Viewable With ANY Browser

Note: My Web pages are best viewed with style sheets enabled.

Unrated

Culture War or Crusade?

Copyright © 2005, 2007 by David E. Ross

It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.

Justice Antonin Scalia, 2003
Dissenting opinion in Lawrence vs Texas

The battlefields in this war are many: abortion, marriage and family values, crime and punishment, education, material and spiritual wealth, gun control, end-of-life decisions, stem-cell research, et cetera. Justice Scalia's opinion referred specifically to gay rights, but the issues being fought are much broader.

… we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.

Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
October 2003


We can't ignore that our nation is based on Christianity — not science.

Kathy Martin
Kansas State Board of Education
May 2005

Justice Scalia is wrong (again). This is not merely a cultural war — a battle for minds on what direction American society should evolve. Instead, this is a religious war, a crusade, a fundamentalist Christian jihad whose goal is to entwine particular religious beliefs with government.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

U.S. Constitution
Article VI, paragraph 3

Despite the Constitution's mandate that election to office must not be influenced by religious beliefs, the crusaders are dictating to their followers how to vote. We see bishops threaten excommunication against anyone who votes for a candidate who might support a woman's right to have an abortion or who might support equal rights for gays. We recently saw a congregation expel members who voted for the "wrong" Presidential candidate. Nominees for federal judges and even chairmen of Senate committees are now being examined for their support of the jihad. President Bush felt compelled to cite Harriet Miers's affiliation with a fundamentalist church as part of his justification for nominating her to the Supreme Court; Miers's nomination then had to be withdrawn when the jihad objected to a speech she gave 12 years earlier in support of a woman's personal right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

U.S. Constitution
Amendment 1

The crusaders truly support the free exercise of religion. That is necessary for them to pursue their jihad. However, they also reject the prohibition against government establishment of religion. The non-establishment clause of the First Amendment interferes with their goal of having the government enact their dogma into laws affecting all of us, including those of us who follow other religions with opposing dogmas. Thus, the crusaders demand the following:

*** Begin Right Sidebar ***

Besides demanding laws to enact their own particular dogma, the crusaders also demand that those laws be enforced using taxes collected from all of us. Thus, Jews, Moslems, Bahais, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists — U.S. citizens — should be forced to pay to support a religion quite different from their own.

*** End Right Sidebar ***

The Christian jihad has already turned the U.S. Airforce Academy into its own missionary society, harassing cadets who do not follow the crusaders' dogma. Woe to those cadets who follow the "wrong" religions or who are atheists.

In the 2006 Congressional elections, the Republicans — many of whom were part of the fundamentalist Christian jihad — lost control of both the Senate and House. Do not think this means the jihad is weakened or has lost support! Just evaluate the campaigns in 2007 for the 2008 Presidential election:

The Christian ayatollahs might have temporarily lost control of Congress, but they are still quite strong — and scary.

By seeking government support and endorsement exclusively of their own dogma, the crusaders support the free exercise of only their own religion and reject the equal right of the rest of us to exercise equally our own differing religions. This is a twisted version of the First Amendment.

But what is the dogma of the Christian jihad? The principles are arrogant, contradictory, and even hypocritical.

Besides a twisted dogma, the Christian ayatollahs of this jihad suffer two serious defects of character.

Christian group wants to 'redeem' US states

Cory Burnell wants to set up a Christian nation within the United States where abortion is illegal, gay marriage is banned, schools cannot teach evolution, children can pray to Jesus in public schools and the Ten Commandments are posted publicly.

Yahoo/Reuters
23 October 2005

If there is any doubt about the existence of a Christian jihad, read the complete news article.

No, the Christian jihad does not include all Christians. It does not even include a majority of Christians. These crusaders are a small but very vocal minority of conservative Protestants and Catholics. Their power — the strength of the jihad and their political ascendancy — is the result of pandering for their votes by some politicians who might not otherwise get elected. Now that those politicians were successful in their election campaigns, the crusaders who supported them demand a payback. They demand laws be enacted to achieve what they cannot obtain through sermons from the pulpit. Since they believe theirs is the only true religion, they do not care if those laws are contrary to the beliefs of others and deprive the rest of us — especially non-Christians — of our freedom of religion.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Attributed to Edmund Burke, 1729-1797

The danger to the United States and our freedoms under the Constitution is that not enough good people even recognize the threat from this vocal minority let alone speak out against it. This threat is quite real. As seen with the ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, the crusaders already dictate national policy.

As a Jew, I am afraid, very afraid.

4 June 2005
Updated 28 December 2007

I have used both crusade and jihad to describe how some fundamentalist Christians want to remake the United States into a theocracy. Yes, I know this is a mixed metaphor. However, there is much similarity between what these modern crusaders and Moslem terrorists both wish to accomplish — the destruction of all those who do not believe the way they believe and who do not behave the way they dictate.

This page has been viewed times.


Link to David Ross's home page
David Ross home

Valid HTML 4.01