John Danforth is da man!  He’s a Republican, a former senator from Missouri, and an ordained Episcopalian minister.

John Danforth, who retired in 1995 after four terms in the Senate, briefly served as Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations but resigned after Condoleezza Rice was tapped to be Secretary of State. According to CNN, he was second on the list of Bush’s potential vice presidential choices in 2000.

With all of that in play, why would I say such a thing?  Isn’t he the enemy?

Get over yourself.  The man is brilliant and practices exactly what he preaches, and I mean that politically, socially, and religiously.

He wrote a book recently.  It’s a scathing dress down of Bush, Congress, Christians, and Republicans in general.  And he is a Republican and an ordained minister!

Let’s start with his view of America as a Christian nation:

Some people have asked me whether America is a Christian country. The answer must be no, for to call this a Christian country is to say that non-Christians are of some lesser order, not full fledged citizens of one nation.

Good answer, Mr. Danforth.  Good answer indeed.

And what of Terri Schiavo?  His opinion is clear: “That the federal government could intervene in the Schiavo case was a threat to all the families that had seen their loved ones suffer through terminal illness.”  He continues:

It was a threat to people who were terrified that their own lives might someday be artificially extended in nightmarish circumstances. It was a threat to some of our most heartfelt values. It was Big Brotherism in the extreme, an exercise of the raw and awesome power of the federal government.

Can he be more direct that that?  It was, as he says, an awesome display of power.  A dying woman whose last wishes did not agree with her parents became the catalyst for bringing Congress back early from holiday — a completely alien concept — just so they and the president could interfere in her medical care.  Just so they could violate the very tenets of marriage they claimed to be protecting in other circumstances.

“They intervened not in the name of principle, but at the expense of principle,” Danforth avers. “They abandoned principle by deciding a medical question without any firsthand knowledge of what they were doing.”

How stunningly precise.  I bet he’s not gonna be popular at all the little Republican parties from now on.  Well, he would be if they were real Republicans, real conservatives.  I’m sad to say that group appears to have disappeared altogether.

But what of Bill Frist, the Republican majority leader in the Senate?  Isn’t he a physician?

Why, yes he is, and Danforth does not hesitate to spare the rod in Frist’s case:

One views with a degree of pathos the role of William Frist, MD, graduate of Harvard Medical School and potential presidential candidate, who diagnosed a medical condition without examining the patient.

Ouch!  Homeboy’s on a roll, eh?

Then let us once again take a peek at John’s views, but this time we’ll ask about gay marriage while shaking the Magic 8 Ball that is John Danforth.

“I believe that homosexuality is a matter of sexual orientation rather than preference,” he writes. “Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is, in my view, comparable to discrimination on other civil rights grounds. It is wrong, and it should be prohibited by law.”

“I think that the only purpose served by the campaign for the [federal anti-gay marriage] amendment is the humiliation of gay Americans, advocated by the Christian right and eagerly supported by its suitors in the Republican Party,” he adds. “In reality, it is gay bashing.”

Touché!  And remember, poppets, this man is a Christian from the Republican party.  Unlike so many others claiming that label right now, he believes in and adheres to the premises of his religion and political persuasion.  Unbelievable, huh?  I’m surprised Dubya hasn’t had him killed yet.

But Johnny Boy ain’t done yet:

“America’s divorce rate is now over 50 percent, and marriage is under attack from a number of quarters: finances, promiscuity, alcohol and drugs, the pressures of work, cultural acceptance of divorce, et cetera,” he pens. “But it is incomprehensible that one of these threats is when someone else, whom we have never seen, in a place where we may have never been, has done something we don’t like.”

So much of the Christian agenda of late is based on that exact approach: We don’t like it for whatever reason, therefore it is wrong and must be made illegal, and all those who practice it must be alienated from society, belittled at every turn, and ultimately subjugated by whatever means are at our disposal.  It is a horrendous violation of what they claim to believe.  It contradicts everything their messiah preached.  And yet here we are.

Danforth is a true American.  He’s also a true Christian, one who strives to epitomize the best of what that philosophy claims to uphold.

I will buy his book, Faith and Politics, when it becomes available early this week (Tuesday if the schedule holds).

Now, let me address the shock which undoubtedly encompasses many of you.  Yes, I do realize it’s a religious book as much as it is political, but you will note he practices his faith as a life philosophy.  I don’t for a moment detest what followers of any belief system have to say; what I detest is the inherent hypocrisy many religious people seem to enjoy, and I detest the centuries of damage religions of all sorts perpetrated and continue to perpetrate upon the world.  Personally, I know there is no god.  The universe is too wondrous as is to be limited and tainted in such a way.

That said, there are plenty of religious beliefs in which I find comfort, guidance, and joy.  The Hindu tend to protect animals just as Buddhism does (the latter being a philosophy more than a religion).  Buddhists live a creed in all matters that demands we treat all living things with respect.  Christianity is founded on a text capable of promoting such profound harmony and love.  Islam’s foundation is full of beautiful poetry and humanity.  Judaism is ancient and wonderfully complex in ways that compel us to be better than we are.  Even Greek, Egyptian, and Roman faiths so long removed offer enchantment and unquestionable moral guidance.  I could go on for I have studied many religions in my quest to know the truth.

You see, it is not religion itself I hate; it is the practitioners of viscerally barbaric interpretations of religion that I find so abhorrent.  Regrettably, that includes almost all of them.

So reading John’s book will no more offend my sensibilities than it will convert me to Christianity.  Not only does he seem willing to do what so many of his religious brethren are unable or reluctant to do — live a life that reflects positively on the best their faiths proclaim as essential for salvation, but he also brings to the table a political experience that seems to have helped in shaping his view of what is right and what is wrong.  Unlike so many others, he learned those lessons both with his head and his heart, and that makes him worth reading.