Will they vote for the Constitution Party in 2008?

May 16, 2005 7:24 AM

By the end of 2008, will religious social conservatives be rode hard and put up wet or will they get their Christian Theocracy? Is the American Taliban set to shred our secular government? Some think so. Others however point out that those in power may be simply exploiting their religious base and have no intention of furthering theocracy in any meaningful way. After all we have a president who doesn’t go to church, and a gay-friendly vice president (who we shouldn’t rule for a 2008 run.) Oh and the Faith Based Initiative? It’s simply an effort to get blacks to vote Republican, duh. And if it’s conspiracy theories that interest you then what about Bush’s abortion, or gays in the Whitehouse?
posted by wfrgms (45 comments total)

Can someone provide a non-registry link to the New Republic article. I would like to see what they are claiming. I know personally that Dubya goes to church regularly and I'd like to know what they say.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:51 AM on May 16, 2005

Here's the gist of it:

What most--including many of the president's fiercest supporters--don't know, however, is that Bush doesn't go to church. Sure, when he weekends at Camp David, Bush spends Sunday morning with the compound's chaplain. And, every so often, he drops in on the little Episcopal church across Lafayette Park from the White House. But the president who has staked much of his domestic agenda on the argument that religious communities hold the key to solving social problems doesn't belong to a congregation.

posted by PenDevil at 8:01 AM on May 16, 2005

Pollomacho - the link worked fine for me.
Should the page be re-posted somewhere else?
posted by vhsiv at 8:04 AM on May 16, 2005

Pollomacho, I tried a login at bugmenot and it seemed to work. The full text is also in the Google cache.
posted by zsazsa at 8:06 AM on May 16, 2005

Only takes me to a registry page (arg!). Will try the other routes, thanks!

every so often, he drops in on the little Episcopal church across Lafayette Park from the White House

That's my church. The minister there was invited to give the invocation at the inauguration. He claims Bush is one of his most regular attendees when he is in town. I know for sure he's more regular than my twice a year!
posted by Pollomacho at 8:11 AM on May 16, 2005

The post suggests that hypocrisy in high offices precludes real theocracy. But surely the first rule of any theocracy -- or any other authoritarian regime -- is that the rulers are not governed by the same rules as the masses. In a theocracy, this is only amplified: the elect are already sanctified by God, their sins already forgiven.

Already we have had in the ruling elite men who divorced their ailing wives and went on to praise about family values, a compulsive gambler preaching moral discipline, preachers against gambling accepting casinos' payoffs, a vivisectionist of fraudulently adopted cats dictating medical ethics, a fortunate son who avoided fighting in a war waving the flag for wars fought by other, poorer men's sons, and all too many gay men who have climbed to positions of power by slamming their boot heels in the faces of their fellow homosexuals.

I wish I could believe hypocrisy could save us from theocracy, but all too many Jimmy Swaggerts, Jim Bakkers, and a Pope Benedict who withheld communion from John Kerry while also withholding the truth about child-rape by priests, convinces me that theocracy and hypocrisy can exist hand in hand.
posted by orthogonality at 8:12 AM on May 16, 2005

Cheney as prez in 2008? Sounds likely -- if you overlook his bum ticker.

(Remix that sentence as you please, please.)
posted by docgonzo at 8:12 AM on May 16, 2005

A radical fringe aside, there's no one in the Christian conservative movement who seeks anything other than the restoration of the status quo on family values and church-state separation prevalent for 90% of the history of this country. So, no worries about theocracy unless by "theocracy" you mean the Kennedy Administration.
posted by MattD at 8:14 AM on May 16, 2005

Wait until Jeb Bush in 2008. He actually believes his nonsense. It's how these sorts of dictatorships start.
posted by AlexReynolds at 8:15 AM on May 16, 2005

By the end of 2008, will religious social conservatives be rode hard and put up wet or will they get their Christian Theocracy?

False dichotomy much?
posted by alumshubby at 8:28 AM on May 16, 2005

I wish that--just as a change of pace--everyone who is so quick to holler "Theocracy approacheth!" would spend one day getting up to date in their knowledge of contemporary Protestant Christianity. Actually, make that a month, so that the a-feared would go to different church services and get a handle on the wide variety of dogma that abounds. Bonus points are awarded for the correct usage of Evangelical and/or the capture, identification and tagging of a Dominionist.
posted by gsh at 8:28 AM on May 16, 2005

Read through the article now. Not based in facts rather is another OP-ED along with the other posts. The author could have done some easy fact checking by calling Bush's priest, his number is in the DC phone book, but I guess that would have thrown off her whole point wouldn't it? Though I'm no Bush-lover, I do think this was a rather one sided op-ed heavy FPP, no?

