Jackass Awards Part Deux - Virgil Goode

I haven't been blogging much recently. I have been overwhelmed with work and I will be leaving soon for a long vacation.

But this caught my eye. It is a letter from one of our U.S. Congressmen writing to a constituent regarding the use of a Koran to swear in the freshman Representative, Keith Ellison, who is a Muslim.

Virgil Goode, Jr. responds to his constituent to express how much disdain he has for anyone not Christian.

Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take the oath of Searing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle Ease to come to this county. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped...

So, apparently, Rep. Goode is not a big supporter of the First Amendment... It is ok for Goode to hold the bible while being sworn in, but god forbid that someone of another religion gets elected by democratic vote and wants to use the holy book of his own religion.

Additionally, I am completely confused about how Rep. Goode equates illegal immigration with the election of a Muslim form Minnesota. Keith Ellison, the recently elected Muslim, was born in Detroit to a Roman Catholic family. Rep. Ellison converted to Islam in college, like many other Americans have over the years. But, I guess you can't apply logic to Rep. Goode's letter since it is devoid of logic completely.

It is so sad that we have a single elected official in the U.S. government that is so narrow minded and so bigoted that he cannot accept his fellow congressman as a legitimate American. The troubling thing here is not a Muslim using the Koran to be sworn into office, but that Rep. Goode is being sworn in at all.

Dee the actual letter here

H/T Talking Points Memo

Update: Virgil Goode has decided to stand behind his bigorty and will not appologise for his letter.

Linwood Duncan, Goode's press secretary, said that Goode sent the letter to hundreds of constituents who contacted their office after Ellison disclosed his plans. At about the same time, a member of a local Sierra Club contacted Goode about a different issue, and the letter was accidentally sent to him in response. The Sierra Club member made the letter public.

"The congressman is not apologizing," Duncan said. "He stands by the letter." - Star Tribune

I guess it makes it ok that he accidently sent the letter to the wrong people. You can be a bigot, but only if you are a bigot to other bigots.

Do We Need Under God In The Pledge?

I was driving through rural Pa. last weekend. While I may be a high falut'n New York city-slicker now, I grew up in the corn fields, dairy farms and mountain forests of central Pennsylvania. My grandmother had been rushed to the hospital, and at age 91, all trips to the hospital are serious. I had spent the day visiting with her in the cardiac care center and was driving through the corn fields to the home I had grown up in and which my grandmother now resides.

On the radio came an ad that started off with a grandson talking to his grandfather, asking the grandfather what it was like when he was the boys age.

"Well, America was a different place back then. People cared about each other then." Said the grand pappy

"So, what changed?"

"Well," the grandfather responds, "they decided to take 'under god' out of the pledge of allegiance because it was unconstitutional. Then they took 'in God we trust' off of the dollar bill. Next thing you know, they made all open religion a criminal offense... that is why I am here in prison now."

A voice is heard in the background saying that visiting time is over and the grandson must leave. Then an announcer comes on and touts a petition to make it illegal for judges to declare under God unconstitutional because it will destroy our country.

I could not both laughing and feeling sad at the same time. How could the people who made this ad be so wrong on so many levels but feel they are so right? Could America really be destroyed by having the words under God removed from the pledge of allegiance?

To understand how wrong this concept is, you need to know the history of under God in our pledge. For some unknown reason, conservatives seems to think that under God was added by George Washington himself.

Well, it wasn't. The pledge was created in 1892 by a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy. In the original pledge, God was not mentioned. The country was a Republic. It was indivisible and had liberty and justice. But it was never under God, even though it was written by a Christian clergyman. Not only that, Francis deleted the word equality because he knew that it would not be accepted by educators since women and blacks were not considered to be equal at that time.

In 1940, the Supreme Court ruled that a school board could make it mandatory for children to recite the pledge even though some Christian religious groups found it against their religious and moral beliefs because it created idolatry in the flag. In 1943, the supreme court reversed its ruling, saying that requiring the recitation was state control of religion.

Still, there was no under God in the pledge.

