Danforth criticizes Christian sway in GOP

[deadparrot]

LITTLE ROCK - The influence of evangelical Christians in the Republican Party hurts the organization and divides the country, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth said during a visit to the Bill Clinton School of Public Service on Wednesday.

Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an Episcopal priest, met with students during a seminar and held a luncheon talk at the graduate school.

"I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right," he said in an interview after his talks. "I don't think that this is a permanent condition but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country."

He also said the evangelical Christian influence would be bad for the party in the long run.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/breaking_news/13004889.htm

[AX10]

1. meaningless because he still supports the party and has done..

little to nothing besides speak out about the take over.

[stepnw1f]

2. There are No Christians in the GOP

They are all frauds hiding behind the Bible, just as the dumb-ass ditto-heads hide behind the flag.

[politicaholic]

7. There aren't any good comedians either...

I can't stand any group of people who can't tell a good penis joke.

[stepnw1f]

8. Heh? (nt)

[politicaholic]

9. It was meant to be a jo...nevermind.

[stepnw1f]

10. There's This Guy Named, Richard.... (nt)

[Ian David]

21. Right-wing "comics"

Definitely:

1) Dennis Miller
2) Drew Carey
3) Colin Quinn
4) Kelsey Grammer


Maybe:

1) Dennis Leary
2) Larry the Cable Guy
3) Ralphie May
4) Nick DiPaolo

[deacon2]

14. "dumb-ass ditto-heads" Nice alliteration! n/t

[DURHAM D]

3. Blah, Blah, Blah - Did he apologize for his success in

getting Clarence Thomas on the bench? Until he does his jaw is just flapping.

[CatholicEdHead]

4. Speaking of Faith did an hourlong show on him

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/danforth/index.shtml

[truthpusher]

5. Danforth criticizes Christian sway in GOP

http://www.fresnobee.com/24hour/nation/story/2844478p-11504064c.html

Danforth criticizes Christian sway in GOP
--------------------
By DANIEL CONNOLLY, Associated Press Writer
(Updated Wednesday, October 26, 2005, 6:02 PM)
--------------------
LITTLE ROCK (AP) -

(snip)

Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an Episcopal priest, met with students during a seminar and held a luncheon talk at the graduate school.

"I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right," he said in an interview after his talks. "I don't think that this is a permanent condition but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country."

(snip)

"I think the question arises when a political party becomes identified with one particular sectarian position and when religious people believe that they have the one answer, that they understand God's truth and they embody it politically," he said.

"Nothing is more dangerous than religion in politics and government when it becomes divisive," he said. "I'll give you examples: Iraq. Northern Ireland. Palestine."

(snip)

Under Democratic President Bill Clinton, Danforth was appointed special counsel in an investigation of the deadly 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas.

The current President Bush appointed Danforth as special peace envoy to Sudan and later as ambassador to the United Nations.

(snip)

complete story: http://www.fresnobee.com/24hour/nation/story/2844478p-11504064c.html

[Jacobin]

6. Egads. An intelligent, thoughtful republican

[Voltaire99]

17. Not much of one.

He was a major Reaganite and a helping hand behind Clarence Thomas.

An asshole by any other name; but he is certainly right about the fundie takeover of his accursed party.

[stanwyck]

26. Hardly. He's a political animal

and he's put his snout to the wind and sniffed.
Another sign the GOP is splintering.

[Erika]

11. Rove courted & targeted theocrat believers to get W elected

After 2000, he made a data base of these Bushbots then honed in on them with promises of the overturn of Rowe v. Wade and anti gay agendas to get them out to vote last election. Now, the Republicans are dumping them as a liability. They have been used and are now discarded by the republicans. Maybe they now recognize what the real values of the GOP are.

[BillZBubb]

12. Danforth is a hypocrite.

This is the exact same moron who "prayed" with Clarence Thomas and that was enough to convince him that Thomas would be a great justice.

Evidently the "Christian" influence was OK then?

[CAG]

13. It sounds like he's changed his views a bit over the years, instead

of being a hypocrite.

I, for one, applaud his statements. Its also not the first time he's said these things. He wrote an op ed piece in June in the NYT consistent with todays report.