I won't defend Bush or his policies, nor will I claim that he's some sort of X-ian role model, but I will say that this FPP is as fair and balanced and fact based as the O'Reily Factor.
posted by Pollomacho at 8:29 AM on May 16, 2005

Just How Gay Is the Right?

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, characterizes the religious right's anti-gay campaign as a 30-year war, dating back to the late 1970's, when the Miss America runner-up Anita Bryant championed the overturning of an anti-discrimination law protecting gay men and lesbians in Dade County, Fla., and the Rev. Jerry Falwell's newly formed Moral Majority issued a "Declaration of War" against homosexuality. A quarter-century later these views remained so unreconstructed that Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson would go so far as to pin the 9/11 attacks in part on gay men and lesbians - a charge they later withdrew but that Mr. Robertson repositioned just two weeks ago.
posted by AlexReynolds at 8:36 AM on May 16, 2005

What gsh said. The way some people on MeFi are only too ready to smear and ridicule the entire panoply of Christianity reminds me of how some folks tend to react when they hear or read "Moslem," "African-American," "gay," "liberal," etc. There's more than one kind of bigotry, it seems, but some people allegedly are enlightened enough that they should be able to avoid indulging in it.
posted by alumshubby at 8:43 AM on May 16, 2005

Cheney as prez in 2008? Sounds likely -- if you overlook his bum ticker.


the perfect way to get a real psycho into the Presidency...sneak him in as VP and just wait for Cheney to keel over
posted by poppo at 8:47 AM on May 16, 2005

He claims Bush is one of his most regular attendees when he is in town.

How often is that, for one? And isn't the priest likely to play up the President's attendance? It not only makes his church seem more important, it casts a good light on the Prez. What's he really going to say? "That boy needs to get his ass in here more often. Damn."

I know for sure he's more regular than my twice a year!

Which, again, may not be saying much. And how can you know for sure what you only hear second-hand?
posted by scarabic at 8:49 AM on May 16, 2005

AlexReynolds writes "The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, characterizes the religious right's anti-gay campaign as a 30-year war"


Alex, please, be reasonable. If you're going to have witch-hunt, you need witches.

You need some scapegoat (an anarchist, a kulak, a Jew, a Jap, a Communist, an Ay-rab), who is simultaneously mocked and feared.

"Brucie" jokes and caricatures of limp-wristed prissy prancing lispers merge with the dread of finding "one of them" seducing you with his muscular masculine body in a barracks-room or locker-room communal shower, to make the gays the perfect combination.

Almost as good as the weak, corrupt, consumptive asthmatic Jew whose international conspiracy nevertheless controls the banks, stabs your country in the back, and murders your children to make matzos with their blood.
posted by orthogonality at 8:53 AM on May 16, 2005

convinces me that theocracy and hypocrisy can exist hand in hand.
posted by orthogonality at 11:12 AM EST

Agreed, as they are often one and the same.

I would argue that gsh and alumshubby are the ones who need to do a little more homework on the subjects of radical evangelicals, fundamentalists and old school Catholics as they relate to dominionism. Let me recommend you start by purchasing the latest Harper's which has three excellent articles on the subject. And once you get your feet wet we'll move into the deep water. They're real, they're serious and they're dangerous.

Bonus points are awarded for the correct usage of Evangelical and/or the capture, identification and tagging of a Dominionist.
posted by gsh at 11:28 AM

Let me present you the trophy rack of Mullah James Dobson! Now, where can I redeem those bonus points?
posted by nofundy at 9:39 AM on May 16, 2005

nofundy, I'll read your cite if you read mine:

You want flat-out looniness? Well, Joe McCarthy’s got nothing on the good liberal folks who are warning us about a takeover by “Dominionist” Christians.
posted by alumshubby at 10:09 AM on May 16, 2005

A radical fringe aside, there's no one in the Christian conservative movement who seeks anything other than the restoration of the status quo on family values and church-state separation prevalent for 90% of the history of this country.

