The Workday Liberal

Holy moly... prove the immorality of a Republican leader and watch their heads essplode. The most recent example can be found at Raw Story. They have the transcript of an interview by Kyra Phillips of Tom Minnery, who is vice toady mouthpiece for holier than thou pontification (otherwise known as Vice President of Public Policy) for Focus on the Family. Here are some of my favorite quotes by Mr. Minnery:

Well, I think Anne has it wrong when she says that homosexuality is something that is regarded as shameful in Washington. I think that, more and more, homosexuality is something that liberal politicians and the Hollywood set prizes. And I suspect that may be why the Republican leadership did not act faster to clamp down on Mark Foley. They didn't want to be subjected to the complaints that they're homophobic, they're bigoted, such as a lot of us are every day. That hurts after a while, and I suspect that plays into this.

How one person can fit all the misconceptions into one paragraph is simply amazing. I love the way that Minnery manages to blame the gays for Hastert and his crowd not correcting Foley. We all know how beholden Republican House members are to the homosexual agenda! When will the oppression of our poor straight Republican lawmakers come to an end?

Here is a priceless Minneryism:

...The other half is the bottom-up view, how people view their own congressmen or their own congresswomen is very significant.

Now I'm certain in Minnery's innocent little brain there is nothing untoward in discussing the voters looking at their congressmen's from the bottom up. In the context of the Foley scandal however I think it is positively hilarious! I know I'm crass but I couldn't help myself... If you need to have the reasons for the mirth explained to you just go pull the lever for your local Republican bootlicker and congratulate yourself on your superiority to the rest of the nation.

Here is where Minnery displays a breathtaking lack of historical perspective:

I think I would say we wish that all people would abide by the historic moral standards of Western civilization, which come to us from the Bible. That would be better for a whole lot of people regardless of whether they buy into the teachings of Jesus Christ or not. Western morality has served us well, and I hope it will continue to do so.

Historic Western Civilization comes from the Bible? In case Minnery doesn't understand this, he is not a spokestoad for the vatican. If Minnery understood the morality of the times during the rise of the 1st great democracies he would be shocked and appalled. Ancient Greece was as close as can be imagined to a literal den of iniquity. Ancient Rome is still legendary for it's hedonistic excess. Even the example provided by Minnery of civilizations passed to us from biblical precedent offer many horrendous examples of immorality and evil. The children of Israel routinely acted like genocidal maniacs with Gods blessing. Biblical precepts explicitly allow slavery and bigamy. Eight of the Ten Commandments if passed into law would be judged blatantly unconstitutional with only the prohibition on murder and stealing passing the smell test.

Indeed western liberal democratic principles have benefited America greatly, and that benefit was mightily enhanced by the separation of church and state. Theocracy might sound like a great idea to Minnery, but our founding fathers were wise enough to give us protection from that form of government.