"Who Would Jesus Elect?"

[TaleWgnDg]

As a stanch individual rights defender, advocate, and one who has fought for such in our courts across Massachusetts and other states, I find that the so-called "gay marriage" issue cost John Forbes Kerry the presidential election.

Why?

It went under the wire so to speak, undetected to those in mainstream America -- this sad mixture of God, politics and law. Who of us knew that the so-called "Christian" rightwing would cohesively and successfully go church to church, meeting to meeting, home to home, leaflet to leaflet, mailings to mailings gathering a rising "moralistic" storm against the individual rights of same sex marriage? Thus, against Kerry by association since he's from Masschusetts where same sex marriage is legal, correct? And you wondered what those code words about Massachusetts were all about (wink, wink, nod, nod)?!

It instilled fear. Fear motivates. It turned out religious zealots by the thousands. Those "moral values" votes across Ohio where anti-same sex marriage appeared on the ballot turned the tide. Without this well organized grassroots turn-out, there would be a President Kerry today.

With this in mind, I dread George Walker Bush's reward to this constituency - the religion-into-law-people. After all, GWBush is a "lame duck" president, correct? Who does he need answer to? GWBush takes this stuff personally, too, because this is his God (or how GWBush perceives his God).

The negative impact for America may run deep and wide. Particularly where the U.S. Senate has gained a few more Republican seats which may be the turning point of cloture and the ability to successfully block federal judicial appointments with filibusters by the Dems.


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WHO WOULD JESUS ELECT?
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2658470

The Bush-Cheney campaign continued its church-based
outreach by giving religious volunteers 22 timelined tasks.
By July 31, 2004 volunteers are to "send your church directory
to your state Bush-Cheney '04 headquarters or give to a
BC04 field rep." By August 15, "talk to your church's seniors
or 20-30 something group about Bush-Cheney '04." In October,
"finish distributing voter guides in your church" and post notices
"about all Christian citizens needing to vote." An IRS letter to
the Bush and Kerry campaigns noted, "religious organizations are
allowed to sponsor debates, distribute voter guides and conduct
voter registration guides" unless they show "a preference for or
against a certain candidate or party."

SOURCE: Houston Chronicle, July 2, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1088740800
=============================================

[Flammable Materials]

1. Let Jesus rest in peace.

Isn't 2000 years enough?

DISCLAIMER: Author is drunk on Belgian ale. But many a truth is spoken in a state of inebriation.

[TaleWgnDg]

2. hear, hear !!

[molly]

3. NOT w!

[SeattleDem]

4. how can that last part be legal?

sending a church directory to B/C headquarters is clearly showing a preference for a certain candidate!

Why are churches still tax-exempt????????

[Mr_Spock]

8. I'm telling you - let's do the same with the Unitarian church then

They are the church that we need to get our message out with if they want to play that game.

[TaleWgnDg]

16. Here you go, here's an IRS "Letter on Exempt Organizations"

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=123922,00.html

Without getting into the nuances of the religious organization(s) activities, how it/they may or may not violate IRS code or federal statute or our federal constitution, I refer you, instead, to the IRS website. In addition, there's a potential violation of FEC regs or federal statute or our federal constitution by the political entity here as well. This is too much for any DU discussion. I pass.

[LearnedHand]

5. And these places get tax-preferential treatment...

...so they can conduct election activities?

[Bluebear]

6. Don't hang it all on gays.

It was a complete Talibama revolt, from abortion to stem cell research to the pledge of allegiance. This is as much about Roe v Wade.

[TaleWgnDg]

11. Hey, plastic_turkeys, that's not what I said . . . I'd never hang

anything on gays per se. Instead, it was the religious rightwing who hung their hate and discontent onto Kerry. After all, doesn't GWBush get messages from God? Isn't GWBush lily-white like the driven snow?

Trying to get into the psyche of fear-driven people is difficult at best. However, GWBush and Company sure know how to orchestrate that fear. Whether it be the ill-conceived and erroneous "immorality" of gays, or the some other scapegoat in the bible, it's all one in the same = ignorance.

[Bluebear]

13. I realize....

We got blindsided. I'm with you. Just spouting off that I read a lot about stem cell research ("It stops a beating heart!")...Laura was sent out to counter stem cell. George talked about "Maternity home" for unwed mothers. All these issues were there to signal their base. Falwell came out and said evangelicals would drive this election. And they did.

