The Fifth Column

By Lucy Warner
February 27, 2015



Text from:
N Or M?
By Agatha Christie
1941
Published by permission of G P Putnam's Sons,
a member of Penguin Group (USA)


“Grant said:
'You've read in the newspapers of the Fifth Column? You know, roughly at any rate, just what that term implies.'

Tommy murmured:
'The enemy within.'

'Exactly. This war, Beresford, started in an optimistic spirit. Oh, I don't mean the people who really know – we've known all along what we were up against – the efficiency of the enemy, his aerial strength, his deadly determination, and the coordination of his well-planned war machine. I mean the people as a whole. The good-hearted, muddleheaded democratic fellow who believes what he wants to believe – that Germany will crack up, that she's on the verge of revolution, that her weapons of war are made of tin, and that her men are so underfed that they'll fall down if they try to march – all that sort of stuff. Wishful thinking as the saying goes.

'Well, the war didn't go that way. It started badly and it went on worse. The men were all right – the men on the battleships and in the planes and in the dugouts. But there was mismanagement and unpreparedness – the defects, perhaps, of our qualities. We don't want war, haven't considered it seriously, weren't good at preparing for it.

'The worst of that is over. We've corrected our mistakes, we're slowly getting the right men in the right place. We're beginning to run the war as it should be run – and we can win the war – make no mistake about that – but only if we don't lose it first. And the danger of losing it comes, not from outside – not from the might of Germany's bombers, not from her seizure of neutral countries and fresh vantage points from which to attack – but from within. Our danger is the danger of Troy – the wood horse within our walls. Call it the Fifth Column if you like. It is here, among us. Men and women, some of them highly placed, some of them obscure, but all believing genuinely in the Nazi aims and the Nazi creed and desiring to substitute that sternly efficient creed for the muddled easygoing liberty of our democratic institutions.'”






http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/24/politics/supreme-court-hearing-abercrombie-fitch/

Supreme Court to hear religious freedom case
By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Thu February 26, 2015

Washington (CNN)Samantha Elauf was apprehensive to interview for a sales job at retailer Abercrombie & Fitch in 2008 because the 17 year old wore a headscarf in accordance with her Muslim faith. But a friend of hers, who worked at the store, said he didn't think it would be a problem as long as the headscarf wasn't black because the store doesn't sell black clothes.

Ultimately Elauf failed to get the job, and her story has triggered a religious freedom debate regarding when an employer can be held liable under civil rights laws. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on Wednesday.

READ: Ginsburg and Scalia on parasailing, elephants and not being '100% sober'

Like many retailers Abercrombie has a "look policy" aimed to promote what it calls its "classic East Coast collegiate style of clothing."

When Elauf sat down with assistant manager Heather Cooke to formally interview for the job, neither the headscarf nor religion ever came up. Cooke did refer to the policy, however, telling Elauf that employees shouldn't wear a lot of make up, black clothing or nail polish.

Cooke thought Elauf was qualified for the job, but after the interview sought approval from her district manager regarding the headscarf. She says she told the manager that she assumed Elauf was Muslim and figured she wore the headscarf for religious reasons. The manager told her that Elauf should not be hired because the scarf was inconsistent with the "look policy."

A federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued on Elauf's behalf saying the store had discriminated on the basis of religion in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The law makes it illegal for an employer to "fail or refuse to hire" an individual because of an individual's religion unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate a religious observance or practice "without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business."

Abercrombie does not dispute that Elauf was not hired because of her headscarf. The company says its "look policy" is neutral on religion, but that employees are not allowed to wear headgear.

Although Elauf won at the district court level, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Abercrombie holding that the employer could not be held liable because Elauf never informed the company that she wore the scarf for her religious beliefs and that she need an accommodation because her headscarf conflicted with the store's clothing policy.

In court briefs, lawyers for Abercromie say that they their audience are "tough customers" in part because the stores must retain their business "through the vicissitudes of teen and young adult fashion."

"Messages that deviate from a brand's core identity weaken the brand and reduce its value," said lawyer Shay Dvoretzky .

The company prohibits facial hair, obvious tattoos and long fingernails. Caps are not allowed to be worn on the sales floor. The store says it has granted religious exemptions that have been requested over the years to employees -- some of them Muslim -- after evaluating them on a case-by-case basis. In this instance, Elauf never asked for such an exemption.

"At its core, this case presents the question of when an employer must initiate a dialogue with its employee or prospective employee about any possible religious accommodations that may be necessary under Title VII.," lawyers for the libertarian Cato Institute argued in court briefs in support of Abercrombie.

