| Message Number: | 43 |
| From: | Daniel Reeves <dreeves Æ umich.edu> |
| Date: | Tue, 21 Dec 2004 13:12:07 -0500 (EST) |
| Subject: | 9/11 and gay marriage |
After 9/11, Jerry Falwell said on the 700 Club (1 million viewers per day): "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" The host, Pat Roberts, agreed and prayed for the de-secularization of the United States government as our best protection against terrorism. I bring this up again because I strongly feel that *that* is the root cause of what is wrong in this country [1]. What do 9/11 and gay marriage bans have in common? Religious fundamentalism. Let's keep pointing this out until people start to feel the embarrassing irony when President Bush says things like "God is on our side" [2]. Danny Footnotes: [1] I know that post-election analysis revealed "religious values voting" to be less of a factor than "fear of terrorism voting". Nonetheless, without the fundamentalist religious right we would not have Bush or gay marriage bans. As Lee Newman argued a while back (I'll dig up the references if anyone's interested), the difference between Bush's popularity in the US vs everywhere else in the world is explained by our much higher degree of religiosity. [2] actual quote along the lines of "God is not neutral in this conflict between freedom and fear" PS: to get on or off the improvetheworld list: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves/improvetheworld -- http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves - - google://"Daniel Reeves" "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" -- Homer Simpson

