I do not doubt Gov. Perry's personal faith and belief.

 However, I doubt his integrity and his respect for the faiths of others.  Either it fails to occur to him that signing such bills in a place of religious worship (or a school of religious worship) is equivalent to using personal religion and faith as a political tool.  Or he is yet another person who will gladly exploit any person's personal beliefs to further himself and his own agenda.  By wrapping political and religious causes together as one, individuals fail to learn from history's past.

Why must a governor sign a law, passed by a government in a religious setting?  Was this law to increase religious freedoms?  Was this law to allow more people to practice religion?  Or was this whole set up simply done to take advantage of people's personal faiths and to associate restrictive and descriminatory legislation with religion?    You are WITH us, or you are AGAINST the church.

Although I might not support a bill requiring parental notification for abortions, I understand the good intentions of concerned parents who support the bill.  My opinions here do not reflect my feelings on the content of the bills signed, but rather my opinions reflect my feelings on the choice of place to do the signing and to have the ceremony.

I hope other politicians will not use such disgraceful tactics, be they secular or religious.

-Zen Blade 

Perry will start inviting thelemites to these shindigs.

This scares the heck out of me. I saw it on a bumper sticker and thought it was funny, but it might be more prophetic. "The last time we mixed religion and politics, people were burned at the stake".

I wish I was more sure that we will not desend into that kind of madness again.

You wrote ... "Perry arranged to hold the signing ceremony at a Church academy in Fort Worth.  It was apparently moved from the Church sanctuary in order to deflect complaints -- rather sound ones, I'd say -- that signing the bill there would trounce the still somewhat-respected separation between church and state in this country."

You give Perry and his people too much credit, imo. When they think are "doing God's work" they could care less about respecting secular traditions, such as separation of church and state. These are indeed holy warriors in their own mind. Even the Constitution isn't safe when they have convinced themselves that they are defending God. However, there IS one consideration that will trump doing God's work almost every time, and that is when doing God's work could threaten to stop the flow of big money. So, it's obvious to me that the signing was moved from the sanctuary to the church gym for one very practical reason ... to lessen the prospect that someone could ask the IRS to investigate whether the church had endangered its tax-exempt status.

Let's secede from Texas.

More than 2.8M Texans voted for Kerry/Edwards. About 1000 people showed up to support this, but 300 protesters showed up too.

You wouldn't like having 12 more senators from Texas.  As a native Texan, I can assure you of this.  The joke down here, (although it's the truth, not a joke) is that Texas is Mississippi with good roads.  We're backwards rednecks, and highly bigoted.  This is, of course, reflected in the people we elect to public office, both at the state and national level.  Remember, LBJ was our acme.  I'm not sure we've reached a nadir yet.

"Where to start," indeed.  One starting point might be the startling inclusion of a Jews-for-Jesus type to give the benediction.  I can't think of an act more provocative to most Jews - especially especially observant Jews.  For those of us concerned about the defection of Jews to the Republicans, it might be worth investigating and reporting upon the connections between the Christian right and the various Jews-for-Jesus sects. 

I read about this in this morning's New York Times. Several things struck me. First were the pictures the Times ran. The first picture showed a group of anglos, hispanics, african-americans, overwhelming female, all heads bowed. The second showed two blond, white women who were either sisters or partners (given their common last name) waving water bottles and flags.

I thought to myself...well that's fair and balanced. The Times is visually stating that America, in all its glorious diversity, supports this bill...meanwhile  a couple of angry white chicks, who look like they got lost from a Girls Gone Wild in San Padre video, represent the looney left.

As I thought about the article, and read Joshua's posting and some of the commentators I began to be a bit pissed off. Whenever a conservative politican wraps themselves in some religious symbol, whenever they push some item that strongly appeals to the religious right...we progressives seem to begin dancing to their tune.