So they're in favor of removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance? Great!
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:09 AM on May 16, 2005

I did it alumshubby. Your turn. BTW, FWIW to you, it may be helpful to read some of the other opinions Stanley Kurtz has written before giving him much credence.
posted by nofundy at 10:15 AM on May 16, 2005

A radical fringe aside, there's no one in the Christian conservative movement who seeks anything other than the restoration of the status quo on family values and church-state separation prevalent for 90% of the history of this country. So, no worries about theocracy unless by "theocracy" you mean the Kennedy Administration.

But what does that actually mean in practical terms? No more Roe v. Wade? The return of the "Ideal" household? I mean, what do they actually want? Because if the Fruit Loops on the right aren't articulating it properly, these people who "just want" whatever it is that they want need to get out there and articulate it. The people "they" are letting speak for this amorphous longing to return to the Good Ole Days scare the crap out of people who don't view that era through such rose-colored glasses.
posted by Medieval Maven at 10:22 AM on May 16, 2005

Thanks, nofundy; I'll hit the library after work.

Maybe it's a case of "even a stopped clock is right twice a day," but Kurtz gave a nice example of how a conspiracy theory functions. Even so, I promise I won't give him any more credence than I would a...conspiracy theory.
posted by alumshubby at 10:23 AM on May 16, 2005

A radical fringe aside, there's no one in the Christian conservative movement who seeks anything other than the restoration of the status quo on family values and church-state separation prevalent for 90% of the history of this country.

At least, that's what they tell you at your weekly indoctrination meetings.

Seriously--what a profoundly dishonest statement. From the country's inception to the 1960's blacks were not guaranteed the right to vote. From the inception to the 20's, neither were women. Care to apply the same bogus standard to those issues? And that's just the low-hanging fruit.
posted by mondo dentro at 10:27 AM on May 16, 2005

No bonus points awarded to you, nofundy; a possible answer the panel was looking for was R.J. Rushdoony. By the standards of the Chalcedon Foundation, Dobson would be far too liberal. I would submit, once again, that it is not I who requires additional schooling in this matter.
posted by gsh at 10:39 AM on May 16, 2005

A radical fringe aside, there's no one in the Christian conservative movement who seeks anything other than the restoration of the status quo on family values and church-state separation prevalent for 90% of the history of this country.

Yeah, well that's the problem. People who are unable to embrace change are really difficult to deal with when change is forced on the world. To say nothing of the fact that this country was never the paradise that the Christian Coalition and like-minded groups seem to believe. For example from the CC's mission statement on their website:

"The Christian Coalition was founded in 1989 as a means towards helping to give Christians a voice in their government again."

That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. There's something like 10-20 Jews in the Congress and zero declared atheists as far as I can tell, so what the hell else do they want? 100% percent representation to the exclusion of all others? I'm sorry that they think that America is going to hell in a handbasket, but if they pulled their heads out of their asses they might see that it has less than nothing to do with religion and a lot more to do with money and short-sightedness.
posted by lumpenprole at 10:41 AM on May 16, 2005

Dobson would be far too liberal

Now there's a phrase I never would've thought I'd read.

Paging Ms. Atwood, white courtesy telephone pliz....
posted by alumshubby at 10:44 AM on May 16, 2005

I would submit, once again, that it is not I who requires additional schooling in this matter.

It sure seems like you need additional schooling--on how extremist ideas are mainstreamed.

I know all about Rushdoony, and you're right--he would have thought (and Gary North probably still does) that Dobson's too liberal. Sort of like Pol Pot would have found Breshnev to be too conservative. But I'll bet North still does find Dobson to be a useful idiot.

The fact that many of Rushdoony's ideas (and more importantly, modes of analysis) are mutated into kinder-gentler forms through someone like Dobson is of little comfort to me.
posted by mondo dentro at 10:56 AM on May 16, 2005

Oh, and as for the whole "Christian values that founded this country" line. Here's some reality checks:

from a biography of George Washington:
'When trying to arrange for workmen in 1784 at Mount Vernon, Washington made clear that he would accept "Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists." Washington wrote Lafayette in 1787, "Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest and least liable to exception."'

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815:
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"

Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800:
"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."

James Madison, Detached Memoranda, 1820:
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?"
posted by lumpenprole at 11:31 AM on May 16, 2005

Aren't we liberals needed to bring about the end times via the secession of the last 'liberal' Pope in last-ditch effort to destroy the church, thus prompting the glorious Second Coming of Our Dear Lord, Jesus Christ ?

