Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0505140247may15,0,7153551.story?page=1&coll=chi-newsopinionperspective-hed

Bishop John Shelby Spong argues why current religiously-motivated campaigns in the USA are extremely dangerous:

Today we are experiencing the Bible being used by religious and political leaders to enable them to define the morality of birth control, abortion, racial and sexual discrimination and even acts of aggression against our "enemies."
To oppose this mentality, they not so subtly assert, is to oppose God and thus to be anti-religious. These are nothing less than the steps people take on the road to transforming a democracy into a theocracy, which is to walk in the direction of the cruelest form of government that human beings have devised.

He continues:

Theocracies always turn demonic because they justify everything in the name of God.
Non-religious people and people whose religious tradition is different from the prevailing point of view should be alarmed at these trends, especially when their voices, raised in protest, are dismissed as anti-Christian.

That is why I urge those who like myself are Christians, steeped in this religious tradition that we love, to speak publicly in powerful opposition to this current use of religious power.

Christians please take note. Islam was a mostly benevolent force for good until it was captured by theocratic clerics. Ditto Christianity in the Middle Ages. It appears that a lot of Christians here in the USA have not read enough European history to understand what happened in Europe in the Middle Ages (hint: this period was not given the nickname of "The Dark Ages" for nothing). That era was ended by The Reformation, when religions in a number of countries were forced out of the theocratic tyranny business. Unless enough people are awake here in the USA, we may yet prove that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.