OMG, a fundie school board member tonight mentioned DRED SCOTT!

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

We had a school board meeting tonight and our resident loony fundie AGAIN tried to get permission to hand out her Ten Commandment book covers in the schools. When the rest of the school board (with the exception of one member) objected (AGAIN! This is about the tenth time she has tried it), she cited Dred Scott and said she is the "victim of religious slavery."

The school board president is black. He proceeded to smack her down about slavery. Parents and teachers in attendance burst into applause.

OK WHAT is up with using Dred Scott now? A lot of us who are Kerry supporters were SO weirded out by that. She just threw it out there.

(She lost, by the way. She always does, but I guarantee she'll bring it up again next month. Fortunately too many of our school board members and the super have common sense--and are Dems, by the way and don't stand for her fundie crap.)

[Jade Fox]

1. I am so sick of Christians who play the victim....

With a church on every other block in this country, how do these people
manage to see themselves in that light?

[msongs]

2. was she a ...

white racist christian republican so typical of the core support of the repub party that secretly wishes slavery was returned so the dred scott decision could be reinstated?

Msongs
Riverside CA

[Jazzgirl]

4. Sounds like it to me.

}(

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

13. You pretty much described her, yeah

she is a BIG time fundie too. BIG.

[Cerridwen]

3. I saw on another DU thread - link below

that Dred Scott is related to the anti-choice argument to get rid of Roe v. Wade.

It's explained in the link.

Gimme a sec.

here's the DU link with a link to the blog about the connection.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=78885

[Eye and Monkey]

5. the code word for the Christian insurgent cells -"when the pResident sez"

The code was "when you hear the pResident say "Dred Scott" in a major speech, that's when you use Plan X."

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. This... in TEXAS? Wow, I'm impressed!

Tell your school board pals a Brazilian says hi and :yourock:

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

15. Ok!

Yeah my suburb has managed to stay decent and not get taken over by right wing fundie nut jobs.

But a lot of the decent Dems on the board are nearing retirement age, so my peers and I have had meetings to discuss recruitment committees to replace them with good Dems when the time comes (we work for the district so cannot run for school board).

We are also active in keeping fundies off City Council, as well. Our mayor is a republican, but not a repuke, if that makes sense. He is like one of those old-timey moderate fiscally conservative, but doesn't really give a shit what you do in your private life republican.

Really he SHOULD be a dem, I think he is just holding on to the label.

[Supersedeas]

7. Now, I see the Roe/Scott connection, it is not about ACTIVIST judges

Justice Taney was following the letter of the law in the Scott decision.

These folks are suggesting that the Justices are culturally wrong, in the same way Justice Taney was.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. They have balls. Americans Christians are a majority in the population

and they act as though they were a persecuted minority group. They will never accept that this country is a constitutional democracy that protects the rights of a VALID minority, rather than a majoritarian democracy wherein the most hands raised wins the issue.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

16. That's the thing, though

she was claiming that SHE and HER interests were a valid MINORITY.

Yep. Right here in Texas, the Bible Belt.

It is to laugh. Or puke.

The great thing was the outright derision by the audience. People were rolling their eyes so hard and loudly scoffing and saying "Oh my GOD" in stage whispers and then clapping when someone with common sense smacked her down.

Whew.

[progressivebydesign]

9. Let's remember the immortal words of the Christian Coalition...

Just recently, one of their prominent people said the following, 'You must destroy the ENEMY! If you have to go under them, around them, or over them, do it! Do whatever it takes to make OUR GOD's word the ONLY word in our Congress, in our SCHOOLS, in our town halls!". He was rallying the CC troops with that message. Destroy us? Very Christian of him.

[shraby]

10. Google Dred Scott + Roe v Wade

there are lots of entries.

[choicevoice]

11. Don't take this too lightly.....

They are serious and this rhetoric is being spewed in churches all around America.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

17. Oh we know she's serious

that's why when she had her husband run against a school board member up for re-election this past May (the black one who told her off tonight) we made DAMN sure her husband didn't win. He was defeated 70% to 30%.

And she's got her son running against another decent member who is up for reelection next spring. He's only 21 years old. We're gonna smack him down too.

Then SHE'S up for reelection in 2006 and we are already actively recruiting to find a strong candidate to knock her ass off the board.

Then NO MORE FUNDIES EVER!!! That is our rallying cry. Everyone hates her.

[starroute]

12. Good Christians at the time had plenty of arguments to support slavery

Everything from slavery being an accepted institution in the Bible to stuff about Ham seeing Noah naked and being cursed with being a slave to his brothers.

Many or most of the abolitionists were working out of a basis in Christianity, but their beliefs were of a far more philosophical and abstract nature. The literal scripture-quoters were almost all on the pro-slavery side. And it's those people, of course, who are the intellectual ancestors of the literal scripture-quoters today.

[sandnsea]

14. Abolitionists were liberals

The people who supported Dred Scott were southern fundmentalist Christians. Shove that up her butt.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

18. She wouldn't be offended by that at all

because she is a fundie herself.

I could NOT believe she claimed "religious slavery" to a black man. You should have heard the loud, collective GASP. The great thing is it was on local access cable and my husband was watching it at home. When I came home he said "that lady is NUTS."

[sandnsea]

22. Uhm, that's their argument

That Dred Scott was wrong, therefore Supreme Court decisions aren't always right. My point being, by her fundamentalist values, she would have supported Dred Scott at the time because she wouldn't have wanted to associated with those liberal fringe abolitionists. Liberals are always right, it just takes the fundamentalists a couple of hundred years to catch up. And yes, it would bother her to be put on the side of racists in front of the whole school board.

[secular_warrior]

19. For the fundies, Roe=Dred

The way they see it:

1.Roe and Dred both deny human rights to a class of people categorized as property.

2.Roe and Dred both are cases where the judge intrepreted the Constitution through the lens of his personal opinion.

3.Roe and Dred both are examples where a precedent was set that allowed lawmakers and the public to ignore horrors and injustice for many years.

The anti-choice movement often cites the Dred case; they view themselves in a similar light to abolitionists, and the unborn as "slaves".

What Bush said to them (in code) was that he would appoint justices who were "strict contructionists", i.e judges who would not use personal opinion to interpret the Constitution, i.e. judges who would overturn any prior ruling decided on personal opinion - of which they consider Roe to be one.

----------
on edit: Here is the link to the article explaining all of this:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20041101&s=pollitt

[DemBones DemBones]

21. It's only "code" to people who haven't paid any serious attention

to pro-life views. It's not a secret that pro-life activists have long compared Roe to Dred Scott. There was a lengthy article about this, among other things, in The Atlantic at least ten years ago.

It's also important to remember that not all pro-lifers are fundies. You should say "For pro-lifers, Roe is equivalent to Dred," rather than "For the fundies, Roe=Dred."

[undercover_brother]

20. They are priming the pump for a Roe vs Wade battle