Dobson, Perkins, Pat Robertson, and dozens of other right-wing Christian leaders like to wear American flags on their lapels, display Old Glory with great pride, and generally hold themselves up to be devoted, ultra-patriotic Americans. Indeed, they proclaim themselves to be better Americans than anyone and everyone who doesn’t parrot their views. But the clear and unmistakable fact is that their disdain and utter contempt for the Constitution is self-evident through their determination to establish their own religious test for all candidates. That test includes questions about abortion, school prayer, stem-cell research, gay marriage, the teaching of Creationism or “Intelligent Design” in public schools, assisted suicide, abstinence-only sex education, and other issues that are undeniably rooted in their religious beliefs. And if you don’t pass their religious test, you’re an atheist, a “God-hater”, “anti-Christ”, or – even worse – a Democrat!
And the mainstream media is absolutely complicit in the radical religious right’s conspiracy to destroy the Constitution and turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. Instead of challenging those who are engaged in demanding that the presidential candidates submit to their religious tests, the media encourages the unconstitutional process and gives it tacit approval. In fact, the media, by giving these sociopaths disguised as “Christian leaders” a forum to spout their anti-American poison, are thereby disqualifying themselves from the deference otherwise afforded them in the “freedom of the press” provision of the First Amendment. They “report” on the fact that one-third of the Republican base is Evangelical, and leave unchallenged the fact that the “voter’s guides” put out by the religious right are merely the results of their religious tests. They politely ignore the direct relationship of the Christian right’s concrete positions on social policy to their biblical beliefs, without ever reminding them that their tests contradict the Constitution, and instead delicately refer to those anti-Americans as “Christian conservatives.”
And then there is Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas, whose deliberate appeal to the Christian right, both in his advertisements and public statements, has catapulted him to the top of the Republican heap in Iowa, and near the top nationally. His sudden rise is due in large part to the media’s adoration of his “folksy” style, his “soft-spoken nature”, and his “impressive performances” in the Republican debates. Obviously, the media likes him a whole lot, and he is benefitting enormously from that fawning affection. But no one has yet said, “Wait a minute! If he’s obviously appealing so strongly to religious conservatives by positioning himself as a ‘Christian leader’, and promoting his background as a Baptist minister, and espousing policies and ideas that are clearly rooted in his fundamentalist/Evangelical beliefs, why aren’t we questioning him about the specifics of those beliefs?”
Under the circumstances, the American people have a right to know, for example, whether Huckabee believes in the “Rapture”, when all “good” Christians will suddenly be whisked away to Heaven, while everyone else is left with a one-way ticket to Hell. His close relationship with Tim LaHaye, co-author of the “Left Behind” series of books and films that promote the Rapture, shouldn’t leave much doubt. We also have every right to know whether he believes in the Book of Revelations, and in the inevitability of Armageddon. Because, if he does, then the American people – both Christian and non-Christian alike – must decide whether Mike Huckabee, as president, would pursue actions that could make that prophesy self-fulfilling…like a religious war against Islam, couched as a “crusade for freedom.” And the only way we can get answers to those, and other critical questions, is if the mainstream media asks. But if the experience of the media’s avoidance of those tough questions of George W. Bush during both of his presidential campaigns is any indication, they won’t. And that will be the worst betrayal of the American people by the media since their failure to challenge Bush, both about his specific religious beliefs, and about his claims of WMD’s in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Indeed, it would likely be much worse.
Consider, for example, Huckabee’s recent sermon at the San Antonio Cornerstone mega-church of John Hagee, the ultra-right pastor whose staunch support of Israel is a thinly disguised effort to do all he can to instigate Armageddon through an all-out battle between Israel and all of the Arab nations that surround it, leading, Hagee prays, to a global holy war with Islam. During that sermon, Huckabee referred to Hagee as “one of the great Christian leaders of our nation.”
We have already witnessed the disasters of Bush’s evangelical presidency. We have seen the consequences of his absolutism. We know of his utter disregard of the Constitution. We have experienced his religiously-driven actions for the past seven years, and we have been the victims of those policies time and again. But the worst victims, by far – apart from the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children, who lost their lives, and the millions who have been displaced from their homes -- are those brave and dedicated members of the armed forces who gave their lives and limbs, not in defense of our freedom – as Bush to this day claims – but to the religiously-rooted megalomania of an extreme right-wing Christian evangelical president who has been conducting a religious war right under our noses, and squarely under the nostrils of the once-respected and independent American media.
Although the story should have been given front page attention in the U.S. print media, and “top of the news” placement in broadcast news, George W. Bush’s claim to have attacked Iraq because “God told him to” was all but completely ignored. Bush made that claim to the former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, and the former Prime Minister and now Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, during a meeting with them in 2003. According to both men, and notes from the meeting, Bush said the following:
“I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,’ and I did.”
No, that story didn’t get much attention here in the U.S. But it definitely should have. It was covered in the international press quite well, but we in this country don’t give much credence to what the international media has to say. Had we read and heard more about that alarming statement by Bush, and had the U.S. media been as responsible and courageous as we have every right to expect them to be, Bush might well have lost the 2004 election, and we’d be out of Iraq by now. But they weren’t, and we were kept virtually in the dark about Bush’s lunacy, and we’re still there.
Now, back to Huckabee, who certainly deserves the careful scrutiny that the media never gave to Bush. Huckabee was the keynote speaker at the Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City in 1998. During the evening before the event began, he told a group of pastors…
"I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."
And, when he delivered his keynote address the next day, his closing words were…
"I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."
It should be a further warning to all of us that in Houston recently, a rally was held for Huckabee that was sponsored by Stephen Hotze, a hard-line right-wing Christian zealot who wrote in a Houston Chronicle op-ed piece not long ago…
"If we are to survive as a free nation, and if justice and liberty are to be restored in our land, then biblical Christianity, with its absolutes, must once again be embraced by our citizens."
Of course, “biblical Christianity” was never embraced by the founders, and was never intended to be. But Hotze’s blatant revisionist history and deceitful claims are now rampant throughout Evangelical circles, and it appears that Mike Huckabeee, candidate for president, subscribes to the same distorted, dishonest, and deceptive narrative.
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