Statement from Sunsara
Taylor of the World Can’t Wait — Drive Out the Bush Regime, read at the 3/9/07
Counter-Protest Against BattleCry’s March on the San Francisco Capital Steps to
Protest Gay Marriage.
BattleCry is not a
harmless movement.
Having been inside their
stadiums, I can attest to the fact that despite their public face of concern
about violence and overabundance of sex in the media, the gathering of tens of
thousands of youth in this two-day stadium “rock concert” is part of building a
Christian army to wage war on the secular and non-Christian world.
Through language laced
with militarism and violence, BattleCry sets as its mission the enforcement of
a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism throughout the country
and the world. Rooted in a literalist
interpretation of the Bible, its program is fiercely anti-woman, anti-gay,
pro-war, and pro-obedience. And it is
marching in lock-step with — and has connections to — the highest political
offices in the land. BattleCry’s leader,
Ron Luce, was appointed by Bush to serve on the White House Advisory Commission
on Drug-Free Communities and Bush himself has sent letters of support to
BattleCry gatherings.
Those leading the
BattleCry movement — partners like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Chuck Colson,
and others — are among the most powerful and highly connected Christian
fascists in the land. Their repressive,
intolerant and absolutist interpretation of the Bible does not represent the
views of most Christians, nor certainly the majority of people in this country
or the world.
While the U.S. pursues an illegal and murderous war in Iraq that has claimed an estimated 650,000
lives, and as Bush now makes threats and preparations for war against Iran,
BattleCry has brought armed Navy SEALs on stages in their uniform to recruit
youth into “God’s Army.” In what can
only be viewed as a massive rationalization of the war crimes and torture being
conducted by U.S. forces in Iraq, BattleCry has equated the Iraqi people with
ancient Babylonians and upheld uncritically the judicial codes of the Old
Testament in dealing with the Babylonians — which includes pillage, rape, and
burning people in the name of god.
While the scourge of the
AIDS ravages whole peoples — leaving villages throughout parts of Africa reduced to a few wandering orphans — the youth at
BattleCry events are taught that the cruel notion that AIDS is a punishment for
sex outside of “biblical marriage.”
At a time when bigotry and
the stripping of the rights of gays is rising and women’s right to abortion and
even birth control are under extreme fire, BattleCry’s insistence on “biblical
marriage” casts judgment and the implied violence of the Old Testament towards
gay people and upholds the vicious patriarchy of women submitting to husbands
as to the lord found in Ephesians 5:22.
Further, it is simply a dishonest and selective “literal” reading of the
Bible that ignores completely the many marriages upheld in the Bible of men who
took more than one wife, like King Solomon who had 700 wives and 300
concubines.
At a time when science is
suppressed and censored by the government, when critical thought on the
campuses is under attack, and when the fact of evolution is assailed throughout
the public school system and more broadly, BattleCry teach mindless and mind numbing
obedience to a literal reading of the bible, including its creation story, even
in the face of mountains of facts. Rone
Luce leads youth in prayer to pledge obedience to his authority even when it
doesn’t make sense, “I will keep my eyes on the battle, submitting to Your
code even when I don’t understand.”
In their insistence that
the youth of today are living through profound changes in the world and that
how they respond to these challenges will likely shape the lives of millions in
this country and around the world for generations to come, BattleCry is
correct. But in how they are training an
army of young people to think and act couldn’t be more dangerously wrong.
The patriarchy, ignorance,
and vicious American chauvinism they preach offers an ominous glimpse of what
the future will be if people of conscience — those who oppose torture, unjust
wars, enforced motherhood, anti-gay bigotry, and the suppression of science —
do not act decisively.
Young people today —
along with all others concerned with the fate of the world — have a tremendous
responsibility to recognize, repudiate, and reverse the dangerous course the
Bush regime and of its foot-soldiers in movements like BattleCry. Our mission must be to stop the war in Iraq, prevent a war against Iran, halt the
growing theocracy and drive the Bush regime out of office!
This is the only way to
live a truly moral life in a time of unjust wars, legalized torture, and a
rising theocracy. Through doing so, we
must be guided by and give greater and greater expression to a far higher
morality:
A morality that fosters
relations of mutual respect and equality between men and women.
A morality that respects
the love and partnerships that are shared between people of the same sex.
A morality that cherishes
the lives of people who are born in Iraq or other places around the
world as much as our own.
A morality determined to
end the epidemics of disease, poverty, and injustice rather than viewing them
as acts of God’s will.
A morality that values
honesty and the unfettered search for, and promotion of, the truth — about
evolution, about how condoms save lives, about the fact that abortion is not
murder, about how women are not incubators, about the fact that there were no
WMD’s in Iraq, about how torture is NEVER acceptable, about how the world
really works in its many complexities and ongoing mysteries — even when it
challenges conventional wisdom and especially when it challenges illegitimate
authority and deeply unjust aims.
Ignoring the huge shifts,
the rapid and radical transformations to this country and its relationship to
the world being ushered in by the Bush administration — and ignoring the role
that movements like BattleCry aim to play in this unfolding — will be
unforgiven by future generations.
Rising up to stop all
this, including all the ruffling of feathers, all the protest, all the
truth-telling and righteous political upheaval that will take, is something
that — if we give them the chance — future generations will tells stories and
write songs about. Lets give them that
chance.
Thank you for being here
today. Join the World Can’t Wait
movement to Drive Out the Bush Regime.
Get a copy of our Call, read it, add your name to it, and take it out to
others.
No Theocracy! No Unjust Wars! The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!!