Burnt Orange Report

Post like this are I think why most Christians vote Republican. I detect a very negative attitude in regard to prayer. Of course, over at DU, the negative attitude toward Christianity is much worse.

AC - you're right, most conservative Christians vote Republican. Fine, most Christians overall do, too. But, c'mon, don't you see the prayer as a little bit disingenuous? I basically read it to say that Rev. Robertson prays, "God, please knock off Justices Stevens and Ginsburg so that we can have two more right wing justices so that we can legally discriminate against gay people".

Just as you can argue that my attitude is a reason most conservative Christians vote Republican, your attitude and Rev. Robertson's attitude explain why most non-religious people, liberal Christians, Jews, gays and lesbians vote Democratic.

I think that the Democratic Party ought to do more to include religious people, and while I don't particularly like Joe Lieberman, I disapprove of the mockery that some bloggers engage in when they refer to him as "Holy Joe".

Still, I differentiate between religious people and people who want to impose their religious values on other people. I, and most Democrats are very accepting of the former, but I'll fight tooth and nail to oppose the latter group.

I agree that some of the religious right people push gays, feminist and athiests into the Democratic camp. Both parties bases just drive the other parties base crazy. All I was saying is that your post was an example. What Robertson did was an example the other way I guess. Also, Robertson was praying that the justices would decide to retire, not that they die.

A few notes.

First, all Republicans don't support Pat Robertson.

To do so, especially as Robertson does, is an extreme distortion of what the term "conservative" is supposed to mean. The original theorem of "less is more" goes completely against the idea of legislating morality. But this is a dual party phenomenon. While you both speak of the DNC has being somewhat hostile to religious types, the transverse effect happens with the GOP, where hostility does emerge of non-religious types in the party.

Look at O'Connor, if you measure her overall court record of the last 20 or so years, its pretty darn close to Rehnquist and Scalia, yet she has Pat Robertson hoping for her to have a heart attack so he can get some "conservative" justices in there. Simply because she struck down a law that was invasive of individual privacy.

A scary thought of mine is that the DNC will continue to become unfriendly and the GOP vice versa, where you have folks like the Senate Majority Leader proposing a ridiculous constitutional amendment on marriage. How about getting religion out of politics all together? I loathe those who state that the "founding fathers established a Christian country", no, they founded a democratic country. They remember far too well religious persecution, that's why church and state are so clearly separated in the constitution. Forget why the Quakers and the Puritans came over here in the first place?

If the polar ends continue in this manner, I see no other choice than a third, moderate party forming in the middle, a la the Reform/Independence Party. People in politics too often forget that elections and politics aren’t won on the far right or left. It’s won in the middle, where the bulk of America is.

Ok, my rant is done now.

I'll be praying that the Lord urges Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas to retire.

Why are people not allowed to fight for a marriage amendment? Are people who are pro-gay marriage allowed to fight for it?

AC, yeah, you're allowed to ahead and fight for your anti-gay marriage amendment. I personally feel that that amendment along with the flag burning amendment mock the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I belive that the purpose of the Bill of Rights and amendments to the constitution is to expand the rights of our citizens, be it voting rights, citizenship rights, trial by jury rights, first and second amendment rights, etc. Amendments to the constitution have also been used to clarify election procedures (i.e. Electoral College, presidential succession, DC electors, direct election of Senators, etc). Only once has an amendment been ratified, the 18th, that restricted individual rights. And I think that we can all agree, that Prohibition was a disaster. Libertarians may argue that amendment 16 (income tax) may be an example of the government restricting individual rights, but I think that that is clearly a minority view.

I strongly oppose any amendment that abridges individual rights. The Bill of Rights was created to expand individual rights and freedoms to our Constitution, and I believe that our founders intended that amendments be added only for that purpose. Attempts to add amendments to restrict individual freedoms, such as the "Marriage amendment" and the flag burning amendment, in my opinion go against the very nature of what I believe that our founders intended for the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments to be.

I mostly agree Byron, but where you mess up is in thinking that it is the task of the Courts to elaborate and create new 'rights', when that falls to the Legislatures and to the People. Anything else is paving the way for 9 justices and their acolytes to rule as philosopher kings over us, the uninformed masses who are too stupid to get our Legislators to come around the 'right' way of thinking. And don't tell me about racism either, Brown v. Board of Education didn't bury Jim Crow, a civil rights movement and legislation did.

I have no problem with those who support gay marriage. I just want to make sure the other side can also be heard.

AC,
I have no problem with every side being heard. You're always welcome to post here, and if you want to go ahead and start your own blog, go for it. It's the Republicans that usually seem to be into the whole squashing dissent thing. Heh.

The Republicans already have a national tag team of histrionic windbags (Limbaugh, etc.) spewing radical right wing propaganda in every large and mediun sized radio market in the US.
And they also have their own national TV news network, Fox News, to give an unapologetic Republican slant to national and world events. So there's no need to make room here for more tired excuses for administration failures, misdeeds, and prevarications.