No Theocrats on the Right ?

In 1996 Michael Lind wrote a book called Up From Conservatism in which he told the story of his conversion from the political right to the political center. In brief, Lind said he left conservatism because he could not remain in a movement that could see "no enemies on the right." He said the conservative movement was very careful to not offend and was openly wooing racists, theocrats, religious cultists, and neo-fascists.

A good example of what Lind was talking about is in a story posted on AlterNet today, Throw Down Your Cross. It is a story about the political influence of Sun Myung Moon and a movement he launched to remove crosses from churches.

In the past couple weeks, I've heard a lot on the radio about businesses taking Christ out of Christmas at the mall, I've read about churches not being permitted to enter floats in parades and I've been grilled on TV about schools taking nativity scenes out of their school plays, but this is the first thing I've seen about a movement to take crosses down from churches. Astonishingly, this story is being told by the left-wing press -- the AlterNet -- because the right-wing media hasn't yet found it newsworthy.

I suspect it's because too many Christians can see "no theocrats on the right." Moon's right on all the issues that matter most to them -- he supports right-wing candidates, he hates homosexuals and he opposes gay marriage. In their eyes, it's the secularists and church-state separationists who are truly dangerous.