UPDATED! UPDATED! Christian Values Voters: Obama Hates America

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!

     —Sabine Baring-Gould

 

UPDATE 9/20/2010: Rachel Maddow did a segment on the revival of the Culture War, featuring the Christian Right:

 

 

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This morning I heard on television a couple of talking heads tell us that the Tea Party movement is fueled by fear over the national debt and government spending and their angst had little to do with the social issues that perennially haunt our politics, like abortion rights and homosexual equality.

The consensus was that the teapartiers are so scared for our children’s and grandchildren’s economic future that the old divisive moral issues are just not that important to them.  

Well, I realize that’s a popular notion, and there is certainly some truth to the idea that many people are worried sick over Republican economic chickens roosting in Obama’s nest, but it overlooks one important fact: The so-called social conservatives—the self-described Values Voters—don’t see it that way at all. 

They see a definite link between what they perceive to be the Democrats’ socialistic tinkering with the economy and Democratic support of abortion rights and the “gay agenda” and other ungodly horrors. If you don’t believe me, just listen to Mitt Romney at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit on Friday:  

…what is occurring in America today is different than simply a shift in seats. And it is not merely the result of disappointment or anger, though there may well be reason for both. 

What is being felt in America today is more profound than that, more solemn, more sober. Americans believe that Washington is threatening the very foundations of what has made America, America. Washington is assaulting America’s values. It is endeavoring to change what this nation has been, to change what it is, and to change what it is destined to become.

This room is filled every year by citizens—modern patriots—who are passionate about America’s values. These values include the sanctity of life and the preservation of marriage. But the Obama Administration has taken its assault to even more American values. The American people have finally seen Obama liberalism for what it is; they have seen the counterfeit values that underlie it, and they want none of it! 

Romney wasn’t the only one of the Christian Values Voter Summit speakers who connected the Tea Party movement with the vision of Christian moralists, who want American social values to mirror the values of fundamentalists and evangelicals, derived from Iron Age books and pre-Enlightenment theology.   

It’s just that Romney is supposed to be a serious candidate for the presidency in 2012, unlike the Michele Bachmans and Rick Santorums and Gary Bauers and other assorted guardians of God’s values, who believe they can use the Tea Party movement as a vehicle to achieve a quasi-theocratic state, a quasi-theocratic Christian state. 

That state would be one in which, in the name of “liberty” and in the name of God, women would be forced to bear children against their will—even children conceived through rape;  it would be a state in which, in the name of “freedom” and in complete allegiance to an ancient ignorance, gays and lesbians would be denied equal protection under the law and would be banished from the military, from serving their country, at a great cost to our national security.  

Whether a majority of Tea Party true-believers conceive of their movement this way doesn’t really matter.  Because the Romneys and Gingrichs and Huckabees are unquestionably using the Tea Party movement to further their own parochial political interests and are using it to force the agenda of the religious right down the throats of all Americans. 

And if Democrats and other like-minded folks don’t get to the polls this November, it won’t just be a mid-term shellacking of Democratic candidates we have to worry about.   

Christian Values Voters are marching toward us, dressed in the armor of God.

If you don’t think these people are a little unhinged; if you don’t believe that they hate a fellow Christian, Barack Obama, like the devil himself; if you don’t worry that they may get their righteous hands on the government throttle; I present below a short video clip and the accompanying transcript  featuring a speaker at the Values Voter Summit on Friday. 

Just keep in mind that the people before whom this man was speaking (and laughing) are the same people who invite you to church to worship Jesus and who claim that they represent a Loving Savior:   

We have an administration today—I may get arrows and bullets shot at me or something—but  the thing about that is we have a guy that hates America. I’m just going to say it, okay?  Until we get rid of Barry or Barack—I haven’t seen his little feet on that birth certificate, so I don’t know what he is, right?

Onward, Christian Soldiers! Marching as to war!

[Romney photo:Mark Wilson, Getty Images]

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Tags: Christian evangelicals, Christian fundamentalism, Christian Obama-haters, Christian right, Dale Peterson, Family Research Council, James Dobson, Mitt Romney, Rachel Maddow, Religious Right, Saint Rachel, Values Voter Summit