Separation of Church and State

 

People are saying there is trouble for Mitt Romney, which is surprising because he is leading in the polls.  However, the same problem that plagued his campaign in 2008—religion—strikes again.

A new poll finds that 22% of Americans will not vote for a Mormon.  Now, Mormons have struggled for years in the United States, fighting against discrimination and general mistrust.  This is of course slightly ironic due to the church’s very strong discrimination policies against certain groups, particularly homosexuals.  (And their attempts to impose their moral agenda on others, outside of their church, including funding California’s proposition 8.)However, my bigger interest, is in a party that has corted religious xenophobic ideas for years, and this is the first time it is really hurting them. 

Recently Congressman Peter King held hearings about American Muslim Extremists.   Throughout his hearings he was unable to show that his statements “I talk to cops and counterterrorism people on the ground all the time, and they get virtually no cooperation [from Muslims].”  It seemed instead King was targeting a community, which is as connected to the 9/11 attacks as a Christian is connected to Scott Roeder who killed Dr. George Tiller, simply because they are different.

This is common, it has been done throughout our history and is not something that we should be proud of.  From African Americans, to the Irish, to the Chinese, to the Italians, to the Germans in WWI and WWII, Japanese, communists, Africans, Eastern Europeans, and now Muslims.

A better example however, is too look at our nations long history of religious bigotry.  From the early days of converting the Native Americans and Africans, the the Riots in Boston (Irish Catholics), the strong discrimination against Jews, to president Kennedy’s struggle as a catholic. (See more here.) 

Ultimately Conservatives, specifically religious conservatives have gained a strong presence in the GOP.  They have pushed their moral agenda into policies as far reaching as school education, to foreign aid, and our currency (“In God We Trust” did not appear on paper currency until 1957, when it became the official motto of the United States.  It was clear than and it is clear now, which God the conservatives support, and clearly not supporting those who do not believe in God at all.

Conservative have recently been relying on the Religious Right to carry them through elections.  However, now they have a problem.  Their front runner’s religion is distrusted and disliked by a large portion of the population, including their own voting block.  This shows that the party is going to struggle, and have to try to convince their voters that Romney has the same values as they do, that he is one of them (similar to the democrats struggle to convince Union members who were racist, to vote for Obama).  This is Ironic, because the conservatives have spent so much money isolating themselves from others and reinforcing their hatred for different religions and different beliefs that they suddenly have to try to become inclusive of MORMONS!  It isnt really the beliefs though that is the problem, it is the Church Structure (much like peoples mistrust of the Catholic candidates, because they believed they would be directed by the church).  This organization scares many Americans, because many Americans are highly distrustful of religious structures.

Too be honest with you—I don’t care about Romney’s religion.  I don’t think we should care.  I think we should recognize how ridiculous it was when we did it in the past, and how ridiculous it is now.  I think it is time for America to speak to the dream that we have said we represent, inclusive of all religions, faiths and creeds.  Rather, we should look to his homophobic, under inclusive, and mistaken policies and make our decisions based on that.

Also, just so you know, Atheists are more mistrusted than Muslims and Homosexuals.

Hole in One

(Getty Images)

As much as I love a good outing, and bi-partisanship, I find this whole situation ridiculous.

Raising the debt ceiling is not a question, it shouldn’t be a political issue at all.  Yet here we are.  It is congress’ job to decide how much money we spend, and then when they spend too much, they get to decide if they can spend more…so they have to pass two bills to accomplish the same thing.  The concept of removing the debt ceiling has already been thoroughly discussed.  However, it still should be mentioned again: IT IS REDUNDANT, GET RID OF IT!

Second, as has already been pointed out by our secretary of the treasury, the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling would be catastrophic to our country and to our stalled recovery. (See here).  IMMEDIATELY the government would not be able to pay its bills, business that rely on government dollars to function (GE, Banks, ect. ect), would suddenly be facing a series of IOU’s and some serious questions of what their profits can be.  Business’ hate to have uncertainty, they cant make decisions if they don’t know what to expect, which means they cant hire, and usually have to fire people.

I don’t mean to be alarmist, but this is HORRIBLE.  The republicans have decided to gamble the lives and jobs of many Americans just to push for their political ideology.  This of course is not new. (e.g. Eric Cantor refusing to increase disaster relief funds unless they could find more cuts).  However, this is particularly stupid.  SO lets figure out WHY!

ON May 31, 2011, the Republicans told us why, for politics.  At 7 PM, the republicans held a vote on the debt ceiling.  This vote was completely symbolic, and held only so that they could get the Democrats on record as have voting for a clean debt ceiling bill, which is ironic, because that is what makes sense.  IT MAKES SENSE for our country to vote for bills that will keep our government functioning, keep jobs, and maintain the stability of US currency, that sounds to me like what our Government should be doing.  However, Eric Cantor and Jon Beohner disagree, they believe that this is about politics, about scoring big in the next election regardless of the cost to America.

Which is why, on a Saturday afternoon in Ohio, they meet in the luxury of a private golf course to play some rounds, wearing expensive clothing, while millions are struggling to get jobs.  I am not criticizing them for doing these things, or for even doing them while people are out of work.  What I am saying is that the President has to put on this charade about a non-issue, something that should have already been voted on and done with, while many Americans are STILL WAITING FOR A JOB BILL FROM THE GOP! (Yes I know about the “JOBS” bill and their 10 page picture book, but I don’t consider those, that’s just silly).

So if Beohner and would spend his time legislating the important bills then I would say feel free to take a break and call the President to talk about non-economic threating issues like abortion or gay marriage or all the other tiny issues that have dominated your 6 months in office, but until then, stay in DC, and RAISE THE DEBT CEILING!

Just so you know Obama and Beohner won!

Redistricting Mess

 

As the Redistricting season begins it is amazing how blatantly partisan politicians are about it.  Speaker Batchelder stated specifically: “My sense is we will try to retain as many Republican congressman as we can.”  He further said “It’s a question of protecting our own. 

How is this reasonable.  We have politicians blatantly discussing gerrymandering districts to ensure they stay in power.  How is that democratic or remotely sensible?

It does not take a genius to realize that our districts are drawn specifically for the purpose of enshrining power in one party in a district.  The giant districts that stretch across Ohio dancing around metro areas always go red, and the little tiny city districts, and the long lake bound districts make make up the only blue districts.  I understand the desire to protect our parties, but this outrageous, how can politicians blatantly talk about disenfranchising voters without any backlash.

Anthony Weiner sent a picture of himself, that got more news coverage than any of this ever will.  Yet we have politicians specifically stating that they will be punishing liberals in this state, by attempting to “crack” their strongholds or “pack” them together so they only get one house member and not two.

Luckily organizations are trying to stop this. Draw the Line Ohio is attempting to call on Ohio citizens to draw their own maps.  If Ohioans draw their own maps we can possibly force the Republicans to take a more sensible approach.  However, ultimately the best option would be if Ohio took the bold step of California and created an independent committee and takes it out of politics.

In the meantime I suppose we just have to wait and pretend that this is democratic.  IN the meantime if you would like to learn more and draw your own maps, play this game.  It is hilarious, and educates you about the ease of gerrymandering in our current government.