The Echo Chamber: Variations on a Theme

One of the "Christian" right's favorite themes is how all of our problems come from turning away from God (by which they mean Jehovah, the only true god -- never mind that all of them are true gods, but have more sense than to claim to be the only one: after all, they tend to come in families).

First variation, from Franklin Graham, who blames it all on Hollywood (the "Christians'" favorite Satan avatar) and the gays (also a favorite target):

Here’s a topic that probably won’t be mentioned in the upcoming Democratic debate. An incredible 2.4 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases were diagnosed across the U.S. just last year alone. Hollywood is busy promoting promiscuity to the world — almost every movie, every television show is focused on sex. The saying goes, “sex sells.” Well, the statistics in the CNN article verify that there’s a price to pay, and it is a very heavy price. God made us male and female and gave sex for us to enjoy inside a marriage relationship between a man and a woman — not two men, not two women. The Bible says that anyone who sins sexually, sins against their own body. How true. What’s the protection the world is looking for? It’s simple — follow God’s guidelines. Have only a monogamous relationship with your husband or wife.

Well, that's pretty much standard for the con men passing themselves off as "holy men". But, mix in a little gloating from none other than Tony Perkins:

Personnel is policy. And that’s what makes the difference in this administration. We’re not on the outside looking in. We’re on the inside working out. And we are so grateful for the men and women who are serving in this administration.

I was just at the White House – I had to take a break and go meet with the chief of staff and some others – and look, we have values voters in the White House.

If that doesn't scare you, it should.

And so, in the natural course of this sort of thing, we have our esteemed (ahem) Attorney General, William Barr, who has the answer to all of our ills:

Attorney General William Barr blamed secularism in society for a series of problems such as drug overdoses, violence and poor mental health while speaking at Notre Dame’s law school.

Barr, in a speech largely focused on the role of religion in law, decried what he described as an effort to drive religion away while promoting secularism. “We see the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism,” he said.

“Basically every measure of this social pathology continues to gain ground.” A spokesman for the university told the South Bend Tribune this week that the topic of Barr’s speech would be “religious freedom.”

How totally inappropriate is it for the nation's top law officer to be giving a speech like this at a law school?

If Barr were the only one, we could call it an aberration -- but he's not. Check out the record of well-known "Christian" Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, who's done everything she can to gut public education in favor of private (read "teligious" and for-profit) schools. I'm sure you can come up with other examples, but quite frankly, Trump's Cabinet is like flash cards: by the time you recognize a face, it's been replaced with an "acting" whatever.

So, the bottom line is, the Dominionists, after forty-plus years of taking over the GOP, are now taking over the whole country.

I like the idea of lions.