'Christian' Manifesto Comparing Liberals to Nazis Gathers Signatures of Religious Right Leaders

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Peter Montgomery

'Christian' Manifesto Comparing Liberals to Nazis Gathers Signatures of Religious Right Leaders -- and Catholic Bishops
Right-wing Christian leaders are making a concerted push to gain thousands of new signatures for their hate-filled Manhattan Declaration.

February 10, 2010 |


Religious right leaders are making a concerted push to gain thousands of new signatures for their "Manhattan Declaration," a manifesto released late last year by about 150 conservative Christian leaders. The document, signed by such religious-right heavy-hitters as Focus on the Family eminence James Dobson and Prison Fellowship Ministries leader Chuck Colson, compares pro-choice advocates to eugenicists (and implicitly to Nazis) and equates same-sex marriage with polygamy and a gateway to legalized incest. Its authors promise to defy any law that does not comport with their religious beliefs. Joining the religious right's Protestant leaders as signatories to the declaration are four Roman Catholic bishops, including those presiding over the powerful archdioceses of New York and Washington, DC.

Described by New York Times religion reporter Laurie Goodstein as "an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush," declaration authors initially set a target for a million signatures by December 1. Although they fell well short of that goal, they claimed at press time to have gathered more than 419,000 signatures and have redoubled their efforts to add more names.

The American Family Association made the Manhattan Declaration the centerpiece of a January fundraising letter, urging members to sign the document, warning of the grave threat from "the anti-family/anti-religious radicals who control the White House and Congress." Focus on the Family posted a note on its "Action Center" on January 14. And several U.S. Catholic bishops -- Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville -- are urging their fellow bishops to preach about the declaration, get signatures from the faithful and use the document as an organizing vehicle. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news/145500/%27christian%27_manifesto_comparing_liberals_to_nazis_gathers_signatures_of_religious_right_leaders_--_and_catholic_bishops

[Lerkfish]

1. one thing they're good at is projection

[troubledamerican]

16. + 1

[NC_Nurse]

2. Absolutely disgusting. For shame! Where is Jesus in this hateful group?

Whatever happened to love thy neighbor?

[eShirl]

4. A radical liberal like Jesus would definitely be their target. n/t

[mwb970]

13. They'd crucify him! /nt

[Enthusiast]

18. That's what they did.

And the same Pharisees would do it again.

[SkyDaddy7]

19. Why not we drop all references to a Bronze Age Book...

And begin focusing on what is simply the correct & humane approach to life...I simply can't see the point in trying to find the "good" in a book filled with so much evil. Plus, it is a book written by Bronze Age Men to benefit Bronze Age Men not a 21st Century Secular Society. Until folks come to grips with this fact and begin to "PUBLICLY" move away from it then the loonies like Focus on the Family will be able to do their thing within the norms of society.

[Burma Jones]

3. Defy any Law that doesn't comport to their religious beliefs???

So that means they don't have to have abortions, don't have to wed someone of their own gender and (OK, this one may be tough for them) not marry their siblings........

Out of a nation of over 300 million people, they can't scare up more than one third of one percent to support them.

[The Wizard]

10. Does this make

buggery a religious belief?

[AnnieBW]

15. Only to Catholic Priests

:D

[Cassandra]

5. The biggest enemies of religion in this country...

are all those signatories.

[Dr.Phool]

6. What we have, is a lion shortage.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. 'Slacktivist' (Fred Clark) di a very good demolition of the 'Manhattan Declaration' last year

(If you don't know him, he's a liberal Christian blogger who expertly points out the hypocrisy and, for want of a better word, evil, of right wing Christians. He is doing a detailed critique of the awful 'Left Behind' books that's funny, insightful, and well worth reading, whatever your beliefs, or lack of beliefs. He got named in a "Top 10 Agnostic and Atheist Blogs" list once, because he is one of the best attackers of the right-wing fundamentalists there is)

Pulling a Lieberman
...
The Manhattan Declaration was created to threaten these younger evangelicals to get back in line with the precise priorities of their elders. Get back in line or be cut off. When talking to The New York Times' Laurie Goodstein, Colson is much more candid about this than he seems to have been when suckering Ron into pulling a Lieberman:

The signers ... say they also want to speak to younger Christians who have become engaged in issues like climate change and global poverty, and who are more accepting of homosexuality than their elders. They say they want to remind them that abortion, homosexuality and religious freedom are still paramount issues.

