Thursday, September 11, 2008

Cheney with lipstick

In Sarah Palin: A Gidget for God's Truth, Steve Weissman has defiled an icon to Southern Californians of a certain age. Really old-time surfers decry that flick as the beginning of the end of surfing, but to the rest of us it was the first surf movie and turned us on to that sport. Cowabunga, dude.

"The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation," declared John McCain back in September 2007. With his vice-presidential pick of Governor Sarah Palin, he has found a winsome soul mate who is even more of a Christian nationalist, eager to use government to impose her religious views on the rest of us.

McCain hears God less extremely, but the Republican platform echoes Palin, and if she ever became president, she would feel completely justified in making her religious belief a litmus test for appointees to the Supreme Court.

She described the building of a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in Alaska as "God's will," which she would work to carry out as governor.

She supports the presence of US troops in Iraq as a "task that is from God."

And she has told colleagues that Christ will return within her lifetime, which raises questions about what sort of Armageddon she has in mind.

However absurd one finds all this, Palin's religious convictions should normally remain her own private concern. But her eagerness to use public office to enforce and implement what she believes makes her beliefs a matter of enormous public importance.

If you don't believe me, just listen to the enormous support Palin is receiving from Dr. Dobson, "End Time" author Tim La Haye, and others on the Christian right. Dobson once swore he would never vote for John McCain. He now calls McCain's choice of Palin "outstanding" and is promising his enthusiastic support.

Sarah Palin is their gal, and if she is elected vice president, these warriors of God could find themselves only a heartbeat away from their long-held goal of turning America into an ultra-rightwing Christian nation.

Scary fuckin' broad.

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