By Donald A. Collins | 24 September 2022
Church and State
The 9/23/22 article on this web site’s headline reports: “Majority of Republican Voters Say US Should Be Declared a ‘Christian Nation’”
Read here a few lines from this disturbing article:
The professors surveyed 2,091 voters between May 6-16, 2022, first asking them “if they believed the Constitution would even allow the United States government to declare the U.S. a ‘Christian Nation’” and finding that 57% of Republicans—as well as more than 80% of Democrats—said no.
Yet “fully 61% of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation,” Rouse and Telhami wrote.
The poll, showing widespread disregard for one of the nation’s foundational documents, was released as government watchdogs issue warnings about a plot some Republican lawmakers are pushing to rewrite the Constitution.
Read the entire article here.
61% of Republicans support declaring the US a Christian nation.
Majority of Republican Voters Say US Should Be Declared a ‘Christian Nation’ https://t.co/uQrQdioL7B via @ChurchAndStateN— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) September 24, 2022
This article reminds us to look around the world at various dictatorships. Some people such as Mike Pence deemed these nations as “godless” as Russia, China, and other smaller ruthless regimes.
A look at the turmoil arising in Iran over the murder of a young woman by the government for not wearing a hijab shows how religious dictators are no different than secular ones.
I was in Iran in the mid-1970’s before the Shah went down in 1978. His dictatorship since 1941 was far from benign but women had access to abortions and more freedom than came with the Ayatollah’s arrival shortly afterwards.
Read here an article on the current religious repression in Iran.
Women in Iran are burning their hijabs and cutting their hair to protest the death of Mahsa Amini.
The 22-year-old died days after she was arrested by Iran's notorious "morality police."https://t.co/OhtrX6QTXI
— NPR (@NPR) September 23, 2022
Ironically, the abortion law in Iran until a new more repressive law was proposed in 2021 was more liberal than many of the laws proposed and enacted by some US states.
Read here.
Well, some people might say that couldn’t happen here, but it already has!!! It has been well begun by the June 24th Dobbs decision that killed Roe and put the personal, private public health decision on abortion in the hands of religious zealots who demand that we all interpret all fetal tissue at all stages of development as representing the sanctity of life!!
Be not confused. The Dobbs decision, the first in our history to take away a Constitutional right (read “secular” right) by the Supreme Court’s religious fiat has begun a process which has gone very badly for women and very quickly!
Oh, say these zealots, this Constitutional right now withdrawn, should just put the abortion issue back to the states as it properly should be!
Three months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for abortion rights, at least 15 states have ceased nearly all abortion services. https://t.co/aU3pBTEZzl
— ABC News (@ABC) September 24, 2022
How about the rights to abortion pills or the rights of the LBGT community? .
Remember the States Rights movement of the 1960’s headed by people like Alabama Governor George Wallace whose racist goals was to deny civil rights to people of color. Wallace and his colleagues by the way were Democrats, but now the politics have changed. The Southern racist strategy is now Republican!
Read Wallace’s bio here.
“George Wallace. American Democratic politician who was a four-time governor of Alabama (1963–67, 1971–79, and 1983–87) and who led the South’s fight against federally ordered racial integration in the 1960s.”
Read about the then and maybe now the GOP Southern strategy as it applied to the States Rights movement against African Americans here:
As Wikipedia tells us, “In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3] As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidate Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party. It also helped to push the Republican Party much more to the right relative to the 1950s.”
Read the entire story here.
And more racism history here.
How different is that from removing the Constitutional rights from women to protect their health both mental and physical by denying them the right to abortions whenever they and their doctors deem an abortion necessary?
One could argue which is worse, denying one’s civil right to vote under our Constitution or that Constitutional right for a safe abortion now partially withdrawn, both conditions badly undermining the Constitutional intent to maintain the separation of church and state.
Understanding that such religious governance is identical to any form of dictatorship will be vital to keep that Republican majority from making the USA from becoming “a Christian nation”! Yes, unlikely but bad things start small and Mike Pence certainly put forward his idea of his primary identity which certainly might be a step toward the concept of the USA becoming a Christian dictatorship.
On #MTP Reports:
There are some Republican candidates on the ballot embracing the idea that the wall between church and state should come down.
Given their rhetoric, theocracy doesn't feel far-fetched.
It feels possible. pic.twitter.com/JOxydHwwaE
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 16, 2022
And again the June 24th Supreme Court Dobbs decision was in a major way exactly a step toward dictatorship based on religious bias.
The Main Point: Now it is vital that all Americans understand the similarity of right-wing religiosity and any dictatorship.
Your vote therefore in the midterms should not be decided because we have a temporary inflation or elevated gas prices or an immigration crisis that needs bi-partisan legislation, not sending legal immigrants to Northern cities as political theater, but because dictatorships, religious or secular, certainly have more longevity.
New States’ rights on abortion choice offers another form of racism as does the Dobbs decision which we can hope will be reversed after Democrats keep Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote” and “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”.“What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”: https://t.co/fHuh0CG6JD
“We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”: https://t.co/TA4j7cp1tE
“From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”: https://t.co/lkC2t3E1A9 pic.twitter.com/bQsL2mLBcO— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) November 1, 2021
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