On Friday, New York Times religion reporter Laurie Goodstein reported on the faith of Sarah Palin. Palin has avoided specific answers on her beliefs, but that didn't stop the Times from declaring "Ms. Palin has had long associations with religious leaders who practice a particularly assertive and urgent brand of Pentecostalism known as 'spiritual warfare.'” But Goodstein didn't tell readers much about the hard-left beliefs of Palin's critics, who were not even described as liberals. Take this passage:
Critics say the goal of the spiritual warfare movement is to create a theocracy. Bruce Wilson, a researcher for Talk2Action, a Web site that tracks religious groups, said: "One of the imperatives of the movement is to achieve worldly power, including political control. Then you can more effectively drive out the demons. The ultimate goal is to purify the earth."
Talk to Action is a left-wing site which declares itself a watchdog of the religious right. Its views on Palin are quite clear: an article on her is simply titled "Christian Fascism." It began:
Sarah Palin's propulsion into politics was fueled by religious intolerance, organized through malicious harassment, and targeted at democracy. Her use of the power of the state to deny equal protection under the law and to thwart the civil rights of her ideological opponents is consistent with the bigotry promoted and organized by the churches that made her what she is.
The wedding of her religiously-derived anti-democratic agenda to corporate impunity is what is known as Christian Fascism. Her particular brand of this political phenomenon was responsible for the murder of a quarter of a million indigenous people of Central America during the Reagan Administration.
Christian Fascism in the United States got a foothold in the White House during the last eight years, and with Palin's candidacy is hoping to someday occupy the Oval Office.
Under the Bush Administration, the U.S. judiciary took a decidedly right turn against Native American sovereignty, the U.S. Constitution and international law; under a Palin Vice Presidency, we should expect community-level violence and harassment to increase significantly.
Does this sound like a website that doesn't need any kind of ideological description or warning label?
