Christians Persecuted Again!

John McKay at archy has some commentary on the religious bigots who disrupted prayers at the Senate. He begins with this, which I thought was apt:

When the Virginia bill for establishing religious freedom was finally passed, a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal.

Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion."

"The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821.

I also think he has the best description of the effect of this hooliganism:

[T]he moment had been soiled. What should have been remembered as an historic first, will now be remembered as an obnoxious display of un-American intolerance.

I wouldn't call it "un-American." I'd call it "anti-American."

This is the sort of thing that the Wildmon Gang supports, just as they support a religious test for public office (witness not only the flap over Rep. Keith Ellison taking his oath of office on the Q'ran, but the reaction to Mitt Romney's candidacy), teaching religious doctrine in place of science in public schools (and they don't give up), and, of course, the president's theocrats' pork barrel, which the theocon courts have ruled can't be challenged by the people who are actually footing the bill.

McKay also has a good take-down of the revisionist history being spouted by the right.

And, in the discussion of this latest example of theocon atrocities at EA Forums, the term "nimrod" came up. I did some checking, and found this, from Josephus:

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power…

Not perfect congruence, perhaps, but close enough. After all, if you take God's name in vain enough, it becomes a meaningless noise.