Is it too early to worry about this stuff as the beginnings of a new fascist movement? When do we worry about this stuff seriously? From the 2006 state GOP Convention in Texas:

At Saturday morning’s prayer meeting, party leader Tina Benkiser assured them that God was watching over the two-day confab.

“He is the chairman of this party,” she said against a backdrop of flags and a GOP seal with its red, white and blue logo.

The party platform, adopted Saturday, declares “America is a Christian nation” and affirms that “God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom.”

“We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation of church and state,” it says.

…

At Saturday morning’s prayer meeting, ministers delivered prayers, gospel singers sang, and the Rev. Dale Young, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Laredo, picked up the convention’s dominant theme of immigration.

“Lord, your words tell us there’s a sign that this nation is under a curse, when the alien who lives among us grows higher and higher and we grow lower and lower,” he preached.

BTW, someone want to reassure me that “the alien who lives among us” doesn’t mean me?

This is the state GOP convention in the second largest state in the union. The #@!@#& state GOP…. Tina Benkiser is the chairman of the party, not some random minor figure. The prayer meeting wasn’t a fringe event. This is the front page of the Texas GOP home page as of 10 minutes ago:

Read the first line of the image.

Some elements of the platform are the same from years past. So, perhaps I’m overreacting or taking it too seriously. You can see that this didn’t get much mention in most news outlets.

Still scares me, as it’s the first time I’ve learned about this.

(via Atrios)

If these churches run like businesses, do they compete with each other? How would you compete with another church? Does their religious mission (bring more followers into the flock) override the business mission? Will one of these churches ever go public? Just thought I’d ask. It’s an interesting phenomenon…

From TownHall.com, which houses authors like Novak, Buckley, Malkin, Oliver North, Pat Buchanan, Brent Bozell, and other leaders of the Republican right, comes this gem:

I am getting the idea that too many Jews won’t be happy until they pull off their own version of the Spanish Inquisition, forcing Christians to either deny their faith and convert to agnosticism or suffer the consequences.

What the f?

The guy writing it is a humorist, but I can’t see much humor in this column with the Jew bashing and use of words like shyster in the piece… it feels deliberately chosen as an epithet.

I miss America.

The LA Times is running a story about a church in CA that’s getting probed by the IRS. The IRS is investigating whether to revoke Pasadena’s All Saints Episcopal Church’s tax-exempt status because of a sermon given in November 2004 that the IRS claims may have violated provisions barring tax-exempt churches from endorsing or campaigning for a candidate. The church doesn’t focus on the traditional hard religious right issues like homosexuality and abortion but instead focuses on more day-to-day concerns like poverty and health issues. This makes it “liberal” in our modern political lexicon and thus in opposition to the Bush camp.

The sermon seems similar to the many given in, say, Southern Baptist or Evangelical churches across the country. The only difference being that it would seem to favor the other candidate. Vote your conscience, focus on the teachings of Jesus and vote your deepest beliefs. It seems OK if your beliefs make abortion and homosexuality the worst things in modern society but not if you’re against poverty, racism, and poor public health policy. But, of course it isn’t politically motivated. Why, that would be absurd, wouldn’t it?

Update: A transcript (PDF) of Regas’s sermon is available on the church web site.