The problem with his world is that too many people are getting an education…

Educated Catholics have sown dissent and confusion in the Church, claims bishop

The Rt Rev Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, has claimed that graduates are spreading skepticism and sowing dissent. Instead of following the Church’s teaching they are "hedonistic", "selfish" and "egocentric", he said.

…

Bishop O’Donoghue, who has recently published a report on how to renew Catholicism in Britain, argued that mass education has led to "sickness in the Church and wider society".

"What we have witnessed in Western societies since the end of the Second World War is the development of mass education on a scale unprecedented in human history – resulting in economic growth, scientific and technological advances, and the cultural and social enrichment of billions of people’s lives," he said.

"However, every human endeavor has a dark side, due to original sin and concupiscence. In the case of education, we can see its distortion through the widespread dissemination of radical skepticism, positivism, utilitarianism and relativism.

"Taken together, these intellectual trends have resulted in a fragmented society that marginalizes God, with many people mistakenly thinking they can live happy and productive lives without him.

"It shouldn’t surprise us that the shadows cast by the distortion of education, and corresponding societal changes, have also touched members of the Church. As Pope Benedict XVI puts it, even in the Church we find hedonism, selfishness and egocentric behavior."

Emphasis mine…so you know he’s not just talking about Catholics there.   The problem is simple.  How do you convince people that you’re better qualified to run their lives then they are, when they have brains enough to see right through you?  You can’t.

Religion doesn’t necessarily have to be an enemy of the human soul.  There is spirituality that seeks to nurture the best within us…that "better angel", and councils us to embrace our human nature, understand both its limitations and its potential, its darkness and its light, and treat them both with care and humility.  There is spirituality that encourages us and reach for the higher ground within, while acknowledging the Pit we are all vulnerable to.  But that is different from spirituality that teaches us to hate ourselves, so that others can rule over us.  Religion isn’t the only thing that can attack our souls in that way, but religions like that are out there and we have to watch out for them because they are poison.  But not all religion is poison. 

Ayn Rand said that all we need, all we should ever look to, is reason.  But we are rational beings, In Addition To everything else we are.  The modern brain is all that which makes us unique from the other animals of planet Earth, and also all that which we share with them, and have for hundreds of millions of years.  We are indivisible beings of intellect and beast, mind and body, present and past.  It is how we were created.  By one legend, risen up from the dust of the earth.  But the dust of the earth was already very old, unimaginably old, when we took our first breath and opened our eyes.  We are that vast unknowable past and the present both.  We are matter and spirit combined.  You can’t divide us down the middle without killing the human within.  We are human, precisely because we are all of these things.  We need spirituality that teaches us to treat ourselves, treat our human nature, with care, understanding, and a little humility.

But some religion, arrogantly, greedily, tries instead to pit one part of ourselves against the others, and in the process it rips our humanity apart.  Take away our minds and we become useful puppets, perhaps.  But take our minds from us and the spirit within withers and dies.  The mind needs the spirit, the spirit needs the mind.  Without one or the other we become ghosts.  Empty, tortured, soulless ghosts.  Just right for tyrants to leach their power dreams from.  Mr. O’Donoghue’s complaint isn’t that people are more selfish, it’s that they are less gullible.  When you earn your living teaching people to hate being human, so they will give you money in exchange for being forgiven for being human, you need a lot of gullible people. 

I read Mark Twain’s review of The Book of Mormon in Roughing It back when I was in high school and couldn’t stop laughing, mostly because I’d read the Book of Mormon just prior to it.  Another pair of helpful missionaries had come by the house and mom was never one to slam the door in anyone’s face, even if she thought they were numskulls.  One afternoon I started flipping through The Book of Mormon they’d left behind and became fascinated that anyone could possibly take its drek seriously.  For the next several weeks, whenever I could muster up enough stamina to read a few more pages of unmitigated crap, I plodded through the damn thing.  It was probably the hardest reading chore I’d ever set myself to. 

I’d grown up in a Baptist household and had my nose shoved in the King James bible from an early age.  Whatever doubts I’d begun having then about the faith I was raised in, there was no mistaking the Bible for the work of one man, just as there was absolutely no mistaking the Book of Mormon for anything but.  It was a staringly obvious hack, written in the sort of strained King James bible-esq language you couldn’t mistake for the real thing unless you’d never once poked your nose into the real thing while paying attention.  To read Twain eviscerate it was delightful.  When Twain mocked Smith’s pet decorative phrase I felt vindicated.  The words had lept out at me all through the book, every time my eyes beheld the damn things like a neon light screaming in my face that the whole book was one big sorry, pitiful hoax.  Did I put enough And It Came To Passes in this thing?  No…perhaps just one more… 

Yet it did its work on people.  And it still does.  But not on this guy…

Roughing It – Chapter 16, pages 107-115

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it.  I brought away a copy from Salt Lake.  The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration.  It is chloroform in print.  If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle – keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.  If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.

The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament.  The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel – half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity.  The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast.  Whenever he found his speech growing too modern – which was about every sentence or two – he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again.  "And it came to pass" was his pet.  If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.

The title-page reads as follows:

 

THE BOOK OF MORMON: AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MORMON, UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI.

Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the House of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile; written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation.  Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed; to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof; sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of God.  An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also; which is a record of the people of Jared; who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people when they were building a tower to get to Heaven.

 

"Hid up" is good.  And so is "wherefore" – though why "wherefore"?  Any other word would have answered as well – though – in truth it would not have sounded so Scriptural.

