Stop right there, Christian soldiers

It's been a while since I referenced an article that examines the many dangerous ways in which fundamentalists are actively promoting theocracy in America. We see the strategy all the time-- the new campaign against science, the Bush admin's tying of fundamentalist ideology to foreign policy (like denying aid to countries that promote condom use to prevent AIDS), the bogus War on Christmas, Easter, et al. stories pushed by right-wing shills, attempts to outlaw contraception, and so on. Given their concerns that the Republican hold on government might crumble this fall, the fundies are pushing harder than ever to take us back to the Dark Ages-- while floundering Republican candidates promise them more and more in an attempt to win whatever votes they can. Dangerous times.

But articles on the movement itself are frightening, fascinating, and not nearly as common as they should be. When mainstream media outlets already live in fear of being labeled 'liberal,' (not that those accusations will ever cease) they aren't about to take on issues like this one. Not even when there's an active movement to replace the Constitution with the Old Testament and repeal a century's worth of civil rights legislation.

Even the anecdote with which the article opens is a complete horror show of the incestuous relationship that's been formed between right-wing politicians and fanatical dogmatists:

A teenage modern dance troupe dressed all in black took their places on the stage of the First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. Two dancers, donning black overcoats, crossed their arms menacingly. As a Christian pop ballad swelled on the speakers, a boy wearing judicial robes walked out. Holding a Ten Commandments tablet that seemed to be made of cardboard, he was playing former Alabama Supreme Court justice Roy Moore. The trench-coated thugs approached him, miming a violent rebuke and forcing him to the other end of the stage, sans Commandments.

There, a cluster of dancers impersonating liberal activists waved signs with slogans like "No Moore!" and "Keep God Out!! No God in Court." The boy Moore danced a harangue, first lurching toward his tormentors and then cringing back in outrage before breaking through their line to lunge for his monument. But the dancers in trench coats -- agents of atheism -- got hold of it first and took it away, leaving him abject on the floor. As the song's uplifting chorus played -- "After you've done all you can, you just stand" -- a dancer in a white robe, playing either an angel or God himself, came forward and helped the Moore character to his feet.

The performance ended to enthusiastic applause from a crowd that included many Alabama judges and politicians, as well as Roy Moore himself, a gaunt man with a courtly manner and the wrath of Leviticus in his eyes. Moore has become a hero to those determined to remake the United States into an explicitly Christian nation. That reconstructionist dream lies at the red-hot center of our current culture wars, investing the symbolic fight over the Ten Commandments -- a fight whose outcome seems irrelevant to most peoples' lives -- with an apocalyptic urgency.