Anne Rice, the author who changed her life by converting from atheism to Catholicism and writes religious books has endorsed Hillary Rodham for the presidency. Her endorsement is very long with rationalization for her choice but it seems to boil down to a misunderstanding of reality and the idea that party trumps all else. Rice claims to be a Christian and I will not dispute that, I will merely state she is a misguided one. This should not be much of a surprise because many of her beliefs still run counter to the teachings of Christianity. She also says that she is glad that she lives in a country where we have separation of church and state.
Therein lies the first misunderstanding. This country has no such thing and that is not mandated by our Constitution. The reality is that this country was founded by religious people based on Christian principles. This is why God is an integral part of our history despite the best efforts of groups like the ACLU to have that history ignored, rewritten, or erased. Separation of Church and State was a phrase used by Jefferson in a private letter. One cannot find those words in our Constitution and in fact, our First Amendment recognizes each individual’s right to practice religion free of government intrusion. In other words, government will not infringe on our right. We have freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM it.
Rice then goes on to say that the Democratic Party is best poised to act in accordance with the scriptures by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting those in jail. Isn’t it interesting that she would say we have separation of church and state and then tell us how the Democratic Party is best poised to do things in accordance with religious scripture. This is a pipe dream, of course, because the Democratic Party does not help people in these predicaments as the scripture would have us do. Instead, the Democrats enact programs that give us more poor people and do little in the way of helping. The poverty rate is nearly the same as it was in the late 60s despite spending TRILLIONS of dollars in the war on poverty.
I don’t expect Rice to understand any of this because she has made it clear that politics trumps anything else (and in fact she wrestled with her liberal beliefs that ran counter to religion when she converted back to Catholicism) and she pointed out that religion is open to a wide array of interpretations. In that venue, she has interpreted the scripture in a way that rationalizes the behavior and motives of the left. She states that the “Democratic Party best reflects the values I hold based on the Gospels.” If this is truly the case, Rice is woefully misinformed as to the Gospels. As proof that she has twisted the Scripture to meet her views look at her position on abortion. She indicates that she is pro-life but she supports a candidate who believes in abortion. That certainly should not be the only qualifier with regard to a candidate but this puts her at odds with the teaching of the Gospels that she claims to follow. To top it off, Rice states “I feel that if we are to find a solution to the horror of abortion, it will be through the Democratic Party.”
She goes on to talk about the legal procedure of abortion and that it is difficult to solve and that she is unsure that Americans should give up this “right” though she personally opposes it. She tells us that the solution lies with the Democrats but this ignores the one very basic truth that the Democrats GAVE us abortion in the first place. I will admit that this is a difficult subject and I think there are few who have an idea about how to solve it completely but I am damned sure that the very people who espouse the unfettered right to murder children up until the point they poke their heads out are not the ones who will solve this problem in any fashion that does not include killing millions more of the very children they claim to do everything to protect (it is always about the children).
Anne Rice is entitled to her opinion and she is entitled to decide who she wants to support but she should get her act together and at least appear to have common sense. One can not state a love for separation of church and state and then base every claim on what Democrats will do based on her belief in religious scripture. She can not claim that separation is good and then go to great lengths to describe how religion helped her make a decision. One can not say that religion is not good in government but that religion should decide who gets to be in government.
One also cannot twist scripture to fit an agenda and one certainly should not expect to be taken seriously after making a big deal about how political party is important to her.
Besides, if she really allowed her religion to sway her decisions she would be a supporter of people like George Bush who is a religious man and believes in the sanctity of life. He is certainly more principled than Hillary Rodham (and yes I know he is not running thus like him) and one would expect that a religious person who takes decisions based upon religion might wait to see how all candidates stack in that regard. Certainly there are candidates who fit the bill better than Hillary Rodham who is Satan in the flesh.
That is, of course, unless one is twisting religion to fit an agenda in order to reconcile a conflict between support of party and the word of the Lord.