"The answer is that the employer must have actual notice of a potential conflict between an employee's religious practices and the employer's workplace rules and policies -- and that the employee bears the burden of providing that notice," they wrote.

But the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit group with an interest in religious freedom, has filed a friend of the court brief supporting Elauf.

"Abercrombie's claim is both absurd and a dangerous precedent for all people of faith seeking an exception," Eric Baxter, a lawyer for the group, "We want the court to recognize that the notice requirement has to be flexible," said Baxter. "There can't be some strict requirement that an employee has to say certain words before the employee's religion is protected."

The case will be decided this spring.




http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/dominionism.htm

Christian Right And Theocracy
Political Research Associates


When Michelle Goldberg wrote “A Christian Plot for Domination?” for the Daily Beast she chose her terms carefully. The subhead stated “Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry aren't just devout—both have deep ties to a fringe fundamentalist movement known as Dominionism, which says Christians should rule the world.” Within hours both critics and supporters of Goldberg’s thesis littered the Internet with posts that drew no distinctions among the Christian Right, Dominionism, and Christian Reconstructionism. There are important differences, and this essay seeks to explain them. PRA takes no position on the 2012 elections, but we do take a position supporting the accurate use of language.

PRA's definition since 2005:

Dominionism: The theocratic idea that regardless of theological view or eschatological timetable, heterosexual Christian men are called by God to exercise dominion over secular society by taking control of political and cultural institutions. Competes in Christianity with the idea of Stewardship, which suggests custodial care rather than absolute power. Used here in the broader sense, some analysts use the word only to refer to forms and offshoots of Reconstructionism.

Inside the Christian Right Dominionist Movement That's Undermining Democracy

Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin have all flirted with Christian Right Dominionism, but there's lots of misinformation about just what that means.

Dominionists want to impose a form of Christian nationalism on the United States, a concept that was dismissed as eroding freedom and democracy by the founders of our country. Dominionism has become a major influence on the right-wing populist Tea Parties as Christian Right activists have flooded into the movement at the grassroots.

At the same time, legitimate questions have been raised about whether or not potential Republican presidential nominees Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, or Sarah Palin have moved from a generic form of Christian Right Dominionism toward the more totalitarian form know as Dominion Theology.

Clueless journalists and crafty Christian Right pundits have mocked the idea that Dominionism as a religiously motivated political tendency even exists. Scholars, however, have been writing about Dominionism for over a decade, some using the term directly, and others describing the tendency in other ways. Many articles on Dominionism can be found on Talk to Action, especially by authors Rachel Tabachnick, Bruce Wilson, Frederick Clarkson. Several of the authors who pioneered the discussion of Dominionism have written for the Public Eye Magazine.

Dominionism is a broad political impulse within the Christian Right in the United States. It comes in a variety of forms that author Fred Clarkson and I call soft and hard. Fred and I probably coined the term "Dominionism" back in the 1990s, but in any case we certainly were the primary researchers who organized its use among journalists and scholars.

Clarkson noted three characteristics that bridge both the hard and the soft kind of Dominionism.

Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe the United States once was, and should again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.
Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.
Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, believing that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.

At the apex of hard Dominionism is the religious dogma of Dominion Theology, with two major branches: Christian Reconstructionism and Kingdom Now theology. It is the latter's influence on the theopolitical movement called the New Apostolic Reformation that has been linked in published reports to potential Republican presidential nominees Perry, Bachmann or Palin. All three of these right-wing political debutantes have flirted with Christian Right Dominionism, but how far they have danced toward the influence of hard-right Dominion Theology is in dispute. It would be nice if some "mainstream" journalists actually researched the question.

"While differing from Reconstructionism in many ways, Kingdom Now shares the belief that Christians have a mandate to take dominion over every area of life," explains religion scholar Bruce Barron. And it is just this tendency that has spread through evangelical Protestantism, resulting in the emergence of "various brands of `dominionist' thinkers in contemporary American evangelicalism," according to Barron.

The most militant Dominion Theologists would silence dissenters and execute adulterers, homosexuals and recalcitrant children. No...seriously. OK, they would only be executed for repeated offenses, explain some defenders of Christian Reconstructionism. Even most Christian Right activists view the more militant Dominion Theologists as having really creepy ideas.

Much of the controversy over the issue of Dominionism is caused by writers who use the term carelessly, often conflating the broad term Dominionism with the narrow term Dominion Theology. Some on the Left have implied that every conservative Christian evangelical is part of the Christian Right political movement; and that everyone in the Christian Right is an active Dominionist. This is false. Some critics even state that the Christian Right is neofascist. Few serious scholars of fascism agree with that assessment, although several admit that if triggered by a traumatic societal event, any contemporary right-wing populist movement could descend into neofascism.

