Fear and duct tape are among the latest tactics employed to erode religious freedom and other constitutional rights in post- Sept. 11 America, the Rev. Bob Edgar told a receptive audience Saturday.
``Since 9/11, we have abandoned, and we have negated, many of these basic rights,'' Edgar told about 90 people at a meeting of the South Pinellas Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Edgar is a former six-term Democratic congressman from the Philadelphia area. He began his career as a Methodist minister and now serves as general secretary for the National Council of Churches.
Since the summer, Edgar said, he has directed his efforts toward averting war with Iraq. He spoke on a day when millions worldwide protested war plans.
During the holidays, Edgar visited Christian churches in downtown Baghdad. More recently, Edgar said, he urged German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to be the sort of good friend who ``doesn't let friends drive drunk'' by trying to dissuade the United States from attacking Saddam Hussein.
Last week's declaration of an orange alert, and the advisory that Americans be prepared to seal their homes against chemical and biological weapons with sheets of plastic and duct tape, are the latest steps in a plan to bring about war with Iraq, Edgar said.
``People who put out these kind of things'' are playing on fear, Edgar said, as he held a roll of duct tape aloft. ``Fear is empowering them to do things like taking away civil liberties. ... Those of us who oppose war are being labeled allies of Saddam.''
Edgar singled out Attorney General John Ashcroft as one of those most responsible for what he sees as an erosion of civil liberties.
Ashcroft ``lost a race to somebody who had gone on, and that discredited his political views,'' Edgar said, referring to Ashcroft's failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat. Ashcroft's opponent died before Election Day and still won. But by becoming President Bush's choice to head the Justice Department, Ashcroft was ``reincarnated to this important post,'' Edgar said.
Ashcroft has overseen the jailing of Muslim men and Afghan war prisoners without judicial due process, and would like to see civil liberties reduced to the way things were during the red scare of the 1950s, Edgar said.
``I think there is a new McCarthyism. If you criticize capitalism, you are a bad person. All of our Biblical literature deals with the poor,'' he said.
Edgar faulted Bush for embracing what he called an evangelical fundamental Christianity, which has created an atmosphere in which there is ``less respect for the broader religious view.''
That has divided the religious community, Edgar said.
``There is a selectivity of respect for religious views today,'' Edgar said. ``Right after 9/11, [Bush] went to visit a mosque. He needs to do it again.''