c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Conservatives often get slagged for speaking to religious organizations, as if they’ve thrown church and state in the blender and hit puree. Dominionist smoothies for all! Liberal politicians who speak in churches are presumably slathered with some sort of secular gel that insulates them from influence. (And criticism.)

It’s an ancient double standard. Nevertheless, those who defend the right of the religiously minded to join the political debate are not heartened when guys from their side cram all their feet in their mouths, shoes included, right past the ankles.

Exhibit No. 1: Pat Robertson. He recently declared on ABC’s “This Week” that federal judges are “probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.”

Said the New York Daily News: “Confronted … on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years _ worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War _ Robertson didn’t back down. `Yes, I really believe that,’ he said. `I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together.”’

Well, then let’s issue an all-points bulletin for judges in flight schools who are learning only how to take off. Keep an eye peeled for robed Solons taking pictures of key bridges, wondering where they would plant the rulings to bring them down. And if any of your relatives fought in World War II, ask them about Hitler’s feared legal division, which turned back the entire spring ’44 offensive by ruling that the Allied tanks had no standing in the European theater.

Yes, judges who see the Constitution as something that’s living, breathing, singing, dancing, etc., will carry out al-Qaida’s agenda on their own initiative. Any day now the Ninth Circuit will allow gay marriage, but only if the couple is stoned to death during the reception.

It’s nonsense and twaddle, and detracts from the real problems of an overactive judiciary. But what’s missing? Endorsement of Robertson’s notion from any Republican politician with so much as a pinky-toe hold in the mainstream.

Now, our second example. Alabama state legislator Gerald Allen wanted to ban public school libraries from buying anything written by a gay author, regardless of content. They all have agendas, you see, and it contaminates every word of their work, even if they’re writing about parakeets.

If you ban something simply just because the author was gay, then you not only deprive the children of exceptional art, you assert that there is something intrinsically corrupting about the author’s sexual identity that perverts his or her work at the molecular level. Would it be permitted to study DaVinci’s sublime religious art? Guess not. Read a biography? Well, maybe _ depends on the author. What if he’s single and has cats? What if he’s married and likes show tunes?

Oh, and no computers in the classroom; computer pioneer Alan Turing fancied the lads, you know. Back to the abacuses. If exposure to gay artists is inherently corrupting, then “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings” _ both of which had gay actors among their heroes _ should have made millions of teen geeks switch teams.

No one in the GOP will take up the Alabamian’s cause, on account of its terminal boneheadedness. No one on the national scale is criticizing him either, but you can’t expect them to respond to every loose flake in a state legislature, any more than you could hold Bill Clinton responsible for every city councilman who wanted to make his town’s air space free of orbiting space weapons. You can start to worry about the imminent theocracy when Pat Robertson sits next to George W. Bush at the next convention.

But it might behoove the national party to call these guys out from time to time. Note to Karl Rove: The next time someone asks the prez what’s on his iPod, mention the Pet Shop Boys. Can’t hurt.

In any case, thanks for sounding off, guys! Puts the supposedly scary theocrats like Bush and Bill Frist in perspective. We now return you to your previous career path. Irrelevance, with a tangy soupcon of obscurity. Bon appetit.

MO/LF/RR END LILEKS

(James Lileks is a columnist for Newhouse News Service, a blogger and the author of four books.)

Editors: Check the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for a file photo of Lileks to acccompany this story. Search by last name. A version of this story moved on Newhouse News Service.