Permission to Disregard All Human Laws

Cheerleading Can be Hazardous To Your Health

If that looks like a veiled threat, you are correct. That is a title of an article in a blog run by the Constitution Party. The main point of the article is beating up Jay Sekulow who is the Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian version of the ACLU. Ok, not like the ACLU, because the ACLJ works to destroy civil liberties, but that’s what they intend it to be. He’s a good buddy of Antonin Scalia and helped draft the “Defense” of Marriage Act. He has a fair amount of street cred as a right wing fundamentalist loony.

but not quite loony enough, obviously:

For a true Christian leader, within the context of Bush judicial nominees, “rolling forward” and not losing your balance, would mean — religiously and politically speaking — at least two things:

1. An iron-clad, no-compromise insistence that all judicial nominees must, first, acknowledge the God of the Bible as the source of law. This would mean a pledge to disregard all human laws and/or court rulings that conflict with God’s Law.

2. An iron-clad, no-compromise insistence that all judicial nominees must be truly pro-life which means no exceptions regarding abortion — none.

But, Sekulow has no such judicial nominee litmus tests. He mindlessly cheered the nomination of John Roberts to be Supreme Court Chief Justice even though Roberts said the murderous, un-Godly, un-Constitutional Roe v. Wade decision was “settled law” — which it is not. Adding insult to injury, Roberts also said he had no personal views that would prohibit him from applying Roe v. Wade. And he said the Bible, God’s Word, would have nothing to do with his judging. Roe, of course, is not “law” — settled or unsettled — because (a) Courts do not make “law.” And (b) Roe also couldn’t be “law” because it contradicts God’s Law against murder thus it is no law.

The Constitution Party–I have no idea why the would even dream of calling themselves that–believes that they, alone, have the right to decide what is and isn’t a law. And trust me, it is THEY ALONE, because I have a feeling God pretty much says whatever they want him to say.

Christian Honor Killings

Michael Specter has written an article in the New Yorker titled “Political Science The White House vs. the laboratory.” In it he discusses a number of ways in which the current administration obstructs scientific inquiry. Not a surprise since the publication of Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science. Opposing stem cell research is one thing. Opposing vaccination for sexually transmitted diseases is quite another. It is utterly despicable. Stem cell research may save lives. It’s very promising. A vaccination for HPV which is a cause of cervical cancer is a reality in our hands now. Here is a quote from Specter’s article by way of The Daily Dish:

“Religious conservatives are unapologetic; not only do they believe that mass use of an HPV vaccine or the availability of emergency contraception will encourage adolescents to engage in unacceptable sexual behavior; some have even stated that they would feel similarly about an H.I.V. vaccine, if one became available. ‘We would have to look at that closely,’ Reginald Finger, an evangelical Christian and a former medical adviser to the conservative political organization Focus on the Family, said. ‘With any vaccine for H.I.V., disinhibition’ – a medical term for the absence of fear – ‘would certainly be a factor, and it is something we will have to pay attention to with a great deal of care.’ Finger sits on the Centers for Disease Control’s Immunization Committee, which makes those recommendations.”

The last sentence is especially terrifying. All my life the loonies have been out on the fringes writting tacky little newsletters and meeting in the church basement. Now they wear $1000 suits, they have access to and the favor of the President of the United States. They hold key positions of power. The damage they can do is almost without limit.

Here is a fuller discussion of the issue in The Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/pollitt

From the Nation article:
Just as it’s better for gays to get AIDS than use condoms, it’s better for a woman to get cancer than have sex before marriage. It’s honor killing on the installment plan.

The religious right went to the wall for Terri Schaivo who had been dead for 15 years while shrieking that they were the forces of life against the evil forces of death. But they are perfectly willing to let their daughters die rather than get them vaccinated against the Human Papilloma Virus.

Missouri Resolves to Destroy Religious Freedom

Missouri House Concurrent Resolution 13: Resolves that voluntary prayer in public schools, religious displays on public property, and the recognition of a Christian God are not a coalition of church and state.

You can download a pdf of the full text here. http://www.house.state.mo.us/bills061/bills/hcr13.htm

Recently South Dakota banned all abortions except those that would kill a woman carrying a child to term. If she would be merely maimed or crippled for life, the abortion is still illegal. The religious right is placing its considerable pile of chips on the new Supreme Court. They assume Justice Roberts, Scalia and Alito especially will uphold this vicious and cruel law.

HCR 13 isn’t a bill that can be enacted into law. It is merely a resolution. Cynical politicians often make political hay by sponsoring loony resolutions. They are just so much hot air.

I believe it is only a matter of time before some legislative body will test the waters with a unilateral repeal of the 1st Amendment. Let the ACLU sue. The Religious Right thinks they have a stacked court that will lie down and roll over for them whenever they decide to bark a command.

Clearly they are correct in the case of Scalia. It is mostly his rhetoric that they parrot. Uncle Thomas will do whatever Scalia tells him. Roberts and Alito yet remain a mystery. Do they have any honor? Do they love freedom? Do they have any respect for the rights of all Americans? We shall see.

The War on Christians

The Worldnutdaily has an article on a conference called “The War on Christians.”. It could just as easily be called “Right Wing Loonies Have a Little Get-Together”

In case you are interested:
Panels at the conference include “The Gay Agenda: America Won’t Be Happy,” “The ACLU And Radical Secularism: Driving God From The Public Square,” “Hollywood: Christians Through A Distorted Lens,” “Jews Confront The War On Christians,” “The Judiciary: Overruling God” and “The Media: Megaphone For Anti-Faith Values.”

I get called a crazy paranoid a lot. Maybe I am. Maybe more people should be.