I’ve been struck by how many of the Fundamentalists I know have chosen to support Mike Huckabee, and how many liberals speak favorably of his warmth and “folksiness” while mentioning they know little about his views. I find both of these groups very frightening. Huckabee is a Southern Baptist, typically one of the most intolerant, repressive organizations on the planet. In a New Hampshire church campaign stop Huckabee said “When we become believers, it’s as if we have signed up to be part of God’s Army, to be soldiers for Christ.”
I thought I would spend a few minutes reviewing the Huckabee Campaign web site and it’s stated positions on religion.
Interestingly the web site doesn’t talk about Huckabee’s “balanced” views on schools and evolution, “I wouldn’t want them teaching creationism as if it’s the only thing that they should teach.” or his view on the age of the earth. Further there’s no mention of his proposal quarantining those with HIV, or his statements that homosexuals represent “an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle” whose civil rights should not be respected.
- The First Amendment requires that expressions of faith be neither prohibited nor preferred.
This is the position that Fundamentalists wish the Supreme Court has taken. They believe that the religious majority (but really only if that majority is Christian) should be able to plaster their beliefs over public property and public policy. They interpret the Establishment Clause to mean the majority should be able to do as they please with public support of religion. If this position prevails Separation of Church and State will return to the pre-industrial point of view. From Hucabee’s supporters point of view, that’s the goal.
- My faith is my life - it defines me. I don’t separate my faith from my personal and professional lives.
Contrast this to Kennedy’s “I am not the Catholic candidate” speech
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been — and may someday be again — a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist.[ Ed. note wasn’t safe then or now to add “or an atheist”] It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men and all churches are treated as equals, where every man has the same right to attend or not to attend the church of his choice, where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind, and where Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, at both the lay and the pastoral levels, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
Kennedy was foresighted, and Huckabee and his supporters are pushing as hard as they can for the divisive future Kennedy saw. I believe we’ve reached the time where ministers do tell their congregations how to vote and the overreaching pandering hypocrisy of the Bush administration has elevated “disdain and division” until the fabric of society has been “ripped apart at a time of great national peril.”
- Real faith makes us more humble and mindful, not of the faults of others, but of our own. It makes us less judgmental, as we see others with the same frailties we have.
This is such an enormous crock. RealFaith(tm) often turns otherwise decent people against any perceived outsider. It reduces those who disagree to non-humans. It promotes superstitious hatred to an art form against both real differences and arcane nonsense. Join Huckabee’s church and disagree with baptism by total immersion and you’ll see. Frailty is accepted by fundamentalists only if accompanied by abject subservience and surrender to religious solution.
- Faith gives us strength in the face of injustice and motivates us to do our best for “the least of us.”
RealFaith facilitates thinking of those who disagree or have weakness as less than human, and thinking of a 70-100 cell blastocysts (see namelessheathen on the topic ) as more valuable than a dying person. It supports American living without health care because God wants you to be Rich and implying that if you were more Christian you wouldn’t have this problem. It promotes building more prisons to house marijuana users and allowing savage prisoners to rape the weak.
- Our nation was birthed in a spirit of faith - not a prescriptive faith telling us how or whether to believe, but acknowledging a providence that pervades our world.
This is more cover for tearing down the wall separating Church and State. Fundamentalists want to believe that this is entirely a Christian nation, founded by Christians (presumably for Christians). Check out some great founding father quotes about how they really felt about religion.
Elsewhere the site discusses other views popular with fundamentalists.
- While he doesn’t cast it in religious term he provides sufficient pro-Israel language “I will always ensure that Israel has access to the state-of-the-art weapons and technology she needs ” to keep the end-time Christian Zionist nuts happy.
- he says there should be a Constitutional amendment against same sex marriage and opposes “marriage like” (presumably civil union) status for gay or straights. (Nice little touch of pseudo-fairness there, opposing what straights don’t need)
- He voices support for “covenant marriage” and renews his vows under the covenant marriage law he got passed.
- He voices complete support for overturning Roe V Wade and outlawing abortion.
- He goes even further than Bush and says “I am opposed to research on embryonic stem cells”
- He opposes any form of gun control, even the Brady Bill (Lord knows you’ll need your assault weapons in the end times)
- He beats up teacher unions, a common target of Fundamentalists opposing rational thought in the classroom.
I see only a few gaps with the Fundamentalist agenda. Huckabee doesn’t support school vouchers, though he does support tax credits for religious schools. Oddly, he doesn’t advocate school prayer, and while he says he supports home schooling, he seems to have irritated home schoolers in Arkansas by adding regulations and pushing for standards. I suspect though he’ll have to beef up the gay bashing, “young earth” creationism and end times rhetoric to continue being taken serious with “main stream” fundamentalists.
