It's probably true that Democrats and other progressives often fail to appreciate the importance of religion to millions of Americans, and need to do better. Still, you can't blame me for chuckling a bit at the news that Kansas Senator (and Christian extremist) Sam Brownback is forming an exploratory committee to consider running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
His candidacy would provide hours of fascination for Democrats watching the rest of the Republican field scramble to keep up with Brownback and his theocratic base. On embryonic stem cell research alone he's a political disaster waiting to happen to the Republicans. Just ask soon-to-be ex-Senator Jim Talent of Missouri. (Or Rush Limbaugh).
So who is Sam Brownback?
In Jeff Sharlet's great story in Rolling Stone, Brownback says he's the candidate of the "fetal citizens" of America. He has described young people today as feeling as though they are holocaust survivors because so many of their age cohort were aborted. (And he's compared abortion to the Holocaust numerous times).
Brownback was converted to Catholicism through the superduper orthodox Opus Dei, but while he swears he's not Opus Dei, he is part of a prayer cell called The Fellowship, who meet to pray and, it would seem, figure out ways to impose their faith on our government.
(By the way, Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, a member of the Baker-Hamilton commission, is also in The Fellowship, according to the Rolling Stone article).
Brownback's God agenda extends to the Constitution, and a bill he's co-sponsored with the misleading name of "Constitution Restoration Act." It was designed to limit the power of the Supreme Court to prevent religion (and by that they mean, of course, Christianity), from being inserted into official government business.
Last summer, during a stem cell research debate, Senator Brownback held up a picture of an embryo, purportedly drawn by a "snowflake" child named Hannah, and said Hannah told him the embryo was asking, "Are you going to kill me?" You can watch it here.
He also stalled the nomination of Judge Janet Neff because she attended the commitment ceremony of two lesbians who were her friends. (Too judicially activist-ish for him).
Brownback raised a lot of eyebrows around Washington some years ago when he washed the feet of a staffer at a farewell reception. (Takes you back to the day when John Ashcroft annointed himself with cooking oil, doesn't it?)
To read even more startling facts about Brownback, check out Naked Republicans, a Full-Frontal Exposure of Right-wing Hypocrisy and Greed.
For the past six years, the theocrats and religious bigots of the Republican Party have menaced those of us who value the separation of church and state. Now, maybe they'll just be a menace to their own party.
As for Senator Brownback, if he does run, by the time he gets through the primaries, dragging Giuliani, McCain, Romney et al. ever further toward the extreme right, the GOP platform will probably call for the public stoning of stem cell researchers and people who dance.
So, good luck, Senator. Really.