Advocates of Dominion Theology go beyond the democracy eroding theocracy of Dominionism into a totalitarian form of religious power called a "theonomy," in which pluralistic democracy and religious tolerance are seen as a problem to be solved by godly men carrying out God's will. Karen Armstrong calls Christian Reconstructionism "totalitarian" because it leaves "no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom." Matthew N. Lyons and I call Christian Reconstructionism a "new form of clerical fascist politics," in our book Right-Wing Populism in America, because we see it echoing the religiously based clerical fascist movements that existed during World War II in countries including Romania and Hungary.

According to Fred Clarkson:

Reconstructionists believe that there are three main areas of governance: family government, church government, and civil government. Under God's covenant, the nuclear family is the basic unit. The husband is the head of the family, and wife and children are "in submission" to him. In turn, the husband "submits" to Jesus and to God's laws as detailed in the Old Testament. The church has its own ecclesiastical structure and governance. Civil government exists to implement God's laws. All three institutions are under Biblical Law, the implementation of which is called "theonomy."

Christian Reconstructionists believe that as more Christians adopt Dominion Theology, they will eventually convert the majority of Americans. Then the country will realize that the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are merely codicils to Old Testament biblical law. Because they believe this is God's will, they scoff at criticism that what they plan is a revolutionary overthrow of the existing system of government. Over the past 20 years the leading proponents of Reconstructionism have included founder Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, David Chilton, Gary DeMar, and Andrew Sandlin. Kingdom Now theology emerged from the Latter Rain Pentacostal movement and the concept of Spiritual Warfare against the literal demonic forces of Satan. It has been promoted by founder Earl Paulk as well as C. Peter Wagner, founder of the New Apostolic Reformation movement.

For many, President Obama and the Democratic Party are among these "demonic forces." This has real world consequences.

In 2006 former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris told thousands of cheering Christian Right activists that beating the Democrats in the upcoming elections was a battle against "principalities and powers," which many in the audience would hear as a Biblical reference to the struggle with the demonic agents of Satan. Harris (who played "ballot bowling" in Florida to elect George W. Bush in 2000) told the audience at the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington DC that she had studied religion in Switzerland with the godfather of the Christian Right, theologian Francis A. Schaeffer. Her speech there, which I witnessed and wrote about, qualifies her as a Dominionist.

In 2004 Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, another Dominionist, oversaw the election apparatus giving his favored candidate George W. Bush a boost into the Oval Office.

Religion scholar Bruce Barron explains that "unlike the Christian Right, Reconstructionism is not simply or primarily a political movement; it is first and foremost an educational movement fearlessly proclaiming an ideology of total world transformation." According to sociologist Sara Diamond, Christian Reconstructionism spread the "concept that Christians are Biblically mandated to `occupy' all secular institutions" to the extent that it became "the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right."

William Martin is the author of the 1996 tome With God on Our Side, a companion volume to the PBS series of the same name (Martin and I were both advisers to the PBS series). Martin is a sociologist and professor of religion at Rice University, and he has been critical of the way some critics of the Christian Right have tossed around the terms "dominionism" and "theocracy." According to Martin:

It is difficult to assess the influence of Reconstructionist thought with any accuracy. Because it is so genuinely radical, most leaders of the Religious Right are careful to distance themselves from it. At the same time, it clearly holds some appeal for many of them. One undoubtedly spoke for others when he confessed, `Though we hide their books under the bed, we read them just the same.'

Martin reveals that "several key leaders have acknowledged an intellectual debt to the theonomists." The late Christian Right leaders Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy "endorsed Reconstructionist books" for example. Before he died in 2001, the founder of Christian Reconstuctionism, R. J. Rushdoony, appeared several times on Christian Right televangelist programs such as Pat Robertson's 700 Club and the program hosted by D. James Kennedy.

"Pat Robertson makes frequent use of `dominion' language," says Martin. Robertson's book, The Secret Kingdom, "has often been cited for its theonomy elements; and pluralists were made uncomfortable when, during his presidential campaign, he said he `would only bring Christians and Jews into the government,' as well as when he later wrote, `There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.' "

Martin also pointed out that Jay Grimstead, who led the Coalition on Revival, "brought Reconstructionists together with more mainstream evangelicals." According to Martin, Grimstead explained "`I don't call myself [a Reconstructionist]," but "A lot of us are coming to realize that the Bible is God's standard of morality...in all points of history...and for all societies, Christian and non-Christian alike....It so happens that Rushdoony, Bahnsen, and North understood that sooner."

