Friday, May 20, 2005

QUIN HILLYER HAS AN EXCELLENT COLUMN on the left's paranoia regarding the "religious right," and how it needs to stop. Frankly I think she is being too reasonable. As I have often said, if you replace the phrase "religious right" with the word "Jew," you realize the scary times we live in. Still, the column manages to put the practice of berating the "religious right" into perspective.

The current media freak-out, however, began after President George W. Bush won re-election. Maureen Dowd of The New York Times wrote immediately that Mr. Bush was running "a jihad in America," that he "got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule."

Yeah, right. As if the only reasons for 60 million Americans to support Mr. Bush or oppose John Kerry were variants of bigotry or stupidity.

Personally speaking, it was variants of bigotry and stupidity. Or so I've been told about a thousand times in endless comment sections. I wish I would have had the following line to leave in my wake.

These writers should take a chill pill. They're not just crying wolf; they're crying werewolf at the mere sight of a poodle puppy.

The myth is that the only reason a person could be apposed to certain things, like gay marriage, is religion, which demonstrates the myopic view of the world that the left holds.

...tens of millions of Americans make decisions based on a host of factors -- some rooted in their faiths, many more rooted in their own personal sense of justice, value or even self-interest.

One doesn't have to be a member of the "religious right" to want to ban partial-birth abortions. One doesn't have to be a secular or religious leftist to believe that society must care for the elderly and disabled.


In conclusion, Hillyer points out that the greatest danger we face is not that religion will distort politics, but that politics will distort religion. A good weekend read.

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