If a Democrat gives a political talk in a church, he or she is a concerned American citizen wanting to preserve American Values. If a Republican does it, he's a fascist Taliban out to destroy America by usurping the "separation of church and state".
Two links on a political speech by President Clinton in Riverside Church in NYC. Replace President Clinton's name with President Bush's or John Ashcroft's, and you would have the ACLU, AUSCA, and Unitarians taking this to the courts to have the church's tax-exempt status stripped.
Undivine Double Standard, by Paul Kengor, in National Review Online. Kengor argues that Clinton invoked God much more often than President Bush in his speech.
All the Bias That Fits, by Michelle Malkin, commenting in the Washington Times.
guess it depends on which church you go to. there are quite a few churches where you say anything at all critical about the "good ol' US of A" you get branded as a blasphemer. double standards go both ways...
all good things are ultimately from God, so we should always praise Him for the blessings we receive in our country. at the same time, our country is a human institution (and thus fallen), Godly criticism of it will always be justified.
heck, enough of anonymity. :)
it's true that a lot of people on the left don't want Christians to be able to air their views, and that's truly unfortunate. but it looks like the religious right wants to do the same thing and remove others' right to dissent.
america is starting to look a lot more like europe in the 1500s, but instead of catholics versus protestants we have conservatives versus liberals. it's getting harder and harder to follow a third way (would that be the 'whatever' in the web site title?). how long until we have inquisitions and witch hunts again? oh wait, we're already having them. :(
maybe Canada is the new Friesland...
Posted by: jefurii at September 9, 2004 03:58 PMJefurii, care to give some examples of how the religious right wants to stifle dissent? It seems to me that dissent is alive and well in America. Michael Moore, for all the criticism directed toward him, is still at large and making movies critical of the Bush administration. Sean Penn, who complained of a Hollywood blacklist, received a Best Actor Oscar for a movie he made about the same time of his complaint. Bottom line, his claim of being blacklisted was a bald-faced lie.
About the strongest case I've heard for censorship is that people with opposing-view t-shirts or signs have been denied entry to political rallies - both Democrat and Republican.
UPDATED: Yes, there is a movement by some conservatives to monitor liberal churches the same way that conservative churches are monitored. I neglected to consider that in the first draft of the comment.