Greetings to Internet Land,
Part 3 of the 6 part series on the Texas GOP Platform is dedicated to the implication of the Separation of Church and State. For those of you who might not be familiar with this, it's basically where the constitution says that religion and the Church have no power or influence in legislation or court rulings. While this is a fundamental part of the founding of our nation, it is trampled on in countless ways. This platform does a good job of taking it and dragging it through the mud.
"Remedies to Activist Judiciary – We call Congress and the President to use their constitutional powers to restrain activist judges. We urge Congress to adopt the Judicial Conduct Act of 2005 and remove judges who abuse their authority. Further, we urge Congress to withhold Supreme Court jurisdiction in cases involving abortion, religious freedom, and the Bill of Rights."
Alright, there's a lot wrong with this stance. The first being that the fastest and most efficient (note, by most I don't mean it is that efficient, it's just better than proposing a bill) way changes in government are made are through cases in that occur in federal and state supreme courts. Their ruling judge what is or isn't constitutional and how the law should be enforced. What they are wanting to do is get rid of any progressive judges that help this country progress, hence leaving room for digression and removal of personal rights for anyone who isn't a white middle-class male.
To go farther, they want to take away the reason we have the Supreme Court. If you cut out anything having to do with abortion, religious freedom (which we do indeed technically have according to our founding fathers), and the Bill of Rights. Those three categories cover almost all of the cases that would be seen in cases that make it to the Supreme Court. They want to eliminate progress and make sure rights aren't granted where they don't think they are deserved (when more than likely they are).
"Free Speech for the Clergy – We urge change of the Internal Revenue Code to allow a religious organization to address issues without fear of losing its tax-exempt status. We call for repeal of requirements that religious organizations send government any personal information about their contributors."
So tax benefits should be given to organizations who openly promote discrimination, hate, and violence. Yeah, that seems really appropriate. I'll pay my full taxes, and the West Borough Baptist Church can squeeze by tax free, because after all, they stand for everything the Texas GOP loves. And maybe, just maybe, they can get rid of all those fags and people of color without financial or criminal consequence.
Whether people like to admit it or not, churches are businesses. The fact they are tax-exempt in the first place is beyond me. When they don't have to provide information on who and what is giving them money, there is no way of truly knowing what they are doing (from a governmental standpoint). If you have a terrorist organization feeding millions of dollars into a super church in the faith that they'll promote hate, you have problems. If hate organizations can fund churches, churches don't deserve tax breaks. Enough said.
"Religious Freedom in Public Schools – We urge school administrators and officials to inform Texas school students specifically of their First Amendment rights to pray and engage in religious speech, individually or in groups, on school property without government interference. We support and strongly urge Congress to pass a Religious Freedom Amendment, which provides: “Neither the United States nor any State shall prohibit student–sponsored prayer in public schools, nor compose any official student prayer or compel joining therein.” We urge the Legislature to end censorship of discussion of religion in our founding documents, and encourage discussing those documents."
If you're speechless after reading that, you're in good company. For starters they are promoting open Christianity in schools. Reading this, you would think any religion could have their rights to prayer in school, but after reading the entire platform, I have no doubt in my mind that they would encourage schools to quiet any students who express faith in a religion or lack of religion that wasn't an acceptable form of Christianity. By openly supporting religious speech in schools, they are essentially promoting evangelism or spreading the word.... no matter how much hate that word involves.
Now don't get me wrong, I firmly support freedom of speech for everyone in all settings. I just think if they want to emphasize freedom of speech, they best emphasize allaspects of it, not just religion. Perhaps what upsets me the most is that they want our government to say "We are a Christian Nation and all our laws reflect this." While it is possible that Judeo-Christianity helped inspire some of the documents, our country was founded on the basis that anyone can worship or not worship any religion they please.That means we are NOT a government of faith, and should not be proclaiming such things in order to alienate a large percentage of our population.
"Judeo-Christian Nation – As America is a nation under God founded on Judeo-Christian principles, we affirm the constitutional right of all individuals to worship in the religion of their choice."
Again, they are saying that everyone can choose to worship whatever religion they please, but they best keep in mind that the only religion that the US really accepts and promotes is Christianity. Not to mention that "under God" wasn't added to the Pledge of Allegiance until World War II and in this author's opinion, done wrongfully so. I see this as nothing more than a scare tactic to push other religions (or lack thereof) underground for the fear of persecution. Cool texas, real cool.
"Safeguarding Our Religious Liberties – We affirm that the public acknowledgement of God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom, prosperity and strength. We pledge our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state. We urge the Legislature to increase the ability of faith-based institutions and other organizations to assist the needy and to reduce regulation of such organizations."
Huzzah, they sure like to end things with a big shabang. I can't tell you how upset this last stanza makes me. First, they're saying that if we don't acknowledge the fact that their Christian God (which, I remind you is not everyone's God) is the driving force in the founding of this nation, our freedom and futures will be in jeopardy. The way I see it it's just the opposite. If our government gets bullied into taking such a stance, our nation will go from being an already big bully on the world front, to an evangelist nation that plans on starting wars to protect the sanctity of the Christian God. Who's going to get hurt by this? Any nation that doesn't have an official religion that can't be considered Christianity, oh, and all the people here in the US who don't believe in the Christian God.
Furthermore, they want to completely eliminate the separation of church and state, claiming it's a bunch of poppy-cock. While I agree the separation of church and state has been trampled all over, it is still potentially the most important document that exists in our constitution. It's what is supposed to guarantee that people of all believing natures are represented in the law and not discriminated against because of their choices in faith.
In addition, reducing regulation of religious organizations that help the needy would produce devastating effects. In New York (I'm pretty positive it was New York, if not it was Washington DC) a Catholic organization cut all of its services to the homeless in protest of a bill that was going to be passed to give same-sex couples the right to marry. That sent 10,000 people out on the streets without food or shelter. When we don't regulate these organizations, they use their influence to persuade voting. As many of you know, the bill was rejected.
The Separation of Church and State is a fundamental block in our government. If we choose to cast it aside, it is my firm belief that everything is going to be going to the figurative fires of hell in a hand-basket. Discrimination will be able to run rampant with full permission and little remorse or consequence. If we really want to secure freedom and morality (humanity even) for our nation, we need to fully enforce the Separation of Church and State and elect more officials that aren't of a strictly Christian background. I want to see people of every faith in our government. It's up to us to make it happen, we have the voting power, time to start using it.
And as always, all the above stanzas of the platform were taken in full context and can be viewed here.
Cheers,
Rae
Looooooovvvvveeee it. Great work.
ReplyDelete-Andrew