Next comes:

 

THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES.

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for His voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.  And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man.  And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true; and it is marvellous in our eyes; nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things.  And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with Him eternally in the heavens.  And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God.  Amen.

                          OLIVER COWDERY,
                          DAVID WHITMER,
                          MARTIN HARRIS.

 

Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.

Next is this:

 

AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES.

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated, we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship.  And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken.  And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

                          CHRISTIAN WHITMER,
                          JACOB WHITMER,
                          PETER WHITMER, JR.,
                          JOHN WHITMER,
                          HIRAM PAGE,
                          JOSEPH SMITH, SR.,
                          HYRUM SMITH,
                          SAMUEL H.  SMITH.

 

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced.  I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen "books"–being the books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Ether, Moroni, two "books" of Mormon, and three of Nephi.

In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the Old Testament, which gives an account of the exodus from Jerusalem of the "children of Lehi"; and it goes on to tell of their wanderings in the wilderness, during eight years, and their supernatural protection by one of their number, a party by the name of Nephi.  They finally reached the land of "Bountiful," and camped by the sea.  After they had remained there "for the space of many days"–which is more Scriptural than definite—Nephi was commanded from on high to build a ship wherein to "carry the people across the waters."  He travestied Noah’s ark–but he obeyed orders in the matter of the plan.  He finished the ship in a single day, while his brethren stood by and made fun of it–and of him, too–"saying, our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship."  They did not wait for the timbers to dry, but the whole tribe or nation sailed the next day.  Then a bit of genuine nature cropped out, and is revealed by outspoken Nephi with Scriptural frankness–they all got on a spree! They, "and also their wives, began to make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness."

Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings; but they tied him neck and heels, and went on with their lark.  But observe how Nephi the prophet circumvented them by the aid of the invisible powers:

 

And it came to pass that after they had bound me, insomuch that I could not move, the compass, which had been prepared of the Lord, did cease to work; wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly, lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me.  And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceeding sore.  And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea.

 

Then they untied him.

 

And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I took the compass, and it did work whither I desired it.  And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed, the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a great calm.

 

Equipped with their compass, these ancients appear to have had the advantage of Noah.  Their voyage was toward a "promised land"–the only name they give it.  They reached it in safety.

Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and was added by Brigham Young after Joseph Smith’s death.  Before that, it was regarded as an "abomination."  This verse from the Mormon Bible occurs in Chapter II. of the book of Jacob:

 

For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.  Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.  Wherefore, I the Lord God, will no suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.

 

However, the project failed–or at least the modern Mormon end of it—for Brigham "suffers" it.  This verse is from the same chapter:

 

Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were one wife; and concubines they should have none.

 

The following verse (from Chapter IX. of the Book of Nephi) appears to contain information not familiar to everybody:

 

And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended into heaven, the multitude did disperse, and every man did take his wife and his children, and did return to his own home.

And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom he had raised from the dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, and also Mathoni, and Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumenenhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah; now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen.

 

In order that the reader may observe how much more grandeur and picturesqueness (as seen by these Mormon twelve) accompanied on of the tenderest episodes in the life of our Saviour than other eyes seem to have been aware of, I quote the following from the same "book"–Nephi:

 

And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade them arise. And they arose from the earth, and He said unto them. Blessed are ye because of your faith.  And now behold, My joy is full.  And when He had said these words, He wept, and the multitude bear record of it, and He took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them.  And when He had done this He wept again, and He spake unto the multitude, and saith unto them, Behold your little ones.  And as they looked to behold, they cast their eyes toward heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were, in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them, and the multitude did see and hear and bear record; and they know that their record is true, for they all of them did see and hear, every man for himself; and they were in number about two thousand and five hundred souls; and they did consist of men, women, and children.

 

And what else would they be likely to consist of?

The Book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley of if "history," much of it relating to battles and sieges among peoples whom the reader has possibly never heard of; and who inhabited a country which is not set down in the geography.  These was a King with the remarkable name of Coriantumr, and he warred with Shared, and Lib, and Shiz, and others, in the "plains of Heshlon"; and the "valley of Gilgal"; and the "wilderness of Akish"; and the "land of Moran"; and the "plains of Agosh"; and "Ogath," and "Ramah," and the "land of Corihor," and the "hill Comnor," by "the waters of Ripliancum," etc., etc., etc.  "And it came to pass," after a deal of fighting, that Coriantumr, upon making calculation of his losses, found that "there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children"–say 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in all–"and he began to sorrow in his heart."  Unquestionably it was time.  So he wrote to Shiz, asking a cessation of hostilities, and offering to give up his kingdom to save his people.  Shiz declined, except upon condition that Coriantumr would come and let him cut his head off first–a thing which Coriantumr would not do.  Then there was more fighting for a season; then four years were devoted to gathering the forces for a final struggle–after which ensued a battle, which, I take it, is the most remarkable set forth in history,–except, perhaps, that of the Kilkenny cats, which it resembles in some respects.  This is the account of the gathering and the battle:

 

7.  And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people, upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether.  And it came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people who were for Coriantumr, were gathered together to the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz, were gathered together to the army of Shiz; wherefore they were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive.  And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children; both men, women, and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breast-plates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war, they did march forth one against another, to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not.  And it came to pass that when it was night they were weary, and retired to their camps; and after they had retired to their camps, they took up a howling and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people; and so great were their cries, their howlings and lamentations, that it did rend the air exceedingly.  And it came to pass that on the morrow they did go again to battle, and great and terrible was that day; nevertheless they conquered not, and when the night came again, they did rend the air with their cries, and their howlings, and their mournings, for the loss of the slain of their people.

