Now it’s Mitt Romney’s turn to jump on the Santorum bandwagon and blast Obama’s religious beliefs. From the looks of it one would think that these clowns are running for the priesthood instead of public office, with the hope of being the Republican nominee for the presidential election.
By the way, what exactly is it that is wrong with being secular? Oh yes, I almost forgot, religious people actually feel they are superior to non-religious people. These God-freaks seem to have convinced themselves that they are enlightened, as if they have somehow attained some higher level of being than those of us who don’t believe the superstitious nonsense and fairy tales that religions promote. It’s OK, they can keep dreaming, just as long as their dreams don’t invade our government.
Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum must not forget that we have a separation of Church and State in this country; our Founding Fathers made sure of that. TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
By KASIE HUNT | Associated Press
SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s administration has “fought against religion” and sought to substitute a “secular” agenda for one grounded in faith.
Obama’s campaign seized on the characterization, calling Romney’s comments “disgraceful.”
Romney rarely ventures into social issues in his campaign speeches, but people participating in a town hall-style meeting one week before the Michigan primary asked how he would protect religious liberty.
“Unfortunately, possibly because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda — they have fought against religion,” Romney said.
The Obama campaign linked Romney’s remarks to recent comments by rival Rick Santorum, who has referred to Obama holding a “phony theology” only to say later that he wasn’t attacking Obama’s faith but the president’s environmental views.
“These ugly and misleading attacks have no place in the campaign and they provide a very clear contrast with what President Obama is talking about: how to restore economic security for the middle class and create jobs,” said Lis Smith, an Obama campaign spokeswoman.
Religious liberty has been a leading topic in recent weeks because of the Obama administration’s mandate that insurance companies provide free birth control even to people employed by church-affiliated organizations, including schools and hospitals. Opponents frame the debate as one of religious liberty while proponents of the mandate say it’s about women’s health and access to contraception.
Romney hasn’t faced voters or reporters very often since Santorum’s surge and the rise of social issues in the campaign, largely avoiding questions on the subject. But he’s clearly focused on the conservative Republican base that’s still skeptical of him, calling himself “severely conservative” during a speech to activists in Washington earlier this month. And his lengthy, detailed answer Tuesday on religious liberty showed clear attention to the issue.
Romney implicitly invoked his own Mormon faith, also rare for the former Massachusetts governor. He said Tuesday that he cares about the issue because he is “someone who has understood very personally the significance of religious tolerance.”
He also took questions on gay marriage, Supreme Court appointments and abortion — and when asked about whom he might select as his vice presidential running mate, he listed “pro-life” as the first credential he would look for.
Romney faces an unexpectedly difficult fight in Michigan, his native state and a place where his advisers had long assumed he could do well. He’s facing a tough challenge from Santorum, who has excited the GOP base with strong anti-abortion rhetoric and appeals to blue-collar voters.
“I care about Michigan. This is personal for me,” Romney said.
The former Massachusetts governor has stepped his attacks on Santorum in recent days. On Tuesday he argued that tea party voters should prefer him over the former Pennsylvania senator — a renewed focus on the fiscally conservative voters who identify with those groups.
“I think the tea party would find it very interesting that Rick Santorum voted to raise the debt ceiling five times without getting compensating reductions in spending,” Romney said, echoing the negative campaign ads his campaign and their wealthy allies are airing in the state.
Michigan’s GOP primary electorate has grown increasingly conservative in recent years. Tea party voters played a key role in the 2010 midterm elections, and local tea party groups are still active.
When one questioner at Romney’s town hall stood and introduced himself as someone from the tea party, the crowd cheered.
Romney’s focus on those voters shows in his schedule. He’s set to address a coalition of tea party groups Thursday in Milford — a rarity for the former venture capitalist, who normally holds events at local businesses. Romney has scheduled just one or two public events per day in recent weeks.
Organizers said Romney, who accepted the invitation last week, will take questions from the crowd. Wes Nakagiri, the chairman of the tea party group, RetakeOurGov, that is hosting the event, said many of the group’s members want to “root for the hometown boy” but that most would “prefer somebody else.”
“The favored son helps if you are a longtime establishment Republican, knew his father,” Nakagiri said. “But it’s not going to be the same with people that are newly motivated to get into the process. Tea party people that have gotten into the process in the last two years don’t have those relationships and are focused on policy.”
There are signs that Romney’s campaign has stepped up its outreach to the GOP establishment in the state, a group that he’s counting on in the Feb. 28 primary.
After Santorum won contests in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, tickets for the Oakland County Lincoln Day Dinner — he was already booked as the keynote speaker — skyrocketed, according to Jim Thienel, the chairman. Romney’s campaign hadn’t responded to the party’s earlier request to have him address the dinner.
After the Santorum victories, Romney’s campaign called to say his wife, Ann, would be glad to attend. She spoke, too. Romney grew up in Bloomfield Hills, which is in Oakland County.
Romney himself has shown confidence that he’ll win in Michigan. When asked in interviews earlier this week what would happened if he lost, Romney said, “That won’t happen.”
Still, supporters are trying to scale back expectations. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette introduced Romney at his Tuesday town hall as “The Comeback Kid.”
“We’ve got a barn burner of a campaign right now here in Michigan,” Schuette said, “and Mitt Romney is fighting like an underdog.”
