Today brought out two more voices of the right-wing theocracy threatening America, according to Paul Krugman, arguing to reconnecting the feeding tube for Terri Schiavo and to stop her deliberate starvation and dehydration. The first right-wing Bible thumper to speak out today comes from a religious background (WARNING: ACLU members should protect themselves from any contact with Christianity before proceeding):

As Terri Schiavo entered her 12th full day without food or water, the Rev. Jesse Jackson prayed with her parents Tuesday and joined conservatives in calling for state lawmakers to order her feeding tube reinserted. ...

"I feel so passionate about this injustice being done, how unnecessary it is to deny her a feeding tube, water, not even ice to be used for her parched lips," he said. "This is a moral issue and it transcends politics and family disputes." ...

Jackson said he asked Michael Schiavo for permission to see the brain-damaged woman but was denied. George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, did not return phone messages seeking comment.

Jackson also telephoned black legislators in a last-ditch effort to bring back a bill that would prohibit severely brain-damaged patients from being denied food and water if they didn't express their wishes in writing. Lawmakers rejected the legislation earlier this month and appeared unlikely to reconsider it.

Jackson apparently did not read Krugman this morning, instead focusing on the tragedy and shame of withholding food and water from a non-terminal disabled woman for over twelve days now. He's too busy trying to get some Florida state senators to change their votes in a last-ditch effort to save her life to notice that radical Christians have staged an effort to turn America into a right-wing theocracy. Jackson joined his son in supporting the Schindlers, apparently another of those right-wing radical Democrats who split on the Congressional action over a week ago.

All right, perhaps Jesse Jackson might be a bit more centrist than that, and he's just getting sucked into the Rovian conspiracy to put a crucifix on every government building. Fortunately, another voice confirms the overwhelming reactionary nature of the people who believe that forcing an otherwise healthy brain-damaged woman to die in a manner that we wouldn't allow used on the worst of criminals to be an injustice singular in American legal history. Nat Hentoff -- that Dr. Dobson groupie of the crypto-Christian Village Voice -- writes that withdrawing food and water from Terri amounts to "judicial murder":

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.

She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.

Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her. ...

While lawyers and judges have engaged in a minuet of death, the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her die.

In fact, Hentoff tees off on both Judge Greer as the only finder of fact on record for any litigation regarding Terri and Michael Schiavo as the only legal guardian given any status in the court system. The Village Voice article even excoriates the ACLU with which it normally celebrates with great joy, mostly for its incompetence in researching the legal issues surrounding Terri's case.

With the Exempt Media continuing to paint this case as a putsch by Christians against the American way of life, one can expect these new voices to get little in the way of coverage the next couple of days. Either that, or suddenly Jackson and Hentoff will simply get lumped in with the supposed nutcases of Christianity that the media loves to disparage, such as the New York Times and Krugman's idiotic column in today's edition. That makes a better story, in their opinion, than the reality that Terri's forced death has disgusted a wide swath of the American public -- and the longer she defies the attempt to put her to death, the more apparent her will to live becomes.

UPDATE: Edited post to remove undeserved pot-shot at atheists. Atheism, while very obviously not my cup of tea, has its own honest and forthright philosophy and deserved better. Thanks to CQ reader Eric K for calling me on that one.

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» Theocrat update from NixGuy.com
CQ has a great post outlining how right-wing theocrats like Jesse Jackson and Nat Hentoff are bringing about a religious dictatorship. Yes that is sarcasm. With supporters including Ralph Nader, Tom Harkin, Kent Conrad, and now Jesse Jackson, It's... [Read More]

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