The Interfaith Alliance put Phill Kline's memo laying out his strategy to use churches as his campaign bank at the top of their list of the worst abuses of religion in politics for 2006. The group, which works to preserve separation of church and state, wrote "Attorney General Phill Kline often talks about his Christian faith. But a leaked memo shows how Kline has mixed religion and money as part of an aggressive strategy to raise campaign funds and win re-election."
The Kansas Republican Party, smarting from the whupping they received on Tuesday, reacted angrily:
GOP State Chairman Tim Shallenburger questioned whether Kansans would care about the assessment of "a group whose sole effort is to separate God from country."
This perfectly encapsulates why the GOP lost so badly. Their leadership systematically alienated everyone who didn't already agree with them, and dismissed anyone who challenged their practices as irrelevant.
Turns out, they are relevant, and there might just have been a lesson to be learned from the elections. Guess Shallenburger hasn't figured that out yet.
When Shallenburger was chosen as the GOP chairman (shortly after losing to Kathleen Sebelius four years ago), he said:
"When we voiced our beliefs that there is a God and said it was wrong to only teach evolution, we were ridiculed and called morons."
He apparently doesn't see any reason to try a different tack after losing again.
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Forgive me if I'm repeating myself on this forum.
I'm a Usenet junkie and contribute to an assortment of blogs. Sometimes it's hard to keep up.
Here's what Separation of Church and State is about:
In America -- Constitutional America -- your faith simply isn't an issue.
It's like the Rules of Baseball. It doesn't matter whether you're a Catholic or a Baptist; it's still 90 feet from 3rd Base to Home Plate.
Whether you're an agnostic or atheist or twice-born Christian, it's still three strikes and you're out or four balls, take your base.
Christian batters don't get four strikes. Mormons don't get to run 85-foot base paths.
You can be a devout anything, but the Rules of Baseball don't take that stuff into consideration.
That's how they wrote the Constitution of the United States of America. Believe what you want. Worship whomever rocks your boat. Follow the teachings that give your life purpose. But it doesn't really matter unless you hit the ball, catch the ball, and throw the ball better than the other guys. Who and how and why you worship anything simply is not an issue.
Religion in government (in America, at least...for now) is as relevant as bringing in a place-kicker in the bottom of the 9th inning.
A significant portion of the Republican coalition has, over the years, tried to inject a four-strikes-when-we're-batting and two-strikes-when-we're pitching mindset into the rules of the game of democracy.
They want a King James Version of the Constitution of the United States.
And it is also symptomatic that Shallenburger would respond with what is essentially an ad hominem argument - why should I care about what those guys say when I can point to something else they said and rail against that?
Shallenburger is still in campaign mode - smear your opponent but don't talk about the real issue. Good luck with that...