Then Grimstead added, "there are a lot of us floating around in Christian leadership--James Kennedy is one of them--who don't go all the way with the theonomy thing, but who want to rebuild America based on the Bible."

So let's choose our language carefully, but let's recognize that terms such as Dominionism and Theocracy, when used cautiously and carefully, are appropriate when describing troubling tendencies in the Christian Right that are helping push the current political scene toward confrontation and intolerance.

More background articles on the roots of Dominionism:
The Roots of Dominionism





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becket_Fund_for_Religious_Liberty

Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a non-profit organizationbased in Washington, D.C. that describes itself as "a non-profit, public interest law firm defending the freedom of religion of people of all faiths." The Becket Fund operates in three arenas: in the courts of law (litigation), in the court of public opinion (media), and in the academy (scholarship).

The Becket Fund's stated mission is to "protect the free expression of all religious traditions." Clients have included Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians. The organization maintains that "freedom of religion is a basic human right that no government may lawfully deny; it is not a gift of the state, but instead is rooted in the inherent dignity of the human person. Religious expression (of all traditions) is a natural part of life in a free society, and religious arguments (on all sides of a question) are a normal and healthy element of public debate. Religious people and institutions are entitled to participate in public life on an equal basis with everyone else, and should not be excluded for professing their faith."[1]

Litigation activities[edit]

The Becket Fund has represented groups and persons from many different religious traditions in litigation, pre-litigation, and appeals, including Buddhists, Christians,Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Santeros, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians.

Notable clients include the nation's oldest Hindu temple, the Hindu Temple Society of North America, in Flushing, New York City, Prison Fellowship International, Muslim students in Richardson, Texas, seeking to pray the dhuhr prayer on the campus ofLloyd V. Berkner High School, and a Zen Buddhist silent meditation center in New York state that neighbors claimed would make too much noise.

The Becket Fund was counsel for the Petitioner church in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. As a result of the case, theUnited States Supreme Court recognized for the first time the ministerial exceptiondoctrine. They also served as the counsel to Hobby Lobby in its case to be exempt from covering drugs it viewed to be abortifacients. Among cases they have currently slated to be heard by the Supreme Court is one in which they represent a Muslim prison inmate seeking the right to grow a beard.[2]

Previous clients also included the City of Cranston[3] in the attempt to preserve the Prayer Banner at Cranston High School West.

The Becket Fund represented Sacramento-area public school students who sought to continue reciting the current form of the Pledge of Allegiance (including the words "under God") in Newdow v. Carey, the second case brought by Michael Newdowseeking to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. The Becket Fund also represented intervenors in the challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance inHanover, New Hampshire public schools.[4] Both cases were resolved in favor of the current Pledge language.

Another Becket Fund client is a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee that was denied the right to use its building by a local court after complaints that the mosque was promoting terrorism.[5]

Among the Becket Fund's governmental clients have been the states of Colorado,Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, the city of Jersey City, New Jersey, and Spartanburg County School District No. 7.

The Becket Fund has also litigated on behalf of prisoners who seek to continue following their beliefs in prison. The Becket Fund has sought to ensure that observant Jewish prisoners are provided with kosher food in every prison in the United States. Currently pending is the case of Moussazadeh v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which seeks kosher food for the Becket Fund's client Max Moussazadeh. The Becket Fund is also representing a prisoner seeking kosher dietary accommodations from the Florida Department of Corrections.

Another significant area of litigation for the Becket Fund has been religious land use. The Becket Fund brought the first case under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), and has been involved with RLUIPA litigation throughout the United States.[6]

The Becket Fund has also represented a number of amici curiae at the United States Supreme Court in appeals related to religious liberty, including various civil and religious liberties organizations, such as the American Jewish Congress, the Hindu American Foundation, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, United Sikhs, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the American Civil Liberties Union andPeople for the American Way.

International activities[edit]

The Becket Fund advocates on behalf of religious liberty in international fora. It has represented Muslim clients in the European Court of Human Rights, and has assisted in pre-litigation and litigation in Europe, Asia, and Australia.[7] As a non-governmental organisation in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the Becket Fund has also made annual presentations on religious liberty issues of concern at meetings of United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and since 2006, at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Becket Fund also operates the Becket Institute, an academic center focusing on religious liberty issues.

The Becket Fund has been a strong opponent of the concept of "defamation of religion" as it has been presented at the United Nations and elsewhere. The Becket Fund has argued that protecting religions against defamation puts governments in the position of deciding which religious concepts are valid and thus worthy of protection, and would lead to the suppression of both religious and non-religious speech.





