Remember when Katherine Harris said "God is the one who chooses our rulers"?

[madfloridian]

Recent Supreme Court rulings and the continued effort in many states to push the Bible as the only true word....these things are alarming. I don't think our elected officials have been aware enough of the danger. I don't think they took people like Katherine Harris seriously enough when she said God chooses our rulers.

Baptist newspaper:What role do you think people of faith should play in politics and government?

Harris: The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn’t what God intended.



....."It’s time that the churches get involved. Pastors, from the pulpit, can invite people to speak, not on politics, but of their faith. But they can discern, they can ask those people running for election, in the pulpit, what is your position on gay marriage? What is your position on abortion? That is totally permissible in 5013C organizations. They simply cannot endorse from the pulpit. And that’s why I’ve gone to churches and I’ve spoken in four churches, five churches a day on Sunday and people line up afterwards because it’s so important that they know. And if we don’t get involved as Christians then how could we possibly take this back?

That was from the Florida Baptist Witness newspaper.
Interview with Katherine Harris

I think that when people like Katherine Harris are not taken seriously enough when they say these things about religion in government....when our congressmen turn their heads and let judges slip through...then we are in serious trouble. The first time a neighbor said that to us just before the war, I was alarmed. But I did not take her that seriously. Not then. I do now.

And this should be alarming as well:

A Texas School Board member who said "kiss my butt" to parents over Bible class gets promoted. That was over a Bible class in the public schools. L. V. Butch Foreman said this to parents who questioned the way religion was being taught in the public schools there. That remark was not insulting enough to keep him from being promoted to vice president of the school board.

“If they don’t have children in the class, they can kiss my butt,” Foreman said. “They’re just looking to impose their beliefs and their views on everybody, and we don’t put up with that crap out here.”

School board member rude to parents

Well, Foreman got promoted to vice president of the School Board. Virtue is its own reward.

ECISD board shakes up.Gregg named president; Foreman VP

In other business, trustees voted 6-0-1, with trustee Donna Smith abstaining, to submit a Rule 68 offer of judgment to the American Civil Liberties Union in regards to a federal lawsuit the organization filed against the school district on behalf of eight ECISD parents. The rule states district officials say nothing’s wrong with the Bible curriculum, and the rule encourages the ACLU to settle the case, said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel for the Liberty Legal Institute, which represents ECISD in the suit.

Odessa residents are questioning the course on its execution. The ACLU is handling the lawsuit.

Showdown in Odessa

Currently 8 percent of public schools nationwide offer courses on the Bible. The Supreme Court has deemed these classes constitutional so long as they "present knowledge, but neither promote nor disparage belief." Odessa residents are thus challenging the course's execution and not its existence. The district chose the more controversial of two leading Bible class curricula: a course designed by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, a group run by a veritable Who's Who of conservative Christian leaders. Council board member and actor Chuck Norris has described this curriculum as the "first step to get God back into your public school."

...."The fact that Odessa schools may be carelessly implementing their new Bible course doesn't bode well for their willingness to teach the Bible in an objective, scholarly, nonsectarian fashion. Given that the Texas legislature is considering a bill to bring Bible courses such as Odessa's to schools statewide, we hope that this lawsuit will force schools to think more critically about teaching this important but sensitive subject.

Texas Freedom Network has out a new study about the religious right, and I found this statement from Texas.

TFN Report on Religious Right in Texas

The report contains sections on specific religious right leaders in Texas, including Terri Leo and Dan Patrick. It also contains a section of quotations from various people and some of them are quite interesting. Like this quote from a minister who teaches a Bible course in a public school in Texas (not Odessa but Big Springs Independent School District in West Texas):

"My hope is the end result is they read their Bible and start asking questions elsewhere and they become Christians. That's the hope of the community, too."

They fully intend NO effort to teach the Bible as it should be taught..."in an objective, scholarly, nonsectarian fashion."



NCBCPS Council board member and actor Chuck Norris has described this curriculum as the "first step to get God back into your public school.

