Read a book, Laura

Just a quick note about something I saw on TeeVee last night that mnade me hurl.

Ann and I were watching the last few minutes of a "CNN Presents" about "The Mission of George W. Bush," and it seems we tuned in just in time to hear a whole pant-load about W's religious awakenings, including the clip from the 2000 primary debates when he said his favorite philosopher was "Christ, because he changed my heart."

As if seeing that again was not enough to gag me, in the last few minutes of last nights program, there was some footage from an interview with the First Librarian, Laura Bush, who made the statement that "the Bill of Rights says that our rights come from our Creator...."

WRONG Laura! The Bill of Rights says NOTHING about a "Creator."

The word "Creator" does appear in the Declaration of Independence, in that famous clause from the preamble that says we are "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights," etc etc. But that's the Declaration of Independence, which pre-dates the Constitution by more than a decade, and holds no force of law in our Republic.

The only thing the Constitution or the Bill or Rights says about God, a Creator, or religion is the part where it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

It is precisely this kind of confusion -- between Jefferson's well meaning use of the word "Creator" in the Declaration and its absence in the Bill of Rights -- that explains how these self-righteous evangelicals can justify their insertion of religion into America's political discourse.

It would not surprise me to hear this kind of distortion come from the lips George, but I thought Laura was the one in the family who could read.

--PS

Comments

[Marla Stevens]

Not to mention that Mr. Jefferson's use of "Creator" is the Enlightenment version, which is light years from Mrs. Shrub's espousedly primitive fundie one.