8.  And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an epistle unto Shiz, desiring that he would not come again to battle, but that he would take the kingdom, and spare the lives of the people.  But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people, for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to battle.  And it came to pass that they fought all that day, and when the night came they slept upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought even until the night came; and when the night came they were drunken with anger, even as a man who is drunken with wine; and they slept again upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought again; and when the night came they had all fallen by the sword save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty and nine of the people of Shiz.  And it came to pass that they slept upon their swords that night, and on the morrow they fought again, and they contended in their mights with their swords, and with their shields, all that day; and when the night came there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr.

9.  And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow.  And they were large and mighty men, as to the strength of men.  And it came to pass that they fought for the space of three hours, and they fainted with the loss of blood.  And it came to pass that when the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength, that they could walk, they were about to flee for their lives, but behold, Shiz arose, and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay Coriantumr, or he would perish by the sword: wherefore he did pursue them, and on the morrow he did overtake them; and they fought again with the sword.  And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with loss of blood. And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz.  And it came to pass that after he had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.  And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth, and became as if he had no life.  And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him, go forth.  And he went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled; and he finished his record; and the hundredth part I have not written.

 

It seems a pity he did not finish, for after all his dreary former chapters of commonplace, he stopped just as he was in danger of becoming interesting.

The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings.  Its code of morals is unobjectionable – it is "smouched" from the New Testament and no credit given.

Via Atrios…  I’m going to be like a damn broken record for the next couple of years telling people that their gay and lesbian neighbors have been seeing all this for decades already.  I just know it …

I used to have an idea of what a "good faith debate" was; that was in 1999. My general feeling now is that a liberal who says "fuck" a lot is one who got mugged by a conservative who pretended to be interested in a "good faith debate."

Now you know why this blog contains a lot of cursing.

I am going to insist here upon the grouchy perspective: I do not believe that there is any such thing as a "conservative intellectual," never mind one who is "thoughtful" or "sane." I contend that "conservatism" in its 21st century incarnation is nothing more or less than a particularly ill-conceived social formation based upon pernicious doxa. Or to be blunt, it is stupid identity politics. Sound unfair? Well then. To be a conservative nowadays and not be Cast Forth from the Tribe, you need to believe:

1. Anthropogenic climate change is a Lie.
2. The "Main Stream Media" has a partisan bias in favor of Democrats.
3. The invasion of Iraq was based on an honest appraisal of the evidence.
4. Torture is acceptable, and also, we do not torture.

I could go on, but these will do to make the point. To be a conservative in the 21st century American sense, you need to believe things that are not true, and you need to tie yourself into knots to pretend otherwise.

You could go on?  Oh…get me started…  How about:

1. Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.
2. The average homosexual relationship only lasts a few days.
3. The average homosexual has thousands of sexual partners in a lifetime.
4. Homosexuality is a mental illness.  The APA only removed it from the list of mental illnesses because of protests by militant homosexuals.
5. Homosexuals have more money then everyone else.
6. Gay Liberation caused AIDS.
7. The Nazis were all homosexuals.
8. So were the communists.
9. No society that tolerated homosexuality ever lasted very long.  Homosexuality caused the fall of Rome.
10. No society has ever allowed same sex marriage.
11. Same sex marriage will cause heterosexuals to stop getting married.
12. If same sex marriage is legalized, churches will be forced to marry homosexuals.
13. If same sex marriage is legalized, people will be jailed for speaking out against homosexuality.
14. If same sex marriage is legalized, the human race will die out.
15. If same sex marriage is legalized, homosexuals will be allowed to recruit children in kindergarten.
16. All homosexuals are pedophiles.
17. Homosexuality is the result of being molested as a child.  All homosexuals were once molested.
18. Homosexuality is the result of poor parenting.
19. Male homosexuality is the result of failure to bond with the father.
20. Lesbianism is the result of failure to bond with the father.
21. Poor Fathering is the cause of all homosexuality.
22. No…wait…it’s overbearing mothers.
23. No…it’s godlessness…

…and so on.  Get me started.  And here’s the thing…It doesn’t matter that none of this is true.  The point is, this is their Belief.  Beliefs don’t have to be true.  Accepting the Belief identifies you as being part of their tribe.  That’s what’s important.  Not that the Belief is true, but that you are either in the tribe, or an outsider.  To put it into gang terminology, these are their colors.  Wearing them identifies you as a member of the gang.

This is why rational discussion with these people is impossible.  It’s not about what is true and what isn’t.  It’s about defending the tribe against outsiders.  We in the reality based community are always wrong, because we are outsiders.  Their colors have to be stronger then our colors, because the most important thing on earth isn’t what is true and what is not…the most important thing on earth is defending the tribe against outsiders.

But when true and false stop being your guide to right and wrong, then you just walk eyes wide open into a pit.  Why did the bottom fall out of the economy all of a sudden?  Why did the splendid little war in Iraq that was only supposed to take a few days drag on and on and on and kill thousands?  Facts, as it so happens, matter more then Belief after all.  And came election day 2008, a lot of people were looking at their 401k quarterly reports, and seeing possibly for the first time, what kind of world you get when people think Belief is more important then facts, and decided it was time to kick the bums out.  Facts matter.

