{"id":58,"date":"2005-05-19T00:07:41","date_gmt":"2005-05-19T07:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegerber.wpengine.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2005-05-19T00:07:41","modified_gmt":"2005-05-19T07:07:41","slug":"npr-closing-the-gap-between-church-and-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"NPR : Closing the Gap Between Church and State"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know, I try to be tolerant about religion. Really. I do.<\/p>\n

I honestly don’t care what religion anybody follows as long as they (a) don’t expect me to believe the same thing and (b) keep it out of politics. That seems to me a quintessentially American attitude.<\/p>\n

Well, not to some people, one of whom is D. James Kennedy, who believes that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation” and considers it his mission “to reclaim America for Christ”.<\/p>\n

Excuse me? I could maybe feature “reclaiming” America for the Great Spirit or Wakan Tanka or some other largely exiled native deity. As far as I know, though, nobody from Judea ever held prior title to this continent.<\/p>\n

Anyway, on May 18th, Kennedy was interviewed by Terri Gross for NPR’s program *Fresh Air*.
\nHere’s the link<\/a>. The show runs an hour, but Gross is so good an interviewer it seems much shorter — or would, anyway, if one could keep from boiling over with rage. (I couldn’t.) If you have a broadband connection, slap on the headphones and listen to this. This moron actually has the ear of senators, congresspersons, and probably the Prosthident.<\/p>\n

Next time, maybe we’ll talk about Qur’ans, toilets, and “believers” who are so insecure in their faith they think their god can’t withstand a little water damage. (So, in righteous rage stoked by an affront that now appears to be only a rumor, they riot and kill, at last count, seventeen people. Religion brings *so* much comfort to *so* many!)<\/p>\n

On second thought, next time maybe we’ll finally talk about *Hard Time – Season 2*.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know, I try to be tolerant about religion. Really. I do. I honestly don’t care what religion anybody follows as long as they (a) don’t expect me to believe the same thing and (b) keep it out of politics. That seems to me a quintessentially American attitude. Well, not to some people, one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}