Associated Press:
A judge who struck down a Dover, Penn., school board's decision to teach intelligent design in public schools said he was stunned by the reaction, which included death threats and a week of protection from federal marshals.
Pennsylvania U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III told an audience in Lawrence Tuesday that the case illustrated why judges must issue rulings free of political whims or hopes of receiving a favor.
In a 139-page decision last year, Jones ruled that the Dover school board intended to promote religion when it instituted a policy requiring students to hear a statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution. He ruled that it is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.
"And if you would have told me when I got on the bench four years ago that I would have death threats in a case like this as opposed to, for example, a crack cocaine case where I mete out a heavy sentence, I would have told you that you were crazy," he said. "But I did. And that's a sad statement."
Is there any doubt at all that these death threats came from minions of the religious right? The problem with christian terrorists is identical to the problem with muslim terrorists -- they believe they have absolute truth and are acting on God's behalf. When your allegiance is only to God, the laws of nations become meaningless. When you believe your opponent is working for the devil, there's no reason to be ethical or moral in dealing with them. You have carte blanche to do anything -- kill, threaten, lie, vandalize, etc. Religious terrorists are anarchists who don't realize they're anarchists.
So it is in Alabama, where abortion clinics are having trouble finding people to work for them. "Abortion-rights supporters say threats of being stalked, picketed and otherwise harassed by those who oppose the procedure have made it increasingly difficult for abortion clinics to find backup physicians as required by the state," an AP story reports.
We've actually had doctors in other cities that have been told by abortion opponents that if they back us up, they will be targeted," said Hill, the owner of Mississippi's only abortion provider.
"They say 'We want to help, but we can't do that to our (business) partners.' So, it's really almost impossible to find someone who really can do it and not be worried about it," she said.
Anti-abortion advocates readily agree that such tactics are probably causing doctors to think twice before getting involved in the industry - and they'd like to keep it that way.
[...]
The Rev. Jim Pinto, founder of Sanctity of Life Ministries in Birmingham, said backup physicians are just as much targets as doctors who perform abortions full time.
"They're accessories to murder," he said. "Their presence is allowing the clinics to be open."
When you start calling someone a murderer and point out that this 'murder' is ongoing, how can you say you're not encouraging someone to step in and stop it? There's no way these people can argue that they aren't using the threat of violence to close down these clinics. And, therefore, there's no logical way they can argue that they're not engaging in terrorist tactics.
As the elections draw nearer -- and it becomes more and more obvious that the elections won't go their way -- rightwing terrorists are targetting 'enemies' to try to silence them. In at least one case, the rightwing media has tried to downplay the threats. Rupert Murdoch owns both the New York Post and Fox News -- here's the Post on news that Keith Olbermann received an envelope of white powder (obviously meant to convince him he'd been mailed anthrax) at his home.
MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick. The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post's Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann's pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known. Olbermann had no comment.
Hilarious, isn't it? You know that if the same thing had happened to Bill O'Reilly, there'd be huge block caps on page one reading "TERRORIST ATTACKS FOX HOST O'REILLY!!" But when it happens to Olbermann, it's a prank and he's a chump who fell for it.
If the Democrats take the House, expect more of this. If they take the Senate, expect a lot more of this. These are people who don't care about democracy or law or even freedom. They believe that they're right and nothing will stand in their way. They'll lie, they'll cheat, they'll threaten, and they will try to commit violence.
Because they have 'the truth'.
--Wisco
Technorati tags: politics; religious right; republicans; crime; it's not terrorism when right wing and christian people do it