So while I quite respect Hilzoy, I think she is dangerously mistaking the nature of movement conservatism. To go back a bit to the Tim Burke post she cites:

But I think we can all make things just ever so slightly better, make the air less poisonous, by pushing to the margins of our consciousness the crazy, bad, gutter-dwelling, two-faced, tendentious high-school debator kinds of voices out there in the public sphere, including and especially in blogs. Let them stew in their own juices, without the dignity of a reply, now that their pipelines to people with real political power have been significantly cut.

Tempting, but absolutely wrong. In the 1990s this was a fashionable attitude towards the crazy anti-Clintonoids — against whom the best and the brightest on the left failed to mobilize. This failure occurred because Clinton was, well, not really very far to the left, so why defend him? But it was also because it was assumed that Clinton could take care of himself. Which he could. But what happened underneath…? Well, the foundations were laid for the Bush administration, that’s what. The media in particular had their own institutional biases manipulated, with almost no pushback from liberals, who should have known better, but let themselves by and large get rolled. Where did the 21st century wingnuts come from? The 1990s. The case rests. And then throws up.

It seems to me that there is a powerful, but foolish, desire on the part of certain liberals, especially academic liberals, to want to engage in a nice, friendly, open debate with "conservatives." This is an error. You will always lose a game you do not realize you are playing.

Bingo.  They are not about debating anything…they’re on a mission from God.  They’re fighting a culture war where right and wrong are measured in terms of what is good for the party.  It’s way past time to call this for what it is, and fight it for what it is.  Assuming good faith only allows the other side to keep pretending they’re something they aren’t.  What we are up against are theocrats and other sorts of totalitarians who think the "radical individualism" of the American Dream must be defeated by any means necessary.  We can all just stop pretending now, that the divisiveness of the past few decades is about two different visions of America…one liberal, one conservative.  It isn’t.  We are fighting an enemy as old as the first tyrants, and just as bereft of scruples.  At rock bottom, these people are thieves, who want to steal everything precious from our lives, not so much to fatten their own, as to make sure we never feel the joy of life more then they ever could.

Today’s Hero: Federal Marriage Amendment co-sponsor Marilyn Musgrave…

Race in 4th is over, but not ill will

Bitterness generated by the bruising battle between Betsy Markey and Marilyn Musgrave apparently lingers days after voters decided the winner of the 4th Congressional District.

Incumbent Republican Musgrave, who lost to Democrat Markey by a 56 to 44 percent margin Tuesday, has yet to call and congratulate Markey on her win.

Musgrave also hasn’t conceded the race, said Markey spokesman Ben Marter. "She has yet to admit defeat," he said. "It’s a little bizarre."

Calls to Musgrave’s campaign and congressional office went unanswered Friday. 

You’re all class Marilyn…

Oh…you want a civil discussion now do you…?

California’s Prop 8: LDS leader calls for healing the gay-marriage rift

Now that California voters have outlawed same-sex marriage, an LDS Church leader called Wednesday for members to heal rifts caused by the emotional campaign by treating each other with "civility, with respect and with love."

"We hope that everyone would treat [each other] that way no matter which side of this issue they were on," said Elder L. Whitney Clayton, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Presidency of the Seventy. 

…

In a statement, the LDS Church said it does not object to domestic partnership or civil union legislation "as long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches."

Which same sex marriage does not.  But…you know that…

As for Proposition 8, "we consider this to be a moral issue," Clayton said. "We’re not anti-gay, we’re pro marriage between a man and a woman."

Right.  Like you weren’t racist when you were denying black people a seat in your church…just pro white.  You don’t have to be racist to be pro-white.

You gutter crawling scum have been lurking in the background of this battle for over a decade now, and all that is over.  You fought to make your gay and lesbian neighbors second class citizens in their own country.  Own it.  Trust me…you will have to.  Nobody is forgetting this.  You want civility?  Get The Fuck Off Our Backs.

I see Faux News is reporting this morning that the total raised for the fight over Proposition 8 in California is something like 74 million dollars.  Let me repeat that: 74 Million Dollars. 

There’s your fall of western civilization right there.  Not same sex marriage, but that it’s a knife fight, just to let loving, devoted couples tie the knot. 

Who still believes in this day and age that gay people are twisted sub-human monsters?  I don’t think half the people voting today to cut the ring fingers off their gay and lesbian neighbors think that.  I doubt a tenth of them think that.  But they are all of them, all of them, taking right now, right this moment, some kind of visceral self righteous pleasure in sucking the hopes and dreams from our lives.

Via Talking Points Memo…

Gettin’ Sad

Nutball Congressman Chris Cannon (R-UT) tried to hire an Oxford don to use his special computer program to prove that Obama’s memoir was actually written by Bill Ayers. The program "can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases." Apparently, he got cold feet after the he learned that the Oxford academic, Dr Peter Millican, would release the results publicly no matter what they showed.

No sense in letting the voters know something if it isn’t something you want them to know.   The soul of a political movement isn’t the faces at the top of the ticket, or the rhetoric of its intellectuals.  Its soul, its heart, resides in all the people who do its day-to-day grunt work.  The grass roots.  The rank and file.  The True Believers.  It’s not the headline grabbing crimes that reveal the character of an ugly movement…it’s in all the little moments of casual mendacity by its grass roots.  There is where the people are.  There is where the movement is.

Via Sullivan…

McCain Miami Rally, Getting Ugly Down Here

After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that’s what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.

The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.

