Catherine Rampell, Washington Post - Much-dreaded “sharia law,” or something resembling it, may well be coming to the United States. Just not in the form many Americans expected.
That is, the religiously motivated laws creeping into public policymaking aren’t based on the Koran, and they aren’t coming from mythical hard-line Islamists in, say, Dearborn, Mich. They’re coming from the White House, which wants to make it easier for hard-line Christians to impose their beliefs and practices on the rest of us.
A few days after declaring his intention to impose a religious test upon refugees so that Christians would be given priority, President Trump gave a bizarre speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. In between a plug for “The Apprentice” and boasts about his disastrous calls with heads of allied states, he made some less-noticed policy news.
He vowed to help blur the line between church and state by repealing the Johnson Amendment. which prohibits some tax-exempt organizations like churches from supporting political candidates.
It dates to 1954, when it was signed by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was not terribly controversial at the time....
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1 comment:
Maybe repeal of the Johnson Amendment wouldn't be such a bad thing. Consider that for all practical purposes it has not effectively impeded evangelical christian right efforts to influence elections. The provisions are easily circumvented, and besides, nobody is fooling anyone about what messages are intended.
And on the other hand, repeal might be a good thing in that it'd removed the restraints and/or excuses other differing denominations present in justifying their inaction, withdrawal, and failure to rebut the heretical right.
The many times I've approached authorities within the so-called 'peace churches' inquiring about their reticence, the reply is almost invariably we cannot due to our tax exemption. If only the Romans had thought of such a device two thousand years ago, eh? They could have silenced that recalcitrant carpenter.
If only the values of that lowly carpenter were advocated by those elements of the christo-fascist right there'd not be much in the way of controversy but rather justification for a compassionate and peaceful state. Do not forget, as Hugo Chavez frequently pointed out, the Bolivarian Revolution was founded upon the tenets of Matthew 25.
It would not be such a bad thing to have those values introduced and advocated in our public and civic discourse.
As George Washington pointed out in his Farewell Address:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
---George Washington, Farewell Address 1796
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