My Take: Bill Huizenga, Nancy DeBoer, the GOP: Theocrats

Don Bergman
·2 min read
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Using their religious beliefs to deny equal rights for others, Bill Huizenga, Nancy DeBoer and other Republicans, are theocrats taking us to dangerous civil unrest. Think twice before you vote Republican. Huizenga supported Trump's coup threatening people's right to vote for our leaders. DeBoer voted against equal civil rights for LGBTQ folks. Forcing one's religious beliefs onto others will cause violence. Always has.

Before the Enlightenment, Europe assumed a single religion was necessary for a successful society — many cultures still do. Nonbelievers were persecuted and often killed. Many came here, and still come to escape religious persecution.

In 1787, each state had a favored religion. Our Constitution’s authors were deadlocked over which one to pick. Consequently, they established a secular republic with freedom of and from religion. The U.S. Constitution, by separating church and state, was radical for its time. Religious pluralism, keeping divisive sectarian religious beliefs out of politics, is an American experiment, once again threatened.

Don Bergman
Don Bergman

Throughout our history, Christian groups, using the Bible to justify denying rights to others, have caused violence and death; note our Civil War. Today, theists’ imposing their beliefs on race relations, abortion and the LGBTQ community are causing civil strife. Blacks are killed praying in their church. LGBTQ folks are slaughtered at a nightclub. Abortion doctors are killed.

After the Supreme Court’s decisions removing religion from the public square in the second half of the 20th century, certain Christian theocratic groups organized to impose their beliefs on all Americans. From Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition to today’s Federalist Society’s Republican Party, theocrats in alliance with racists and plutocrats have declared the Constitution supports a white racist Christian Nationalism.

Using nefarious schemes, denying Obama judicial appointments, and candidates’ lying to get Senate approval, theocrats now control the Supreme Court. This theistic court is altering America by rolling back rights that protected pregnant children and adult women needing an abortion; enabling racists attacking the equal rights of minorities — especially the right to vote and the right to have their vote matter; permitting discrimination of the LGBTQ community justified by “sincerely held religious beliefs”; and opening campaign financing laws which allowed one billionaire to give 1.6 billion dollars to the theistic GOP. These actions are contrary to “liberty and justice for all.”

If you use political power to take away the rights of nonbelievers, there will be violence. Either you will use the violence of government police power to enforce the laws or those losing their rights will be forced to fight for them, as has happened in the past.

Theocracy is fascism. If you use the power of the state impose your religious beliefs today, it establishes the principle that others may force you to theirs tomorrow. To protect your beliefs, you must respect those of others.

— Don Bergman is a resident of Park Township.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Bill Huizenga, Nancy DeBoer, the GOP: Theocrats