"People were screaming ‘Terrorist!’ ‘Communist!’ ‘Socialist!’" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting ‘Obama!’ and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."

I hope nobody thinks this sort of thing is going to stop after election day.  What you need to understand is they’re not trying to win the election anymore.  I really believe that choosing Palin was for inciting the base for war on an Obama administration they had come to believe was a certainty.  They know this time the fighting will be harder then it was to destroy Clinton because the democratic grassroots, if not the leadership, is organized and ready for it this time.  Expecting it even.  And maybe they’ve taken the measure of Obama in their private conferences and figured that he’s no Bill Clinton.  So they’re stoking the gutter full of hate, because the gutter is all they have left to win with.  That’s why it was Palin.  People are shaking their heads wondering how McCain could pick the likes of her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.  But he didn’t pick her to be vice president.  Her job is to be gasoline on the fire.

What we’re seeing now isn’t the last ugly gasp of a failed presidential campaign, but the start of the scorched earth after-the-election knife fight for the next four years, if not longer.  I’ve been saying for years now that the shit doesn’t really hit the fan until the republicans begin loosing power.  In the coming years, it won’t only be gay people getting bashed on the streets of America.  Just so you know. 

Welcome to the reality your gay and lesbian neighbors have been living with for decades now.  You knew it had to be you next didn’t you.

Via Atrios…  If this is true, then maybe it means that voters have finally become fed up enough with the republican strategy of winning elections by alienating Americans from one another, that they’re willing now at long last to punish them at the polls for it.

Kissell beating Robin Hayes.

North Carolina Congressman Robin Hayes, reeling from recent remarks about "Liberals hating real Americans," has lost his lead in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District race.

Hayes trails Democrat Larry Kissell 51-46 in a poll released Tuesday by Raleigh’s Public Policy Polling. In its last NC-8 poll in August, PPP had the incumbent Hayes leading by five points.

You can argue that the republican party has a lot to answer for, in terms of how badly they’ve damanged the economy, our moral standing abroad and the rule of law here at home.  But all of that pales in comparison to this one fact: that for decades now the republicans have sought to deliberately make Americans hate one another in order to win elections.

As a young speechwriter for Richard Nixon, Patrick Buchanan once expounded upon the politics of polorization.  "If we tear the country in half," Buchanan assured his boss in a perversely optimistic memo, "we can pick up the bigger half."
–J. Michael Hogan, Rhetoric and Community

And so they set about to do exactly that, inflaming bigotries and ugly passions to separate neighbor from neighbor, the better to split apart the New Deal coalition of working class urban and rural Americans, women and minorities, and replace it with a toxic wasteland of mutual hatred.  And every election year that hatred had to be stoked a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, to keep it alive, to keep Americans from voting for their hopes and dreams instead of their fears and hatreds. 

The damage they have done to America goes far beyond the economy and the war.  It is worse even, then the constitutional damage Bush has done while in office.  Those things can be fixed, with effort, in our lifetimes.  The hate they have deliberately sown amongst the amber waves of grain will take generations to heal.  If the republican party is to be held accountable for anything this election night, let it be for that.

[Update…] Via Atrios…  From Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly…  

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE WEAK GET RIDICULOUS…. Recent polling shows Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) trailing in her re-election fight in North Carolina against Democrat Kay Hagan, so it stands to reason that she’s getting a little desperate.

I didn’t think she’d get this desperate.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s latest advertisement suggests her Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, is a godless heathen.

"A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser for Kay Hagan," the 30-second spot says, showing footage of the group’s members talking about their atheist beliefs on cable news.

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money," the ad concludes. "What did Kay Hagan promise in return?"

At the very end of the ad, a voice sounding like Hagan’s says: "There is no God."

Seriously, Dole used a Hagan impersonator to make voters think she’s an atheist.

It’s hard to know where to start with an ad this deplorable. First, Hagan is actually a Sunday school teacher and an elder in her church. Second, the fundraiser in question was co-hosted by 40 people, one of whom is on the board of an atheist political action committee. Third, there’s nothing scandalous about non-believers.

And fourth, what the hell is "godless money"?

Hagan held a press conference this morning with her family and pastor to denounce the ad, and announced that if Dole didn’t pull the ad, she would seek a cease-and-desist order.

Even in a campaign cycle filled with sleazy, deplorable attacks, Dole has disgraced herself in a way few thought possible.

Possible?  Possible?  If you’d spent the last couple decades as a gay man, living under the kinds of attacks on your person that republicans just take for granted as normal conversation, you’d know goddamned well what the kook pews are capable of.  There is no bottom in that gutter.  That’s what you need to understand.  There is no bottom.

Sex.  Religion.  Fundamentalism.  Thump your bibles all you want people.  An instinct older then the fish, let alone the mammals, let alone the primates, is just going to ignore you on its very single-minded way to making your teenage kids pregnant…

Red Sex, Blue Sex
Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?
by Margaret Talbot

…During the campaign, the media has largely respected calls to treat Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as a private matter. But the reactions to it have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America’s dominant political divide. Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.

A handful of social scientists and family-law scholars have recently begun looking closely at this split. Last year, Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published a startling book called “Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers,” and he is working on a follow-up that includes a section titled “Red Sex, Blue Sex.” His findings are drawn from a national survey that Regnerus and his colleagues conducted of some thirty-four hundred thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds, and from a comprehensive government study of adolescent health known as Add Health. Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage. (Only half of mainline Protestants, and a quarter of Jews, say that they believe in abstinence.) Moreover, among the major religious groups, evangelical virgins are the least likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable, and the most likely to believe that having sex will cause their partners to lose respect for them. (Jews most often cite pleasure as a reason to have sex, and say that an unplanned pregnancy would be an embarrassment.) But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception…

The whole thing is Here.

