This is one of those stories that forced me, to actually go back and make sure that I did not blog on it previously; and so I did and I can safely say, that I was not one of the people that fell for this story. (whew!)
Once again, Mike Huckabee is talking out his rather large anal orifice. According to a report in politico.com:
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is “anti-religious.”
In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate’s passage, Huckabee wrote: “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: It is anti-religious.”
The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a “school or department of divinity.”
“You would think the ACLU drafted this bill,” Huckabee said. “For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal.”
“Emily’s List, radical environmental groups, etc. all have a seat at the decision making table in Washington these days,” he continued. “Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are in charge and they are working with an equally ‘progressive’ President Obama (remember his voting record is more liberal than Ted Kennedy!).”
There is only one little problem with this whole story. Mike Huckabee is, as always; with those on the far religious right; Wrong.
Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs sets the record straight:
Let’s look at the language in the stimulus bill that’s causing this freak-out, shall we?
PROHIBITED USES OF FUNDS. – No funds awarded under this section may be used for – (C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities – (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.
Apparently we’re supposed to just forget about that pesky old Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…
The government does not fund religious schools or churches for this very reason, and the language in the stimulus bill is absolutely consistent with the Constitution of the United States.
Mike Huckabee is feeding raw meat to Christian fundamentalists, but apparently he’s forgotten that if you revoke the Establishment Clause for Christian schools and churches, you also have to revoke it for Jewish and Muslim schools and houses of worship. For some reason, I don’t think that would meet with Huck’s approval.
There are plenty of things in the stimulus bill to be unhappy about, but this issue is being cynically distorted by people like Huckabee and DeMint to stir up the far right religious wing of the GOP.
And by the way, Huckabee, DeMint, and World Net Daily have another thing in common; they’re all in favor of teaching creationism in public schools—another violation of the Establishment Clause.
Which is exactly what Huckabee, WorldNetDaily and the rest of the far right wing, Zionist types want to do:
“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”
….and there you have it. The entire far right wing agenda of the Religious or Christian right in America. Subvert the Constitution of the United States of America and make America into a Christian theocracy, instead of a secular Republic that it was founded as. A secular republic which paid a feeble homage to a “God”, and not to Jesus Christ, as claimed by some on the extreme far right. You want to know why these people did this? Because they were quite wise, those who had fled Great Britain and the religious persecution that existed there at the time, knew that if they founded the United States with a language that paid homage to a particular deity or type of Religion; that they would be opening the door to same sort of persecution that the founders experienced in Great Britain.
What I blogged about above, is why I have always been gun shy, so to speak, about aligning myself with the Republican Party. Because of the faction of those within that party who want to do that very thing. Most of them have left and joined the Constitution Party. But there are those still within the party, who’s mind still go back to 1980, when Reagan was elected and the majority of the Republican Party was living in the delusion that the United States was going to become some Christian Republic of some sort. Needless to say, and thankfully, that did not happen. Not because I do not love the Lord, but because I happen to believe the full separation of Church and State and I reject the doctrines of the Christian Right and the Zionist movement as un-scriptural and un-Constitutional and at times bordering on a Fascist State. Freedom of Religion and FROM Religion is a right that I cherish and will fight for on this Blog, as long as I am able.