So You Don’t Believe The Fight To Save Terri Schiavo Isn’t About Politics?

While the House and Senate were trying to decide what to do about removing the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo on Friday March 18, 2005, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay spoke about this in a speech he delivered to the Conservative and Religious Based “Family Research Council”.

Delay’s speech was supposed to be private. No recording devices. But it didn’t quite happen that way.

One or more members of “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” managed to make their way into this meeting with a surreptitious recording device.

Before I continue, for those of you who do not know, the position of House Majority Leader places him at the top of the political food-chain. So what he has to say carries enormous significance.

HERE IS PART OF WHAT TOM DELAY HAD TO SAY:

“I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, one thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what’s going on in America”.

Isn’t it remarkable that one of the most powerful men in American politics believes that God gave them Terri Schiavo and her horrible suffering so that his Religious Right can make a point?

DELAY WENT ON TO SAY:

“This is exactly the kind of issue that’s going on in America, that attacks against the conservative moment, against me and against many others”.

So now it’s no longer about just the suffering of Terri Schiavo and the people around her. Now it’s about Tom Delay and his Religious Faith Based Constituents.

EVEN MORE FRIGHTENING – DELAY SAID:

“You know, one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon Johnson, who passed a law that said you couldn’t get in politics or you’re going to lose your tax-exempt status, because they were all opposed to him when he was running for President. That law we’re trying to repeal”.

For all the people who like the idea that there is a separation between Church and State, they have to hear (read) what Delay said to understand the true agenda of Faith Based Conservatives.

Tom Delay could not have said it any more clearly.

DELAY CONCLUDED HIS SPEECH WITH:

“We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass”.

What do you think Tom Delay meant in his closing statement?

I have long argued that what is happening to Terri Schiavo has far more to do with the Religious Right and Faith Based Politics than it has to do with the well-being of this poor woman.

And if there was any doubt whatsoever, Tom Delay has removed it.

I have been inundated with e-mails pro and con my editorials. Many people have sent me viewpoints expressed by members of the Christian Clergy and a Rabbi. So what?

What makes their opinions on what should happen to Terri Schiavo any more relevant than mine or yours? Do they know something we don’t? They pretend they do. But they don’t.

As I have forcefully written in the past, nothing scares me as much as Religious Zealots in government (regardless the religion). Churches, Temples and Mosques have been the single largest reason for intentional man-made world suffering than any other force on this planet.

Even in Israel where there is a hint for some kind of peace between the Palestinians and Israeli Jews, it is the Faith Based Moslems and the Fundamentalist Jews who are prepared to lay the Middle East to waste instead of finding a way of living in peace.

In one of my last editorials, I compared the American Religious Right to fundamentalist Moslem Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas; for which I received no shortage of hate-mail. But I stand by what I wrote.

The only difference between Fundamentalist Religious Groups is the Deity in which they believe. And in each and every one of their minds, it is ONLY their God who is the REAL God.

And people who want to live by the “WORD” of their God in a society where there is no separation between Church and State expect everyone around them to live the same way.

I will conclude with Tom Delay’s closing statement in his Friday speech to the Faith Based Family Research Council:

“We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass”.

If that doesn’t send shivers up your spine. Nothing else will.