Quote of the Day - A Response to Rick Perry's Anti-Gay Ad

As noted yesterday, with many in the GOP the last resort for a campaign plummeting downward is to pull out what is perceived to be the tried and true anti-gay card. Rick Perry - who is becoming more of an embarrassment to both himself and the state of Texas by the day - is no exception when it comes to grabbing onto this last ditch tactic. Of course in the doing so, he makes a mockery of the U.S. Constitution as do most Christianists. Here's Perry's bigoted statement from his ad:

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

What Perry needs to be ashamed of is the fact that he's a bigot and an idiot. No one is preventing children from openly praying or celebrating Christmas in school. The only thing that's prohibited is allowing the schools to force all students to pray Christian prayers in school or forcing non-Christian students to celebrate Christmas. It's that little issue called freedom of religion. Perry, like other Christianists claim that their rights are being trampled upon if they aren't allowed to force their beliefs on everyone else. It is ALWAYS all about them and their rights - everyone else can go f*ck themselves under this Christianist view. Rev. Susan Russell has a great response to Perry in Huffington Post. Here's the money quote:

[Y]ou don't need to be a Christian -- or a constitutional scholar -- to know that there's something wrong in this country when candidates for president can openly express their ignorance about the First Amendment but gay and lesbian families can't count on the equal protection the Constitution equally guarantees all Americans.

The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to believe whatever they choose about what God blesses or doesn't bless; sanctions or doesn't sanction; intends or does not intend. It does NOT protect anybody's right to impose those beliefs on other Americans -- in fact, remaining neutral on matters religious is not a "war on religion" but a safety net for the religious liberty that is our American heritage. And nobody said it better than Ronald Reagan:

"We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief. Nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. At the same time as our constitution prohibits state religion, establishment of it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral."

In today's bizarre world of GOP Ronald Reagan would be denounced as a liberal or worse. It is truly a testament as to how low the party has fallen that it (and its Christianist puppeteers) is now one of the biggest threats to constitutional government.