Demagogue

A few weeks ago, Erma Byrd, the wife of U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.) died at the age of 88. A few weeks before her death, the Charleston Daily Mail published a front-page article profiling the couple, which included this quote by the senator:

"All these years we've been born-again Christians. We don't go around making a big hoop de do about it and trying to find fault with others."

Of course, for Jerry Falwell or James Dobson, that would take all of the fun out of it.

Sen. Byrd's own life attests to the fact that religious rituals or pronouncements don't make a person moral or just. In 1945, only a year after he was baptized as a Christian, Byrd wrote a scathing letter opposing the integration of the U.S. Armed Forces.

In the letter, Byrd wrote that he would never fight in the armed forces "with a Negro by my side." Byrd's letter continued: "Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels."

I guess dunking someone in a pool of water doesn't necessarily wash away all of their hateful attitudes.