Democrat Pagan Party

By Boatboy

I suppose after years of the radical Left calling out the Republicans as God's Own Party - a moniker they have earned after decades of pandering to the Religious Right - it was inevitable. Former speaker Gingrich has branded any but God-fearing Republicans enemies of the United Christian States.

The headline for this post is not Gingrich's own. But the sentiment certainly is. Gingrich has given voice to a position the Xtian Right put forward some months back: Liberalism is not only UnAmerican, but UnChristian as well. The "Rediscovering God in America" tour is the means to the message.

I am not a citizen of the world. I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator. [...] I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history. We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism.

The only thing that saves Gingrich's bloviating from outright insanity is that, for many of the XtianFundie sects, only their particular flavor of Xtianity is "true," which conveniently disavows all of the mainstream Christian churches and effectively creates the impression of oppressed minority. But in holding that, these same sects relinquish any claim to spiritual community with the rest, and cannot claim "oppression of Christians" when those other denominations face adversity. Those not admitted by the Xtians in good times cannot be counted as in the fold in bad times.

Calling up paganism as the demon for the new age is simply preposterous. Paganism may be more visible today than fifty years ago, but most pagans are peaceful, live-and-let-live types disinterested in converting the planet, and resisting only the missionary zeal of the Xtians and not Xtianity itself. An organised pagan opposition to the other major faiths on the planet is a fantasy.

On the other hand, for a political philosophy that demands an organised intentional opponent, GOP-Xtianity is running out of forces to fight. Catholicism as an evil on a Protestant Earth went out the door ages ago, and Kennedy's election only nailed that coffin shut. The Eastern faiths - Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and the others - never presented much threat, as the early Asian American communities kept to themselves, and newer immigrants are as likely to be Christian as anything else. Shinto got spanked in World War II. Opposition to Judaism became nearly unspeakable after Nazi Germany. And Islam, long a favourite whipping boy of Christianity, has proved a poor choice of evils, as the resistance to US policies abroad have grown due to the prior [mal]administration's denunciation of Islam in the same breath as terrorism (as if the two were interchangeable), and as domestic flavours of Islam have proven to be far more mild-mannered than is necessary to brand them the Ultimate Evil. Even the no-faith-at-all Socialist label is failing to stick to the GOPs opponents as the ideals of a moderately socialist state become less unacceptable in the current economic climate.

So as the Xtian-Fundie subset of RightWingnuttia sets its sights on long-dead Druids or some other Great New Satan, the language it uses to incite the following shows just how its base has shrunk and how outdated its propaganda has become.


* H/T to ThinkProgress, Washington Monthly, The Reaction's own MJWS (see below), and WM commenter Norwood Woman for the title.

Newt Gingrich, pagan hypocrite

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Think Progress is reporting, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Oliver North -- and what a three-man tag-team of right-wing extremism that is -- appeared yesterday at the Rock Church in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to speak on "Rediscovering God in America."

As you might expect, there's simply too much material to cram into a single post (and I have no intention of giving any more of my time to such nonsense), but one of the lowlights was Huckabee comparing the anti-gay victory in California's Prop 8 last November to the colonists' victory in the American Revolutionary War. (And it is the right that accuses the left of not respecting the American Founding?! Like Washington was just the leader of a gang of bigots. And no word on whether Huckabee knows that the pro-Prop. 8 side was heavily funded by the Mormon Church. To him, it all came "from God's hand.")

And then there was Newt, who said this:

I am not a citizen of the world. I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator... I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history. We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism.

What the hell does "only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator" mean? That America is oh-so-special because it's fundamentally a Christian nation? Well, I suspect that Locke and Jefferson, among others, would take issue which such a ridiculous claim. America was built on a philosophical foundation of natural rights, not a theocratical foundation of Christian dogma.

And then there's the "surrounded by paganism" claim. Of course, it should go without saying that non-religiosity, including secular humanism, is not "paganism," which is, broadly speaking, a religion itself -- sorry, but I'm not a polytheist -- but such a simple truth just can't go without saying when it comes to the lies, deceptions, delusions, and ignorantly ideological utterances of Newt and his ilk.

Besides, I'm not sure Newt was being so Christian when he was getting blown by his various mistresses (but not, he claimed, committing adultery, because oral sex apparently doesn't count) -- or when he demanded a divorce from his first wife Jackie in her hospital room, where she was recovering from uterine cancer surgery -- or when he refused to pay alimony and child support after their divorce -- etc., etc., etc.

How all very... pagan of him.

And how all very typical.