I believe strongly in the freedom of religion and the freedom from a required religious participation or belief. This modern trend toward Dominionism is a direct threat to our democratic principles and must be fought at every turn. When the radical right began winning elections I was disturbed, but it has taken a very dangerous direction on all civil rights issues in the last decade. Until recently I dismissed far right viewpoints as being a distinct minority in our country, but as more and more states make new laws to disable our Constitutional principles – women's rights in all ways, freedom of religion including Atheism or Agnosticism, oppression of racial and ethnic minorities, legal oppression and economic abuse of the poor, the elimination of the Social Security and medical care systems, the propagandizing of the public school system and even its entire defunding – I have decided that it's time for all people who believe in the Constitution of the USA, as it has been written and amended over the last 150 years, to form a new political unit that guarantees these rights. I would like to see a well informed and very active energizing of the Democratic Party.

I do believe that the Koch brothers et al set aside, the real force behind this new Right is the rise of religious fanaticism and the continued taint of racism. Reconstruction just didn't carry us all the way past the Civil War. Part of the problem with racial integration on the social level in this country is the fact that the Protestant churches have never been integrated, partly due to the differences in style of worship between the black and white Protestant churches. The Catholic Church, however, has never been segregated doctrinally from the Vatican, though I found Internet articles on the subject. The US and Ireland were mentioned.

I asked a black woman I knew if she wanted to go to my UU church and she said “It sounds too quiet for me.” The UU church is too quiet for the white Dominionists also. The Religious Left, of which we are a member, advocates quiet, deep thought, championing ethical political beliefs, non-literal reading of religious materials and social activism. My church does have several black members, and is one of the churches that have married gays and lesbians in the last decade and welcomed their membership. The United Methodist Church, the Friends, and many Catholics are also liberal on civil rights, though the Vatican still forbids homosexual and lesbian sexual activity. I think those things promote the message of Jesus when he taught so long ago; but fanatical beliefs from the very beginning have been a part of Christianity when it became an established religion – by Emperor Constantine in the Roman Empire and then again during the Reformation in Europe. There is a basic flaw with a mandated and established national religion -- it cannot exist alongside a free citizenry. I put the freedoms in our culture above any one religious viewpoint. We are still, thank God, free to follow our own spiritual paths. That may not continue for much longer.

In the US we have had freedom of religion (except under the Puritans) as one of our most prized basic rights. Right wing voices were loud recently, however, when President Obama quietly made the point that the Crusades, pogroms against Jews, and the slaughter of many believers on both sides in the Reformation in Europe, happened under the Christian Church, not just the present appalling human rights violations under Islamic fundamentalism. Sharia Law would be equally evil. Whenever religion becomes not a spiritual path, but a system of societal control it is not only “off on the wrong footing,” but literally polluted by evil.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” is a phrase that should be remembered in all places and times. It doesn't come from the Bible, but it is very true. It is a statement by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton,or Lord Acton— who was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer. His words were “ "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton for his biography. He was in favor of the states rights cause of the Confederacy as he feared the strongly centralized federal government, however, so he possibly wouldn't have approved of our modern Civil Rights viewpoints. England itself took a position with the Confederacy at that time.

This Wikipedia biography is very interesting. He was a devout Catholic, but wrote about “Papal inconsistency” and opposed the infallibility of the Pope. He was a great scholar who examined issues closely and came to his own conclusions. He wouldn't approve of a doctrine that requires all people to think alike or follow a party line. See the following from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton, which is an excellent article giving some of his quotations on government:

Letter to Mary Gladstone (24 April 1881); later published in Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone (1913) p. 73 – “The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class.”

Letter (23 January 1861), published in Lord Acton and his Circle (1906) by Abbot Francis Aidan Gasquet, Letter 74 – “There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.”

"Nationality" in Home and Foreign Review (July 1862); republished in The History of Freedom and Other Essays (1907), p. 288 – “Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.”

At this time in our history when we are threatened by a bizarre group of Islamic extremists who have more than once succeeded in a terroristic attack on our native soil, it is easy to make an extreme mass movement toward a greater sense of safety which can unfortunately threaten our most precious liberties and intellectual attainments. I am referring to the oppressive new laws such as the Patriot Act and the Fundamentalist Protestant intellectual war against scholarly and rational thought in general – especially on Evolutionary and Environmental issues and science of all kinds, the teaching of a truthful rather than sanitized version of the history of our society, and anything which tends to prevent the dominion of a religion, class structure, or political extremism of all kinds from gaining a foothold here. At this point, I fear we are losing this important battle.