By that I mean we focus on the religious/state aspect rather than the policy aspect. This article is a perfect example. The Times, and Joshua, don't really discuss the bill that was signed into law or its impact on the lives of Texan women. Instead we beat our breasts over the blurring of church/state lines.

Now, please don't get me wrong. Fighting that blurring is crucial, but when we focus on it to the exclusion of the policy, we damage ourselves. We let the Right make this a debate about religion, and not about rational public policy...in essence we are agreeing to play their game. Time and time again we set ourselves up to be portrayed by the right-wing spin machine as the evil lions out for Christian blood.

Liberal, progressive democracy is founded on the idea that rational thought is a better foundation for government policy than metaphysical fanaticism. If that's true, and I personally believe it is, then how should we respond?

Well first, we should state the obvious, that Perry was making a political show for election purposes, and it's a shame he's endangered that fine Christian school's tax status by doing so. But then say that the real issue isn't where he signed the bill...it's that the bill is now law. And then makes our rational case of why that bill is bad for Texans, regardless of their faith.

Here's another way of thinking about this. If your read the Times and Joshua, you get the following message: The governor of Texas signed into law a bill restricting abortion and an anti-gay marriage petition at a church. The analysis...1400+ words on the location of the signing...0 words on the impact of bill or the petition, or how it got passed in the first place.

Then when the story hits the blogs, we start posting how awful this blurring is, or how backward these Red-Staters are,

Based on that, you tell me what gets progessives more worked up. Then think of how the LimbaughHannityScarborough machine will spin our outrage.

Call me old-fashioned, but shouldn't we have been focusing our outrage on the idea these policies are being proposed and passed? If all we can argue about is where the bills are being signed..then perhaps it's already too late for a liberal, democratic America.

Perry jumped from the Democratic Party when he saw power shifting away. He is probably just as loyal, religion-wise. All governors do in Texas is rubberstamp the deals that have been worked out in smoke filled rooms. Texas gov’t. has always been controlled by business buffoons. But, we’re not all bigoted rednecks here. Like most states, Texas is split in voter attitudes. Witness Delay’s successful raid on Democratic Congressional seats by gerrymandering minorities right out of power (poll tax, anyone?).

Texas has also long been a Southern Baptist stronghold. But the newly empowered wide-eyed angelic (I mean evangelic) leaders have really gone power crazy. The preachers have told the flock that this country was founded as a Christian country and, so, God-damn-it, this is a Christian country. History is as clear as creationism. Perry, like Bush, may think he is using these true-believers as pawns but it might be the other way around.

Hand in hand, Christians and conservatives have captured the wheels of power while convincing supporters that they are the ones being victimized by the atheistic left. It has always seemed to me that the more you try to impose your beliefs on others, the less secure your faith must be.

Perry jumped from the Democratic Party when he saw power shifting away. He is probably just as loyal, religion-wise.

Don't forget that there was a significant reallignment in the South over the last 40 years, but especially during the period of 1980-2002.  Most of the Conservative Southern Democrats became GOP.  These people were "left by the party" and joined the GOP because the party of Licnoln was no longer more antithetical than the party of LBJ/Black folks.  Perry may be a weasel, but I believe he is sincere in his conservative religiosity (though he is pandering something fierce).

bill signing ceremony Gov. Perry held in Texas on Sunday to sign a new law restricting access to abortion and banning same-sex marriage (sort of a revanchist fundy omnibus, you might say.)




Actually, the bill made it even more difficult to acquire parental consent for an abortion. (There was already parental consent.) The other part of the bill puts a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage up for vote. There's already a statutory gay marriage ban.




Anyways, Gov. Perry, the human pet rock has been going on like this for awhile. He's bonkers. He is attempting to fend off Kay Bailey Hutchinson in 2006 by appealing to the Southern Baptists who more or less have control of the R state party. And he's doing that because there is nothing redeemable about him. He's an idiot, he's incompetent and he knows he's an idiot. Back in the late 80's (88 I think; see the DMN) when he was running as the Farm Bureau candidate for Ag. Commissioner, he kinda stepped on his dick by proclaiming something along the lines of 'I think legalizing marijuana would be a great boon for Texas farmers.' He got a severe tongue-lashing from the Baptists at that point and he's been hyper-sensitive about Baptist support ever since.




ash

['Yeah, yeah, I know.']

