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For a nation that swears in its highest officials with one hand on the Bible, and maintains a chaplain of the United States Senate, it appears a bit strange that a man can be attacked as an unfit candidate for Attorney General of the United States because he is a Christian who believes the Bible. Were anyone to attack a candidate for no other reason than he/she were a practicing Jew or Buddhist, there would be no such attack from the Democratic liberals, and any such objection raised by anyone else would evoke an immediate cry by the liberals of "religious discrimination". But if the man or woman is simply a practicing Christian, even the media acts as if they were guilty of some mental or emotional aberration or possibly a threat to society. This is very peculiar because more than one United States President has summoned the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham to the White House in times of crisis, and no such objection has been raised. I have never heard anyone state that inviting Dr. Graham to the White House in times of national crisis threatened our national security or constituted a mental aberration on the part of the sitting president. During the days of the impeachment, the sitting president, Bill Clinton, had a spiritual advisor at the White House and no one suggested that constituted a mental aberration (his other aberrations were the cause for seeking spiritual help). It seems that only conservatives, Republicans, who espouse Christian views are dangerous when they hold to the tenets of their faith. Yes, they're dangerous in one respect: when they speak of upholding family values, they know what those values are and who doesn't have them. But individuals sworn to uphold the law should do just that, and not pretzel it to fit something like the Waco incident and coverup. Of course, the Ashcroft slander is dirty politics at its dirtiest, and shows two fears on the part of liberals. First, they're afraid of people who truly hold to "family values" because lip service without action, characteristic of the Clinton administration, was so much more to their liking. Second, it might lead the nation in the direction of restoring the values lost during the past forty years, which would greatly diminish the inroads made by liberals in tainting traditional American values. The past eight years have been the steepest moral downslide in America since the mid-70's when a liberal Supreme Court upheld almost anything that was for the counter-culture. The problem is, we want certain morals, certain ethics, certain standards, but not a general respect for religious beliefs from which those values flow. It occurs to me that other than in times of crisis, many Americans want absolutely nothing to do with God. If it is announced that an asteroid is headed toward planet Earth, people tend to toss out their moral relativism and get mighty prayerful! It's sort of a "God on call when you need help" type of mentality, from which no true values can ever flow or be ingrained in children. Thus a man who is a nominee for the office of Attorney General of the United States can be vilified for nothing more than being a man of faith, and ridiculed for his religious beliefs. When faith is viewed as a threat to our national security or our federal republic, we really do have a problem with our thinking in America 2001. "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Now where did I hear that? © Dorothy Anne Seese, 2001 Today's featured
columns: View expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Political USA.
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