[madfloridian]

1. And from that good Christian man, Tom DeLay.

Found this at the TFN link above.

"We have been chosen to live as Christians at a time when our culture is being poisoned and our world is being threatened. The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won."

[kevinbgoode]

2. They never did intend to teach it as a part of cultural experience

they intended all along that it be taught as irrefutable truth not open for challenge or discussion.

[madfloridian]

5. They never intended it.

And too many were not paying attention.

[muntrv]

3. Looks like God didn't choose her for the US Senate seat in 06.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Teehee!

[madfloridian]

4. It gets worse. she says Democrats will "legislate sin."

From the Harris interview right at the end...she says if Democrats win we will "legislate sin." OMG Kate, you really do have problems.

If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong. ...

[Cha]

47. katherine was a bad sinful woman

when she cheated as sos of Florida to connive to get the bushits in power.

I wonder if she thinks she got punished for that or is she exempt from all her ramblings?

[Norrin Radd]

6. "Rulers?" Yikes! That woman is scary.

Try "representatives," not "rulers," nor "leaders," Katherine.

[ClintonTyree]

7. I'd ask her for proof that "god is the one who chooses our rulers"...

but I'd just get the standard christian cop-out bullshit about this "being a christian nation" and so forth. There's not an iota of evidence god even exists but these uninquisitive sheep never consider that. They have "faith". :puke: Faith and 50 cents will by you a newspaper in the morning. When they say "god" they're substituting their own egos for the mythical angry Daddy in the sky. THEY are god, or so they think. Their god is no more than their own projected self image and in the case of Harris and most other RethugliCONS that means that god is a hypocritical, self-centered charlatan.

I never thought I'd see the day that Christopher Hitchens and I saw eye to eye on anything but his views on religion and mine overlap to a point that's almost scary. These incurious, manipulating, bleating sheep must be marginalized before this country destroys itself and the rest of the world in the name of their own religious madness.

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. I got one of those stupid, forwarded bullshit e-mails the other day

from a second cousin I met while doing genealogy. I went up to Idaho last year to their family reunion.

I KNEW that we wouldn't see eye to eye politically, so have NEVER brought up any of this crap. My aim has been to try to bring the family closer over the book I'm writing, not divide it up over issues like this.

Although I asked her repeatedly not to send me forwards of a religious or political nature, she continued to do so. I continued to delete them. Until the other day when she forwarded me the one about getting "God" back in our public schools.

I snapped, and sent her a screed, whereby I denounced ALL the bullshit in her e-mail point by point, and said George Bush was the worst thing that had ever happened to our country. She called me a bitch, and is now no longer communicating with me. You may declare your relief and say I'm better off, but it makes me sad, and it makes me angry. I still wanted to get some more information on her mother.

GOD I hate these assholes for leading the lemmings off the cliff. And I hate the lemmings for not waking the fuck up.

[blondie58]

9. so sad

you are right- they are lemmings/sheeple. So much for a long lost family reunion, eh?

Hey, I wrote something back to you in California Peggy's rant about chronic illnesses- don't want to repeat it here.

Maybe she will come around- I don't know. Maybe she will be reasonable, as this is about her mother.

[fudge stripe cookays]

14. Ooh...sorry I missed that.

I've been in deadline hell all week, just checking in when I get a minute. I'll take a look.

:hi:

[mwb970]

10. Bush supporters - a dying breed.

With their numbers sharply dwindling, the Loyal Chimpies are getting thin on the ground. You are unlucky enough to be related to a member of an endangered species.

Yes, I do think you are better off without this person in your life, based on what you have said.

[fudge stripe cookays]

13. Oh I didn't even tell you about the Dobson lover I found up in Washington!

Even with that, she is basically a sweet person (although terribly deluded) and realizes we see things differently, so we agreed not to discuss that stuff. How hard can it be?

