President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I don't have a problem with people practicing their faith. I have a problem when their faith is the determining factor in making laws and public policy. The most strongly fundamentalist congregations here can be extremely dogmatic and regard their individual beliefs and prejudices to be simple, self evident fact. They are not interested in reasoned, logical debate, or in the law as stated in the Constitution or by the Supreme Court if it conflicts with those beliefs. I have lived among such people my entire life, and I know how much misery and bullying they are capable of inflicting on those who openly disagree with them.

John Kennedy and Mitt Romney are both men of faith that faced skepticism because of their religion. As a result they made it a point to not be seen as beholden to the view of the Pope or the Mormon church. The people I'm talking about wear their faith on their sleeve and proclaim it as a reason for the policy they are putting forward that everyone around them will be expected to obey. If you choose to openly go against them, some are not shy about calling you un-Christian, or a tool of the devil (in more extreme cases, but it does happen). If this is at the small town or county level life can become unpleasant for the person who stands up and disagrees or sues to prevent a new law or regulation.

That's the sort of thing that pushes my buttons in a hurry. I'm of the "There are many roads to heaven" and "Sinners can be forgiven and redeemed" sort of faith, and many of them are of the "You're a sinner and you are going to burn forever" sort.

 

This feels about right.


Opinion

Resign if you cannot follow the Constitution? Great idea.

By Jennifer Rubin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/09/public-service-constitution-abortion-lgbtq/


"A telling incident occurred in the Missouri governor’s race this month. After a hearing in the Western District Court of Appeals, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican candidate for governor, “was asked by reporters whether he, as governor, would be able to defend reproductive rights if Missouri voters enshrine them in the Missouri Constitution next fall,” the local CBS news affiliate reported. His answer: “Anytime a statewide official is sworn in, we swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri.” He added: “If I cannot do that, then I would have to leave my position. I cannot swear an oath and then refuse to do what I’d said I would do.”

“I would have to quit,” he said.

Ashcroft raises an interesting point. New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), for example, said in a Fox News interview: “‘What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe, and so I make no apologies for it.”

Johnson swore an oath to a Constitution that includes a First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion. The Constitution bans slavery and cruel and unusual punishment; the Bible condones slavery and stoning, among other things. Which is his rule book: the Constitution or the Bible? He should tell us.

This is more than theoretical. The Supreme Court (for now) has ruled same-sex marriage is constitutionally protected. Johnson, however, makes no bones about his anti-gay bigotry. He has condemned homosexuality in print multiple times. Can he set aside his religious views and accept that gay marriage is the law of the land? His oath requires him to.

His anti-gay advocacy was infamous. “In the early 2000s, Johnson worked as an attorney and spokesperson for the evangelical Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom. For decades, ADF — designated a ‘hate group’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a designation the Arizona-based group disputes — spearheaded legal efforts to criminalize same-sex sexual activity, block efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, allow for businesses to deny service to LGBTQ people, and ban transgender people from using restrooms that correspond with their gender identities,” NBC News reported. “During his ADF tenure, Johnson sued the city of New Orleans in 2003 on behalf of the group over a local law that gave health care benefits to the partners of gay city workers.” He also wrote an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas, arguing that states can criminalize same-sex sexual conduct.


So the question remains for him and others who cite the Bible as their “rule book”: Will they follow the Constitution when it’s in conflict with their religious views? If not, they should follow Ashcroft’s statement and resign. Officeholders might take an oath on the Bible (or other text), but they take an oath to the Constitution, which, unsurprisingly, contradicts the Bible in many significant respects. You cannot have two rule books if you are to abide by your oath.

Ashcroft and Johnson have been more candid than most, but, to a frightening degree, the Republican Party has become a vessel for White Christian nationalism, which seeks to impose “a worldview that claims the U.S. is a Christian nation and that the country’s laws should therefore be rooted in Christian values,” as NPR put it. (According to the American Values Survey, 75 percent of Republicans believe the Founding Fathers “intended it to be a Christian nation with western European values.”) That belief is the foundation for effectively obliterating the anti-establishment clause and for a host of views on immigration (the “great replacement theory”), abortion, gay rights, education and more.

All Americans are absolutely entitled to adhere to the worldview that the United States was founded as a Christian nation to defend Western values. However, when they take an oath of office to defend and protect a Constitution that is incompatible with that deeply held view, pluralistic democracy has a serious problem.

There are two ways to resolve the issue. Ashcroft presents one: Resign if you cannot put your religious views aside. The other is to admit that you must put those views aside to hold public office. When the issue is not evangelical Christianity, but rather John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism or Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, politicians have taken pains to assure voters that their religion would not dictate their actions in office. We should expect no less of today’s elected officials, including Johnson."

 

Ashcroft is a lying sack of shit. He's as nutty as the rest of the Republicans in Missouri.

 

May be, but he understands what the conventional response is supposed to be and gives a reporter that quote.

 

So would the R's do the old fashioned smoke filled room at the convention?

 

R's have been telling us all who they are. Over and over again.

Believe them.

 

There he goes again

 

Thank you for the response.

What I am still trying to get to is why is religion as a moral philosophy different than any other belief system in terms of political debate. Any political choice is somewhat imposing your moral view on others.

Oppose people who try to impose religion on others or support blatantly unconstitutional actions. But a blanket statement that a person's religious beliefs should not be a part of their political choices is wrong.

[Edit] I'm on a phone and distracted. To put it more succinctly. Why is a religious belief as a determining factor different than any other belief system a voter or politician follows?

 

The only difference is one says, "I believe this because I believe this," and the other says, "I believe this because this book of stories says so."

And that's no difference.

 

It's not a problem, if it's handled with some intelligence and cooperation. OTOH, you have the example at the extreme of the mullahs who run Iran. None of our pols are that bad, yet, but some are taking steps down that corridor, and people are protesting and warning about it. The warnings about Christian Nationalism are very much like the warnings of creeping authoritarianism, indeed they are some of the people driving that creep.

Generally in the past when a political choice imposed a moral view on others it was based on majority rule. The results of the elections after the repeal of Roe and the imposition of extreme pro-life laws show that the voters of state after state are objecting as well.

 

Someone has leaked video excerpts from Jenna Ellis and Sydney Powell's proffer sessions, essentially their confession as they negotiated.

 

Leaking these seems like a tactic straight from Team Trump. I just can’t figure how it helps them.