The Christian-right's all-out congressional war on the Environment

[enough]

This article has been posted in a couple of threads, but without a clear title to indicate the subject. Everyone who frequents this forum needs to read the entire article. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was THIS bad.

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/

The Godly Must Be Crazy

Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment
By Glenn Scherer
27 Oct 2004 (Grist Magazine)

snip>

Forty-five senators and 186 representatives in 2003 earned 80- to 100-percent approval ratings from the nation's three most influential Christian right advocacy groups -- the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council. Many of those same lawmakers also got flunking grades -- less than 10 percent, on average -- from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

snip>

We are not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. The 231 legislators (all but five of them Republicans) who received an average 80 percent approval rating or higher from the leading religious-right organizations make up more than 40 percent of the U.S. Congress.

snip>



The author goes on to explain the connection between fundamentalist "end-time" beliefs and aggressive hostility to environmental protection. He points out that a number of the most powerful republicans in the House and Senate regularly and publicly speak in the language of Christian fundamentalism.



snip>

DeLay has said bluntly that he intends to smite the "socialist" worldview of "secular humanists," whom, he argues, control the U.S. political system, media, public schools, and universities. He called the 2000 presidential election an apocalyptic "battle for souls," a fight to the death against the forces of liberalism, feminism, and environmentalism that are corrupting America. The utopian dreams of such movements are doomed, argues the majority leader, because they do not stem from God.

snip>

A good fundamentalist, Inhofe scored a perfect 100 percent rating in 2003 from all three major Christian-right advocacy groups, while earning a 5 percent from the League of Conservation Voters (and a string of zeroes from 1997 to 2002). Likewise, eight of the nine other Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee earned an average 94 percent approval rating in 2003 from the Christian right, while scoring a dismal 4 percent average environmental approval rating. The one exception proves the rule: Moderate Lincoln Chafee (R.-R.I.) last year earned a 79 percent LCV rating and just 41 percent from the religious right.

snip>

There is a great deal of material in the article that cannot be conveyed in short snips.

[hatrack]

1. Man, what in the world happened to Inhofe?

What could have have possibly done to earn five points from the LCV during 2003? :eyes:

[villager]

2. if only they could go extinct ahead of the rest of us...

Our commie utopian dreams might work out after all!

[blindpig]

3. we are so doomed

Like you said, worse than I thought. I have long been of the opinion that the Money/Power faction of the repubs was just using the christofascists but I must now revise my opinion.

Greed, lust for power and hubris I can understand but these fuckers are beyond my ken. If these people are going to heaven then send me elsewhere. What humans do to humans is "in the family", taking down the biosphere, crashing 3 billion years of biodiversity qualify for crimes against the universe or god or something. What they desire is EVIL.

Don't mind me, just the biophelia talkin'.