Sharia By Any Other Name

It's no secret that certain individuals would love it if the U.S. took over Canada and her natural resources and turned the whole shebang into a Christocracy. When I began writing about such people many years ago, their opinions were considered so far off to the right fringe that they inspired satire and ridicule. However, today holds a different reality. People like Fred Phelps are still generally considered wackjobs, but folks like Bryan Fischer carry an air of credibility; their soft speech and businesslike demeanor luring in otherwise reasonable folks.

It has no longer become an outsider view to wish your religious will become the laws of the nation, with the Bible's codes reigning over the people in the same manner that the Qu'ran does in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Recently, AFA Director Bryan Fischer made a few more public statements as to the true aims of what his organization sees for the future of Greater America. In the clip below, he cites penalties issued for conduct violations by private enterprises in a call to make blaspheming against God an enforceable crime.



Following this, he posted a tweet that also demands the prosecution of adulterers and fornicators in an effort to punish pornographers:

How to shut down porn industry: pass, enforce laws against fornication, adultery. Every scene = all the photographic proof you need.7:48 AM May 28th via HootSuiteRetweeted by 17 people

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Bryan Fischer

It also comes as no shock that Mr. Fischer and like-minded folks earn their living attempting to enact laws punishing private behavior, or at least tying up state and federal legislative bodies so that nothing else can be done until ridiculous cases can be heard. There are dozens of bills on floors right now that seek to ban or restrict abortion, the rights of gays to adopt, and the forced inclusion of Creationism into public schools. The Texas Republican Party's platform spends much of its pages detailing the ways in which it seeks to punish homosexuals (incarceration and removal of rights), abortion providers, divorcees, the disabled, scientists, and those who even look at porn. (READ IT HERE) Louisiana and Tennessee have already put creationism into schools. Most school districts are too terrified of the Church to teach kids about sexual health- knowledge of which has been proven to reduce the number of sexually-transmitted infections, abortions, suicides, teen pregnancies, and dropouts. The Christian right makes no bones about the fact that they are after your children, and will stop at nothing until they know that their only worth as human beings is as soldiers in an army of a God that is cruel, judgmental, and always watching.

It's really no wonder that our kids today are confused, but it's not just our young folks. Religion and racism have infiltrated politics to such a point that Republicans are questioning whether they can run a Mormon candidate or whether one's Syrian or Indian heritage is acceptable. It's no longer okay to be a moderate- you have to be a raging, homophobic Christianist bigot to be a success in today's political word, lest you be seen as soft or insulting to the beliefs of your base.  Fear of the powerful religious lobbies is the reason why "one nation, under god" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, why we have a National Day of Prayer, and why John McCain doesn't even sound like the same dude as the one we saw 5 years ago. Religious fundamentalism is real, and it threatens to tear an entire continent apart.

When it comes to religious fighting, this may be what comes to mind.

However, the war at home is not as cut and dry. It's not about oil or territorial expansion; it's fought with handshakes and backroom payoffs versus guns. It's a war where children are trained for battle before they can learn to speak and where battle lines are often drawn across the kitchen table. This war is about whether or not the Constitutions and Charters that two good nations were founded upon really do matter. The state is not supposed to establish religion. We have young people fighting and dying in foreign lands because of just how oppressive and brutal religion is when it becomes intertwined with the law. If every pine box flown home is not a reminder of what can go wrong with a secular nation when religious fundamentalism takes over, we may as well hand Bryan Fischer his crown.

Sharia by any other name is still the same.

And Jesus said: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father,  a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 
  a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household."