Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Newsbusters and other conservatives are upset that Sam Donaldson warned about the increased influence of religion on public policy in recent years. Donaldson hedged on the actual terminology of Christian theocracy. What Donaldson is speaking of falls far short of total theocracy with government based completely on religious rule. Donaldson is correct in his warnings about increased religious influence on public policy. The transcript from the discussion on This Week is below the fold.

Donaldson was speaking most directly about Mitt Romney’s recent speech along with the emergence of Mike Huckabee as a front runner. It should also be recalled that two other Republican candidates, John McCain and Ron Paul, have also made claims that this is a Christian nation. Conservatives have increasingly been promoting a revisionist history which denies our heritage of separation of church and state and the intention of the founding fathers to create a secular government. We have a president who believes God chose him to be president and advised him to go to war in Iraq. Some have also claimed that Rumsfeld’s decisions on the war were also inspired by God.

There are many examples of the increased influence of religion on public policy. Conservative challenges to abortion rights, funding of stem cell research, intrusion in end of life decisions in the Terri Schiavo case, and opposition to the rights of homosexuals are the most prominent examples in recent years. Republicans have also attempted to set by legislation the moment when a fetus can feel pain regardless of the medical facts.

In education there have been the attempts to sneak in teaching on creationism (even if called intelligent design) and limit teaching of evolution. However it is not only biology that faces attacks. Religious fundamentalists attack established science on cosmology when they disagree about the origins of the universe, and object to geology when they disagree over the age of the earth. Many believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. The Bush administration has even backed religious fundamentalists who object to the geological age of the Grand Canyon, preferring the view that it was created in the biblical flood. Many Republicans insist upon teaching abstinence-based sex education in place of effective sex education.

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