Pat Robertson enjoys political influence through the likes of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, former Jack Abramoff associate Ralph Reed and others. The march towards turning America into a theocracy must be stopped.

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Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is going to speak at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's first national conference next week. The religious right conference is being held September 10th and 11th and is intended to organize Christian conservatives in an effort to turn America into a Bible based theocracy.

It's interesting to note that McDonnell is a graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University. He looks at holding the office of governor as a "ministry" and he believes in Romans 13:1-7 which states that public officials and the powers that be are in power because God put them there. It also says that we are to obey them and that anyone who is not obedient to the government rulers will be damned by God.

Of course, this is in direct opposition to the American Revolution and the ideas of another governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in regards to the Fourth of July...

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. . .The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God."

Ralph Reed is also a protege of Pat Robertson. He was the first executive director of Pat's organization, the Christian Coalition. Reed resigned from this position in 1997 and then started his own political consultant and lobbyist business.

In 2005 a federal investigation showed that Jack Abramoff was working as a lobbyist for American Indians who were trying to get tax protection for their gambling enterprises. The investigation revealed that Abramoff paid Reed to use Christian groups such as U.S. Family Network, Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition to protest and oppose the gambling interests of the Indian tribes. This was done to get the tribes to pay Abramoff $82 million for his lobbying efforts. Abramoff pled guilty to three felony charges.

McDonnell's pick for the Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources is Doug Domenech. Domenech worked for the George W. Bush White House as a liaison to the Department of Interior and worked specifically to make sure Jack Abramoff got what he wanted.

Former Bureau of Indian Affairs official Wayne Smith reported to the Denver Post that Doug Domenech said, "we had to pay attention to Abramoff, because otherwise the religious right and Reed are going to come up and bite us, and our whole base will go crazy. They will light up our phones, shut down our phone lines."

It's interesting to see all of these forces of deception, greed and thievery getting together again, sans Abramoff, under the banner of faith and freedom! Birds of a feather DO flock together! It makes you wonder what new scams they're cooking up now.

Authors Bio:
Bob Johnson is a paralegal and a freelance writer in Florida. He was raised Roman Catholic, but after reading Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, he became a Deist. In 1993 he founded the World Union of Deists and in 1996 he launched the first web site devoted to Deism, www.deism.com. He is listed in Who's Who in Hell and is the author of Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You and of An Answer to C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. He wrote the introduction to The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition and to Principles of Nature and also writes for Examiner.com and strike-the-root.com.