One of the things that frustrates me most about the politicized Religious Right is their propensity to rewrite history, established norms, even the meaning of the Constitution and our way of governance, to get their way. The theocratic end justifies their means, regardless of whether those means work contrary to the very Gospel message and standards they purport to champion.
The Religious Right political organization Focus-on-the-Family-Action has commented on the Massachusetts’ legislature upholding existing law and not allowing for a state-wide referendum vote on whether the state will continue allowing same-sex marriage or not.
Here is the headline from the story appearing in their “Citizen Update” daily e-mail: Massachusetts Lawmakers Silence Voters on Marriage, and graphic that accompanies it.

“We the People” is realized through our elected representatives in legislatures – this IS our form of government and has been for over two centuries. Our Founding Fathers and our founding documents make clear that we are a “Representative Democracy,” not a direct democracy. It is through our elected representatives that the People’s will is realized – even if the road to realization is bumpy and messy and slow. If we don’t like what our representatives do, we vote them out and vote in people who we think will reflect our desires.
The problem with the Religious Right in these kinds of situations is that they don’t have the numbers to elect people who will bend to their will, so they try other tactics to force their will. Their candidates did not win in the last round of elections in Massachusetts!
The Religious Right organizations said first that fascist and unaccountable judges were forcing their liberal agenda on the rest of the country – a judiciary out of control. These evil judges allowed for the killing of defenseless patients (Terri Schiavo case) or forcing gay civil-unions or ordered legislatures to find a way of granting equality under the law. These organizations then attempt to destroy the credibility and the public’s perception of impartiality of the judiciary. What will be the end result? Not a people living under the rule of law, but under chaos.
Now, in Massachusetts they are attempting to distort our way of representative and constitutional government because the legislature will not bend to their will.
So much of the rhetoric coming out of the politicized Religious Right slanted, bent, or downright false. They demand that the “people’s” will be done – and they claim that the people’s will aligns with their agenda, particularly on the homosexual issue. For the moment, that may be true – or they are simply the ones shouting the loudest. When they base the justification of their agenda on the “will of the people,” they may well find themselves stranded. The “will of the people” is a fickle and shifting thing – and this is why we have a representative and not a direct democracy. By their rhetoric, they shoot themselves in the proverbial foot in the long run.
The fact is, they will call for the “people’s will” to be done only as long as the people’s will aligns with their agenda (or they presume they have the majority position). Once the majority of people no longer vote their way, they will stop calling for the “people’s will” to be done.
Their goal is not the strengthening of the institutions of civil governance, social peace, or judicial integrity, but the implementation of their agenda. If they cannot succeed in the establishment of their agenda as the rule of the land and culture, they will call for the destruction of the present systems in favor of whatever will see their goals implemented – Theocracy, for example. They will support representative democracy as long as the representatives do their will. They will support the judiciary as long as the judiciary rules in their favor, and if they don’t they will denigrate the judiciary and all governmental systems and call for a radical reconstitution of it all into something they find more pleasing. Of course, under our present system, this is their right and I will defend it. However, this is not a right they would grant if they were truly in control (and I know this because I used to be in their midst).
Now, all of us are given the right to petition our government, vote for our representatives, and even work to change our form of government if need be. The issue with the politicized Religious Right is that if they loose in the legislatures or the courts or even the court of public opinion, they will not “play fair” by being a loyal opposition and working to see their people elected during the next election cycle, but they will do whatever it takes to have their way even if it means destroying the very forms of governance that gives them the right to champion their cause in the first place.