U.S. = Jesusland

Our European friends may not understand the degree to which our nation -- the southern half of it, anyway -- is turning into a theocracy, one which resembles the Salafist nightmare Al Qaeda hopes to inflict on Saudi Arabia. If you haven't yet read Katherine Yurica's report on the dangers of Christian Dominionism, drop everything else and check it out right now. An excerpt:

Dominionism is a natural if unintended extension of Social Darwinism and is frequently called "Christian Reconstructionism." Its doctrines are shocking to ordinary Christian believers and to most Americans. Journalist Frederick Clarkson, who has written extensively on the subject, warned in 1994 that Dominionism “seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of "Biblical Law." He described the ulterior motive of Dominionism is to eliminate "labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools." Clarkson then describes the creation of new classes of citizens:

"Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment [to] blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality."

All my life, people have warned me that either Communism or Fascism was a-comin'. Back in the early 1970s, who could have guessed that the real problem would be a return to the Middle Ages?

On usenet just now, I spoke further about the book (or pamphlet) Abraham Lincoln once wrote attacking the very ideas of divine revelation and Christ's divinity. We have conflicting testimony as to whether this book was actually published, but it was no secret that he wrote such a work. When Lincoln ran for office, his heterodoxy caused some concern among the voters. They voted for him nonethless.

Could a man with his anti-religious views achieve office nowadays?

If not, then why is our country less tolerant now than it was in the middle of the 1800s?