Saturday, September 16, 2006

Republican John Danforth Attacks Republican Theocrats

This article from Raw Story is both welcome and sobering. Former Republican Senator John Danforth of Missouri, rumored to be W's second choice for VP in 2000, has come out swinging against the lunatic religious right that now runs the Republican Party. Excerpts:
In Faith and Politics, to be released Tuesday, Danforth blasts the alignment of the Republican Party with the Christian right, lays out his most aggressive pro-gay stance to date and attacks the handling of the Terri Schiavo case.

"Some people have asked me whether America is a Christian country. The answer must be no, for to call this a Christian country is to say that non-Christians are of some lesser order, not full fledged citizens of one nation." Danforth is himself an ordained Episcopal minister.

Danforth calls the Terri Schiavo case -- where Congress intervened to attempt to keep a severely brain-damaged woman from being taken off life support -- "Big Brotherism."

"That the federal government could intervene in the Schiavo case was a threat to all the families that had seen their loved ones suffer through terminal illness," he writes.

"It was a threat to people who were terrified that their own lives might someday be artificially extended in nightmarish circumstances. It was a threat to some of our most heartfelt values. It was Big Brotherism in the extreme, an exercise of the raw and awesome power of the federal government."
Well said, Mr. Danforth. Read the whole story and take heart that there are still sane and humane Republicans out there--and then reflect on the fact that these rational people aren't the ones calling the shots in the Republican Party.

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