One prime example is what I recently wrote about, where the male hierarchy of the Catholic Church has told the American nuns that they should spend less time working for the poor and the sick and more time protesting against abortion and gay marriage. Jesus's teachings are quite clear: he said feed the hungry, take care of the sick, treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated. He said nothing about abortion or about gay rights or keeping out immigrants.
Now Mormon Mitt Romney has been chastised by fellow Mormon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid says he agrees with Gregory Prince, a Mormon and former Romney supporter, who has written:
"His arrogant and out-of-hand dismissal of half the population of this country struck me at a visceral level, for it sullied the religion that he and I share -- the religion for which five generations of my ancestry have lived and sacrificed, the religion whose official mantra is 'to take care of the poor and needy throughout the world. . . My first impulse was to rent an airplane towing a banner: 'Mitt Romney is Not the Face of Mormonism!'"This of course also applies across the board to most Christian fundamentalist politicians and their voters. They selectively choose the "social values" that suit them (anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-Muslim rights, anti-immigrant, selfishness, greed) and somehow they lose track of the more basic human values of Chrisitianity (kindness, love, charity, respect, sharing, cooperation, community). When you really look at Jesus's teachings about how to treat others, they are far closer to the social network of the Democrats than to the market-place competition and you're-on-your-own individualism of the Republicans."
So how did the Republicans capture the "religious right" vote? Where did the liberal religious activists of the civil rights era disappear to?
Ralph
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