Jack Danforth hammers GOP whackjobs

I remember Jack from when I was just a kid. He's an old-school conservative Republican, not some Rush Limbaugh-listening wanna-be.

Here's a bit of what he had to say, with a link to the rest.

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.

When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/30danforth.html?oref=login