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It was inevitable, I suppose: The forces of theocracy accusing the so-called political left of trying to foist a theocracy upon the United States. And no, it’s not for the reason voiced by Ann Coulter that liberalism is a religion, but that Obama (gasp!) quotes scripture in defense of his policies.

The accusation comes from one of the biggest proponents of a right-wing theocracy and a man with serious hypocrisy cred, Tony Perkins, so it’s no surprise he can support theocracy out of one side of his mouth and condemn it out of the other. You have to have a certain moral relativism to be a fundamentalist – after all, the job demands lying for truth, a demand that is bound to blur some boundaries. Tony Perkins and his Family Research Council are living proof, as he demonstrated on his Valentine’s Day edition of “Today’s Issues” with guest Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).

Watch the video from Right Wing Watch:

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Chris Smith (R-NJ): The liberal media will love it every time he quotes scripture so long as he’s doing the evil of abortion industry. Tony Perkins: We often hear these charges that the right is trying to create theocracy and it’s actually the left that uses scripture as a means of delivering the services through the state. They’re trying to bring the church and state together.

We’ll just leave the old “liberal media” lie lay. A Republican can’t open his mouth without biting the hand that feeds it.

We’ll just leave the old “liberal media” lie lay. A Republican can’t open his mouth without biting the hand that feeds it. But the rest…it makes you wonder how Tony Perkins has missed this entire presidential race on the Republican side: Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum – even Ron Paul – catering to all the baser instincts of the fundamentalist base, barely speaking without bringing the Bible and scripture into it. This is hypocrisy on a Hannityesque -scale and as absurd as absurd as Ralph Reed’s claim that dominionism is a liberal conspiracy theory. And quoting scripture, after all, is a far more convincing condemnation than actually saying you plan to impose a theocracy on the American people:

That was Perkins a year ago. We need godly people running the country so we get a president who supports the unconstitutional faith-based initiatives and who actually quotes scripture and he gets not applauded by excoriated. Obama gets accused to opportunistically using cherry-picked scripture to support his policies but none of these critics seem aware of this being done by conservative politicians on an overwhelming scale. There is, as always, one set of rules for President Obama and another set of rules for his critics. Only fundamentalists are allowed to cherry pick the Bible! Perhaps another thing bothering Perkins and others is Obama’s penchant for delivering lines from the New Testament – hopeful, loving passages having nothing in common with the far more popular fire and brimstone of the Old Testament.

When you listen t people like Tony Perkins it’s almost as though the New Testament (with the exception of the Apocalypse of John) was never written. The idea of a loving, forgiving god who identifies with the poor and needy seems alien to them. They would certainly not welcome that illiterate vagabond Galilean peasant with open arms today and they will not identify with a president who prefers preaching hopeful words to those poor (and god forbid, feeding them!) over the apocalyptic visions of a god immolating entire cities full of them for having sex with the wrong person or in the wrong position along with their wives and children.

Update: Article updated 2.15.12 at 1:38 for missing material and additional video