[TaleWgnDg]

17. In all sincerity and honesty (for this is what GWBush canNOT do),

do you truly believe that GWBush would not allow one of his own daughters to have an abortion if necessary (as if he could prevent it in the first instance!)? Or that he wouldn't want his own mother or father to receive the benefit of embryonic stem cell medical research if necessary?

It's all politics.

And this politician uses others for his own personal gain whether it be Alzheimer's victms, gays who want the benefits and obligations of the law the same as opposite-sex couples may have in law, or women who desire control over their own bodies regarding ob/gyn issues. George Walker Bush remains one of ill character, low honor and willing to do unto others as he would not do unto himself or his own loved ones. A classic hypocrite, through and through.

[SeattleDem]

7. have to admit, i wasn't aware so many states had these initiatives

I was surprised last nite to learn how many states had these anti-equal rights initiatives on their ballot. I consider myself pretty well-informed, and I was an active volunteer for Kerry this year.

How did we miss it? It should have been obvious that this was being used as a GOTV issue, not an actual ballot measure of significance.

I can't believe that's all it took for the GOP to win. A stupid wedge issue. With everything else going on in the world today, our election hinged on keeping people who love each other from making lifelong commitments to one another..... It's really quite sickening.

[Mr_Spock]

9. Yeah, and it's sickening that we missed the boat on this one

We need to be especially vigilant. No church should be without a person watching what those Repuke trolls are doing in there. We can't be this far off ever again. We must study our enemy better ON THE GROUND - not watching the media spin their web of deceit.

[judaspriestess]

10. Test

Test, 1,2,3......

[myshkinb138]

12. but what about Jimmy Carter?

Before we bash all Christians, I would just like to throw in that the religious right are more like the Pharisees than followers of Jesus.

The secular right has thrown fundamentalists a few religious bones to get them to vote for them and then support them even on issues that actually hurt the integrity of the American family and hurt the working class.

Remember that Jimmy Carter (bless him) was a professing "born again" Christian, and yet the leadership of the then forming religious right crucified (appropriate metaphor, thank you) him anyway because he didn't lock-step do everything they wanted. Jimmy Carter was probably the most Christian president we have had this century, but look what happened to him.

[TaleWgnDg]

19. ex-president Jimmy Carter and his wonderful wife Rosaland,

cast off their association with the Southern Baptist Convention due to its bashing of gays and mix of religion-into-law as well as other issues. The Carters deserve respect for so doing, and they've got it. Not only that, they may sleep better at night knowing that it is not they who use others for personal gain, power and money nor espouse hateful bashing of other individuals in this world.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

14. Nobody

He'd tell us to govern ourselves.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

15. Oh... he would elect war criminals... hell, his so called followers just

did... if I am not mistaken. What is old, is new again.

www.brusselstribunal.org

www.votetoimpeach.org

http://www.antipasministries.com/oldnews/vol5no2.html
>>How convenient for American corporate interests which get into trouble with indigenous populations in foreign lands as a result of their own cupidity and avarice. Blame their troubles on the communists, wave the flag back home, and call in the American military to "save the country for democracy" - and to hell with the lives of the American soldiers which would be lost as a result, to say nothing of the lives of the native population of the "host countries."

That fork taken, Berle raced down a path which in the years to come was to become a well trodden one for U.S. corporate interests throughout Latin America: "It seemed to me that there was perfectly good ground for the United States to invoke the Act of Chapultepec and the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, pledging all hands to defend against domination from without the hemisphere ...

Certainly the Council on Foreign Relations the other night agreed generally that the Guatemalan government (of Jacobo Arbenz) was communist."<5> But what else did Berle expect from the CFR? - despite their "liberal" proclivities with regard to certain social and religious issues, all the members of the CFR, like Berle, held vast amounts of stock in America's multinationals. They were all very wealthy individuals who had as much at stake in the capitalist system as did Berle. Communism was as much a threat to their wealth as it was to United Fruit's wealth.<<

[GoddessOfGuinness]

18. They aren't Christians...

They're chrishitians.

[George 2]

20. Right-wing Christians are not Christian at all

http://www.right-wing-pseudo-christians.com/

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Denni K, prolly

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FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm