Again, the culprit
- christian activist trying to de-stabilise and terrorise another
muslim community !!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mohammed Fauzi"
US Policies Hijacked By Religious Right:
Danforth
US Policies Hijacked By Religious Right: Danforth
"Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of
conservative Christians," Danforth said.
CAIRO, March 31, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The current US
administration has been playing into the hands of conservative
Christians, turning the Republican Party into the political arm of the
religious right, according to one of the party's most senior and
long-serving members.
Former US ambassador to the United Nations and a three-term senator
from Missouri, John Danforth, further accused US President George W.
Bush of falling hostage to a religious group, "departing from
Republican principles (that) can rightfully be interpreted as yielding
to the pressure of religious power blocs", according to an opinion
article he wrote in the New York Times Wednesday, March 30.
Danforth, whose credentials make him a well-established senior
Republican, said high-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life
of Terri Schiavo, including departures from Republican principles can
rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious
power blocs.
Schiavo is a severely brain-damaged woman who spent a fortnight
without food or water in hospice following the removal of her feeding
tube.
"Christian activists, eager to take credit for recent electoral
successes, would not be likely to concede that Republican adoption of
their political agenda is merely the natural convergence of
conservative religious and political values," he wrote.
"When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious
program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But
even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should
resist identification with a religious movement.
"While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes,
the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together
as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a
uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For
politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to
oppose the cause of another."
The case of the brain-damaged Florida patient has sparked a political
controversy in the United States, over the role of government as far
as individual rights are concerned.
Cutting short his holiday in Texas, Bush rushed back to Washington
Sunday, March 20, to follow the case and signed into law an emergency
bill passed by Congress early Monday, allowing Schiavo's parents to
take the case to a federal court in a bid to keep her alive.
Schiavo has been kept alive since a 1990 heart failure damaged her
brain. Doctors have said in a long series of court battles over the
case that Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, unable to speak
or help herself.
Michael Schiavo says his wife told him prior to her accident that she
would never desire to be kept alive artificially.
But her parents say their daughter could improve with proper treatment
and have questioned Michael Schiavo's fitness to serve as his wife's
guardian.
Earlier Thursday, March 31, the US Supreme Court rejected another
petition by the parents of the brain-damaged patient, who had asked
that the woman's feeding tube be reinserted, Agence France Presse
(AFP) said.
Sectarian Agenda
Danforth further cited other examples of the domination of religious
rights' agenda over the Republican Party's policies, such as advocacy
of a constitutional amendment to ban the same-sex marriage and
opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and
human cells in Petri dishes.
"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," Danforth
said.
"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.
"Take stem cell research. 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."
Bidding to win the knife-edge presidential race with Democrat
candidate John Kerry, Bush played the religion card, working hard to
show to the American people, many of whom have firm religious
convictions, his religious commitment.
***************************************************************************
{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all."
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise.
If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest".
Yahoo! Groups Links
- To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamcity/
- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