All I know is that everything would be better if we just allowed the Republic Of Texas to exist again.




And I agree. We never shoulda joined the Union. It was bad for us and bad for ya'll, since it contributed mightily to precipitating bothe the Mexican and Civil Wars, and helped push the United States further along the path of Manifest Destiny and rampant imperialism. Not to mention aborting (heh) the development of a distinct Texas political culture and effectively handing the entire deal to the Southern planter class. And it's all John Tyler's fault. He was trying to save himself from his betrayal of the Whig party. And he managed to talk the reluctant Texas leadership into the idea. Dumb.




Imagine  the ROT - King for Life George W. Bush,




{snort} A blue-blood, Ivy League elitist, Yankee carpetbagger for King? I think not.




Prime Minister DeLay, Chief Justice John Cornyn - it would be like a regressive, evil paradise.




Naw. The R's would split almost instantly into two or three groups and after some churning the Lege would be forced by some really pissed-off voters into getting its act together instead of letting the feds do it for them.




ash

['But then, I think the US should divide into its constituent parts, rather than fight it out, bloodily.']

Does that mean we can attack them if they do not behave?  They are familiar with this line of thinking so I'm sure they would not mind!  The "Blue Stater's" could even "help" restore democracy to Texas.  Nice ring to it...King "Whorehee", I mean George.

Whether or not this is good politics or good policy is beside the point.

On the one the hand, there is the absolute cynicism on Perry's part.

But beyond that, there is the message mentioned above: that the state government, as an embodiment of Texans, believes people who aren't "Bible-believing" citizens are not capable of being moral, and as a result are in some senses second classes.

Frankly, I don't give a damn if there are black, Hispanic, purple, green, whatever people there: the fact is is this a undemocratic stunt with very negative connotation for those who aren't evangelical Christians. How different - really - is this from declaring Texas "a Christian Republican," or some such?

I should have read your post more closely. I see better what you're arguing now. I don't think you necessarily oppose what I'm saying, its just that I think the church/state issue is more important in this instance than are the bills substance, and I actually think Perry's stunt is potentially much less popular than

But I actually think that criticizing the church/state discrepancy in this instance is good politics, better politics than the actual substance of both bills, which I would guess would probably command majority support in Texas (if not the country as a whole). Not good on things like ten commandment displays, but not necessarily a political loser here. See Schiavo for more on the problems of "overreach," which this smacks of. The purpose of Schiavo was exactly the same - to make Republicans appear as the "Party of God" (Hizbullah, dare I say?), a pure Rovian strategy to wedge minorities from the Democrats. Robert Reich has a good article about this in this month's Prospect (sorry, nno link). In the case of Schiavo, the GOP (Rove) miscalculated badly: and I sense this might be a similar case.

Ben P

As an Austin resident who did some work in the Texas Capitol, I'd like to clarify a couple of things.

 First, there were two separate resolutions here, not one big bill.  The first is a parental consent bill (Texas currently only has parental notification).  The second thing was a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.  An amendment actually doesn't need the governor's signature, he just decided to sign it for fun.

 On the politics side, in my opinion Perry isn't particularly religious.  This is just good old fashioned Texas primary politics.  Perry has a really tough fight ahead in the primary, more than most people realize.  His poll ratings are hovering near 40% and he delivered almost nothing that his business friends wanted.  Hutchison is looking good.

The Author of numerous wonderful mysteries and the great song titled: "They ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore", is running for govenor. 2006 will be a fun year to be a Texan 

www.kinkyfriedman.com

DM

Austin 

I'll be voting and campaigning for him.