Retired Senator John Danforth on Politics

By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube. [...]

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement. [...]

But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around. (source)

This from John C. Danforth, a retired conservative senator from Missouri who sees the dangers the current Republican Party is heading for. There will be a fall off of this support. Not from the Republican Party, but from the American People in general. Religious conservatives do not make up the majority of people in this country. Eventually, there will be other issues introduced that have an impact on many other people.

For gay people, the obvious issue is marriage. I can understand that most Americans don’t like the idea of gay people getting married. I get that. What I don’t understand is why they can’t see the bigger issue. The big issue is the concept that we have a ruling party who is eager and willing to write discrimination right into the Constitution of the United States, because religious conservatives say that they must do so. All gay issues aside, that really should get everyone’s attention.

For those Americans who do not care about this issue, I can only say that those who are pushing the far right agenda have a laundry list. Today it is gay marriage. Tomorrow, they will hit on something a little closer to home for you.

For example, stem cell research. As Mr. Danforth said:

In my state, Missouri, Republicans in the General Assembly have advanced legislation to criminalize even stem cell research in which the cells are artificially produced in petri dishes and will never be transplanted into the human uterus. They argue that such cells are human life that must be protected, by threat of criminal prosecution, from promising research on diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and juvenile diabetes.

It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law. [...]

...Criminalizing the work of scientists doing such research would give strong support to one religious doctrine, and it would punish people who believe it is their religious duty to use science to heal the sick.

There are so many dangers involved in allowing religion to dictate social issues. People should be free to practice whatever religion they wish. Instilling the values of any religion into laws that we all must live by should never happen.