jwisser: Rick Perry: I’m not ashamed to admit...

jwisser:

Rick Perry:

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

This is one of the most breathtakingly offensive and reality-denying political ads I’ve seen from an American politician. It suggests that Christians are somehow persecuted, rather than the dominant religious and political force in the country. It suggests that gay people serving the nation that has long denied them full citizenship are something other than selfless heroes. And it states outright that children can’t “openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school”—both of which are blatant lies, unless something significant has changed without me hearing about it in the last six years. No, teachers can’t lead children in prayer—you may recall the establishment of religion clause, Governor Perry—but that didn’t stop a group of Christian students from gathering around the flagpole of my high school to pray several times a week.

Rick Perry is the same presidential candidate who yesterday said that improving the lives of gay individuals abroad was “not in America’s interests” and suggested that not being killed or imprisoned in nations like Uganda is a “special right”.

I’d really like to hear Rick Perry explain why it’s okay to burn over a trillion dollars to kill brown people overseas, ostensibly to prevent them from killing people, but it’s not okay to make American aid to foreign countries conditional on those countries not killing or imprisoning their own citizens based on sexual orientation.

Somehow I doubt Jesus would agree with Governor Perry’s priorities.

“Religious heritage”???

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Pilgrim Fathers came to ‘The New World’ because of religious persecution and the wish for religious freedom.

Furthermore I think someone should slap him with the First Amendment until he understands it — and not only the parts regarding religious freedom, but also those on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and interference with the right to peaceably assemble.

One last thing: Could this man be kindly reeducated on one of the pillars of modern democracy? It’s called ‘The Separation of State and Church’.
A quick quote from Thomas Jefferson:

“… I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

If this guy gets elected president he might put the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades to shame. I’m German—brought-up strictly catholic, turned agnostic—and I cannot do anything against scum like him, but crap like this video makes my blood boil.

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