The Stopped Clock

(Clock image by simpologist.)

One of the more interesting phenomena of the past few months has been watching the unheralded rise of Ron Paul among those Republicans and libertarians who are OK with most of the current de facto GOP platform (especially that bit of catering to bigotry known as “the Southern Strategy“) but want out of Iraq. These people, who used to be comfy with the racist and anti-Semitic isolationist Pat Buchanan, have now latched onto Ron Paul and are trying to get him elected president.

Ron Paul is touted as being very “pro-Constitution” and “pro-states’ rights”. Except that he isn’t — at least, not where religion, family planning and marriage are concerned (emphases mine):

According to Ron Paul himself (via Brent Rasmussen)

Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view. The justification is always that someone, somewhere, might possibly be offended or feel uncomfortable living in the midst of a largely Christian society, so all must yield to the fragile sensibilities of the few.

It should be noted right at the beginning that Ron Paul consistently decries “secularism” and “secularists,” though he more often uses the label “secular Left.” This, perhaps more than many of his arguments, makes it clear where stands: squarely and unambiguously against a secular government, secular laws, and a secular America. This helps put him in the same camp as the extremist Christian Right.

The second thing to note is that there isn’t a single word in the above that’s true. Ron Paul is employing a falsehood which has been very popular with theocrats of the Christian Right who seek to deceive voters about what secularism is and what the separation of church & state is all about. Ron Paul has either been duped by those deceivers, or he knows better yet is actively participating in the deception.

No one has launched any court cases seeking to drive religion “from public view.” There have been no organized efforts to prevent people from promoting religion in public, from having religious images on their front lawns, or engaging in religious evangelism in the community. What’s actually been happening is that people have tried to stop the “public,” which is to say public funds and institutions, from promoting, supporting, or endorsing the religion of just some of the citizens. Usually those offering dishonest claims about this rely upon ambiguity in the word “public” (in public view vs. publicly funded), but Ron Paul doesn’t even do this — his is an unambiguously false claim.