A terrific 2005 documentary, “The Education of Shelby Knox,” tells the story of a teen-ager from a Southern Baptist family in Lubbock, Texas, who has taken a True Love Waits pledge. To the chagrin of her youth pastor, and many of her neighbors, Knox eventually becomes an activist for comprehensive sex education. At her high school, kids receive abstinence-only education, but, Knox says, “maybe twice a week I see a girl walking down the hall pregnant.” In the film, Knox seems successful at remaining chaste, but less because she took a pledge than because she has a fearlessly independent mind and the kind of parents who—despite their own conservative leanings—admire her outspokenness. Devout Republicans, her parents end up driving her around town to make speeches that would have curled their hair before their daughter started making them. Her mother even comes to take pride in Shelby’s efforts, because while abstinence pledges are lovely in the abstract, they don’t acknowledge “reality.”

Here’s the reality:  Sex is one of the most powerful drives within us.  Denial is not a stratigy for managing it.  Just ask any gay man who shoved his sex drive into a closet, got married and then later found himself in jail for propositioning an undercover policeman in a public toilet. 

But…just say ‘No’.  Right?  Condoms fail, not abstinence.  Right?  No.  It doesn’t work that way.  Actually, abstinence fails a hell of a lot more often then condoms do…

Bearman and Brückner have also identified a peculiar dilemma: in some schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses. Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity is lost. With such a fragile formula, it’s hard to imagine how educators can ever get it right: once the self-proclaimed virgin clique hits the thirty-one-per-cent mark, suddenly it’s Sodom and Gomorrah.

The human identity isn’t a blackboard you can scribble slogans on.  We carry the history of hundreds of millions of years of life on earth with us in our flesh and blood and bones every minute of every day, and sex is one of the most powerful drives there is among its creatures.  Should be obvious why…right?  Ignorance isn’t a strategy for managing it. 

On the other hand…the more people have sex and feel guilty about it…the more they come flocking back to the priests to beg for forgiveness.  In that sense, abstinence really seldom ever fails…

Via Pam’s House Blend…  Janet Porter says if you don’t vote for McCain God is going to cast you into hell for all eternity.  Can we just stop pretending now that the religious right wants anything to do with democracy…?

You cannot be a Christian and vote for Obama

To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey Him by voting for Obama, take warning. Not only is our nation in grave danger, according to the Word of God, so are you.

Insert the usual antiabortion, anti-gay rhetoric here…

Be forewarned: If you willfully disobey God on life and marriage because of race or false hope for the economy, you will usher in the kind of change that brought the Soviet Union to collapse.

But the warning goes far beyond that. To those who think that God’s grace gives them license to willfully disobey Him without consequences – think again:

Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (Matthew 7:21-23)

That deals with your eternity. Matthew 7:26-27 says if you don’t obey God, prepare for a crash even sooner that that:

But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash (Matthew 7:26-27).

I just hope you won’t take the rest of the nation with you.

If the word of God matters more to you than your perception of personal gain, Joel 2:12 issues a call to repentance I pray you will heed:

"Now, therefore," says the LORD, ‘Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning’" (Joel 2:12).

Then obey Him in the voting booth and out of it. If not, do us all a favor and quit calling yourself a Christian.

Right.  I get the message…

I get it all right…

The America where everyone has a right to their own life, their own bodies, their own conscience, is something you couldn’t have any less use for.   The American Dream of liberty and justice for all is apostasy as far as you’re concerned.  America belongs to fundamentalist Christians.  The rest of us just live here.  Conditionally.

America’s biggest sin isn’t abortion is it Janet.  It isn’t same sex marriage.  It isn’t pornography.  America’s biggest, most unforgivable sin is this…

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There’s where it all went wrong, isn’t it Janet?   Justice?  Domestic Tranquility?  Common defense?  General Welfare?  Blessings of Liberty?  Makes you sick to your stomach to read it, doesn’t it Janet?  And this…this must make you positively livid…

The Golden Door.  The Golden Door.  Does that make you want to laugh Janet, or puke?  The people who fled the old world and its state churches and religious wars didn’t found a new nation dedicated to freedom of worship just so babbling Darbyite pre-millenial nutcases like you could build a theocracy over their graves.  Do us all a favor and stop calling yourself an American Janet.  You are a Christian Nationalist, and the United States of America is to you as a cricket is to a digger wasp.  

Rod Dreher, who thinks that same-sex marriage will destroy not only marriage itself, but civilization, posts today in an article titled, Newsom & Truth About Gay Marriage that…

Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown law professor, lesbian and pro-gay marriage activist, writes in the new book "Same Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts", that there is an irreconcilable conflict between civil marriage rights for gays and religious liberty for traditionalists. "[G]ay rights leaders are trying to deal with the conflict by simply wishing it away. That is neither possible nor intellectually honest."

And what is the nature of this conflict?  Well…one commenter on Dreher’s blog sums it up thusly…

We have been over this ground hundreds of times, as Rod has pointed out. Why should the government care if Kate and Angela want to throw a party to celebrate their alternative lifestyle, which has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage?

But forcing my children to witness the lie that the relationship of two lesbians or two gay men (or three or four or twelve people of assorted genders) is *exactly the same* as the relationship of two people of opposite genders who not only can produce their own biological children but are expected to be completely responsible for them for eighteen years or so is an affront to my civil liberties, not just my religious ones.

