Germany's National Socialist Party took a sacred religious symbol, the swastika and turned it forever more into a symbol of fear and, more importantly, the triumph of all that is bad in human nature over all that is good. American conservatives are now doing the same with the cross.
This week alone, as we celebrate the 230th Birthday of the United States of America, the cross has become a centerpiece for hatred, bigotry and betrayal of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
Our very own Supreme Court, now little more than a White House stooge, overturned a lower court ruling and allowed the maintenance of a giant cross on public property, a memorial to American soldiers fallen in war, clearly placing one religion over all others under the protection of our own government, dishonoring non-Christian Americans who gave their lives for this democracy.
A church in Tennessee will unveil a 75-foot tall desecrated Statue of Liberty today, replacing the light of liberty, her torch, with a cross, declaring that America is no longer a nation of hope and freedom, it is a nation of Christian dictatorship. (Video)
And in what may be the first such incident in American history, a cross was burned at the home of a 23-year-old gay man in Athens, Tennessee. The police are investigating the incident as a "possible" hate crime.
The fact that American Christians have yet to rise up in fury and with a uniform voice condemn the forces that conspire to destroy our nation and hijack a religion that once stood for love, mercy and compassion is appalling.
The joke is wearing thin, but it remains important to remember that a Democratic president was impeached by Congress for an attempt to hide an act of marital infidelity from his family, but a Republican president who has shredded his oath and routinely betrays the Constitution and the Bill of Rights sits smugly in the oval office claiming to have Jesus at his side, while his followers little by little turn this nation into a cesspool of bigotry and ignorance.
We have little to be proud of today and little to celebrate. We have much to be ashamed of and much to lament on this day when we are supposed to be honoring the Declaration of Independence and the birth of a great democracy that was founded to protect, celebrate and honor individual rights, minority rights and freedom from religious, intellectual and physical persecution.
Today, true patriots, true Americans will mourn, not celebrate.
If mankind is to survive and excel, religion must conform to the standards of democratic principles and basic human rights and any religion that puts itself above democratic principles and basic human rights must be relegated to the garbage heap of history. And any religious authority, man or women, priest, Pope, Rabbi, Imam, preacher or pastor who claims to speak for some imaginary supernatural being who demands that human rights be cast aside in the name of some superstitious drivel should be seen as no less an enemy of humanity than an Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden
The limitation on Free Speech is the advocacy of violence and murder. The limitation on Freedom of Religion is the advocacy of oppression, persecution and bigotry.
On this July 4, 2006, as the fireworks rocket into the sky, think of them more as a rescue flare sent up by a sinking ship than a celebration of freedom, liberty and justice for all.
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