The Republican Party Wants To Turn America Into A Theocracy: R. Reich

[appalachiablue]

- Alabama’s supreme court ruling that frozen embryos are ‘children’ is a chilling example of the Republican party’s extremism. The Guardian, Feb. 23, 2024. - Edited.

In a case centering on wrongful-death claims for frozen embryos that were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic, the AL supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children” under state law. As a result, several AL in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics are ceasing services, afraid to store or destroy any embryos. The underlying issue is whether government can interfere in the most intimate aspects of people’s lives - not only barring people from obtaining IVF services but also:

- forbidding them from entering into gay marriage, utilizing contraception, having out-of-wedlock births, ending their pregnancies, changing their genders, checking out whatever books they want from the library, and worshipping God in whatever way they wish (or not worshipping at all). All these private freedoms are under increasing assault from GOP legislators and judges who want to impose their own morality on everyone else.

Republicans are increasingly at war with America’s basic separation of church and state.

A new survey from the Public Religion Research Inst. and the Brookings Inst. found that more than half of Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation - adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21%) or sympathizing with those views (33%). Christian nationalism is also closely linked with authoritarianism. In the same survey, half of Christian nationalism adherents and nearly 4 in 10 sympathizers said they support the idea of an authoritarian leader powerful enough to keep these Christian values in society.

At Turning Point USA last Aug., Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R- GA) said party leaders need to be more responsive to the base of the party, which she claimed is made up of Christian nationalists. “We need to be the party of nationalism,” “I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.” A growing number of evangelical voters view Trump as the 2nd coming of Christ and see the 2024 election as a battle not only for America’s soul but for salvation of all mankind. Many Trump followers at the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021 carried Christian symbols and signs invoking God and Jesus..

Christian nationalism is inconsistent with personal freedom. A society where one set of religious views is imposed on those who disagree with them isn't a democracy. It’s a theocracy...More, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/23/republicans-american-theocracy
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- Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a prof. of public policy at the Univ. of Calif., Berkeley, and author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good.
His newest book is, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

[CanonRay]

1. I would presume that this judge

opposes Alabama's death penalty? Sure.

[appalachiablue]

3. Negative

[LastDemocratInSC]

2. Democratic (small d) and secular self government

is not compatible with many of the current forms of Christianity in our nation and the adherents of those sects have every intention of weakening our government in an effort to establish themselves more firmly in political power.

[appalachiablue]

4. The familiar story, quest for power. November, we'll see.

Once you lose democracy, you can never get it back.

A very serious comment I read recently.