The words under God were not in the pledge that my father learned as a school boy. It was not in the pledge that any of the heroes of WWI or WWII learned. It was added by President Eisenhower in 1954 during the height of the red scare. One of the rationale behind the addition of the under God words was because it was believed that no communist spy or sympathizer could bring themselves to recite the words, and thus, give themselves away as traitors to the United States. Seriously... someone actually believed this to be true. Similarly, in God we trust was not added to the dollar bill until 1959.

178 years had passed between the Declaration of Independence and the words under God appearing in any type of pledge. If the grandfather in the radio ad was right, America must have been a horrible, horrible place to live in those 178 years. No one cared about anyone. It was just masses of godless heathens muddling around the streets cursing at each other. It was not until 1954 that this country began to become a decent place to live. I obviously say this tongue in cheek, but what an insult that that radio ad is to all of those who came before us. What an insult it is the the hundreds of thousands of Americans who fought in WWII to free the world of tyranny but never recited under God once in the pledge of allegiance. Was the moral compass of what we deem to be the greatest generation inept due to the lack of public acknowledgement of God?

The radio ad also made me think of James Madison, the creator of the Bill of Rights. He was the person who enshrined our freedom of religion in the constitution so that the government could and would never interfere in the matters of personal faith. Madison in his Remonstrance of proposed legislation for Christian teachers to be paid for with public funds said:

Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion...for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits.

Basically what Madison is saying is that if God is real, than he does not need the support of the state. He exists because he exists and this is with or without the state and in fact, has endured direct opposition from countless governments before we existed. It, in fact, weakens the faith to need government support. If your faith in God is real, you must believe that he is bigger than the state and is in no need of governmental support. It is only those who have questions in their own faith that do not believe that God can exist without state sponsorship and the words under God in their pledge. Ultimately, not having state sponsorship of religion and not having under God in the pledge does not diminish religious freedom, it ensures it.

God will exist if the words under God are not recited by school children. He will exist if in God we trust is no longer on our money. Removing words will not remove him, and to think that the only thing that makes this country great is the words under God and in God we trust, then you have a serious lack of understanding about this county.

The Pope's Comments

Ok, now let me get this right. The Pope recites some comments written in the 14th century that, admittedly, can be offensive to Muslims. The 14th century writer basically said that the followers of Mohammad spread their religion through violence and that Islam brought "only evil and inhuman" things to the world.

To protest this, Muslims go on a rampage, bombing churches and firing bullets willy-nilly. (Iraq al-Qaida says pope, West are doomed). Basically, they said, "We are not a religion of violence! And if you say that again, we will kill you!"

Do they not get the point? If you are a religion of peace, you do not get violent to protest someone saying your religion is violent!

I agree that the pope should apologize for his comments (Pope 'Sorry' About Reaction to Islam Remark). They were not necessary in order to have the debate on the problems surrounding Islam. I don't necessarily think they were the most hurtful words in the world, but the theological debate could have been started in a much better way than quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor.

But to go on a rampage? You are only proving his point. Muslims basically said, "were not violent, and to prove it, we are going to blow up the Vatican."

I think Bush should convert to Islam and become there leader. He makes as little sense as they do.

In God We... We Have No Choice

Katherine Harris is really grasping at the evangelical base in order to pull out some sort of victory in her electoral bid. Unfortunately, it is also proving how nutty she is.

She has claimed that separation of church and state is a "lie" and that God chooses our "rulers."

If this does not explain to you why political secularist, such as myself, are scared senseless by these right wing "Christi-fascists," nothing will. And this should show that any religion; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc, that is taken to an extreme is a danger to democracy. There are no benign religions when an extremist is involved.

First off.... Rulers? Are you kidding me? We have rulers now and not elected representatives?

And if God chooses our rulers, doesn't that mean that all the evangelicals who believe this should just stay home on election day since the outcome it pre-ordained?

Harris clarifies comments on religion

MIAMI - U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

Harris made the comments — which she clarified Saturday — in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues.

Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.

(Full Story)