Written by Don Washington   

Much has been made about the religious right's influence on American politics. I often find myself thinking that the religious right is neither right nor religious but I'd be wrong.... they are also political. Recently the Republican candidates for President revealed to you how powerful and political the religious right is by all but declaring spiritual warfare on American society. They hold so much power over the Republican Party that its leaders confer with them on everything from how to remake the federal judiciary in their arch-conservative image to how to best advance their social agenda.

Lately the religious right has so eroded the barriers between church and state that they are holding forums where candidates have got to come to stand against the rights of privacy, civil liberties for the LGBTQ community, immigrant rights and a half dozen other things that if they get their way we will all be in an America more like the turn of the 19th century instead of the beginning of the 21st. This is a war on the soul of America as they attempt to repeal the 20th century and all the things we take for granted from safe food to public schools and return us to a simpler time.... 1820.

At these events Christian conservatives say a great many alarming things. They called the judiciary “activist”, “liberal”, “agents of evil”, “secular humanists legislating from the bench” and “a focus of evil” and said that Democrats as a whole and liberal Americans in specific were “Satanic humanists” and “opposed to God’s plan” because of their heretical belief in the separation of church and state. Edwin Vieira paraphrased Joseph Stalin saying “No man, no problem” in regards to judges the whole quote is: “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.” Conservative leaders have promised that judges will pay for what they’ve done when they've ruled against their social agenda. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma condoned violence against judges, while his Chief of Staff Michael Schwartz said: “I don’t want to impeach judges I want to impale them.” The talk in the press has been about Republican candidates are courting the religious right but the truth is worse than that... the religious right is deciding if the Republican candidates are willing to deny the humanity of entire sectors of our society because they've declared spiritual war on America.

Ask yourself if you would compromise with evil because that's what the religious right is asking themselves about our society everyday. I suspect that the answer is no for you and it is for the religious right as well only what they've decided is evil, is Satan's work are entire classes of people and ideas. Now, if you knew someone or something to be evil ask yourself how far you would go to destroy it. Your answers to those questions are the foundation of how the how the religious right engages the rest of society. They are at war with us in a no mercy, no quarter fashion. There is no compromising with evil and its allies. They, the religious right, are not concerned with the prohibitions they place on others. They are warriors in a celestial pageant that ends with some people screaming in agony forever while they look on... possibly gloating from some palatial paradise. They have declared spiritual warfare on American society.

Something that all of us should keep in mind is that the religious right has already decided what sort of conflict we are in. They've been calling it a culture war for thirty years and at long last it appears they may be winning. Remember that war is organized violence against an enemy. Culture war, the use of war as a metaphor indicates a willingness to engage in bloodshed and destruction... an understanding that you are confronted not with fellow citizens with which you disagree but with enemies that you seek to eliminate. They are carrying that war to us with legislation, demonstrations and sometimes violence. There is nothing wrong with the battle of ideas but violence is something all together different. This is a war for them and sometimes they come to churches and shoot down members of the congregation or they put abortion providers in the ground or they kill nine year old immigrant girls and their fathers for money to fund their movement.

This is a war and there have been casualties and there will be more. We will find them in places where Planned Parenthood used to be or where people used to vote or where people have been randomly deported while their kids were left behind to starve without them. We will see them in places where science is taught as religion. We will see them where intolerance and disrespect become the common commerce of normal society. We are already seeing it in many places. Places where people are being asked for papers and spaces where women are being denied healthcare. We are going to discover it locations where children are being persecuted for their religion, because they wear a headscarf. These are the people who will be the casualties in this culture war that they have declared on American society.

Sometimes there are rules and sometimes there are none but even with rules there are always atrocities and in the vast history of this most tragic of human endeavor the most violent and genocidal examples of warfare have been those of religion and ideology. Given that reality it is not surprising that some of the faithful have taken to killing doctors and bombing family planning offices while the likes of Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Alan Keyes and their ilk explicitly and/or implicitly cheer them on. America is presently facing a crisis of conscience. The crisis being that we may not find our conscience in time or more frighteningly we may not have one... that the Christian Right is correct that we a nation of bloodthirsty thugs.

I do not believe that such is the case and I implore the rest of us to be principled dissent in the face of what is turning out to be evil’s latest throw of the dice for dominion over all people of good faith. They have declared spiritual warfare on America and we cannot afford to lose.