Sabbath Chic

Within a period of a few months, America has been transformed from a Godless hell-bound nation into one that is not only more Christian, but one in which each individual is empowered to announce it publicly. It is now fashionable to be Christian. And this transformation owes its success to the stylistic leadership of President George Bush and his neoconservative entourage.

In his closing argument at the final debate of the 2004 presidential election, President Bush stated, “I believe that God wants everybody to be free. And that's been part of my foreign policy.” President Bush has also publicly announced that he approves of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Indeed, the President is blurring the line between the 230 year-precedent of “separation of church and state.” So what does it mean? It means that the Bush Administration wants to make America moral by creating legislation, and the only way to do that is to amend the US Constitution.

For the New Moralists to improve morality, all pornography will have to be outlawed, as well as violence on television and video games. Amendment I of the Constitution will have to be dissolved and a new amendment created that will change the phrase, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The new Amendment will also have to remove the clause, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” if the Bush Administration wants to modify the right to choose, or ban gay marriage.

But then again, the Bush Administration already possesses selective disregard for the Constitution, so why end now? We really don’t even need to amend the Constitution – the President finds ways around that. Amendment IV states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” George Bush’s Patriot Act insolently neglects this Constitutional right. Did the President not take an oath to uphold the US Constitution?

In its history, the United States has not seen such a blatant disrespect of our founding fathers’ sacrifices and triumphs, as well as the millions of lives lost for American Democracy. George Bush’s assault on the US Constitution and 230 years of established democratic precedent is the single-most important threat from the neoconservative and New Moral agenda.

Does Western Civilization need to reconsider its moral compass? I believe so. Is destroying the world’s pinnacle of democratic governance the means to accomplish this reconsideration? No. If the President truly wanted “everyone to be free,” he would end this assault on our most basic civil liberties.