God, Secular Schools, and Religiosity: The Fascists and the Religious Right

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, August 07, 2007 at 08:19 PM

A few quotes from recent days and a few from the glory days of Fascism, on some of the religious right's favorite subjects:

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We need believing people."

-- Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"

-- Jerry Falwell

2. Good guys doing God's work:

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: - by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord” — Adolph Hitler

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." -- Adolf Hitler

"We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press. . .we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess." -- Adolf Hitler

"Get the few liberals out. If you don’t do it, it ain’t gonna be done. You will be doing the Lord’s work, and he will richly bless you for it."–Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, describing the goals of the 2004 elections at the Christian Coalition’s Road to Victory Conference, 2002, Washington D.C.

"He [God] is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for a biblical worldview in everything that I do and everywhere I am." -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay

3. Our heaven-sent leaders:

"God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany."

--Hermann Goering, speaking of Hitler

"Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."

--Lt Gen William Boykin, speaking of G. W. Bush, New York Times, 17 October 2003

"He [Rumsfeld] leads in a way that the Good Lord tells him is best for our country."

-- Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

4. Bonus quote from the one and only Senator James Inhofe:

"I sometimes say one of the few qualifications I have for the U.S. Senate is I am not a lawyer. So that when I read the Constitution, I know what it says; when I read the oath of office, I know what it says; when I read the law, I know what it says. I don't have to clutter up my mind with what the definition of 'is' is. So it makes it a little easier for me.

...

"as a non-attorney, I have a hard time reconciling the idea that there might be certain permissible exceptions to telling the truth under oath. Maybe you who are attorneys, and have a different background than mine, see it differently. But how can you reconcile this idea that under some conditions--if the subject matter is sex or something else--you can lie under oath? I really have a hard time with this.

.....

"Sometimes when I am not really sure I am right, I consult my best friend. His name is Jesus. And I asked that question. Now I will quote to you the response that is found in Luke: 'From one who has been entrusted with more, much more will be asked.'

"Mr. Chief Justice, I think Jesus is right."

--Inhofe, in his 1999 official statement on the impeachment of Clinton (his closed-door impeachment statement that was released into the Congressional Record on February 12, 1999)