Heaven forfend that he should be Forced to witness anything that contradicts his religion.  I suppose he’s all for outlawing Jewish holidays too.  But let it be said…he has given it a lot of thought…

The only way gay marriage and heterosexual marriage can be truly equal is if we require the sterilization of all heterosexual couples before they can marry. Otherwise, we’re creating a fiction that these two totally and radically different types of relationships, one of which has an overwhelming tendency to produce new citizens and the other of which has an overwhelming tendency not to–and *can never* do so in the same way, e.g., where each partner is equally the biological parent of each child–are exactly the same.

And if that’s not enough…

Since "marriage" as a civic concept has already been made completely meaningless by the advent of gay "marriage," and will only become more so as time goes on, I have a modest proposal: abolish it. End it altogether. Make "marriage" as important a secular concept as baptism and confirmation are–that is, not at all.

…

So, legally speaking, we’ll all be glorified cohabitators

Which is where I foolishly decide to jump into the discussion.  Here’s my comment, being held for moderation last I looked…

Since "marriage" as a civic concept has already been made completely meaningless by the advent of gay "marriage," and will only become more so as time goes on, I have a modest proposal: abolish it. End it altogether.

That’s probably coming, but it won’t be same-sex marriage that makes it happen.  When marriage in the United States becomes the moral equivalent of a whites only or gentiles only country club, heterosexual couples, good decent heterosexual couples, the very sort you really want to keep bought into it, are going to start abandoning it.

Not many certainly…not at first.  But it’s already starting to happen.  Opposite-sex couples are resorting to other forms of "civil union" or contracts or what-have-you more and more these days.  Some think marriage is "old fashioned."  Some dispute its relevance to couples in this day and age.  Do you really think putting that Heterosexuals Only notice on the marriage license is going to change people’s minds about that?  No…I don’t think you do.

How many couples with gay family and neighbors and friends are going to sign that document?  Probably many, even so.  But fewer and fewer, as people, good people, decent people, at long last get sick to death of watching loving, devoted same sex couples fighting constantly for rights they themselves can take for granted.  You may not appreciate how the feeling of being privileged can make some people feel ashamed.  Try.

So in addition to heterosexuals getting drive-in married and drive-in divorced, Plus all the heterosexual couples who just live together because they couldn’t care less about marriage to begin with, now you’ve got committed couples opting out of marriage because they don’t want their union, their mutual love, their devotion to each other and their kids, tainted by prejudice.  And so that special place of honor marriage has in society, that I keep hearing folks babbling about in the same breath as "love the sinner…" just sails off, off into the sunset along with things like antisemitic homeowner covenants.  Good job folks.  Mission Accomplished.

It’s been well said that homosexuals can’t possibly do nearly the damage to the institution of marriage that heterosexuals already have.  Orson Scott Card, who thinks homosexuality is a threat to the survival of the human race, said so in a recent column of his.  Call it a testament to its power, and its essential truth, that marriage in the U.S. hasn’t been utterly finished off by now.  A lot of big guns have been aimed at it over the course of my lifetime alone, and yet it still stands.  But the righteous aren’t through with it either.

If the religious right finally convinces the rest of America that they can and will block same-sex couples from achieving marriage equality for generations, if ever, what will almost certainly happen is a faster movement away from marriage and toward other forms of coupling.  Co-habitation is already a fact of life for a lot of young opposite-sex couples.  Turning marriage into an instrument of discrimination is hardly going to change that.  It’s just going to make decent people feel uncomfortable with the whole thing.  Call it a win for the sexual radicals, with an assist by the sexual theocrats. 

There are many reason why I do not regard myself as a Christian anymore.  Probably chief among them is I am no longer convinced that God even exists.  But even so, fundamentalism notwithstanding, I think you can still regard yourself as a Christian nonetheless.  If you think God worship is all there is to Jesus’ message, then you weren’t listening.

Forgiveness.  Here is why I just can’t call myself Christian anymore: 

Over at Box Turtle Bulletin, Jim Burroway posts that he received a phone call from a reporter saying that many proposition 102 (the Arizona anti same-sex marriage amendment) yard signs are being damaged. 

I got a phone call last night from a reporter from Phoenix’s ABC15, telling me that a spokesperson for the ’Yes” side for Prop 102 says that more than a hundred of their campaign signs were vandalized. Obviously, everyone here at No on Prop 102 condemns such vandalism. While we are happy to engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, vandalism has no place in rational debate.

Oh…good grief.  Look…if some people are willing to spread the open sewer that is their conscience out on their lawns for everyone in the world to see, then by all means leave the fucking things alone.  Seriously.  Leave them alone. 

Photograph them.  Document it.   We are living through a moment in history, however these votes turn out.  Document it.  Document it.  Document it.  And later, if the thing passes, should these fine God fearing folks feel the need to pretend that they never supported it (and they will, many of them, never doubt it), remember how you felt seeing those signs waved in your face, remember how it felt to have your ring finger cut off while they praised God, and wave their signs right back in their faces.  Yes…yes you did…

It’s good to know the names on that knife in your heart.

