Don't turn United States into another theocracy

Adolf Hitler defeated the judiciary of the Weimar Republic of Germany when he set up his own courts with his own judges. This allowed the Holocaust of Jews and Christians to take root. This letter is a heads-up to religious leaders, Democrats and Republicans that our judicial system is under attack.

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All of us must speak out against the appalling attempts by the religious right to equate the actions of our judges and courts, and the rights of our minority in the U.S. Senate, with a lack of religious faith.

When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist agreed to give his party's support to a Christian-right media blitz, painting Democrats who support the Senate filibuster as having a lack of faith, all Americans must stand up to Frist and say this is un-American and will not be tolerated. The head of Frist's own Presbyterian church, the Rev. Clifton Kilpatrick, has publicly confronted Frist as being out of line with the religious teachings and goals of his church: "Elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against faith."

Also, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is feeding on the tragedy of Terri Schiavo to convince well-meaning people that her death was the result of a "judiciary gone wild." But Frist and DeLay have gone wild, and twisted logic to claim that religiosity should be equated with judicial opinions. This is theocracy, and theocracy kills democracy, as witnessed in Iran.

Pastor Martin Niemoller, who spent more than eight years in a Nazi concentration camp, wrote a poem saying that if you don't speak out immediately against injustice, there will be nobody left to speak out later. I am speaking out against DeLay, Frist and the Christian-right extremist views to bring policies to this country that led elsewhere to the rise of Nazism and Hitler.

Lowell Greenbaum, Augusta

(Editor's note: The writer is chairman of the Richmond County Democratic Party.)

--From the Tuesday, April 26, 2005 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle