Rep. Steve King is against recognizing slavery because it somehow minimizes the role of God in America's history. Seriously. This is obviously insane, but it made me wonder: why do the fundies place so much emphasis on symbolic measures of their virtue? I mean, do they even care whether anyone looks at the Ten Commandments that they put in schools, or listens to the mandatory abstinence-only material that they put in classrooms? I rarely hear religious right figures talk about what goals they want to reach, what sort of stats they want to hit, etc. Why is it always about some sort of monument? As a religious person myself, I couldn't care less if the Ten Commandments stand in front of the U.S. Congress. I'm much more concerned about whether people actually follow them, especially people who claim to be Christians.
I guess this is just a reminder that the religious right isn't really all that interested in making America a more truly Christian nation (even according to their conception), so much as making us appear to be a Christian nation. I'm tempted to make the argument that this relates to the right's valuing of symbols over all else, and a view that influencing culture is more important than influencing politics. But even if government solutions are disdained among these folks it just doesn't seem like they're all that interested in, you know, results. I'm kind of at a loss to explain this phenomenon.
