Extra ARGH

From the article to which Paul links, below:

"He's a man of character," said Cheryl Cheyney, a school bus driver from Cumming, Ga., and a Republican. "He's very honest in the things he says. I agree with his belief system, the way he believes in God and is not afraid to show it. That's very important to me."

This is what will always irritate me about conservative Christians who adore Bush. They genuinely don’t seem to care that he constantly behaves in unchristian ways. They genuinely don’t seem to care that he doesn’t even attend church regularly. Their biggest concern seems to be that he “isn’t afraid to show” that he believes in God, which isn’t even an honest claim; he isn’t afraid to say he believes in God. He, in reality, does precious little to show it.

And here’s my question for Cheryl Cheyney and those who share her sentiment: John Kerry said he believes in God (and attends church more frequently than the president), and didn’t seem afraid to say it; so what’s the difference? Every friggin’ president we’ve ever had has been a Christian believer in God (and not afraid to say it). So what makes this guy so different? Isn’t it really that he’s willing to push a very particular Christian agenda down the nation’s collective throat? Isn’t it that he espouses (if not overtly, then through his policy endorsements) a superiority of that particular Christian doctrine over other Christian beliefs, other religions, agnosticism, and atheism? Isn’t it his willingness to subjugate science, reason, the rule of law, fairness, justice, and equality to give ever greater rights to your existing majority, while indulging your screeching assertions of victimhood?

That doesn’t make him a man of character; it makes him a bully. And about as un-Christ-like as I can imagine.

If that’s important to you, then you’ve no understanding what it means to be either a Christian or an American.