Creeping theocracy, chapter 472. There’s the court-stripping, and that park in San Diego for instance.

Perhaps you noticed an interesting confluence of events on Wednesday, July 19. On that day, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have authorized the expanded use of federal funds for stem-cell research, the House of Representatives voted to enact legislation depriving the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear any case challenging the constitutionality of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the House voted to purchase a municipal park in San Diego on which a 29-foot-high cross stands.

Impressive stuff, isn’t it. Very grown-up, very rational, very sane.

In vetoing the bill that would have funded stem-cell research, President Bush invoked what he termed a “conflict between science and ethics.” But what, exactly, is the “ethical” side of this conflict? Clearly, it derives from the belief that an embryo smaller than a period on this page is a “human life” – indeed, a human life that is as valuable as those of living, breathing, suffering children…What the President describes neutrally as “ethics” is simply his own, sectarian religious belief.

Yeah, that’s a good one – ‘a conflict between science and ethics’ when he means ‘a conflict between science and my irrational conviction.’ But it’s typical of course. Religious believers have a real knack for assuming they are the only people who ever think about ethics and morality. Hence the feverish need to buy little parks on the opposite edge of the country, just in case we run out of 29-foot crosses some day.