Jesus would say that I have to forgive.  I can appreciate how anger can turn into hate.  I can appreciate how it can corrode your soul, turn it to rust.  There is a reason why we have to forgive.  Jesus was right.  But there are some things I simply cannot forgive.  Just…can’t.  Ironically my Baptist grandmother was exactly like me in this regard.  Neither one of us could let go of a grudge.  It’s a dangerous combination I’ve lived with all my life: dad’s loaded gun temper, grandma’s ability to hold onto a grudge forever.  If I didn’t have some small smidgen of mom’s endless capacity for love and sympathy I’d be some kind of absolutely legendary asshole.  I have grudges from back in elementary school I still take out and polish every now and then.

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.
-Edgar Watson Howe

Forgiveness.  Hopefully after November gay couples in California will still have their ring fingers, and those in Arizona and Florida will still have hope.  But if not, don’t ask me to forgive.  Ever.  I’ll laugh in your face.

[Edited a tad…]

Via Salon…  An email now circulating among the kook pews …apparently written by Jim Bramlett, author and former vice president of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who apparently has obtained recordings of angels singing…

Dear friends:
 
Barack Hussein Obama has taken the nation by storm.  From obscurity, with zero executive experience, or much of any kind, he has vaulted into the position of Presidential frontrunner.  It is stunning.  On the surface, it appears attributable only to his eloquent oratory and his race.  But an invisible factor may be a strong spiritual force behind him, causing some people to actually swoon in his presence.
 
I have been very concerned that he has publicly said that he does not believe Jesus is the only way to heaven.  This makes both the Bible and Jesus a liar, and it means that Christ has died in vain.  A person cannot be a true Christian who believes that there are other ways of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life with God.  Only Jesus has paid the price for that.
 
Therefore, there is, indeed, another spirit involved.  And this spirit has come into our national life like a flood.  Last week at Obama’s acceptance speech, that spirit exalted itself in front of a Greek temple-like stage, and to a huge audience like in a Roman arena.  Omama was portrayed as god-like.  His voice thundered as a god’s voice.
 
At the end, Democratic sympathizer Pastor Joel Hunter gave the benediction and shockingly invited everyone to close the prayer to their own (false) gods.  This was surely an abomination, but it was compatible with Obama’s expressed theology, and Hunter’s leftist leanings.
 
God was not pleased.
 
And God says, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him" (Isaiah 59:19).
 
Enter Governor Sarah Palin.  With incredible timing, the very next day, Sarah Palin also appeared out of nowhere.  Her shocking selection as John McCain’s running mate stunned the world and suddenly took all the wind out of Obama’s sails.
 
We quickly learned that Sarah is a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, attends church, and has been a ministry worker.
 
Sarah is that standard God has raised up to stop the flood.  She has the anointing.  You can tell by how the dogs are already viciously attacking her.  But they will not be successful.  She knows the One she serves and will not be intimidated.
 
Back in the 1980s, I sensed that Israel’s little-known Benjamin Netanyahu was chosen by God for an important end-time role.  I still believe that.  I now have that same sense about Sarah Palin.
 
Today I did some checking and discovered that both her first and last names are biblical words, one in Hebrew the other in Greek:
 
Sarah.  Wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac.  In Hebrew, Sarah means "noble woman" (Strong’s 8283).
 
Palin.  In Greek, the word means "renewal." (Strong’s 3825).
 
A friend said he believes that Sarah Palin is a Deborah.  Of Deborah, Smith’s Bible Dictionary says, "A prophetess who judged Israel…. She was not so much a judge as one gifted with prophetic command…. and by virtue of her inspiration ‘a mother in Israel.’"
 
Only God knows the future and how she may be used by Him, but may this noble woman serve to bring renewal in the land, and inspiration.
 
Jim

Unlike President Junior…it’s a safe bet that Palin actually sees herself this way. 

This e-mail isn’t the only instance of Palin being seen this way. Sarah Posner, who has an interesting article about Palin’s time as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, in Salon today, previously wrote about this phenomenon on TAPPED: "Many evangelicals are talking about Palin being like the biblical Queen Esther, who saved the Jews from the genocidal Haman, and believe that Palin has come, like Esther did, ‘for a time such as this.’ (The same narrative built around George W. Bush when he was running.)"

President Palin.

It must be an election year…the Log Cabin Republicans are cheerfully telling everyone they can what a bunch of happy quislings they are.  An AP news story on the upcoming republican party platform (which I’m not going to link to), says the platform will contain the usual call for a constitutional ban on same sex marriage.   Log Cabin spokesdroid Scott Tucker says he’s fine with that…

"This isn’t a hill we’re going to die on," said Scott Tucker, a spokesman for the gay rights group Log Cabin Republicans.

Log Cabin is a gay rights group like a white sheet flapping in the wind is an American flag.  But let it be said they’re working on building common ground between gay and straight within the republican party…

"Unlike previous years," said Gary Bauer, a social-conservative veteran of platform struggles, "I just don’t see deep divisions within the party."

See how easy it is for people of differing views on gay rights to get along in the republican party?  Really…all it takes is a little abject submission. 

I realize that you can’t pigeon hole gay people on the issues.  Gay folk range the entire political spectrum from left to right.  I grok this.  But if a conservative gay group will not take a simple basic principled stand for marriage then what the fuck good is it?  Oh yes…I hear them yap, yap, yapping all the time that their sexuality isn’t all there is to their lives and they have other issues too.  Fine.  Marriage, as it happens, is about more then sexuality too. 

I don’t ever want to see these pathetic quislings tut, tutting the sexual excesses of "gay culture" again, if they’re not willing to raise so much as a squeak in protest over a plank that calls for a constitutional ban on same sex marriage.  Better to die on the hill, then in the gutter.