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September 22, 2012
GOP now God's Own Party
By Al Rodbell
Dominionist Christianity, the merger of God and Country has reached a dangerous apogee in this election, especially since our greatest threat is no longer Atheistic Communism, but simplistic religious fervor, that the Republicans are endorsing as long as it is the American version
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I started to write this article before before the video defaming the Prophet of Allah unleashed homicidal fury among some Muslims, yet I saw clearly the danger of what was being sowed by Candidate Romney. I envisioned his promoting a mindset that would justify similar hatred in this country against those who do not espouse the dominant religious views.Romney has a law degree from Harvard, and must be aware of the Jurisprudence of the Pledge of Allegiance that he so blatantly ignores in detail and in spirit. His latest action is described in this N.Y. Times article, In Romney's Hands, Pledge of Allegiance Is Framework for Criticism that I will quote from:
While we fear that the revolution of the Arab Spring could be the opening for Muslim Fundamentalists, we ignore the overt perversion of our own country's tradition of secularism that is unabashedly a strategy of the Romney-Ryan ticket. From the article:
But at a Saturday afternoon rally here, Mr. Romney did not just recite the Pledge of Allegiance; he metaphorically wrapped his stump speech in it, using each line of the pledge to attack President Obama.
"The promises that were made in that pledge are promises I plan on keeping if I am president, and I've kept them so far in my life," Mr. Romney said, standing among old airplanes in a hangar at the Military Aviation Museum here. "That pledge says "under God.' I will not take "God' out of the name of our platform. "
Justice William Brennan wrote that while he thought this particular Christmas display was unconstitutional, less controversial expressions of religion might be permissible under the Establishment Clause. Citing Dean Rostow, Brennan argued that certain official references to a deity - such as the inclusion of God in the Pledge of Allegiance - might be constitutional "as a form [of] 'ceremonial deism.' " According to Brennan, these expressions might not violate the Establishment Clause "because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content."
" I will not take "God' off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart. We're a nation bestowed by God."
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Challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance have all been based on Establishment Clause of the first amendment. There is another approach based on a seminal case of Barnette v. West Virginia in 1943, before the religious words had been added in 1954. In this case one of the greatest Justices as described by Antonin Scalia, Justice Robert Jackson proclaimed that any compelled statement of orthodoxy of thought is the most clearly proscribed activity of government. Romney's approach described herein is further evidence that there is a constitutional case that should prevail against the tacit compulsion of reciting a pledge that can no longer be dismissed as meaningless.