She gave me one of my favorite treasures in this whole adventure of a book. I had pictures of ALL my great grandfather's brothers and sisters (all 9 of them!) that I'd collected from various relatives. But no one had a picture of Charley, the brother who took off for Canada. Of all the relatives, Janice finally had a picture of him to make my set complete. And she knows how to agree to disagree, because finding another cousin was very important to her, and she values what I'm doing.

Grace, not so much. And it's a shame, because her mother was a saint. Any down on his luck stray, bum, or guy who couldn't catch a break, and she took him in and cared for him. I'm hoping Grace's sister has not been infected with her nastiness and will share more with me. She was very sweet to me at the reunion, and loved what I was doing. Keep your fingers crossed.

[PurpleChez]

17. I too got tired of all of the freaky RW emails from second cousins

and others that I too had met doing genealogy (really! it must be a hazard of the hobby!). I started responding to them, especially "the awful media never reports about the good things George Bush does." And the war on Xmas.

[fudge stripe cookays]

22. Well, I don't usually stir the pot.

I went into this with the eventual intention of publishing this book from my GG grandparents forward (has now become my GGG grandparents forward), and maybe trying to see if we could put a HUGE family reunion together. Everyone has been SO excited about the idea! But there's only one of me, and several thousand of them.

That would completely defeat what I'm trying to do. But if I repeatedly tell someone not to send me something and they keep doing it, all bets are off. Most of the others have been very respectful about who they send to after I let them know.

She claimed she added me to her address book and "forgot" to remove me from the offending e-mails. Which is bullshit. E-mail servers let you divide your contacts into groups. Fucking use them! "Cousins with a brain cell" and "Looney cousins who believe the same bullshit I do" works quite nicely.

[The Wizard]

39. I just got rid of a winger

who was sending me really stupid reich wing propaganda.
The phrase that pays: Thank Zeus I'm a liberal Democrat.
Katherine Harris angers the Gods and Prometheus will strike her.

[SteelPenguin]

12. God shouldn't choose our rulers....

Chuck Norris should...

[PurpleChez]

18. You just reminded me of those Chuck Norris jokes from a year or so ago...

But you know his tears really do cure cancer.

[SteelPenguin]

20. The great thing about Chuck Norris...

Is that he can get a checkmate in one move when he's playing chess.

[madfloridian]

21. Ha Ha, great picture.

:hi:

[SteelPenguin]

24. Of course!

Chuck Norris invented the camera after all!

[Odin2005]

15. Note to religious wackos: We had a revolution to get rid of the divine right of kings 230 years ago

[originalpckelly]

16. So in direct contradiction to the Declaration of Independence this broad said she believes...

in the divine right?

Just for your reference madam Harris:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

That applies not only in the context of race, but in the context of power. There is not one race of people destined to be in power and another meant to be controlled. No one has "God's" seal of approval when born.

[WinkyDink]

19. At least she got a make-up make-over........

In fact, it doesn't look like her. Katherine Harris has, for example, brown eyes.

[Faygo Kid]

23. It's her alien ability to change her eye color at will.

She would have been too obvious to be one of the people ID'd as aliens in Men in Black. Good to kick her around again, though - it's been a while.

[originalpckelly]

25. Why would a public figure do something so silly?

I mean, do they not think we'll see it and laugh our asses off at them?

[TahitiNut]

26. It's the 'logic' of monarchies ... just as corrupt now as then.

There's not a whisker's bit of difference in her insane musings and that of the dirt poor ignorant people who died building castles and cathedrals and going to war for despotic monarchs ... because "it was God's will." (After all, if it weren't then wouldn't God strike them dead?)

It's beyond appalling that such psychotic vomit gains any kind of public traction in a post-Enlightenment democracy.

[hyphenate]

27. So much of this is coming out now

because of the exalted station to which the radical religious right places the idiot savant. They feel they can get away with it because he's "one of them" and their cause is "righteous" and they see all this "sin" in the world beyond their puny sensibilities.

Truth is, the RRR paid for the idiot to be in the white house, and they're claiming victory over the souls of the country's population.

