Friday, September 04, 2009

Bob McDonnell, GOD and the GOP

I am sure much to the dismay of Taliban Bob, his masters thesis written at Pat Robertson's wingnut university - now known a Regent University - continues to get play in the press and thus helps to keep attention trained on his extreme Christianist views that government should enforce a particular religious belief system. Indeed, the thesis shows an utter contempt for the religious freedoms of others of differing faiths or even no faith. Like so much involving the Christianists, their beliefs are to trump those of everyone else. Unfortunately, with all the focus on McDonnell, the MSM has failed to focus on Ken Cuccinelli whose Christo-fascist views almost make McDonnell's thesis look relatively moderate. As I have commented before, this year's GOP slate is probably the most extreme in many, many years and must be defeated if Virginia is not to back slide into reactionary territory more frequently seen in Alabama or Mississippi. Here are highlights from another Washington Post column:
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Politicians have a habit of saying what their audience wants to hear. Twenty years ago, Bob McDonnell's audience was Pat Robertson's extremely conservative evangelical university, and the three faculty members who were judging his master's thesis. Today his audience is the more politically and theologically diverse voting population of Virginia who are judging his Republican candidacy for governor.
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But regardless of whether you agree with McDonnell, then or now, his 93-page thesis for Regent University -- whose motto is "Christian Leadership to Change the World" -- is worth reading. McDonnell's thesis provides one of the clearest expressions I've found of the conservative evangelical mindset -- especially its view of the appropriate God-ordained roles of church, government and family in society, and its reliance on the Republican Party "to restore the proper balance of church, family and state authority."
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McDonnell goes on to explain in great legislative detail "how to attain the ideal" by implementing and following The Republican Vision for Family Policy. It's clear McDonnell doesn't think much of the Democratic vision for family policy.
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It is also clear that McDonnell holds contempt for those who would differ with him be they gays, working women, those who want equal pay for women, or those who believe in Thomas Jefferson's concept of religious freedom. Bob McDonnell would do well to re-read the preamble of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom written by Jefferson. McDonnell's views are directly opposed to those of Jefferson.

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