{"id":469,"date":"2011-07-10T15:42:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-10T15:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/laudable-statement-by-a-republican-presidential-candidate.html"},"modified":"2011-07-10T15:42:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-10T15:42:00","slug":"laudable-statement-by-a-republican-presidential-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/laudable-statement-by-a-republican-presidential-candidate.html","title":{"rendered":"Laudable Statement By A Republican Presidential Candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve consumed quite a few kilobytes railing against the theocrats in the Republican Party.\u00a0 It seems that not all of the candidates are fundamentalists intent upon imposing their religious lifestyles on others (or pandering to those who do).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Family Leader\u201d is an Iowa organization that has asked all Republican candidates to sign \u201cThe Marriage Vow,\u201d<\/a> a narrow-minded, bigoted piece of theo-crap.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve guessed that Mama Michele has signed it, you\u2019re correct.\u00a0 Rick Santorum has committed, too.\u00a0 Others will follow.<\/p>\n

One candidate, however, is holding his ground.\u00a0 Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson will not.\u00a0 Here\u2019s his excellent statement:<\/p>\n

Government should not be involved in the bedrooms of consenting adults. I have always been a strong advocate of liberty and freedom from unnecessary government intervention into our lives<\/p>\n

The freedoms that our forefathers fought for in this country are sacred and must be preserved. The Republican Party cannot be sidetracked into discussing these morally judgmental issues \u2013 such a discussion is simply wrongheaded.<\/p>\n

We need to maintain our position as the party of efficient government management and the watchdogs of the \u2018public\u2019s pocket book.<\/p>\n

This \u2018pledge\u2019 is nothing short of a promise to discriminate against everyone who makes a personal choice that doesn\u2019t fit into a particular definition of \u2018virtue\u2019.<\/p>\n

While the Family Leader pledge covers just about every other so-called virtue they can think of, the one that is conspicuously missing is tolerance. In one concise document, they manage to condemn gays, single parents, single individuals, divorcees, Muslims, gays in the military, unmarried couples, women who choose to have abortions, and everyone else who doesn\u2019t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party cannot afford to have a Presidential candidate who condones intolerance, bigotry and the denial of liberty to the citizens of this country. If we nominate such a candidate, we will never capture the White House in 2012.<\/p>\n

If candidates who sign this pledge somehow think they are scoring some points with some core constituency of the Republican Party, they are doing so at the peril of writing off the vast majority of Americans who want no part of this \u2018pledge\u2019 and its offensive language.<\/p>\n

Wow!\u00a0 If this were the tack of leading Republicans, it would be a reason for all of us to respect, if not agree with, their agenda.\u00a0 Alas, he is a voice in the wilderness.\u00a0 No one will ever hear about him and he won\u2019t be invited, so to speak, to the Party\u2019s party.<\/p>\n

One thing that Johnson did not address in this odious piece of fish-wrapping is a paragraph that was in its earlier draft.\u00a0 It was in the version that Bachmann signed and to which Santorum assented.\u00a0 Try not to fall out of your chairs while reading this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA\u2019s first African-American President.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the first time in a long time, I have no words.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve consumed quite a few kilobytes railing against the theocrats in the Republican Party.\u00a0 It seems that not all of the candidates are fundamentalists intent upon imposing their religious lifestyles on others (or pandering to those who do). \u201cThe Family Leader\u201d is an Iowa organization that has asked all Republican candidates to sign \u201cThe Marriage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,12,33],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-church-and-state","tag-fundamentalist-christianity","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nLaudable Statement By A Republican Presidential Candidate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019ve consumed quite a few kilobytes railing against the theocrats in the Republican Party.\u00a0 It seems that not all of the candidates are fundamentalists\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/laudable-statement-by-a-republican-presidential-candidate.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Laudable Statement By A Republican Presidential Candidate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve consumed quite a few kilobytes railing against the theocrats in the Republican Party.\u00a0 It seems that not all of the candidates are fundamentalists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/laudable-statement-by-a-republican-presidential-candidate.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-10T15:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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