I won't say that the disingenuousness of the RRR is going to go away once someone new is in the top job, but I think they will likely go underground again if someone other than an evangelical fundie ends up in the white house.

I think about this on a routine basis--there are only so many "voices" on their side, and we keep hearing from the same ones time and time again. It's that way because their band of followers is smaller than they think, only far more vocal. They have allies in the media who indulge their cockeyed ideas, and they are therefore capable of spreading their intolerant and whacko opinions to more people.

They hook regular people with one thing, usually something that is relatively innocuous--something like "do you believe in god?" When the person says yes, the fundies will play off the person's basest fears and prejudices. Pretty soon, they have convinced the person that those who don't believe in god are heartless heathens who are trying to corrupt the world of Xtians. If the person is easily swayed, the RRR now have a new recruit who has just been brainwashed into their cult.

We saw Clinton being persecuted because the fundies had started to gather their strength in light of Clinton's second term ending. They had enough moles in office during Clinton's second term to be more blatant about their agenda. And so they have run unchecked for about 8 years now, and they need to be stopped.

The best way to handle them, though is not necessarily to ignore them, though that would be my first choice. The problem is there are enough lost souls and needy souls out there who will take up their side simply because they have found a safe haven with the fundies. The best way to handle the whole thing is to put facts on paper, and somehow disseminate that information in ways that can't be corrupted. Progressive or moderate religious leaders need to get together and put their voices into one, and show that the RRR is really as teeny as the penises of their leaders. It's only by showing the rest of the country in a purely black and white fashion that the right is only as potent as the amount of people willing to listen to their shit.

[0007]

28. Remember Jeff Gannon?

[graywarrior]

29. Man! Just when I thought it was safe to drive here in Florida.

Maybe we'll see her on the 700 Club soon.

[Javaman]

30. harris is a hairbrained dominionist. nt

[madfloridian]

31. The Texas State Board of Education was a first target...probably true in other states.

From the Texas Freedom Network's new study on the religious right in Texas, some interesting facts. First, they do not give up when we fight back. They just keep fighting and pushing.

The report is in pdf format.

This part concerns Terri Leo.

http://www.tfn.org/files/fck/SORR_07.pdf

Taking Control of the State Board

The State Board of Education (SBOE) was one
of the first major targets in the religious right’s
campaign to take control of government and
direct public policy in Texas. Since at least the
early 1990s, a series of far-right members have tried to
use the SBOE to advance their own narrow religious
agenda in public schools. That agenda has included
promoting creationism and attacking evolution in
biology textbooks; opposing medically accurate, ageappropriate
sex education in health classes; attacking
efforts to teach students about various religions and
cultures; and undermining respect for the separation of
church and state.

Today the most outspoken and ideologically driven
culture warrior on the state board is Terri Leo, a
Republican who hails from the Houston suburb of
Spring. Since her election in 2002, Leo has emerged as
the board’s leading rabble-rouser for the religious right.
It is a position that suggests an appetite for the media
spotlight and political ambitions that extend beyond the
state board. Leo’s position on the State Board of Education today
is largely a result of the religious right’s long-term
effort to take over what was once a quiet corner of state
government. The state board began shifting to the far
right in the 1990s, when über-conservative millionaire
James Leininger reasoned that he could purchase a
public entity beholden to his socially conservative beliefs
by bankrolling the campaigns of selected candidates.

Soon after, far-right members and their supporters
were demanding hundreds of changes to public school
textbooks submitted by publishers for adoption in Texas.
In 1994 and 1995, for example, they demanded that
publishers remove illustrations of self-exams for breast
and testicular cancer found in new health textbooks.
Such illustrations, they worried, would be too suggestive
for teens. They launched their most caustic attacks on
publishers for including information on homosexuality
as well as condoms and other methods of responsible
pregnancy and disease prevention. One publisher simply
withdrew – at substantial financial cost – its health
textbook from consideration by the state board rather
than submit to the board’s demands.

