be Godless people and we could smoke ‘em out by making them say ‘one nation under God’. Do we not remember the persecution of our own people? Do we remember writers, actors, plain old ordinary mom and pop out of work, unhirable because some one put them on a list and they were asked- either out loud or behind their backs- “have you now or ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Do we remember in Salem long ago when they held womens’ heads under water- if they lived they were witches and burned at the stake- if they died oh well our mistake so sorry. These things are the result of church and state not being seperate. These are the things our forefathers fled. When our commander in chief requires the crutch of religion and Newt spouts off about ‘activist judges’ it really makes me wonder about the ‘family values’ religious right. Newt has been divorced how many times now? George W. Bush had a cocaine and alcohol habit. I guess as long as they profess that they are religious things are all right… yeah let God forgive them.
Don’t get me (completely) wrong, there are many good, honorable people who believe in a higher power whether they call it God, Bhudda, Mohamed or Cosmic Muffin. But things like priests molesting alter boys, rampant divorce- Rush, Newt-, drug and alcohol abuse- Rush, Dubya- among the ‘family values’ and the holier than though crowd makes me want to puke. If you were ever ‘better’ than me you are not now. You can’t ‘preach family values’ and have mistresses and prostitutes, divorce your wife when she has cancer or any of the other crap that the family valuers denounce (and then do).
