October 4, 2005

The future of the Republican party?

Atlantic Online has a great article on Roy Moore: The nutjob who makes Bush look like a secular humanist. He is intent on running for governor and some think President and clearly wants a theocracy. And those who think he is just a servant of God, watch carefully how he has manipulated this controversy and his own "cult of the personality" (he demands that people call him "Chief") to benefit him. Moore represents, for me, the worst of Christianity--people who confuse their failures and successes with God's design. God wants them to beat other people. No sense that his opponents might actually care about God too.

But this is exactly what the Republican party deserves. By making Christianity a litmus test for election, you created a monster you can't control. Now we will have people who openly campaign for a theocracy and completely undermine the legacy of religious freedom that has made our society one of the most dynamic and tolerant in history.

I once wrote that Bush had been the worst thing for evangelicals--because their support for someone so vapid and anti-intellectual had caused me to lose respect for people I used to admire for their wisdom. If those same poeple can't recognize that Moore is a self-delusional tyrant who plays on the hysterical fears of the religious right, then they will deserve their ultimate political destruction. Say what you will, I don't really think America wants a theocracy.

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