The Christian Right is Dead Wrong

The staunch - almost Puritan in their morality - Christian Right in this country represents what's wrong with America, NOT the converse.

Their unabashed, dogmatic, almost subservient support of George W. Bush and his policies betrays the cornerstone teachings of their "faith" and exposes them as hypocrites.

What cracks me up about Pat Robertson, James Dobson, George Dubya and most Christians today is that if a long-haired, brown-skinned man ran around the country speaking out against the predominant religious establishment, healing people for FREE, urging the rich to redistribute their wealth among the poor and peddling peace and love, I guaran-damn-tee Robertson and Co. would outdo the Pharisees in their zeal to nail up someone who fit the above description. I believe Dubya would play the part of Pilate in this particular Passion?

Pat Robertson said recently at a National Press Club meeting that his top three moral priorities were "Judges, judges, judges." Eek. Am I the only person completely flippin' unnerved and petrified by statements of that caliber? I know it's cliché among the counterculture, but I'll say it anyway: "The last time we mingled church and state, women were BURNED AT THE STAKE."

I know from experience that a certain myth prevails among the Christian Right that says our blessed forefathers desperately wanted to write the Judeo-Christian God into the Constitution and did, but over time the American "Liberal" justice system has "exorcised the demons," so to speak. And now Bush, Robertson and the like seek to remedy this by appointing judges who support an ideology more than the Constitution. Be afraid America; be very afraid. I recommend reading "The Scarlet Letter" and "1984" for advice if these men succeed in their agendas.

First of all, the architect of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, was not a Christian; he was a philosopher. True, he believed in a god, in the generic, philosophic or clockmaker sense of the word, but not in the bearded white guy, perpetual parent, don't-make-me-come-down-there, Christian Coalition sense of the word.

Jefferson sought the writings of English empiricist philosopher John Locke for inspiration in penning the Constitution, not the Old Testament. Our forefathers knew all too well the dangers of a state-mandated religion and sought to - and succeeded in - avoiding the oppression engendered in a church-and-state marriage.

The Constitution guarantees all of us as much freedom FROM religion as it does OF religion. I fully endorse anyone's right to love as much Jesus as they want to, but I do not have to. If you do not want to have an abortion or a gay marriage, then don't. But a free-thinking democratic society should not deny its citizens the opportunity to decide for themselves.

When it comes to the issue of marriage, I feel the Christian Right severely runs out of steam and starts blowing smoke. What unicorn are they speaking of when they rail about preserving the "sanctity of marriage"? I'll give you two reasons not to get married: my mother and my father; they were married and hated each other. Then, finally, like 50 percent of all American families, my parents bitterly parted ways. Life goes on.

If homosexuals wish to wade in the tumultuous waters of contractually binding monogamy, be my guest. I'll continue basking on the shores of single life.

We need justices who adjudicate based upon the Constitution and sound logic, not on pop-morality and the Old Testament. Please support the Democrats in their efforts to block some of these neo-conservative judicial appointees. Americans are better with these men off the bench.

Dodson is a contributing writer to OFF! magazine and The Capaha Arrow.