Religious Wars among the Republicans
Just when you thought things could not get any crazier, they do. Since the 1970s, the Republican Right has sought to build a “united front” of conservative religionists on a variety of issues—opposition to women’s reproductive rights/pregnancy terminations; opposition to the civil and human rights of gay men and lesbians aka clerically sanctioned homophobia; opposition to and distortion of one of the pillars of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights—separation of Church and State. But the religious “united front” is beginning to crack in very strange ways
First we have Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon. Conservative Christians in the 19th century rejected the view that Mormons were really Christians and some, like the son of the Reverend Billy
Graham has repeated those views recently. A Mormon in the White House may not be acceptable as we close in on the end times, some true believers think.
If we remained committed to separation of Church and State, (which the religious right tells us is a secular humanist trick) this of course wouldn’t be an issue. After all, who are we to judge whether or not Mormons are “true Christians?” But the sons of Falwell and Robertson have updated the old Christian dictum “judge not, lest ye be judged” to make it market and media friendly “judge first, before you are judged.”
As a Marxist materialist historian, let me digress to tell you what I learned a long time ago from a non Marxist materialist historian when I was in college concerning the Mormons. With the great religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, their holy works, written thousands of years ago, can be seen in context and believed in as a matter of faith. If you read the Book of Mormon, you can also take that on faith—but scholars of those ancient languages can show that the names revealed to Joseph Smith are philologically false (meaning that Smith consciously invented them, or they were result of his delusions, or the Angel who gave him the Golden Tablets was a con Angel).
Also the Mormons, after facing real persecution in their Middle West settlements because of their cult like organization and practice of polygamy, went west and eventually hit it lucky in Utah. There they established what any Marxist would tell you is necessary for any ideology/theology—an economic base.
After the civil war, their theological leaders jettisoned polygamy to enter the union, which angered many followers (including Romney’s great grandparents left to become part of a polygamous Mormon colony established in Mexico).
Over time the Mormons in Utah and surrounding areas became the epitome of conservative interpretations of the “protestant ethic” building successful business networks, funding their church, and supporting in the majority conservative economic and political policies. J. Edgar Hoover, whom no one ever called a polygamist, found it useful to recruit Mormons into the FBI.
Romney though is under attack by the evangelicals in the South, even though his great success as a venture/vulture capitalist should make him a poster boy to what has been the ecumenical theology of the Republican right—profit by all means necessary.
Then there is Rick Santorum, trying to serve as the voice of rightwing Roman Catholicism and leader of the new right religious united front in the U.S. And so far, Santorum seems to be succeeding
But will him in the long run. The rightwing Christians that Santorum is courting have been historically anti-Catholic and for that matter anti-Semitic. In the “good old days” of the 1920s, when fundamentalists were riding high, they burned crosses in front of Catholic Churches, terrorized some priests and more importantly practiced discrimination and sometimes used violence against Catholics trying to buy homes or engage in business in their bailiwicks. When Al Smith ran for President in 1928, for example, they ran wild with cartoons of evil Jesuits crossing the Atlantic in a tunnel that led straight from the Vatican to the White House today, they are voting for Santorum to stop Romney
Maybe racism is more important than Santorum’s call for a religious united front to these rightwing Protestant. Generally they identified Catholics and Jews, particularly from Southern and Eastern Europe, as enemies of the “American Way of Life” and instituted racist immigration quotas to keep them out of the U.S. in the National Origins Act of 1924.
Santorum in Arizona recently captured the spirit of those times when he came out for the expulsion of illegal immigrants, even if it meant breaking up families. He knew, he said, that was hard, painful.
Then, he threw in his grandfather, Pietro, who came to the U.S., worked hard, and then brought over his family.
My grandfather Max in the period of free immigration before WWI did that, but not Pietro, who actually went back to Italy, according to recent Italian news interviews with his relatives. My grandfather Max was a deeply religious Orthodox Jewish man, whom I remember as a child wearing a yarmulke and getting up very early to perform religious rituals and go to synagogue. But Pietro, according to Santorum’s relatives in Italy, was like many others in the family, indeed most of the family in Italy, a working class Communist. I wouldn’t mind having the real Pietro Santorum as my grandfather. Even though my grandfather Max was probably more seriously religious than all of the Republican candidates combined, I doubt that Santorum would say the same thing
Actually, the truth about Santorum’s grandfather and relatives in Italy, which is the only good thing that I know about him, is getting out through the Internet and is becoming the subject of even some Comedy Central style commentary.
Is there “communism” in Santorum’s genes? Is he an Italian Communist Manchurian candidate? But this doesn’t stop Santorum from trying to make his grandfather into an Archie Bunker for the couch potatoes who vote in Republican primaries.
Maybe the support for Santorum in states like Mississippi is part of a political religious conspiracy (the rightwing loves conspiracies aimed of course at them)
Given the old policies of the first and second red scare which among other things sought to keep Communists and members of Communist organizations from immigrating to the U.S., maybe Santorum’s grandfather by lied about his political associations when he came and was really an illegal immigrant
And given Santorum’s position on illegal immigrants that may also include his late father(who got GI benefits “fraudulently,” even though he served honorably in the U.S. military, since the Republican right is steadfastly against benefits of any kind for illegal immigrants.)
Maybe Santorum himself is by his and his supporters’ standards illegal. Perhaps the religious right plans to elect Santorum, impeach him, and thus put his Vice President, Michelle Bachmann, into the White House
And then there is Gingrich, whom I have always suspected of being worshipper of one of the ancient polytheistic religions where Priests had temple prostitutes and drugs were used to bring about religious exultations.
But Gingrich is losing support to Santorum, who boasts that his wife is a stay at home mom, denounces Obama as a “snob” who wants everyone to go to college, and denounces colleges and universities as centers to the “liberal “indoctrination of youth.
As the Republican religious wars grow, anything is possible. Will Santorum seek to establish a Southern Baptist confederacy, under his leadership as Jefferson Davis Santorum? Will former Mormon FBI men successfully lobby Romney and the Republican Party to permit a posthumous gay marriage between Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson? Finally will Ron Paul come forward with evidence that the Federal Reserve was the creation of a Satanic Cult?
If this sounds even more bizarre than usual, stay tuned. I wrote this article as satire. In a few weeks it may be a realistic analysis of the Republican race.
