Laying the smack down.

Don Walten, evangelist preacher and founder of Truth Ministries, went on a rant this week about Rosie O'Donnell in a Florida magazine called Witness (see the full article). In his bluster, Walten addressed a variety of topics ranging from the national doctorine of seperation-of-church-and-state to Islamic values. He turned each of these topics on their head, shook them out and then used them to accuse O'Donnell of ignorance.

The piece was birthed out of a comment that O'Donnell made on ABC's morning talk-show The View. Apparently, O'Donnell's fellow co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, was in the middle of a speech about the dangers of militant Islamic extremists, when she was interupted by a statement that sent Walten on a writing-spree. O'Donnell compared fundamentalist Islam with fundamentalist Christianity saying, "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."

Walten decided to refute that statement in a "humorous way".

"While poking fun at Rosie for her serious gray cell deficiency is tempting, [I limited] myself to poking holes in her absurd assertion," Walten said.

Walten first attacked the notion that there is an actual seperation of church and state in the United States.

"To begin with, there is no such thing as separation of church and state in America," he said. "The words 'separation of church and state' are nowhere to be found in our Constitution."

He quoted the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to prove it.

While Walten is correct in respect to the Constitution, he failed to recognize that the doctorine is recognized in Supreme Court law and is found in the texts and writings of our Founding Fathers (proof). The doctorine was referred to in numerous cases that have defined our concept of civil rights, and in conjunction with the Fourteenth Amendment, it has been applied to states and localities as well.

An example that Walten should be familiar with is Abington School District v Schempp (1963), which officially banned prayer in public schools. A follow-up case, Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), created the "Lemon test", which established that a publicly sponsored school must have a secular purpose, must neither advance nor inhibit religion, and must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion.

A history/ civics lesson:
A government that does not have seperation of church and state would, in fact, have a state sponsored church. For example, in the United Kingdom there is the Church of England - also known as the Anglican Church - which was founded by Henry VIII when the Catholic pope would not grant him a divorce. Henry VIII made himself, as king, the head of the church. Today, Queen Elizabeth II is the "Supreme Governor of the Church of England".

Our government allows room for the practice of any and all religions, and is not directly tied to any religious organizations in order to prevent biases. Although Christian principle's are central to the government and moral structures in the United States, they are not protected by the law any more than those of Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews or even Muslims.

Walten would have us believe that freedom of religion is corrupt. He would have us believe that allowing people to choose for themselves is dangerous. And, he would have us believe that the United States is as much a theocracy as, say, Iran or Saudi Arabia.

"In Rosie O'Donnell's twisted interpretation of the Constitution, our government must never act in accordance with Christian beliefs or convictions. If it does, it is acting in cahoots with the church and in violation of the Constitution," he said. "Thus, if the church condemns homosexuality, the government is constitutionally bound to condone it by legalizing its practice and sanctioning same-sex marriages."

Walten also stated that O'Donnell would be killed for her statements in an Islamic state. He said that "...Rosie O'Donnell, who would be imprisoned or executed for the crime of homosexuality in a Muslim country, to denounce Christianity, the very faith upon which our country's freedoms were established, as tantamount to Islam is more than a little preposterous...In a Muslim country, however, she'd still be in the closet; or worse, she'd be in the gulag or a grave."

(An imporant note: A Muslim Country is one in which the majority of is citizens are Muslim. The majority of these countries have secular governments and are governed by secular laws. An Islamic country is one that is government by Islamic law. The laws against homosexuality are not related to a region, but rather, a religion.)

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights and organizations such as Amnesty International have given numerouse reports on the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation in recent years. Although there are laws prohibiting "homosexual acts" in Islamic nations, the excerise of these laws is dependant on the country itself. For example Iran, a country notorious for its human rights violations, has recently been in the spotlight for the beheading of two homosexual men.

Walten's rant had O'Donnell killed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In Riyadh, 250 people in attendence of a gay wedding were arrested in August. However, 230 of them were released the same day. It is believed that the rest of the people were detained for illegal drug use.

As an aside, Honduras, a Catholic country, has been in on the Amnesty International watchlist for killings and discrimination as well.

In truth, Islam as a religion, is evolving on the issue of homosexuality in the same way that Christianity is. There are many unanswered questions, and in countries where civil and human rights are not held to the same standard that they are in the United States, there is still a great deal of intolerance toward homosexuals. However, Muslims are bound by teachings of the Qu'ran to love others as themselves - same as Christians are by the Bible. The right to judge is left to God alone. Don't believe me, read what an imam had to say, or check our what the Qu'ran says.