Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich has published a "draft" of his soon to be infamous "Presidential Comission on Religious Freedom," set to be finalized as an Executive order by September 27th, 2012. As a reinforcement to the guiding concept of "freedom of religion," it hopes to set in place a committee to oversee that freedom to worship openly is enforced. But does Gingrich realize how deep the Christian leanings of the nation, and the words of his proposal, actually are?
Published to Gingrich's campaign website on December 18th, 2011, the comission outlines twelve steps that, to put it lightly, partially increase the size of government by establishing a "working group" to go forth and ensure that freedom to worship is upheld in all aspects of our society. This is quite ironic, considering the Republican agenda to decrease the size of said government has been made apparent for decades, if only to refocus the size on issues relevant to the Republican Party. A major question is precisely who qualifies to serve on the working group? This, given that it is not outlined in any level of specificity that this writer can ascertain from reading.
A few varying degrees of political double-speak permeate the comission document, notably in the reference to the "Establishment Clause" of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" despite the fact that the ramifications of such a comission may very well require action from Congress. Another, following the Republican trope of interpreting and thereby asserting to know the will of the Founding Fathers, punctuates the document as often as a comma or period would in a letter. This is visible in the "Six Themes Summarize The Founders’ Vision For Church And State" section of the document (Federalist, Nationalist, Democratic, Libertarian, Philosophical and Theological.)
The final highlight goes into a laundry list of "low-points" in American History, characterizing them as issues that could only be resolved through religious morality. This, despite the fact that the true resolutions of issues such as the eugenics movement and slavery had been ousted not by religious intervention or hinging on a change of conscience, but by political means. Most especially slavery, despite the fact that Europeans could not support a country that perpetuated a law they had long since abolished was more of a contributing factor to the abolition of slavery than the fact that Lincoln appealed to the moral "conscience" of Americans. Through interpretation of the Founding Fathers intentions with "cherry-picked" quotes from those same men, there is also a laughable reference to Machiavelli's "The Prince," a book written with the sole intention of satirizing the Medici family's rise to power, however brief in quotation; not unlike using an episode of "All In The Family" to illustrate America in the early 1980s .
Though the intention to ensure religious freedom may be encouraged in the "spirit" of the document, Gingrich's "Presidential Commission on Religious Freedom" seems more bent on ensuring the free practice of the Christian faith, and contradicts itself at every sloppily executed turn. This writer would suggest to any Republican, regardless of faith (or lack thereof) to familiarize themself with this comission before taking one step (or twelve) towards supporting the Gingrich campaign.
(The actual draft is available here: http://www.newt.org/presidential-commission-religious-freedom)
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