Romney on Marriage, and Other Examples of Extremism and Intolerance

By John Ballard

This is old news because it happened in December, but I'm posting it in case anybody forgot. I'm amazed the video is only listed as having been viewed a few thousand times. It illustrates the larger point about religious extremism. 

One might think that being Mormon would sensitize someone to the quagmire of ugliness that bubbles up with religious extremism. But one would be wrong.

I just received the following link in an email from an old high schlool classmate who is a retired teacher. This is freaking unbelievable.

Giving Alabama teachers a big pay raise could go against the Bible, state Sen. Shadrack

McGill (R-Woodville) said recently at a prayer breakfast in north Alabama, according to the Times-Journal of Dekalb County.

But McGill supports the 62 percent pay increase the legislature gave itself in 2007 because means lawmakers are now less susceptible to taking bribes, the paper reported.

Regarding teacher pay, McGill said: "It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach. To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, OK?"

Slowly but surely, like mildew in a crawl space, a lunatic fringe is infesting our politics.

Another example is a sub-text of the current Komen vs. Planned Parenthood flap,  the nutty idea that abortions lead to breast cancer, a notion at best scientifically marginal but advanced by religious extremists that have polarized that issue as well.

Pick just about any topic -- capital punishment, assisted suicide, school prayer, abortion, gun control, global warming -- and we are being polarized into political and social extremes, fueled in no small way by extreme and unbending religious views.

I saw a Tweet yesterday that if Jesus were alive today someone from the 1% would be telling Him to get a job.