Rand Paul: American taxpayers funding war on Christianity

From Russia Today:

American taxpayers are funding a war against Christianity, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said Thursday during an address made at a popular Washington, DC conservative conference.

Appealing to a crowd at this week’s Faith and Freedom Conference in the nation’s capital, Sen. Paul said changes need to be made with regards to the expansive foreign aid being spent by the United States to fund countries he claims are critical of the most popular religion in the US. 

"There is a war on Christianity," Paul said. "Not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide. And your government, or more correctly, you, the taxpayer, are funding it.”
 
Sen. Paul made the remarks during a luncheon at the conference that was attended by a crowd compose largely of Jewish and Christian members of the Republican Party, Chris Moody wrote for The Ticket. 

“The conference,” Moody wrote, “is organized by former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed, and it regularly hosts Republican politicians seeking the party's nomination for the presidency.”

More here.

I don't know whether Rand believes this stuff or if he's just tossing the religious right some raw meat to see how they might respond for a 2016 presidential run.  Either way, it's total bull crap.  I mean, obviously, there is no taxpayer funded war on Christianity.  Actually, there's no war on Christianity at all.  I mean, sure, there's some persecution here and there, in non-Christian fundamentalist countries, but nothing sponsored by the US.  It's as fictional as the Fox News created "War on Christmas."  But it's definitely very appealing to conservative Christians who honestly believe that the separation of church and state is a direct attack on their faith.  So this may very well be nothing more than a cynical attempt at rhetorical up-sucking.

But I do like how he worked in his Libertarian intolerance for aid to other nations, which you'll see if you click through to the article.  I agree: we shouldn't be helping countries that hate us, that persecute Christians, or anybody at all for that matter.  I mean, I'm no Libertarian.  I'm all for foreign aid.  But we'd do much better to help out nations that respect human rights, and that don't incubate anti-American terrorists because we're supporting a government that oppresses its citizens.  So yeah, as always, I can find something I like with what the Libertarian weirdos are saying.

But this "War on Christians" thing is just nutty.  Maybe he believes it, maybe not.  Either way, though, he's fanning flames that should have gone out long ago.  As if the religious right didn't have a few too many bees in its bonnet already.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$