On God and the Moral High Ground

I make an argument that the Democratic Party, the party of diversity possesses the moral high ground. Additionally, I claim that the Republican Party is owned by the the evangelicals, and that any Republican who believes in the former political and social values of that party must disassociate himself or herself from this neo conservative Republican party dominated by "scapegoating" and by Calvinist religious values based in prejudice against women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered peoples.
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It seems there are those who would have the Democratic Party do a make-over from the Jacksonian Era Jackass to a Postmodern elegant and conservative horse with shorter and smoother hair, bobbed ears, platform shoes, and a bushy (pun intended) hair piece added to its tail. While recovering from my damnable hernia surgery, I read an article on line from the San Francisco Chronicle, “In Postmortem on Kerry Bid, Dems Seek Clues to New Life,” by Carla Marinucci. In Marinucci’s world, a more conservative image will convince some of the more moderate Republicans to vote on our side. Marinucci quotes Leon Panetta “former congressman and white house chief of staff” as saying, and I paraphrase, that we must win back rural and blue collar voters in the Central, Southern, and Western Red states (Red is for Republican these days, not communists). It seems that the jackass to Arabian is former president Bill Clinton’s idea of refurbishing the Democratic Party as well. I can agree that we must do something to reacquire some of those votes. However, I have problems with the notion that we need to become an imitation of the Republican Party to do so. I believe that the liberal Democratic Party has the moral high ground. I believe that this Republican claim to “Moral issues” is a sad and pathetic misunderstanding by millions of Americans as to what morals are about.

I was a Republican until the 1990’s and changed my affiliation when I realized that the evangelicals were taking over the party. I recognized at the time that these religious claims to the moral high ground were and are based in prejudices against people of other ethnicities, races, religious beliefs, women, and gays and lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. I found and still find the “born again” religious belief system abhorrent because it is divisive. It is founded on the basic tenant, “Unless you believe like me, you are going to hell.” And, that belief system has another principle at its core, that the Bible is a book written by God, and the evangelical interpretation of the good book is the only possible interpretation. Among the corollaries to this belief is the notion that God has human characteristics, that he can be like a parent and punish us when we are wrong. Unfortunately, that belief leads to all sorts of bizarre interpretation of current events. For instance, many evangelicals believe to this day that God punished us on 9/11/01 because of “deviant sexualities.” It is pathetic that such rabid and prejudicial projection of evil from within a faith that professes to be on the moral high ground is tolerated and accepted by millions of its followers much less anyone else. Additionally to define such as “high ground morals” is not only absurd, but also a freightening retreat from reality.

Stay tuned to this station, there’s more to come on this subject during the next week.

* Aaron M. Bernstein,” Where does the donkey come from?” The Liberal at Large, http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3470/liberal.html, June 1999, Saturday, November 13, 2004, 10:41 AM EST.
* 2 Carla Marinucci, “In postmortem of Kerry bid, Dems seek clues to new life, San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, Sunday, November 7, 2004. Saturday, November 13, 2004, 10:43 AM EST.


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