I read recently that Jimmy Carter, our peanut-pickin' former President, is leaving the Southern Baptist Church. Apparently, Carter wrote a letter to some fellow Baptists stating that he's upset over the church's "increasingly rigid" creed.
Carter said, "I personally feel the Bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God. I personally feel that women should play an absolutely equal role in service of Christ in the church."
This just goes to show that many "born-again" believers, like Carter, don't really know their bibles. It's abundantly clear, to anyone who actually reads more than a few select passages here and there, that the bible is not friendly to women in the least.
But I've written at length about this elsewhere and won't bother repeating myself.
What I want to know is, why is this considered newsworthy? Who gives a rat's rump whether one individual, former President or not, decides to leave his or her church? I'm sure it's important to that person, but not to the world at large.
And yet, the media seems determined to share with us every bit of religious crap they can when it comes to Presidents, former Presidents, and would-be Presidents. So we're hearing things such as:
Would-be Vice-President Lieberman uttering nonsense to the effect that religion has been the single most unifying force in history… when anyone with an ounce of observational skill can see that it has been the single most divisive force in history. And that we have freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion. Of course, you can't have real freedom of religion if you don't guarantee freedom from religion, but that seems to escape him.
Would-be Presidents Gore and Bush saying we need to utilize faith-based services in our society. At the expense of the taxpayer, of course. The separation of church and state is obviously something they don't quite grasp.
And of course, we have former President Bush who dismissed several million Americans by saying that he wasn't sure atheists should be considered citizens.
Then there's his son, who is vehemently anti-abortion (due to his religious beliefs), and yet, thirty years ago, it seems Dubya knocked up his girlfriend while he was working on his dad's Senate campaign. She had an abortion. (You won't find this in mainstream media, by the way. They're not touching it. But the BBC and the London Times may be revealing this story soon. And just maybe, Larry King will have something to say about it when he has Bush on his show in the near future.)
Any of you noticing a trend here? Carter doesn't understand his bible (or only reads it the way he wants to read it), Lieberman has no sense of religious history, Gore doesn't understand the separation of church and state, Bush the elder is just a flat-out asswipe, and Dubya is a blatant hypocrite.
I could go on, but I think I've made my point. When it comes to religion and politicians, it's all a bunch of crap. So don't let it affect you when you make it to the polls next Tuesday.
