PURE GOLD: Texas, Church and State.

Now all these attributes come together in this full moon phase, with a fifth of Texans committed to the Tea Party, and with Gov. Rick Perry winning the GOP nomination over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was deemed too liberal! Icing on the cake for right-wing extremists was the 18 per cent vote for a third primary candidate, Debra Medina, darling of the Tea Party gang, who, among other things, suggested the U.S. Government may have caused the 9/11 disasters.

 

Lost in the current full moon picture were those Texans who believed government should serve those most in need. That would include Lyndon Johnson, who failed in foreign policy, notably Vietnam, but who led the struggle for civil rights and Medicare. Then, of course, there was a breath of fresh air when Ann Richards served as governor. She brought with her a dedication to social justice and a great sense of humor, rarely seen in contemporary Texas. But she only served one term, succeeded by Bush-11 in 1995, and it's been downhill ever since.

 

Perry must have struck a friendly chord when he reminded Texans of their former sovereignty as a republic from 1836 to 1845, at which point Texas joined the U.S. as its 28th state.

 

In his successful primary effort he suggested that Texans might be fed up enough with the federal government and that secession could become an option. Properly calling Texas "a very unique place,” he blamed Obama for "strangling America with taxation, spending and debt."

 

Then it was time for the Texas Board of Education, solidly controlled by the far right, to suggest textbook revisions, in effect rewriting American history.

 

Claiming they were adding "balance" to curriculum standards, they had nice things to say about McCarthyism, about the conservative resurgence in the "80’s and '90's, about the anti-choice, anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, and the National Rifle Assn., among other right-wing darlings.

 

Their attitude on race prompted one minority member of the board to charge the majority with pretending "this is white America and Hispanics don’t exist."

 

But the most frightening action by the board concerned the nation’s religious history. The board insisted that the Founding Fathers were really devout Christians who did not favor separation of church and state, in sharp contradiction to what the Founding Fathers actually said or wrote. The board almost dismissed Jefferson as a Founding Father, despite the fact that he authored the Declaration of Independence. In fact, when Jefferson fought for religious freedom in the Virginia legislature, he specifically opposed   including Jesus in the document. The legislature, he asserted, wanted to show "proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jews and Gentiles, the Christians and Mohammedans, the Hindus and the Infidels of every denomination." He also said of religion: "It does no injury for my neighbors to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket or breaks my leg."

 

Tom Paine, while not a Founding Father but a leading pamphleteer for independence, was critical of all religions, noting that "each of these churches accuse the other of unbelief, and for my part, I disbelieve them all."

 

But James Madison, our fourth president, who led the struggle to produce our Constitution, was a strong voice for separation of church and state as suggested in the first amendment. He had some sharp words about church influence. He once said; "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." Hardly a vote for a Christian America!

 

John Adams, our second president, was even blunter. He found among the clergy "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces." And it was during his administration that the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which included "that the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

 

Washington, the father of the country, never declared himself a Christian, according to the historian, Steven Morris, writing in the blog Free Inquiry. Morris added: "If anything he supported the cause of freedom for religious tolerance."

 

Finally, Ben Franklin, a leader at the independence and Constitutional conventions, appeared to take a deist position on religion. He questioned the divinity of Jesus, but humored that he would not "busy himself with it now when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble."

              

Perhaps some day the full moon will fade away and Texans will tell it like it is. But don’t hold your breath.