Bigotry means Not Giving Conservative Christians What They Want!

Any mention of the fact that some Christians want to impose their religious values on the rest of us is, once again, bigotry.

Poor Charles Schumer has fallen afoul of this, as he made these comments during the Stem Cell research debate (click here to see comments in context).

There is a group of people in America of deep faith. I respect that faith. I have been in enough inner-city Black churches, working-class Catholic parishes, rural Methodist houses of worship, and small Jewish synagogues, to understand that faith is a gift. The trouble with this group, which I call the theocrats , is they want that faith to dictate what our Government does. That, in a word, is un-American. It is exactly the reason the Founding Fathers put down their plows and took up muskets to fight.

If you do not like stem cell research, don't use it for yourself or your family, but don't tell millions of Americans who may not share your faith that they cannot use it, as well.

We have seen this repeatedly with Schiavo, or the required teaching of creationism in the schools, and now with stem cell research. Unfortunately, the President and too many in this Chamber and too many in the other Chamber have gone along and said that faith, wonderful and noble as it is, should determine what our Government does.

This administration is not pursuing what most Americans want, but following the dictates of the narrow few. Fortunately, we live in a democracy. In a democracy these issues are debated.

Yep, that statement attacks all Christians and all people of faith, according to Paul Weyrich, who seems to be popping up on my radar pretty regularly these days. He quoted the green section above (leaving out the larger context of the comments), and called for Weyrich to apologize to Christian Conservatives for infringing on their rights.

To call a group of people of strong faith theocrats because they want to exercise their rights as citizens and participate in government is astounding but not surprising. Senator Schumer would like to silence his critics.

You see Mr. Schumer they are not theocrats because they want to exercise their faith, nor because they want to participate in the political process. They are theocrats because they want their particular religious prejudices to be enshrined in law. They want to keep scientists from performing potentially life saving science.

And they got their way.