Such efforts by religious extremists to censor textbooks
so embarrassed the state that the Legislature in 1995
severely restricted the board’s authority over the textbook
content. Today Leo and the rest of the board’s far-right
faction are fighting to reclaim that power, despite formal
opinions from two state attorneys general – a Democrat
and a Republican – that have essentially affirmed those
legislative restrictions.

They don't plan to give up.

[fudge stripe cookays]

33. Do NOT buy Promised Land dairy products, ya'll!

This is Leininger's brand. The packaging is real cute and all, and they make it look all organic, but it's EVIL IN A BOTTLE!

I about vomited when I found out, and I'd been buying the stuff for awhile.

[madfloridian]

37. I thought you were kidding about the Promised Land Dairy....

but you weren't.

http://www.promisedlanddairy.com/web-content/Our%20History.html

"In the beginning.........

there were 200 acres of raw mesquite covered land, plentiful dreams of a Jersey herd with rich and flavorful milk, and a few beehives scattered around the rolling hills

A land of milk and honey ...... from Deuteronomy 26:9, "He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey."

In 1987 our Promised Land Dairy began. Faith, hope and hard work has led to a Jersey Farm, an old -fashioned creamery. Promised Land Dairy is the home of some of the finest quality dairy products available in the United States market today."

[fudge stripe cookays]

38. Leininger's a prick.

And was one of DeLay's biggest financiers. Any right wing, religous nut scumbag in Texas? Leininger's money is wrapped up in him/her.

And on a personal note, he financed my nightmare of a 12th grade government teacher's congressional run (John Shields, one of Texas Monthly's worst Legislators, from about 1997). And the reason why I hated politics up until I got involved in Howard Dean's campaign.

[Deep13]

32. Rulers?

There are no "rulers" in a democracy. Of course her actions in 2000 make it pretty damn clear that she does not give a shit about democracy.

"And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn’t what God intended." Harris interview.

I don't really give a shit what "God" wants for us. Elections are our decision, not God's.

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." T.Jefferson 1787.

"You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." T.Jefferson 1819

"(The government) will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

". . . Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind." J. Adams 1787

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" J. Adams

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." J. Madison, author of the Constitution

Dr. Priestly wrote of his friend Benjamin Franklin:
"It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers"

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity." T. Paine

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." Treaty with Tripoli, draft signed by Geo. Washington; final version by J. Adams.

[RiverStone]

34. Need I say more? ....pic attached

:puke:

[dkofos]

35. Since when did god buy the voting machine companies??

[Disturbed]

36. "get God back into your public school."

Which god? There are quite a few to chose from. Should there be a vote or pick one out of a hat?

[demoleft]

40. God should first...

...choose more carefully His spokespersons.

Ciao!

[madfloridian]

41. Well said.

I see there's a post here asking if DU is anti-Christian....I don't think they get it at all.

:hi:

[Fearless]

42. Ahh...

What would the world be without people like Katharine Harris? Oh right... happy. You know when ever things like this come up I take satisfaction in that Penn. school board that was voted out of office after promoting intelligent design. Brings a smile to my face. :)

[ironflange]

43. Git studyin' yer Bible

Or Chuck is a-gonna whup yo' ass!

[Nikki Stone1]

44. God needs to get a clue and dump Harris and Chuck Norris.

And Junior, of course.

[KansDem]

45. God? GOD?! Didn't Mitt Romney strap God to the top of his car for a 12-hour drive?

Oh, wait...that was "dog." Sorry...

[Cha]

46. He sure wiped her face off

the political map...thanks god.

[guitar man]

48. rulers??

Rulers???? Fuck her and the horse too!! :mad:

I don't and won't live under "rulers". I WILL NOT be "ruled", especially by the likes of LLPP* and his henchmen. :grr:

It's high time We The People get our PUBLIC SERVANTS back in line and make sure those servants have an understanding of who the "rulers" of this country are. :mad: