The poor babies...!

Right-wing fundies are whinging and crying. They claim they are victims. Using the most detestable tactic of the Left and embracing "victimhood" as a means of making political gains, these born-again bores are saying there is a war on them. In fact they just finished a two day conference on the "War on Christians" in, where else, Washington, D.C. Why the capitol? Because this is not about their being victims it is about their desire to grab political power. Their victimhood is merely a means to their goal--taking political control of the country and imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of the country.

Let's consider what sort of things they consider attacks on them. If you don't allow them to put their theology in textbooks in state schools they consider that a war. If they are not allowed to teach theology, as science, in the state schools, they consider that war. If they are not allowed to use the state schools to impose religious rituals, like prayer, on students, that is a war. If they are not allowed to decide what publications other people may read they say you are making war on them. If they are not allowed to define marriage for everyone else that is waging war on them.

Over and over a "war on Christians" is really the reluctance to allow them to use state power against the beliefs of others. No one stops owners of private property from putting up a creche scene at Christmas. But fundies want to use state property which means a subsidy for their religiious expression. The police are not knocking on their doors or carting them off to camps. They still go door to door "witnessing" without legal restrictions. They run "ministries" that collect millions but don't have to pay taxes on the income, a privilege not allowed other businesses. But that they are not allowed to incarcerate people for being homosexual they see as persecuting them for their religion.

That they are really after state power is indicated by their main speakers. Start with the Republican office holders that appeared including indicted congressman Tom DeLay. Included were the typical right-wing political activists like Phyllis Schlafly, Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes. Over and over these people are involved in politics. They are seeking power not the right to pray.

How do I know this? Because no one can stop anyone from praying. These people could spend 24 hours a day in prayer without anyone showing up at the door to take them off to the concentration camps. But they don't want to pray at home or in church. They want to be able to use state schools to promote this religious ritual. And that is a very different matter indeed.

One minister, Rev. Robert Franklin of the Church of God in Christ, got it right. He said: "This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position.

Apparently the paranoia of these power-hungry theocrats got the better of them when a fire alarm went off by accident at the conference hotel. Some of them started seeing plots to disrupt them and more evidence for the "war on Christians". But the hotel said they have a mechanical problem in a distant location that caused the alarm to go off in error and that they fixed it.

Rick Scarborough of the right-wing Vision America group said that the conference was to help "offer a strategy for Christians to fight back and ultimately win the culture war and reclaim America." Now I have watched these people for years. They have consistently pushed for political power not their rights but the right to dictate to others. When they speak of reclaiming America they mean using legislation to impose their "values" on everyone. And anyone who opposes that measure is now waging war on them and they are being persecuted. It's rubbish and it's dishonest. But it is typical for fundie power-hungry theocrats. Muslims may face Mecca and pray but fundie Christians seem to pray facing Washington, DC, from whom all power flows.