Separation of Church and What?

Today's Republican party has become so married (heterosexual marriage, of course) with the radical religious right that it has affected so many aspects of our politics. You have a President who believes that God wanted him to wage war against the 'evildoers' (whether he had the right country or not), politicians who don't believe in creationism pretending to in order to avoid political crucifixion from their base, a party that believes that gay marriage is more a danger to America than poverty, and an entire Congress with their President who last year stopped the whole national agenda to try and save one braindead woman from her own family while most Americans looked on in disgust. You have pundits like Limbaugh and O'Reilly ranting about "secularists" in this country as if they were discussing KGB spies working in the CIA. The danger of having a majority party subservient to a base dedicated to moving America backwards and not forwards cannot be understated.

And in the same way that they have gamed the debate so that you cannot criticize their anti-terror policies without being accused of coddling terrorists, so too have they set it up so you cannot criticize this radical fundamentalism without being accused of being intolerant to religion. It becomes intolerant to acknowledge their intolerance.

Despite all this, it is encouraging to me to see some of those politicians most guilty of this getting their comeupance, whether it's Tom Delay's fall from grace or the impending electoral losses of Katherine Harris, Rick Santorum, Conrad Burns, and others. I hope that is a sign that America is rejecting the stranglehold this fringe group of fundamentalists have on our politics.

Still, here's another example of how far-right religious politics is poisoning our system-

Religion has entered the political fray in a race for an appellate court bench in east Texas.

The Austin-based Republican Party of Texas played the religion card in a Sept. 21 online newsletter. As alleged in the newsletter, Texarkana solo E. Ben Franks, Democratic nominee for a seat on the 6th Court of Appeals, "is reported to be a professed atheist" and apparently believes the Bible is a "collection of myths.'"

Whether Mr. Franks is qualified for this job seems irrelevant to the Republican party. He may be an ATHEIST (eep!) and therefore he must be stopped at all costs, lest he win the election and base his decisions on the rule of law and not the Robertson/Dobson agenda.

Later in the article, the spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party says-

Officially, however, there can be no religious test for holding office.

Officially John McCain doesn't have an illegitimate black baby. Officially John Kerry's war record is solid and honorable. Officially Democrats support wiretapping terrorists (legally) and have a strong anti-terror positition... But you will be amazed at what the Republican party can accomplish 'unofficially', ma'am.

These people really need to be booted out of office. God willing, of course.