Focus on the Family presents great leaders in Christian history: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, John Hostettler

June 25, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

Imagine how the Religious Right would react if a Democratic member of the House got up and called all Republicans a bunch of zombie-like, snake-handling religious fanatics. They would be outraged, right?

So why is it okay for a guy like U.S. Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) to get up and accuse all Democrats of being extremists who hate Christianity? Why is it okay for him to say, “The long war on Christianity in America continues today on the floor of the House of Representatives”? Why is it okay for him to charge that this alleged war “continues unabated with aid and comfort to those who would eradicate any vestige of our Christian heritage being supplied by the usual suspects, the Democrats”?

Why is it okay for Hostettler to add, “Like a moth to a flame, Democrats can’t help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians.”

Make no mistake, it’s all right by the Religious Right that Hostettler said these things. Days after the gun-toting, Eddie Munster look-alike uttered those infamous comments, accusations so vile he was forced to withdraw some of them from the Congressional Record, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family swung into action. No, FOF did not attack Hostettler for engaging in crude stereotypes and religious bigotry. Instead, it issued an e-mail alert asking its supporters to send Hostettler a message thanking him for his brilliant defense of Christianity on the floor of the House.

I just thought you’d want to know.

This is terrible. I read somewhere yesterday that Billy Graham said he is not political. Then if he is NOT a dem or rethug he should blast these so called Focus On The Family christians for what they are …….CRAZY NON CHRISTIANS

  • Don’t worry–the “Christian unity” is so much ephemera, though most Christians do not yet realize it (precisely because of the separation of church and state).

    (start tirade)

    When someone talks about how it would be good if there was no separation of church and state, one could well ask “Which church?” After moving to New York, I went to a Baptist church for a few weeks and at least once a sermon they would make a contemptuous remark about non-Baptists. After all, only Baptists worship exactly according to the bible, didn’t you know! Now consider that there are hundreds of denominations across the country, each (subtlely or openly, and in varying degrees) condemning their fellow Christians to hell. When there’s no longer any church-state separation, who gets to determine orthodoxy? Whoever wins that battle, because they will have government force to back them up, will have the “sanction of God”: All the other denominations will suddenly find themselves heretics. If history is any guide, there is a higher than probable chance of a very bloody civil war or two to go along with the routine persecutions. That, and the fact that whatever church wins out will be the whore to whatever government is in charge, just as the Catholic church was back in the middle ages and in Roman times. Come to think of it, any church that praises America, the Republican Party, and our way of life already is. Meantime, the meek and poor in spirit can as usual go eat cake.

    Another thing I wish these church-state abolishers would consider is that the Puritans tried the experiment and failed miserably. The Puritans make today’s fundies look like amateurs, but they couldn’t make a pure and literal bible-based community work. They found out the hard truth: the bible is vague and requires interpretation. And that interpretation, for some strange reason, always seems to favor those doing the interpreting.

    It’s almost worth it to let them have what they want, just so they can see that rather than their wish just brought them closer to the quality of life of Jonestown than Paradise. Those who want to preserve church-state separation want to save Christians from capping each other off, but the Fundies are too ignorant of the consequences of their making their dreams a reality to realize it.

    (/tirade over)

  • A friend watched this train-wreck on CSPAN, and pointed out that, indeed, the Democrats can’t help themselves.

    While this wingnut was sticking his foot so far into his mouth that his toes were attempting to peek out of his asshole, one of the Democrats jumped up and indignantly *demanded that his remarks be stricken from the record*. Please, control yourself. The guy was committing rhetorical hara-kiri, and you tried to grab the knife out of his hand. Dumbass.

    Now, who wouldn’t want this Christian Supremacist’s toxic comments to stay in the public record, forever, or at least until his next re-election campaign?

    I’m sorry, but Democrats need to fucking get smart, and follow the lead of their leaders. If the Repugs are destroying themselves with idiotic comments, *let them do it*. Really. Fight back, indeed, with your own attacks (Go Howard Dean! Go Harry Reid!), but don’t demand apologies or, worse, insist that the Repugs’ noxious comments be stricken from the public record. And, um, never apologise for your own ballsy statements– it just makes you sound weak and it doesn’t buy you any respect from the Repugs anyway.

    I want these wingnuts’ own words to– like the turd in the old Sicilian curse– come to life, and kiss them. Please, Democrats, help yourselves. Not the wingnuts.

  • Herbert Spencer, the intellectual father of modern conservatism (apparently unknown to today’s GOP radicals), realized long ago that relgion was useful to the primitive tribes of his day (1850s) and, by inference, to the early tribes from which modern socities evolved.

    Government, he said, was born of rational Fear of the Living (criminals, enemy tribes); beings which could do us harm in the absence of superior power. Religion, he said, was born of Fear of the Dead, principally our immediate ancestors, who presumably had nowhere else to go when they left their bodies behind. People believed these spirits hung around, able to observe and punish our anti-tribal acts (crimes) even when earthly authorities couldn’t. Appealed to properly, via priest-rulers, they could even spy on our enemies for us or solve problems when our primitive technology let us down (cures for illness, making rain.

    But, Spencer argued, religion has long since passed from utility to outright harm in what he labelled “industrial” societies like ours, the operation and growth of which depends upon scientific/technical knowledge and freedom from all sorts on traditional constraints. Private religious affiliation (e.g., being your brother’s keeper) might still be important, especially since he outlawed any government action directed to those ends, but that’s almost the opposite of what Hostettler and the GOP religious radicals call for. They really are throwbacks, dinosaurs, even in the view of their ideological grandfather.

  • I believe the troglodyte retracted only his last sentence, so most of that stays in the record. Besides which, it’s on tape so his opponents can use it to their heart’s content in their campaign against him if they like. Jon Stewart had a great report on this, by the way. If only he was on broadcast TV!

  • We probably wouldn’t be talking about this as much if Rep. Obey didn’t move to have the comment stricken. Otherwise it would have just gone on the record and maybe would have been a blip on the radar screen if that.

    It was the motion, which is out of the ordinary, that got the comment’s their megaphone, and for that reason, it was a great move.

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