Above, someone said no republicans are christians. To me, thats a much more dangerous (and outright false) statement than what this republican said today.

[BillZBubb]

15. That doesn't make him a non-hypocrite

To beat the hypocrite tag, Danforth would first have to admit his role in the current state of affairs. His new position is the correct one, but he is still a part of the problem. Until he fesses up on his long history of being on the wrong side of this issue and explains his conversion, he stands guilty.

I haven't met too many Christ-like Repugs, have you? I've met a lot of zealots who claim to be Christians--a claim that is as phony as their "love" of their fellow man and their "compassion".

[CAG]

16. But it may or may not make him a non-non-hypocrite :-)

Hardly any of us can claim to be very Christ-like. I'm certainly not going to start keeping score between myself and anyone else (I might be surprisingly disappointed) on who's being more christ-like.

In my experience, a proportion (some minority, maybe 30-40%??) of the christians who seem to be inclined to vote for the bushies of the world are simply ignorant, not being able to separate themselves from the constant drumbeat of RW rhetoric coming at them from the fundie pulpits, talk radio, and that so called "librul" GE-viacom-Fox-Time warner-owned media. Propaganda and rationalization are two very toxic drugs that they become addicted to.

We need this group of people to start seeing the light if we ever hope to turn this country around. We need to expose and explain the hypocrisies of the right and demonstrate how these fly in the faces of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Even though we understand it, its hard to convince these relatively comfortable middle class group of people when our message is being drowned out by the RW messengers I noted above. Simply dismissing away or trashing any of them (including a Danforth) after they have given us a sign that their RW view of the world has some holes in it won't help us or our country at all.

[Erika]

19. Yep Anita Hill's testimony didn't make him vary

You know, one of those Black gals trying to get a head by lying. The GOP sicken me. I can't even stand to see Clarence, the &$!!!, Thomas. He should be NO where in our government.

[bluedawg12]

18. What do DU'ers think is the danger of the evangelicals to pugs?

Is it for the GOP?

Or does it help the GOP?

If true, how does that affect the nation?

[xchrom]

24. the evangelicals are tools and don't know it.

they are allowed political power, especially in local politics, because they take the ''eyes'' off of the corporate shenanigans going on on capital hill.

i.e. michael powel and the fcc or big oil and mega profits with no taxation, or haliburton and crew and their relation to the admin, the leadership in both parties going along with outsourcing, bankruptcy, etc

[bluedawg12]

25. xchrom- The danger: they hold scripture above the constitution

and believe that the constitution is a dead document and should be read literally, strictly and fundamentally, as should scripture.

The constitution was written to be flexible in order to take into account the unforeseen quandaries of today's world such as instant communication tech., the inter net, instant news via multiple net sources, computers, rights to privacy, cars and planes,etc.

If they insist on a verbatim reading the Constitution will fall short and will not be adequate for todays problems.

Also, they want to put a theocratic slant on every human rights issue and increase, not decrease, the influence of government on the rights of men.

[stanwyck]

27. Hurts the GOP

The Pastor Project is a fundamentalist movement to enlist evangelical pastors to organize voters so that ONLY evangelical fundamentalists become the nominees of the Republican Party. Bush (Rove) knows this margin of evangelicals is critical to winning. And the evangelicals have, finally, figured out that Reagan and Bush, Sr. played them for fools.
They're stronger now, thanks to Dubya's support.
And now they're out to strongarm the GOP.
The GOP moderates and genuine conservatives have themselves to blame. They picked the Boy King.
It's payback.

[Erika]

20. The whole country has caught onto W's theocracy theme

and it's not going over well. It's against everything this country stood for and he's throwing in corporatism to boot.

[xchrom]

22. look at the fundies! -- no, no don't look at the sniveling

corporatists -- look at the fundies!

there are two forces working the repuke political party over -- and one is pulling the strings of the other --

[Demeter]

23. The Eighties Weren't That Recent, Pal

If you weren't screaming about this under Reagan, then you either weren't paying attention, or you were getting your money and votes from the Religious Right, and have no right to bitch about it now. The seeds were planted even earlier, under Nixon, with his sucking up to Billy Graham (and vice versa).

No use kvelling over spilt milk now.