( OT ) American Wahabbis and the Ten Commandments
 

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dail..._wahabbis.html

Extract

Whether the Ten Commandments, graven in stone, sit on a lawn by a
government building or in a courthouse, isn't for me exactly a
life-and-death issue -- and I think I'm not alone on this, which is why
the Ten Commandments cases at the Supreme Court right now are so
dangerous. The Bush administration and its various fundamentalist allies
(religious and political) have proven especially skilled at finding
wedge issues that, because they only seem to go so far, successfully
challenge and blur previous distinctions, thereby opening yet more
possibilities. The Supreme Court's decision in these particular cases
holds great promise for further blurring the lines that once separated
church and state in our country.

We're in a period, of course, when lines of every sort, involving civil
rights, privacy, foreign and domestic spying, presidential power,
Congressional rules, the checks-and-balances that once were such a proud
part of our political system, and so many other matters are blurring
radically. We also have a President who is in the process of casting off
the constraints of any presidency, while placing religion with powerful
emphasis at the very center of Washington's new political culture. He is
now adored, if not essentially worshipped, by his followers as he
travels the country dropping in at carefully vetted "town meetings"; and
the adoration is often not just of him as a political leader but as a
religious one, as a manifestation of God's design for us. It's in this
context that the modest Ten Commandments cases are being heard; in the
context, that is, of the destruction of what's left of an authentic
American republican (rather than Republican) culture.

(This is th "I am a uniter, not a divider" president)