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One of the most unsettling and revoltingly anti-democratic aspects of the eight year nightmare that we're finally waking from, is the push toward an American theocracy by churches such as this one, and individuals in the Bush Administration.
It needs to stop. America lost is collective mind in the wake of 9-11 and it was the perfect opening for whack-job fundamentalists to push themselves on to center stage. The erosion of the necessary line between church and state has chilled me to the bone.
We have been under the sway of deeply ignorant and fearful people for nearly a decade, and the degradation to our society and our standing in the world has been drastic and disastrous. We've had individuals in positions of power who reject and deride science, who start conflicts and wars based upon their belief in "the end times". We have people who use an entire segment of society - gays and lesbians- as scapegoats, the invectives and hatred spouted against us by "Christians" over the past eight years echoes precisely the tenor of the Anti-Semitic rantings of the Nazis during the 1930's.
This is a dark era in America that cannot come to an end quickly enough.
As one parishoner was quoted, "We've got a lot of people in this country who want to lead their individual lives, they want to be left alone by the government, and they call themselves conservative Republicans."
I would add that we've got a lot of American citizens- the majority- who don't want to have extreme, narrow-minded, fucked up bigotry legislated upon us under the guise of religion, or religious tolerance.
I, for one, cannot wait for churches like this to fade into obscurity. And I will do as much as I can to ensure that they never gain such outsized power and authority again. I am only one person, but for the sake of my freedom, it's the least that I can do.
