Out west, we have our own September 11th Ground Zero of religious extremists dating back to the year 1857. It’s at Mountain Meadows, Utah. The religious perpetrators at that rarely talked-about memorial share the same faith as Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, Orrin Hatch, and Harry Reid to name a few. The religion of those that murdered scores of innocents at Mountain Meadows has strong political influence in the state and local present-day governments of many western states. The Mormons have been recently credited for defeating same-sex marriage in California. This is the religion shared by those at the Mountain Meadows Massacre whose battle then was to defend polygamy!
On the national scene, Christian fundamentalist and evangelicals have made inroads into the Tea Party (formerly self-proclaimed “Tea Baggers”) and the right-wing of the Republican Party. The party that wants the government to stay out of everything is OK with it choosing who can marry, what can be said about sexuality in schools, and how far women can go with reproductive choices. They think the theory of Evolution is on par with Creationism and the belief that the Earth was created by God 6000 years ago. Christian extremists target abortion providers in much the same way as the Taliban targets those who do not share their beliefs, they work outside of the law.
Religious extremists have lived among us for a long time. They use their religious affiliation to justify actions against those outside of their belief system. Whether Muslim, Mormon, Christian, Jewish, whatever, their methods and effects are equally dangerous to our ability to live as free people.
