I’ve written once or twice about Alan Keyes. A one-time Reagan administration official, Keyes has an extreme view regarding religion, politics, and the separation of church and state. He honestly believes that individual states should be able to set up their own little theocracies.

Mary Garrigan writes for the Rapid City Journaln (via Unscrewing the Inscrutable):

He told audience members they were living in a decisive time in America but offered little hope, except for the impeachment of judges, for the "sorry state of things" caused by a "wicked spirit loose in our world and in America." The U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts have created what Keyes believes is the great myth of the First Amendment — the separation of church and state. "It's no doubt we could be living in the last days of the American republic," said Keyes, as he reflected on recent court decisions regarding the Pledge of Allegiance and the assault on the institution of marriage posed by same-sex marriage.

His answer, he said, is to remove judges from office through impeachment for the high crime of "stealing your right to include God. Our founders didn't provide for judicial supremacy. That's not what they had in mind." Keyes does not believe that the courts are the final arbitrator of law but rather that the people should be.

This sort of language might seem rather extreme to some, but if anything it’s actually rather moderate for Keyes — his real feelings are quite outside the mainstream, even the “mainstream” of radical right Christians. Sadly, though, rhetoric like his can have an influence over time. Principled conservatives should repudiate people like this and insist publicly that ideas like this have nothing to do with conservative or Republican values.

Read More:

• Fundamentalism
• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism
• Christian Nationalism
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
• Evangelicalism