by Ken Kreps
©2000, all rights reserved
To read more articles and other works
by author Ken Kreps, visit http://www.kenkreps.com.
To send an e-mail to the author, click
here.
First, you should know I'm not anti-religion, anti-Christian or anything of the sort. I believe in God and many of the teachings of the Christian faith. Real Christian beliefs teach tolerance for all and above all, real Christians are against oppression of any type. My problem is with the money grubbing so called religious organizations (who mainly were born and have flourished thanks to cable TV) whose doctrine of intolerance has now taken a major hold on the politics of the Republican party and woe be it to any Republican candidate, for any office, who does not bow down and pay homage to their beliefs. John McCain was the best hope the Republicans had to re-take the white house, but any chance he had of taking the Presidential nomination away from the Bush kid was lost when he spoke the truth about the religious right.
You would think we'd learned our lesson when various religious right icons were finally exposed for what they were.......big time frauds!! Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker claimed to be hand in hand with God. Instead, we found that their hands were in the pockets of their followers instead of in the hand of God.
Jimmy Swaggert was the hell and brimstone TV evangelist who invoked the wrath of God on any and all who might fall into the clutches of adultery. With smoking oratory he banished the souls of all such sinners to Hell and an eternity of suffering. Of course, we didn't know what Jimmy had going for him on the side with his own adulterous thoughts and actions until his tearful televised plea for forgiveness (and the continuance of the generous donations to his ministry that go with it).
Jerry Falwell distributed video tapes accusing the President of the United States of murder!! The tapes offered many innuendoes, allegations, and theories and absolutely no proof of any type. And these fabrications and untruths came from a person professing to be a man of God.
The religious right has persecuted gay men and women, calling them sinners, abominations and much worse and has expressed beliefs that gays can be magically turned into heterosexuals. They ignore the growing genetic research that shows gays are pre-destined from birth in their sexual preference. The religious right wing might as well proclaim that short people can be made tall by the power of prayer.
On the subject of abortion, the religious right has greatly over stepped the bounds of fairness and objectivity. Their harassment of doctors, clinic workers and patients has pushed some out of control zealots into murdering doctors and destroying clinics which are operating strictly under the legal confines of the law. Later, the religious right leaders professed shock that anyone would carry out such acts but, in essence, took no responsibility for the carnage which was inspired by their inflammatory actions and remarks.
The founding fathers of this country, with infinite wisdom, put strong safeguards in place to insure the separation of church and state, knowing that to do otherwise was to invite division at almost every level of our government and our social structure. These safeguards have been strengthened by modern day court decisions. The religious right wants to undo this sound framework, board by board. They want to ban all abortions (whatever the circumstances), make homosexuals the new lepers of our society, make illegal any and all activities that fail to fit into their narrow definition of right and wrong, influence elections and the candidates that participate in them and, in general, mold the daily activities of American citizens into a regimented format that only they deem acceptable.
I'm in no way suggesting that any citizen in this country doesn't have the right to voice their opinion on any and all subjects. They most certainly do as that is their constitutional right. Nor am I saying that everyone needs to agree with my way of thinking, as they do not. What I am saying is that individual opinion is one thing, but the dogmatic and very well funded oppressive efforts of the religious right are contrary to the very foundation of individual freedoms, on which this country was built. Successful candidates for elective office should only have to appeal to the electorate on an individual basis and should not have to appeal to a large, quite narrow minded, well organized group hiding behind the name of God. God deserves much better than that and so does the American public.
©2000 by Ken Kreps. This article may not be re-published in electronic or print media without the express written permission of the author. All rights reserved.
Ken Kreps lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife. He has written a number of articles, essays and short stories, as well as numerous consumer and business pieces. Ken has also written scripts for Imagination Theater, an award winning audio drama series heard on over 120 commercial radio stations across the nation.