Why fight it, fundies? You *need* us!
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 12:09 PM on May 16, 2005

Bonus points are awarded for the correct usage of Evangelical

Which kind? I think of the "capital-E Evangelical capital-C Church" as synomous with the Lutheran Church, while "evangelicalism" is "holy-rollerism". See the Wikipedia entries for Evangelical and Evangelicalism .

And I gather the Dominionists have nothing to do with an amusement park in Virginia -- that I just found out is owned by Paramount Studios (as Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom is Warner Brothers -- a.k.a. AOL).

Your turn: please explicate for us the Calvinism vs. Arminianism controversy and/or explain why the Jehovah's Witnesses are not orthodox Arians. Bonus points for clarifying "Election" and/or "homoiousion".
posted by davy at 12:14 PM on May 16, 2005

A pox on Margaret Atwood and her bloody novel. That book is almost completely to blame for the current theocracy-steria sweeping the liberal and left realms.
posted by gsh at 12:15 PM on May 16, 2005

Dobson would be far too liberal. I would submit, once again, that it is not I who requires additional schooling in this matter.

You may be correct that it is I who needs additional schooling but rather than debate whether Dobson supports Dominionism (which he does) let me, if I may, submit yet another name, Tim LaHaye.
Is that nutty enough for you?
There are so many out there!

The fact that many of Rushdoony's ideas (and more importantly, modes of analysis) are mutated into kinder-gentler forms through someone like Dobson is of little comfort to me.
posted by mondo dentro at 1:56 PM EST
Very well stated mondo dentro.
An iron fist inside a velvet glove is still an iron fist.
posted by nofundy at 12:15 PM on May 16, 2005

nofundy, I'll read your cite if you read mine:

After the first paragraph of strawman bogosity, why on earth anyone would want to continue filling their brain with such pap is beyond me.
posted by delmoi at 1:01 PM on May 16, 2005

How often is that, for one? And isn't the priest likely to play up the President's attendance? It not only makes his church seem more important, it casts a good light on the Prez. What's he really going to say? "That boy needs to get his ass in here more often. Damn."

So you're saying that my priest, a family friend is only telling us that to impress us? Actually, I've heard him be critical of the President as often as I've heard him agree. I believe that if Bush needed to attend more often, then the priest would say so, he has nothing to prove to me or my family. As for inflating the church, its pretty hard to do to a church with the chairman of the joint chiefs passing the collection plate.

James Madison, Detached Memoranda, 1820

Was written just after he used federal funds to build the very church that I've been talking about.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:45 PM on May 16, 2005

After the first paragraph of strawman bogosity, why on earth anyone would want to continue filling their brain with such pap is beyond me.

Because if you kept on reading, you'd see that Kurtz challenges this pet conspiracy theory of the far left once he's finished parodying it.

So much for broad-mindedness....
posted by alumshubby at 1:58 PM on May 16, 2005

Much of the original reseach can be found in Sara Diamond's Roads to Dominion

Fred Clarkson has a ten-year old article on Dominionism at Chip Berlet's Public Eye website (more articles on the front page.) I thought the Kutz article was a total misreading - probably intentional - to set up strawmen to knock down.

Just for laughs, the Y2K hysteria was largely the work of Gary North, Rushdooney's son-in-law.

Reconstructionism is real, and it has influence far beyond its numbers. That influence has grown considerably in the last decade and is getting successfully mainstreamed. It's something worth knowing about, but not getting into a panic over.
posted by warbaby at 2:04 PM on May 16, 2005

I wish that--just as a change of pace--everyone who is so quick to holler "Theocracy approacheth!" would spend one day getting up to date in their knowledge of contemporary Protestant Christianity. Actually, make that a month, so that the a-feared would go to different church services and get a handle on the wide variety of dogma that abounds.

Why bother? I'm not worried about the variety of religious belief in the US. I am extremely worried about the appalling lack of variety of religious belief among the Bush inner circle - and the corresponding right-wing tilt of the Republican party.

The variety of religious belief has nothing whatsoever to do with how theocratic a government is. Iran and Saudi Arabia are both home to a multitude of Islamic schools - and yet both are ruled by one dogmatic sect, pluralism be damned.

I [usually] doubt that we're heading towards a theocracy - although recent attempts to neutralize the judiciary do make me reconsider.
posted by kanewai at 5:46 PM on May 16, 2005

A pox on Margaret Atwood and her bloody novel. That book is almost completely to blame for the current theocracy-steria sweeping the liberal and left realms.