“We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues,” said Charles Colson, a prominent evangelical who founded Prison Fellowship after serving time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. “A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.”

Paramount. "Hierarchy." "These are the three most important."

That's three ways of saying the exact opposite of what Sider was led to believe.

So, yes, I think that Colson lied to get Ron to sign on and that Ron fell for it.
...
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/11/pulling-a-lieberman.html

The fatuous foolishness of the Manhattan Declaration

The whole thing is like that -- like a bad parody of the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V. Except of course that Henry was outnumbered. Here instead we have a group of powerful elites, men at the center of political, cultural, academic and ecclesiastical privilege bemoaning their oppression at the hands of the homosexuals and religious minorities they claim run the world. They are overlords posing as underdogs. (It's hard out there for a pope.)

And while that's ridiculous, it's not really funny. The claim of oppression is laughably bogus, but the blood on their hands is all too real. A parody of the St. Crispin's Day speech has comic potential, but a parody of the St. Crispin's Day speech as delivered by the pilot of the Enola Gay is too bitterly callous even for my bleak taste in comedy.
...
The anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-religious minority Manhattan Declaration is not primarily about opposing any of those things. That's all just collateral damage. The primary purpose of the Manhattan Declaration, its raison d'etre, is to help the authors and signatories convince themselves that they're better than everyone else. The ridiculous, overweening pride is what it's for.

Chuck Colson, Robert George and Timothy George are blitzed out of their minds on the drug of smug. They're hard-core umbrage junkies, snorting offendedness, mainlining grievance, freebasing uncut self-righteousness.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/12/the-fatuous-foolishness-of-the-manhattan-declaration.html

[Vinnie From Indy]

14. This line caught me

"Chuck Colson, Robert George and Timothy George are blitzed out of their minds on the drug of smug. They're hard-core umbrage junkies, snorting offendedness, mainlining grievance, freebasing uncut self-righteousness."

The author forgot a fundamental, if not THE fundamental, motivation for these men - M O N E Y & P O W E R !
The use of religion to subjugate, control and gain riches is as old as time. These men are after money and power and the smugness is simply a salve for their conscience.

[OHdem10]

8. Know when remember the Right acuses Left, they only accuse

that of which they the Right is most gulty. (Projection).

Any student of history watching the Right at the present
cringes and sees ghosts from Germany in 40s and 50s.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. I think we should get a campaign going to sign another declaration...

How about the Declaration of Independence?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

However, we should define 'men' has those things that have a corporeal bodies (beating heart, tangible, flesh).

[naaman fletcher]

11. It's time that we ALL recognize the Nazi's as a unique evil and just call it off-limits.

The left over-uses Nazi comparison's as well.

[tom_paine]

12. What's truly creepy and projecting is their complete ignorance of actual events

Nazis HATED Liberals, and Liberals were among the first to die in the Nazi regime.

What is funny would be if any of these assholes would have the guts to run down to their local Nazi meeting and tell those Nazis to their faces what evil liberal and liberal-like people they are.

Police would have to be called in before the Nazis beat them to death.

Ironically (isn't authoritarian "logic" ALWAYS ironic) the Nazis are MUCH closer to the people accusing them of being like liberals than the liberals themselves, which both groups despise.

We are now a nation without a history, which is renivented daily in compliance with whatever the Corporate Power Structure wants. And what they clearly want is to remarket and rebrand old-fashioned Nazism into a Kinder and Gentler 21st Century version.

Most of us will live to see it, as it's now only 20 years out, perhaps much less.

[winyanstaz]

17. This is a blatant violation of separation of Church and state...

and a blatant violation of their tax-exempt status.
They are NOT supposed to be playing politics behind the pulpit.
Strip that tax exemption NOW!!!!