My God Bless America

I want to hand it to Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey of the great state of Tennessee for finally telling us Tennesseans the truth about Islam—it isn’t a religion at all, it is a cult.

At a campaign stop in Chattanooga the Lt. Governor said that “he’s all about freedom of religion,” but one “could even argue whether that being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult or whatever you want to call it”. Damn straight! Islam isn’t a religion, and because it isn’t a religion it merits no protection under the First Amendment. Amen Brother Ramsey!

Of course by his definition Judaism isn’t a religion either. And neither is Evangelical Christianity or Catholicism, both of which want to convert the world and bring it under their respective life stytles and laws. A religion, the Lt. Governor seems to be saying, is a private affair between people and their god, and no religious institution should seek to bring the larger world under its influence or jurisdiction. Amen to that, too.

Like the Lt. Governor, I don’t want to live under Sharia (Islamic Law) or halachah (Jewish law). And I don’t want one Christian sect or another deciding for the rest of us what we can read, or learn in science or history classrooms. I certainly don’t want any religion deciding for nonbelievers and otherbelievers whom we can marry, or to restrict nonmembers from gaining access to medical services or contraceptives or morning after pills because such access violates that religion’s moral sensitivities. I don’t want some religious group determining what sciences to fund, what clothes we can wear, and what television shows we can watch. If they want to impose rules on their members, fine. But if I choose not to be a member, they should not be allowed to force me to live by their rules.

Honestly, Ron Ramsey’s got my vote. Anyone whose got the guts to deny religious status to any religion that seeks to impose its will on the rest of society has what it takes to be governor of one of the fattest and stupidest states in the Union. (Though as rival gubernatorial candidate Zach Wamp seems to have suggested—and when challenged ultimately denied ever suggesting it—we Tennesseans may well secede from the Union if Obama’s healthcare bill isn’t repealed.)

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t care what Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, or Rastafarians do in the privacy of their religious institutions and homes, but when they walk on the streets of America they should dress and eat and act like Americans. Real Americans not those faux Americans in Boston, New York City, or San Francisco, but real overweight and undereducated Americans who never met a sausage we couldn’t eat; those Americans who know in their ever expanding guts that the greatest threat to the greatest nation that ever was is freedom and we ain’t gonna have no truck with that. My God bless America.