THE "DOUBLE STANDARD"

The Double Standard: Alive and Well.

If you recall, prior to the election, a bishop of the Catholic church went out of his way to castigate Kerry for his political views....and the Republicans did nothing to suggest that religion was not the place for politics or that one person's view does not a landslide of opinion make.. The silence from that quarter was stunning!

All along, the extreme right wing has been villifying the democrats for what they perceived to be our moral and religious failings because we did not line up with their views. Moreover, if you probe more deeply, you will recognize that the issues focused on by the Republicans--including their so-called Moderates--dealt principally with issues best left to the individual as an exercise of personal freedom; and not brought into question by government directive or policy.

Nontheless, despite the fact that the Constitution guarantees freedom of choice, the Right Wing chose to ignore the individual's freedom to follow a religion or not, choose abortion or not as per Roe vs. Wade and make all of the decisions that differentiate a free man from an individual living in a repressive society where every action is dictated.

Not a positive word about our constitutional right to express our individuality in a so-called free society. And if you think about it, these personal issues dominated the election. Of course, it had to be that away because the Republican's performance in virtually every sector with the exception of self-aggrandisement, was abysmal.

Nevertheless, they managed to get away with it!...and pulled off another coup!

Now, get this, a Universalist minister is forced to resign when he made a speech prior to the election saying that he would vote for the party who advocates freedom of choice. He didn't mention names; he merely expressed an opinion. He did not do what the Catholic prelate did. He did not get into specific cases of abortion or religion.

What happens next would seem to be more likely in a repressive regime; not a democracy. The government comes down on him and his church for getting involved in politics. In other words, and here's the rub: It's okay to ignore or encourage speaking out when it's "your guys" but the obverse of that rule doesn't apply! Speaking out only becomes politics when the democrats do it.

Now, all of the sanctimonious policemen of this administration come out of the woodwork to uphold the constitution that says that a religious institution that is on a tax-exempt status cannot talk about politics.

But if that wasn't enough, the situation is not over. Recently, the IRS, the Gestapo of this government, moved in to make a big deal of removing the Universalist church from its tax exempt status!

How long will we allow this kind of double standard to persist? When are we going to get up our backbone and speak out to such travesties?
Sure, it's easy to let one of these things slide and then another. After all, it takes hard work to do something about injustice. But remember if we let this injustices prevail, who will be there for us in our time of need? Think about the cumulative effect and then speak up!.

Les Aaron

The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog

www.lesaaron.blogspot.com