Romney left Michigan for Arizona, where he’s set to debate his GOP rivals Wednesday night. Arizona also holds its primary Feb. 28. Then he will return to Michigan on Friday to deliver a major economic speech at Ford Field, the NFL football stadium in downtown Detroit.
Romney said Tuesday he’ll use the speech to outline his economic plan. He said he will have details on a plan for tax policy, cutting spending and adjusting entitlement programs.
Even with all the logical wisdom that GhostRider is endowed with, I will never understand why with some humans, the belief that a divine entity exists, or the belief that no such entity exists, infects their brains, or minds, to the point that they become obsessed with that belief – and become “Looney Tunes” – but such is reality. My suggestion to all the religious rads and atheists alike, is chill, baby. Taking a vacation – about six days out of the week – from their beliefs will keep them saner. That said; let me move on with my wisdom of logic:
It does seem logical that when a nation is created – especially one imbued with a democratic ideology – that maybe at some point in the distant future – 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 hundred years later – that said nation may consist of people who want the nation differently. It also seems logical that in a nation of democratic ideology, those changes will take place, period, due to the dynamics of the mind set of the majority of its people in any given century. When it comes to “change”, it has always been that way and will always be that way and no constitution in the entire universe, will ever stop future generations from changing it to the way they want it now – not hundreds of years ago. If one day our nation decides – and by one day I don’t mean over night but in the course of hundreds of years – that instead of a secular person with the title of President of the USA, they wish to have a man with a pointy hat and call him, The USA Pope, so be it. It is what it is, and rightly so, in a democracy.
Using that logic we move on to our Constitution, as it stands right now – and many generations that have lived in the last 200yrs have in fact, created changes – and the issue of, “a separation of Church and State.” The degree of separation mandated by any constitution varies from total separation, to an official religion with total prohibition of the practice of any other religion, as in the Maldives.
The phrase “separation of church and state” itself does not appear in the United States Constitution. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, and as far as I know, no Congress has made an attempt to do either since. Our own Supreme Court did not even consider the question of how this applied to the states until 1947; when they did, in Everson v. Board of Education, all nine justices agreed that there was a wall of separation between church and state, but a majority held that the present case (a local authority paying to transport parochial students to school), the benefits to the children outweighed the Constitutional objection.
I’ll once again use logic to look at what was it exactly, that our Founding Fathers were trying to make sure of:
The phrase “separation of church and state” is derived from a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to Baptists from Danbury, Connecticut, and published in a Massachusetts newspaper soon thereafter. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
James Madison, the principal drafter of the United States Bill of Rights, contended, “Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States, practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.” In a letter to Edward Livingston, Madison further expanded, “We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt.” This attitude is further reflected in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, originally authored by Jefferson and championed by Madison.
My logic tells me – btw, don’t get hung up on the use of the word “logic”…if I used “common sense”, “intellect”, or even “healthy brain cells”, nothing would change – that our Founding Fathers were trying to make sure of that future leaders who believed that no divine entity exists, would not try to oppress the rights of the people and their faith and beliefs that a divine entity does indeed exist.
-GhostRider Wisdom…that’s my story and I’m sticking to it
GhostRider, thanks for your eloquent discourse. I happen to agree with everything you stated and in fact I’ve read the documents you reference. I just want to make one thing clear from my perspective…
If the people of this country, and more importantly, the religious institutions in this country, want to be involved in government (at any or all levels) I have absolutely no problem with it. Notice I emphasize ‘the religious institutions in this country’ because it is they who dictate to the herd, it is they who instill the fear of God in them and so manipulate them into “believing.” It is also they who have lobbyists working day and night to push their agenda into government programs and policies.
My “beef” with it all, and it’s a BIG one, is that none of these religious institutions pay taxes!!! None, zero, not one; and I find this to be appalling!
We hear over and over of our deficit; about how our country’s international rating (credit) was downgraded, about how much money the freaking Chinese are lending us and how much interest we’re paying them on those loans. In the meantime, religions take in trillions of dollars each year. In fact, religions collectively are the biggest, most profitable business in the United States, yet they don’t pay one cent in taxes! None, zero, not one! With the trillions of dollars that religions take in, if they were forced (just like every other schmuck and business in this country is forced) to pay taxes, we could eliminate the deficit in 5 years! We would be solvent as a nation and maybe then the average citizen and business owner wouldn’t have their taxes raised every year while church leaders live in the lap of luxury; many with other people’s children on their laps.
It is important to note that no one wants the separation of Church and State more so than religious institutions; for obvious reasons, as they’ve been having their cake and eating too for over 200 years. And ironically, this precedent was solidified in that letter you referenced that Thomas Jefferson sent to the Baptists of Danbury, back in 1802.
In closing, it shouldn’t be both ways. Religious institutions, and the maggots who lead them, need to either stay the fuck out of government or pay taxes just like everyone else: PERIOD.
Now there is some logical wisdom and common sense.
And there is some logical wisdom and common sense at work here. In the past, the serfs paid taxes to the kings. In the present, the serfs pay taxes to the kings. We are the serfs and our kings are…well, remove all serfs away and what you are left with are the kings – whether they are in the form of religious institutions, business corporations, millionaires, billionaires, governments, savvy business people, they are the kings. Tell the kings to pay their fair share of the taxes. Good Luck!