Mui interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times by John C. Danforth; former Missouri Republican Senator, United States ambassador to the United Nations, and Episcopal minister.

Basic gist: Current heavy conservative Christian influence over the Republican party = Bad for the Republican party, bad for the Constitution, bad for the country.

Excerpts:

By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.

Standing alone, each of these initiatives has its advocates, within the Republican Party and beyond. But the distinct elements do not stand alone. Rather they are parts of a larger package, an agenda of positions common to conservative Christians and the dominant wing of the Republican Party.

So who is in charge of setting the Republican agenda today? Yup; dogma first.

In my state, Missouri, Republicans in the General Assembly have advanced legislation to criminalize even stem cell research in which the cells are artificially produced in petri dishes and will never be transplanted into the human uterus. They argue that such cells are human life that must be protected, by threat of criminal prosecution, from promising research on diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes.

It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law.

Baffling, isn’t it?

I do not fault religious people for political action. Since Moses confronted the pharaoh, faithful people have heard God's call to political involvement. Nor has political action been unique to conservative Christians. Religious liberals have been politically active in support of gay rights and against nuclear weapons and the death penalty. In America, everyone has the right to try to influence political issues, regardless of his religious motivations.

ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.

Whoa?! I see what you mean. Sort of like in Pakistan, Iran and Ireland. But doesn’t that compromise the Constitution?

When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another.

Dude, you’re scaring me. Have I been a moderate Republican all this time without even knowing it?

Take stem cell research. Criminalizing the work of scientists doing such research would give strong support to one religious doctrine, and it would punish people who believe it is their religious duty to use science to heal the sick.

Wow! No doubt about it; the conservative Christian agenda runs contrary to the principles of the Constitution. And on top of that, they seem to now effectively control the political party who control’s congress and heads the executive branch.

During the 18 years I served in the Senate, Republicans often disagreed with each other. But there was much that held us together. We believed in limited government, in keeping light the burden of taxation and regulation. We encouraged the private sector, so that a free economy might thrive. We believed that judges should interpret the law, not legislate. We were internationalists who supported an engaged foreign policy, a strong national defense and free trade. These were principles shared by virtually all Republicans.

Eh, now you’re sort of losing me. I agree with you on that whole judges should interpret the law and not legislate thing; but you’re otherwise just feeding me platitudes. Republicans and small government. Heh, good one....

But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives.

Yikes!? Half lies and platitudes are taking a back seat to a religious theocracy?

The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future. Our current fixation on a religious agenda has turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our roots.

Hahahahaha! Okay, now you’ve lost me. The historic principles of the Republican Party were admirable, but they had nothing to do with the clichés that you just spelled out to me from your “18 years.” They go back to the time of Lincoln. They stood for progressive reform and a large centralized government; not empty rhetoric from the Reagan era. Sort of like the historic principles of the Democratic party go back to the time of Jefferson, when they stood for small government, states rights, pastoral populism and slavery.

Fact of the matter is, the historic principles of a political party don’t mean a hill of beans. Party systems happen and political parties change. Today’s Democrats were the eighteenth century’s Federalists. Today’s Republicans were the Democrats of the Civil War Era. I don’t care about any of that. What I do care about is what a political party stands for now. What you just described tells me today’s Republican party is effectively controlled by religious theocrats who are contemptuous of my Constitution.

Thank you for the clarification. Where do I confirm my party affiliation?