You must not get out much. No offense.
posted by AlexReynolds at 6:44 PM on May 16, 2005

A pox on Margaret Atwood and her bloody novel. That book is almost completely to blame for the current theocracy-steria sweeping the liberal and left realms.

No gsh, actually the live and in the flesh Dominionists are to blame. You'll find their very existence has given rise to a great library of expressive art since oh, let's make it easy and start with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Ms. Atwood has written a book which had she written it in the 2nd century CE probably wouldn't be around now to blame for the very destruction of works of art and learning that Dominionists excel at in the first place. QED.

Dominionists of all stripes have always blamed the treacherousness of those who create or philosophically transcend their boundaries. So no, Margaret Atwood had nothing to do with any of this. You'll note that The Handmaid's Tale overtly makes barely any mention of the bible. From the Generals, their wives, the aunts, the club scene etc, you will find only one constant theme and it has NOTHING TO DO WITH CHRISTIANITY! It deals with laziness of moral courage and the fear of expressing one's unconventional thoughts. What's here today could be gone tomorrow.

Look, I just finished the The Handmaid's Tale yesterday and was prior to this, already predisposed to the supervigilant (some might say paranoid) detection of theofascism, having grown up in what I believe to be a system of belief that leads to precisely the same moral abyss I now see in mainstream American fundamentalism. But I also recognize the fact that for every part "fundamentalist Christian right" this time in American history is, it's probably about four or five parts sheer emotional and intellectual laziness, malaise and consumer driven disconcern as well. Christianity is the least of our worries. I think Atwood did a bang up job disassociating her book from the good that is Christianity and has been Christianty as well. The citizens of Gilead were conspicuously beholden to a rule of law that was capricious and brutal. Therefore it was a country of no rules and whatever the most powerfully pious said went. That anybody would see an attack on Christianity through the exegesis of the book, perhaps says more about the cultural influences of being a North American, as Atwood is a Canadian.

I also happen to think that because the contingent of MeFites "most likely to come to the defense of any entity that gets pointed out as being yet another one of the hypocritical and corrupt right-wing Christian organizations here in the blue", speaks volumes to the moral shadows responsible and moderate Christians who voted for this GOP godscam are now subconsciously beginning to jump at.

It's okay. Welcome to the world as it is. The shadows you see flitting past you were always there. It's just you spent your life ashamed and terrified that someone would find out you saw them. Now that you're in the lockstep, the rest of your lives will be filled with nothing but denial.

Margaret Atwood was the cause of this! Haha. That's great. Don't mind the five thousand pound elephant that's blocking your way to the bookshelf. I couldn't expect anything more from people who also say "it would never happen here".

Oh yeah. Maybe Upton Sinclair caused it. But don't click that link! Amazon.com could be causing it too.
posted by crasspastor at 7:06 PM on May 16, 2005

The ultimate problem with waging a moral war is that they won't know when to stop...and they probably never will stop. Issues such as moral values and patriotism are non-specific labels which can be applied - or not applied - to almost anything. Non-majority sexual lifestyles, art, music, other religions...all you really have to do is declare something "unpatriotic", "immoral" or damaging to the "sanctity of a sacred institution", and thousands of people will automatically take up the banner without genuinely considering the issue...especially if the implication that it affects children is included.

And I really don't believe that Cheney is all that gay-friendly. Just because you have homosexual kin doesn't automatically make someone an "ally". I was toying with the theory that the reason why homosexuality is so decried by many conservatives and fundamentalists is because they need it to be "dirty"...otherwise they won't enjoy it as much.
posted by deusdiabolus at 12:00 AM on May 17, 2005

MetaFilter: already predisposed to the supervigilant (some might say paranoid) detection of theofascism
posted by alumshubby at 3:42 AM on May 17, 2005

MegaShift: dude claims Christianity is gaining ground at terrific pace 'round the world, will eliminate all other religions.

Fact or fiction?
posted by five fresh fish at 5:39 PM on May 17, 2005

FFF - A bit of both.
posted by troutfishing at 7:58 PM on May 17, 2005

Christianity's acceleration is actually slowing- in 2015 it is predicted the numbers will begin to fall. As time goes on, it seems people want freedom rather than a fixed, dogmatic religion that tells you exactly what to do.
I can't say I'm not surprised.
posted by malusmoriendumest at 12:36 AM on May 18, 2005