The SA Constitution might not mix religion with politics - but it is far more Christ-like than the one many groups claiming to be "Christian" would give us!
Below is a comment posted on a discussion forum by a man who has actively supported religious fundamentalist right wing political parties and their para-religious groups in South Africa who have made a habit of campaigning against the human rights and equality of the gay and trans community.
"I cannot see any other option for South Africa but a Righteous Republic. The term democratic which by implication is mob rule has no place in Christian politics, personally I would prefer a Theocracy, but in as much as man is not perfect a Righteous Republic would suffice. As a Christian who takes the Bible literally, understanding that GOD will curse our nation if it legislates against His Law, yet bless our nation if we obey His commandments I would support a Righteous Republic and especially a Christian Republican Party".
Ironically, the same person quoted above has on several occasions stated that he wants the death penalty to be re-instituted - and that he, like others, views it as a "Christian duty" for the state to execute gay people for the "crime" of being gay.
I'm deadly serious about this - I've seen many comments of this sort, and they're not kidding. No sir, no shit.
This is a trend disturbingly on the increase among radical gay-hating people in SA, who are usually fanatical fundamentalists or literalists ascribing to one of several religions, typically Abrahamic.
Their hatred for those who differ from themselves overflows and overrules common sense, logic and compassion for fellow human beings. It is also not a new thing in the world for these people to call for and campaign for the death penalty for gay people 'as punishment' for being gay, although it certainly is a fairly new phenomenon on the political scene in South Africa. We can only attribute its arrival here to the heavy influence of the American religious right groupings who have overrun the US Republican Party and used the gay community as a scapegoat and rallying point to try and institute a theocracy in that country over the past 8 years - and certainly the dangers of mixing religion with politics can be seen in this.
For many years right wing fundamentalist "missionaries" have been coming to SA and assisting these groups under the guise of "church planting". Many groups have sprung up in SA which were inspired by and even named after US groups and who followed their lead in persecuting the pink community. In many cases even the rhetoric they espouse is supplied by the foreign groups. Sadly this ideology and fanaticism seems to have found a home in South Africa in the form of "ex-gay" groups and political parties such as the ACDP and CDA.
Religious based political parties freely mix politics and religion and have brought their own narrow-minded literalist and fundamentalist misinterpretations of a religion which in general teaches love and tolerance - and not mass hatred or persecution of others as they assert - into the political arena. By making politics part of their religion (or vice versa) they threaten to install a theocracy - a religious government - which will supplant any last vestiges of democracy should such a movement ever gain popular support in any future election. in short, their intent is to coax democracy - using democratic means - to fall on its own sword to suit their ends. What would follow such an unmitigated disaster is anyone's guess, but I am willing to bet large sums of money that the concept of human rights - and our equality - will be one of the first things to be tossed out the window as "heresy" and "placing man's interests above God's". Persecutions and scores of human rights violations in the name of "the greater good" and "Gods Will" would likely soon follow on an unprecedented scale.
Indeed, while many of these comments are made by supporters on their Facebook groups, they are never censured or berated, but condoned either in silence or mass agreement. Seldom has any of their supporters spoken out against them or their irrational hatred. I find references by these fanatical groups to "homosexual terrorists", "gay Taliban" and "militant homosexual fascists" coupled with comparisons of the gay rights movement to the Nazis rather ironic considering it is not the gay rights movement attempting to isolate one small group or minority from the rest of society by using religion to attack them and turn them into "lesser human beings" - or to take away their equality.
Nazis? Over the 10 years or so of Nazi rule in Germany and Austria and with the ardent support of the Christian Church there, the Nazi ideology was over that time very deeply intertwined with Christianity - most expertly done by Josef Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler who mixed in a great deal of Norse and old German mythology with it. And they too had a pressing need for a scapegoat - and they found it in the Jewish population, along with the sizeable portion of the pink community in Europe that died in the concentration camps along with them, and the gypsies and anyone else the Nazis felt superior to. Oh yes, it was quite religious.
Similar practice continues around the world today with local customary religions such as ancestor worship, voo doo, ju-ju magic etc - and of course, the new-fangled use of gay-hate as a prime religious rallying call. They need a scapegoat to rally their flock, and having run out of other victims, now it is our turn to run the gauntlet in the scapegoating game.
The dominionist movement (also known as 'Kingdom Now Theology' and 'reconstructionism' or 'reformationism'), which is at the root of most evangelical churches around the world and which originated in the USA, is founded upon the "great commission" which they have twisted to mean "let's take over the world tonight, Pinky. Narrf!"
Part of the doctrine at the root of this movement is the precept that ancient biblical laws predating even Christianity should be raised up as "moral law" in this country and included in every aspect of life including private homes. They also want to replace democracy with a theocracy (church as government). Part of this strange concept is the execution of people whom they deem criminals - including among others, the whole pink community - a prospect which people such as this seem to look forward to with a great deal of excitement. The more religious figures we can get to rally against this narrow and twisted and brutally evil way of thinking, the better for human rights, equality and decency in this country.
I'm not so sure if I find genocide that exciting, but essentially, that is what these people want. In fact they want it so badly that they have in effect hijacked a religion as a vehicle to achieve it.
It is quite ironic that those calling the loudest for "morality" in SA are the most immoral of all.
Find somebody else to point fingers at, folks. Christians are tired of having their religion hijacked by whacko fanatics - and the rest of us are tired of the apathy of those who let them.
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