Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:44 pm
Noted bigot and former star of Duck Dynasty, Phil Robertson, was in Iowa last Sunday showing that Ted Cruz takes a back seat to one when it comes to appalling. Speaking of the “depravity” and “perversion” of marriage equality, he said, “It is evil, it’s wicked, it’s sinful and they want us to swallow it.â€
Well, actually, we don’t want you to swallow anything, though you can. It’s your right. Direct from God, so you would say. What we do want you to do is to accept that other people have the same rights you do. Nobody is forcing you to marry another man, Phil, though I’ve got to say, at this point, methinks thou doth protest too much.
Knowing the Cruz crowd loves this sort of talk, Robertson opined that, “We have to run this bunch out of Washington D.C. We have to rid the earth of them. Get them out of there.â€
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Well, this is a democracy, Phil. They were elected. If you want them out of there, vote them out. Though there is no way for you to vote them off the face of the earth. I’m afraid you’re going to have to put on your big boy britches and learn how to be a man and suck it up. We have to do the same thing, tolerating the existence of people like you.
It’s not like Ted Cruz didn’t know what Phil was saying. Cruz, who has since moved on to New Hampshire, where he is in third place behind Trump and Rubio, was next on stage. His reaction to this perfectly horrid behavior?
Phil Robertson, said Cruz, is “a joyful, cheerful, unapologetic voice of truth.†Joyful. That’s not the word the rest of us are looking for. It’s no wonder so many of his former Princeton classmates are horrified at the thought of Cruz being president.
Watch courtesy of CNN:
The two really do make a pair. Cruz is obviously a big fan of David Barton as well, based on what Robertson told Fox News last Sunday, that his Canadian BFF “loves James Madison.†That’s right. James Madison. Author of the Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments of 1785.
This document means exactly what it sounds like it means: that folks shouldn’t have to pay for religious teachers, an act which Madison calls “a dangerous abuse of power.”
Yes, that’s right. A dangerous abuse of power. Madison goes on to say that Phil Robertson and Ted Cruz are full of excrement:
The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men.
In other words, the rest of us are not in any way compelled to share the beliefs of ignorant bigots like Phil Robertson and Ted Cruz. It is as if Madison were on stage with Robertson telling him nobody was forcing him to approve of Marriage Equality, that he can exercise his beliefs as “these may dictate.”
You can bet your bottom dollar neither man knows Madison wrote the Memorial and Remonstrance. In fact, the two men are under the mistaken belief that Madison said the U.S. is based “on the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves based on the Ten Commandments of God.â€
Madison, of course, never said any such thing. And the quote didn’t crop up anywhere until 1958. You know, back when conservative Christians were adding “one nation under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance (1954) and making “In God we Trust” the national motto (1956).
As you can see, the 50’s were a very bad time for America. We’re paying for it still.
In fact, this is what Madison had to say in the Memorial and Remonstrance about nations making the Ten Commandments the law of the land:
Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
It is as if Madison predicted 2016, because certainly nothing says the modern GOP like superstition, bigotry and persecution.
The truth is, Madison was a keen student of history. This is what always happens, he is saying, and the GOP is proving him right.
From the grave then, we have an epic smackdown of Phil Robertson and Ted Cruz by James Madison, who reveals exactly what America can expect from a Cruz presidency.
And Madison gave a final warning in the Memorial and Remonstrance that religious bigots like Robertson and Cruz might want to heed, rather than hiding behind fake quotes:
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
I have the answer: Ignorant yokels like Ted Cruz and Phil Robertson.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
