JABbering Stooge

Because apparently, we really WANT a theocracy. (yeah, right!)

FORT WORTH, Texas - In a ceremony filled with religious references, Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill at a church school gymnasium Sunday that imposes more limits on late-term abortions and requires minor girls to get written parental consent for abortions.

Yeah, way to show you really care about religious freedom, governor!

"And it has been a tragedy of unspeakable consequences that for decades activist courts denied many Texas parents their right to be involved in one of the most important decisions their young daughter could ever make — whether to end the life that was growing inside her," Perry told a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered at the Calvary Christian Academy.

[begin sarcasm]Because we all know that no parent will EVER abuse his child in a manner resulting in pregnancy! And we all know that no parent will EVER abuse his/her child for even considering abortion![end sarcasm]

"For too long, a blind eye has been turned to the rights of our most vulnerable human beings — that’s the unborn in our society."

And as for those already born? "SCREW ‘EM!" Right, Governor Goodhair?

And then there was this gem as he was (ceremonially, since a constitutional amendment referrendum doesn’t need the governor’s signature, at least not in Texas) signing the measure that will allow voters the opportunity to write discrimination into Texas’s constitution this November.

"Texans have made a decision about marriage and if there is some other state that has a more lenient view than Texas then maybe that’s a better place for them to live," Perry said.

Yes, we’d rather squander an opportunity to improve our economic standing than give up our deep-seated, irrational animus against a class of citizens simply because of who they are - never mind that similar sentiments were (supposedly) consigned to the rubbish heap alongside Jim Crow.

But what really gets me are the statements by Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt and Our Savior Lutheran Church Pastor Larry White:

The critics are generally those who object to people of faith participating in government or the electoral process.

- Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt

There are those that would drive people of faith from the public square if they could.

- Pastor Larry White, Our Savior Lutheran Church

So I guess that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson "[objected] to people of faith participating in government or the electoral process" and "would drive people of faith from the public square if they could" simply because they made the following statements:

The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, posesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.

James Madison, Letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
James Madison, 1803

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813

…are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe?

Thomas Jefferson to N.G. Dufief, 1814

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814

(Note: Jefferson quotes culled from this site.)

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jun. 9, 2005 4:10 AM)