Cal Thomas is my new hero

Little did I know I had a champion all these years.

As some of you may recall, I spoke openly for my dislike of the political pro-life movement and the moral majority in general (At what cost do we sell morality). This came after some serious soul searching in 1994/95 after trumpeting the Young Republican manifesto as a stupid college student.

Now I discover that Cal Thomas, former leading mouthpiece for the Religious Right and owner of a Hitler-esque mustache, had a similar Evangelical awakening in the late 90s. I found this three-year old interview to reflect the very heart of my own transition. Whatever else Thomas might say -- and I'm not conceding total agreement yet -- his comments in this article could not better state my own position on the issues.

My favorite quotes:

[Speaking on banning gay marriage] I would like to pass a few laws that would ban lying and bearing false witness and all of that. However, some of these preachers and others who are so heavily involved in some of the issues that you mention have no problem with gluttony or with 300 pounds and lying about people and bearing false witness and sending out fundraising letters that are flat-out lies and spending the money on other things. That’s just the way it is. So I find it rather curious that some people who claim to be righteous or to appeal to a standard of righteousness are less than that in their personal lives.

I think you can affect the issue (of homosexuality) in a positive way, which I believe I do in my newspaper column. You can argue, for instance, about the benefits of traditional marriage. But there is a bottom line–that is, I believe there is a greater threat to the country from heterosexuals divorcing and people living together without being married than I do from the so-called gay rights movement.

Well, (America) was never the Christians’ country to begin with. I personally don’t want it to be a Christian nation for the same reason that I don’t want the federal government aiding the church. I think Bush’s whole faith-based initiative thing is one of the biggest camel noses in the tent that I have seen in my life. I wasn’t aware that God declared bankruptcy under Chapter 11. There is no mandate or expectation in Scripture that the state should fund the work of the things of God. I think that is extremely dangerous.