These are the people who are putting the candidates in office.
How do I know? Check the records on the most recent presidential elections. The Evangelical Christian vote is the single most powerful lobby in the United States;
From the recent Values Voters summit, direct quotes about their goals:
1 - Homosexuality is very clearly a gender identity lifestyle confusion.
2 - We want sodomites quarantined.
3 - Under a Christian order, there would ideally be no more public schools.
4 - There are too many mosques in the United States.
5 - James Dobson -- I tell you, I can't do that (compromise).
6 - Restroom segregation.
Verify it for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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like a horror film...except true
Thankfully, the "evangelical Christian" movement is more fractionalized than modern Paganism at this point. Gone are the "glory days" of the 1980s when the "Religious Right" held major sway on all issues. It is interesting to see the new breed of evangelists coming up to take the place of the old folks (i.e., folks like Rick Warren) who preach "inclusivism" as a tenet of Christianity.
One sign that evangelistic Christianity isn't where it used to be regarding unity is that there's no candidate that has been unanimously (or even close) selected as the "Christian choice" for presidential candidate. When a former Baptist preacher, such as Mike Huckabee, can't even sway evangelical Christians to select the Baptist preacher over a Mormon or a person of marginal Christianity, then you know they aren't holding the power that they used to.
Four years ago, there was a decent "Evangelical Christian" vote up for grabs. Because of what happened, there was a lot of disillusionment that occurred within evangelical Christianity. Heck, even Pat Robertson has come out on an almost daily basis to say that he doesn't support President Bush! Because of this disillusionment and scandals within Christian movements, there's no desire for the clustering effect that we saw four years ago. They're not dead and gone, but the radical Evangelical Christian movement is on life support, and with each of the old time leaders that dies, a little more of it dies, too.
One sign that evangelistic Christianity isn't where it used to be regarding unity is that there's no candidate that has been unanimously (or even close) selected as the "Christian choice" for presidential candidate. When a former Baptist preacher, such as Mike Huckabee, can't even sway evangelical Christians to select the Baptist preacher over a Mormon or a person of marginal Christianity, then you know they aren't holding the power that they used to.
Four years ago, there was a decent "Evangelical Christian" vote up for grabs. Because of what happened, there was a lot of disillusionment that occurred within evangelical Christianity. Heck, even Pat Robertson has come out on an almost daily basis to say that he doesn't support President Bush! Because of this disillusionment and scandals within Christian movements, there's no desire for the clustering effect that we saw four years ago. They're not dead and gone, but the radical Evangelical Christian movement is on life support, and with each of the old time leaders that dies, a little more of it dies, too.
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amunptah777
:)
unfortunately, I'm inclined to disagree.
christianity, yes...actually losing numbers amoung the ranks
the evangelical movement, however, is still a poison in the water of the spiritual life of too many people (especially americans)
and still the sort of "poster child" of "what it means to be american" in the collective minds of many other countries.
"americans? sure, protestant, (52%) rich, white, crazy and war hungry"
Thet
christianity, yes...actually losing numbers amoung the ranks
the evangelical movement, however, is still a poison in the water of the spiritual life of too many people (especially americans)
and still the sort of "poster child" of "what it means to be american" in the collective minds of many other countries.
"americans? sure, protestant, (52%) rich, white, crazy and war hungry"
Thet
Except it's not. Part of the problem (for them) is that the distinction between libertarians (and *kinds* of libertarians) and conservatives is getting bigger every day, and they aren't getting any more organized about things.
It's hard to see that from the outside, but my husband-to-be is libertarian, and he has all kinds of interesting things to say about his supposed buddy-buddy conservatives.
He's only conservative in the sense that he'd like to see the government get smaller, not bigger... and that the people could run charities and so on better than the government can. Some of those right wingers you are scared of are actually anarchists, and some of them are small-l libertarians, and some of them are actually Reganomics types and some of them are "Bring God back into the Government." Hell, some of those "Bring God" types are actually voting Democratic, because they *want* to see the government control more of people's lives.
Further, there are conservatives that hate Bush, too.
Politics is so much more complicated than that.
Just because the Democrats didn't win the past few elections doesn't mean we're becoming a theocracy. And not everyone who's worried about terrorism wants a Theocratic Dictator in the president's seat.
It's all a matter of what people think is important for the now.
I'm not saying I'm happy, I'm just saying that I don't see a mandate going in that direction.
It's hard to see that from the outside, but my husband-to-be is libertarian, and he has all kinds of interesting things to say about his supposed buddy-buddy conservatives.
He's only conservative in the sense that he'd like to see the government get smaller, not bigger... and that the people could run charities and so on better than the government can. Some of those right wingers you are scared of are actually anarchists, and some of them are small-l libertarians, and some of them are actually Reganomics types and some of them are "Bring God back into the Government." Hell, some of those "Bring God" types are actually voting Democratic, because they *want* to see the government control more of people's lives.
Further, there are conservatives that hate Bush, too.
Politics is so much more complicated than that.
Just because the Democrats didn't win the past few elections doesn't mean we're becoming a theocracy. And not everyone who's worried about terrorism wants a Theocratic Dictator in the president's seat.
It's all a matter of what people think is important for the now.
I'm not saying I'm happy, I'm just saying that I don't see a mandate going in that direction.