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June 04, 2005
Rick Perry needs all the help he can get...
The probe is related to an appearance last October by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and several black leaders, including U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
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Rick Perry needs all the help he can get...
Posted on June 4, 2005 07:27 AM by john k119.
Filed in News from Around the World under john kerry.
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There is, of course, a difference betweent he two cases, though your post certainly obscures that.
In the Texas case, you have a group of pastors being organized to participate in politics. That is legal -- unlike Mexico, in the US you don't lose your political rights upon ordination. These pastors are permitted to organize voter registration drives, to write letters tot he editor, to endorse candidates personally, etc, just like every other American citizen. You do believe in civil rights for everyone, don't you? Or are you out to establish some sort of atheocracy, in which believers are second-class citizens and atheism is the officially established and promoted religion of the country?
The Florida case differs in that the church service was used as a political platform, with candidates being formally endorsed by the pastor from the pulpit on behalf of the church. That is clearly significantly different than what is going on in Texas, isn't it? To attempt to draw an equivalence between them is dishonest -- but since the information in this post is ultimately drawn from an original post by the notoriously dishonest Oliver Willis, I'm not surprised.
Now there is a better way to deal with the whole religious speech question as regards churches -- legislation is curently pending that would lift the speech restriction from churches while preserving their tax exempt status. That strikes me as the best possible outcome, given that "the power to tax is the power to destroy", and no government in the United States is vested with the power to destroy a religious group or organization, nor to regulate the religious teaching and message of such organizations. As such, it would be a restoration of the First Amendment to full effect.
Posted by: Rhymes With Right at June 4, 2005 01:26 PM