Tuesday, December 11, 2007

quote of the day

"My faith is my life -- it defines me. My faith doesn't influence my decisions, it drives them ... I don't separate my faith from my personal and professional lives."
-GOP candidate Mike Huckabee (A brief aside on Huckabee's issues: Why would someone so focused on the Sanctity of Life make it a point, in his notes on the 2nd Amendment, to explain that he never supported the ban on assault weapons? Even weirder, he seems to be advocating the potential use of assault weapons against our own government. And even creepier, he wears as a badge of honor the fact that he is the first governor ever to have a concealed weapon license. I find myself wondering what Jesus would do. Carry an assault weapon and reject all policies that promote or tolerate amnesty? Somehow I don't think so.)

I don't think this is what Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had in mind when they wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom back in 1779, so I'd like to conclude this bit with a better quote:

"We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

Also in the news recently:

Crisis of Faith, an excellent editorial on Romney's faith speech

Boy Scouts Lose Philadelphia Lease in Gay-Rights Fight (damn straight! no pun intended)

The Episcopal split here in the good old U.S. of A. continues, with yet another diocese deciding that disliking homosexuals outweighs human rights, preferring to align itself with the infamous gay-baiting Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola rather than with the U.S. church. Oh wait, I stand corrected. This particular diocese has not gone over to Akinola because of the gays. Instead it's joined a conservative South American denomination because it disapproves of Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori. Not only is she relatively liberal, but this California diocese is one of the last to refuse to ordain women at all, let alone allow a woman to head the entire U.S. Episcopal denomination.

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