Tikkun Daily recently published an article by one David Harris-Gershon (aka “the Troubadour”) that began as follows:
One might think, given the record number of anti-gay bills being proposed across the United States, that the religious right’s legislative influence – and cultural entrenchment – is growing. In fact, they are evidence that the exact opposite is the case.
What we are seeing right now are the last gasps of religious fundamentalism and its normative influence on the national stage. Just as an individual on his deathbed experiences a momentary flurry of energy and clarity before descending into his final end, we are witnessing the religious right’s final flailing on the national stage. To understand this, one doesn’t need to examine Pew studies on changing attitudes, nor the consolidation of religious fundamentalism into pockets of the Southeast and the West.
All one needs to do is look at legislation being offered right now, and the mainstream ridicule such legislation is garnering.
As my grandmother might have said, from your mouth to God’s ears, Mr. Troubadour!
I sure hope you are right. The “R” and the Tea Party folks have stoked the fires of these “useful idiots” (the “R”s own description of these folks) I sure hope the curtain is coming down on the era of the useful idiot. From Anita Bryant on down…. they have brought nothing good to our nation.
I’m not convinced we’re seeing the end of this nonsense. If the religious right cannot ban same-sex marriage and amend state constitutions, they’ll find some other way to express their hate. See the Indiana legislature’s new “law” to prevent same-sex couples married in other states from filing a joint state return. There can be no purpose behind this (since Indiana law already lays out who can or cannot file joint returns) other than to express contempt and give it the force of law (redundantly in this instance).
These folks may get more frantic and shrill, but they are still a sizable portion of our population. And they are militant about their beliefs being “correct.”
Paraphrasing an atheist a few years ago: When was the last time you heard a strident atheist? Probably not since the 50s or 60s. People only become strident when they think their beliefs are at stake. Religious fundamentalists see their stranglehold on the Republican Party diminishing daily.
Like the poor, the ill-informed and thus nemesis of society,
will always be with us.
Oh goodie. The Dark Ages are over and the Enlightenment can begin. Oops, we already did that. I can understand the hope, but just as Fukuyama was a little premature with his announcement of The End of History (regarding ideology) I’m afraid The Troubador is getting ahead of his data.
Wrapping oneself in the American flag and brandishing the Bible worked to get George W. Bush elected and re-elected (if one could call it ‘re-elected’), and we can only guess that they are trotting it out again. One particularly sordid addition to their stinkin’ thinkin’ is a bunch of stipulations about voter registration requirements. Elderly grannies and granddaddies on walkers will just have to get that photo ID!
The whole thing about ‘love thy neighbor’ and ‘equal rights’ for the tall and the short, the young and the old, the fat and the skinny, the rich and the poor, the black and the white and the brown, and the gay and the straight, is just about more than they can handle! We are ONE nation (we ‘devoutly hope so,’ to borrow Sheila’s words), not a bunch of little nations consisting of ‘our kind’.