This page has been formatted for easy printing www.partialobserver.com

Get Your Faith Out of My Face! Elect Jerry Springer for President! by Michael H. Thomson August 1, 2003 What happened to the separation of church and state? When does the religion of a judicial nominee play a part in his/her successful nomination to the bench? During this last week of July, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, seeing that Bill Pryor, a former attorney general from Alabama was having a hard time getting nominated to a federal appeals court position, attacked their opponents by essentially saying that they were anti-Catholic when they challenged Pryor’s worthiness for the bench. What did Pryor’s religion have to do with his fitness to be a judge? The Roman Catholic Church is anti-abortion; Pryor is Catholic, so therefore to be pro-choice by this convoluted logic is to be anti-Catholic. Opponents of Pryor are anti-Catholic so therefore all good Catholics should email their legislative representatives and complain about the unfairness of it all! Believe it or not, I don’t have any strong personal position on abortion, nor am I a dedicated Republican or Democrat. Rush Limbaugh makes good arguments sometimes…yet, I like Joe Biden’s style. Conservative and Liberal are labels that don’t mean anything to me anymore. But, by golly, my blood pressure goes up when you start mixing your religion with my politics! Karl Marx was on to something when he said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses”. But I don’t think old Karl ever envisioned the religious activism which we have today. It seems like every major religious body in this country has a political agenda that they want to push down someone’s throat. The Baptists and Catholics are united in opposing abortion, the Jews are pro-Israel, the Moslems are pro-Palestine, and I have no earthly idea what the Seventh Day Adventists position is on fat in McDonald’s food products. The Church of The Elder Bush (the Episcopalians) will probably do an amoebic split this month on the subject of gay marriages and gay bishops (who really cares?). That in turn translates to state legislation for or against same gender marriages (again-who really cares?). Bill Clinton, the born again Black Man, kept a solid block of votes by working inner city churches who in turned filled their coffers with the subsequent “I like Bill” donations that were funneled to various black and white candidates pushing THEIR agendas! Did you know that you can hardly belong to a church these days without some of their political agendas sticking to your shoes? Okay, I’m getting there... WHAT REALLY HACKS ME OFF! What really hacks me off is that all of these ecclesiastical idiots get exempted from state and federal taxes on the funds they raise to push their causes and political agendas. How do we change this? This has been debated before. There is no real answer except thinking outside the box. Outside the box answer: We persuade Jerry Springer to give up his senatorial aspirations and go for the gold ring of the presidency. He obviously would have to do this on an independent ticket because he’s a pariah to mainstream Democrats and Republicans and also to the organized church groups! Jerry is the poster boy for immorality! I would guess he’s not very fond of churches either. He would be the perfect guy to do the dirty job pushing for the elimination of tax exempt status of religious organizations. He might even have a chance of winning as an independent presidential candidate, particularly if, surprise, surprise, Hillary were to get the Democratic nod. I say we give it a shot. Go Jerry! Go Jerry! Does anybody have any ideas for Vice President? About the Author: Michael H. Thomson is a former Republican County Chairman and Republican State Committeeman. He left the party when he really put his mind to what a platform was. This article was printed from www.partialobserver.com. Copyright © 2010 partialobserver.com. All rights reserved.