Conservative leaders misappropriate Christian values

Illustration by JENNY YURSHANSKY/Daily Bruin   Cody
Cass Cass is a first-year undeclared student. E-mail him
at [email protected].

Republican leadership has made a point of appealing to
America’s old-schoolers by portraying itself as having a
Christian core. But its actions oppose the human compassion that is
tantamount to Christianity.

Tolerance and understanding are neglected for legislation
refusing to recognize homosexual marriages. Compassion and
forgiveness are abandoned in favor of the death penalty. Charity,
generosity and goodwill are forgotten in order to try to reduce
taxes.

“Liberal” and “Christian” should be
nearly synonymous in the ears of the American public. Liberals,
socialists, hippies, or whatever other dirty names you’d like
to call them, are the idealists in American society. They have
always pushed for the equality and compassion within the human race
that is the cornerstone of Christian faith.

In actuality, liberals are depicted as pests that infect
traditional American culture. Republicans make a habit of pointing
out liberals’ personal weaknesses and flaws, pretending that
they are made of a higher moral fiber. For years, right-wingers
have claimed Christianity as their own to disguise their glass
houses as brick, throwing stones at whomever’s in sight.

Why, then, if these men are such morally upstanding Christians,
do they push policy that is so detrimental to Christian ideals? I
don’t care what some homophobic prophet said about
homosexuality thousands of years ago; restricting peoples’
rights based on sexual orientation is just plain wrong. If a man
wants to marry a man, or a woman a woman, nobody from a local
parishioner to Dick Cheney ought to stand in their way.

I refuse to believe that a God that could give up his only son
for the good of the Earth would abandon someone because they happen
to prefer members of the same sex. If you’re going to claim
to be a Christian, then you better be ready to embrace the message
of tolerance and unconditional love that Jesus brought to the
world. Homosexuality is not a sin, it is not an abnormality, and it
is not an imperfection. It is simply a variety in the human
population that should be granted the same respect that we have
come to grant any other variation in the world community.

The unfair treatment of gays is only the beginning of
conservative Republican hypocrisy. They also seem to have forgotten
their Sunday school lessons about compassion and forgiveness.
According to the GOP Web site, Republicans blame current crime
rates on “social upheaval provoked by the welfare, drug and
crime policies of the 1960s and later.” They seem to think
that a strong, “effective deterrent death penalty” is
the answer for crime rates that the Web site admits are lower now
than they have been in a generation.

If by “deterrent” Republicans mean to say
“grossly overused,” then their proposal to pack the
U.S. Sentencing Commission makes perfect sense. The U.S. Sentencing
Commission is in charge of establishing punishment parameters to
ensure that offenders of similar crimes receive similar
punishments. The Commission’s Web site lists “drug
trafficking, fraud, immigration offenses and bank robberies”
as the most common cases in federal courts.

Despite the largely non-violent nature of these offenses,
Republicans would like to reserve two of the seven seats on the
commission for victims of violent crimes. Drug traffickers and bank
robbers might not be the nicest people in the world, but allowing
two bloodthirsty victims to determine their punishments is serving
vengeance, not justice.

Our leaders’ competency in handling crime is certainly a
pertinent issue, but is the death penalty really the Christian
thing to do? Have we made any kind of attempt to improve our fellow
man if we put him to death after his first violent offense? Are we
granting the forgiveness that the Bible recommends? George W. Bush
might be raising his children to turn the other cheek, but
it’s impossible to believe that he practices what he’s
preaching when he put more people to death than any other governor
in history.

Now here’s a mindbender: If Christians are suppose to help
support the needy, then why do wealthy Republicans have such a
problem with welfare? You would think that our newly elected
Christian philanthropists would be all for welfare. Alas, Bush and
his cronies have long been in favor of abandoning or drastically
reducing welfare payments because it requires tax money. Over one
trillion in tax cuts is more convenient for Republicans and their
corporate sponsors than the business of ensuring that all people
are able to maintain a certain minimal quality of life. Republicans
may be Christian by name, but their political practices are
anything but.

The Republicans that seized the capital this past year ought to
be able to recognize that the morals they claim govern their
everyday lives should carry over to the manner in which they govern
the country.

Unfortunately, they seem to draw a line somewhere between
advocating humanitarian ideals and putting them into practice in
Washington.

Restricting peoples’ rights, supporting and expanding
capital punishment, and favoring the rich are simply not acceptable
answers to the question “What Would Jesus Do?” Hiding
narrow-minded, egocentric practices behind the life of a man who
stood for acceptance and altruism is a gross exploitation of the
Christian faith.