Bully Pulpit
This probably doesn't have a place in the grand catalogue of good ideas:
Texas Gov. Signs Bill at Church School.
Leave aside the reflexive media attitudes about religion (the bias is real -- you should hear the church page editor here). Leave aside even the fact that having under-18s get parental consent is, despite the complications of broken homes and abusive parents -- probably within the range of restrictions most Americans would accept.
Signing bills -- these bills, among all others -- in a church complex just invites the inevitable conclusion that these are naked denominational issues. There are non-religious and non-Christian arguments and positions in favor of all the matters covered in Perry's bills. He could have signed them in a Mosque, after all. To take the unusual step on these issues -- on which "Christians" are by no means of one voice -- is an insult, as one protester said, to both church and state.
Texas Gov. Signs Bill at Church School.
Making good on a Republican campaign call to celebrate with "Christian friends," Gov. Rick Perry traveled to an evangelical school here on Sunday to put his signature on measures to restrict abortion and prohibit same-sex marriage.
About 100 protesters lined the street outside the school, Calvary Christian Academy, denouncing the unusual signing as breaching the constitutional separation between church and state.
The event, termed historic by the church's pastor, Bob Nichols, was pointedly held in the academy's gymnasium, apart from the church sanctuary, to deflect complaints. A plan by the Perry campaign to film the event for political commercials was dropped earlier.
Perry, who may face a tough primary challenge next year, described the event as "pro-family, pro-life" and nonpartisan. On a dais before a cheering crowd of close to 1,000 churchgoers and leaders of evangelical ministries, he signed a bill passed during this session of the Texas Legislature requiring girls under 18 to get their parents' consent before having an abortion. Previously, they needed only to notify their parents.
"We may be on the grounds of a Christian church, but we all believe in standing up for the unborn," Perry said.
Leave aside the reflexive media attitudes about religion (the bias is real -- you should hear the church page editor here). Leave aside even the fact that having under-18s get parental consent is, despite the complications of broken homes and abusive parents -- probably within the range of restrictions most Americans would accept.
Signing bills -- these bills, among all others -- in a church complex just invites the inevitable conclusion that these are naked denominational issues. There are non-religious and non-Christian arguments and positions in favor of all the matters covered in Perry's bills. He could have signed them in a Mosque, after all. To take the unusual step on these issues -- on which "Christians" are by no means of one voice -- is an insult, as one protester said, to both church and state.
