Today's Must Read: Martin Luther King, Jr., Edition

Compare and contrast: First, this, from Dispatches from the Culture Wars, about the "Christian" right and its impact on American politics:

But the Christian Right also has a theocratic vision that is not merely reactive. It is proactive, and has deep roots in history and, in my view, it is gathering strength and momentum. While many people across a wide swath of public life—including journalists, scholars, and political activists—have delighted in repeatedly writing the Christian Right’s obituary, the theocratic coalition and the way it carries out its politics has dynamically evolved.

Thus, assumptions most of us have about the nature of religious pluralism, the rights of individual conscience and separation of church and state—and arguably democracy itself—cannot be considered as givens in public life. The Christian Right has developed profound legal, political and electoral capacities (the misguided beliefs of some otherwise sensible people that it is dead or dying notwithstanding). Christian Right presidential candidates remain prominent and the movement has increased its numbers in the Congress and in state governments and functions as a major and sometimes the dominant faction in the Republican Party in many states. The Christian Right remains one of the most powerful movements in American history.

And then, from Bark Bark Woof Woof:

For me, growing up as a white kid in a middle-class suburb in the Midwest in the 1960’s, Dr. King’s legacy would seem to have a minimum impact; after all, what he was fighting for didn’t affect me directly in any way. But my parents always taught me that anyone oppressed in our society was wrong, and that in some way it did affect me. This became much more apparent as I grew up and saw how the nation treated its black citizens; those grainy images on TV and in the paper of water-hoses turned on the Freedom Marchers in Alabama showed me how much hatred could be turned on people who were simply asking for their due in a country that promised it to them. And when I came out as a gay man, I became much more aware of it when I applied the same standards to society in their treatment of gays and lesbians.

This resonates with me, since it mirrors my own upbringing and the attitudes instilled in me by my parents.

I find it appalling that the extreme right, which is diametrically opposed to everything that Dr. King stood for and fought for, has tried to appropriate his name and legacy.

Think about this the next time you hear a Republican talking about -- well, anything.

And, of course, read the whole thing -- both of them.