As Think Progress reports, President Bush has awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal – the second highest honor for a civilian, designed to recognize Americans “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for the nation” – to Watergate-era felon Chuck Colson:
For more than three decades, Chuck Colson has dedicated his life to sharing the message of God’s boundless love and mercy with prisoners, former prisoners, and their families. Through his strong faith and leadership, he has helped courageous men and women from around the world make successful transitions back into society. The United States honors Chuck Colson for his good heart and his compassionate efforts to renew a spirit of purpose in the lives of countless individuals.
After his release from prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship Ministries and became one of the Founding Fathers of the modern Religious Right movement in which he remains active to this day, playing a key role in fighting for passage of Prop 8 and repeatedly declaring the issue to be “the Armageddon of the culture war.”
To Colson, marriage equality was among the greatest dangers facing our nation because, in his view, it ended up playing into the hands of Islamic terrorists who wished to destroy America. Believing that “Islam is a vicious evil,” Colson warned back in 2004 that the Senate’s failure to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment would only end up endangering the lives of American citizens:
We must be careful not to blame innocent Americans for murderous attacks against them. At the same time, let’s acknowledge that America’s increasing decadence is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. When we tolerate trash on television, permit pornography to invade our homes via the internet, and allow babies to be killed at the point of birth, we are inflaming radical Islam.
Radical Islamists were surely watching in July when the Senate voted on procedural grounds to do away with the Federal Marriage Amendment. This is like handing moral weapons of mass destruction to those who use America’s decadence to recruit more snipers and hijackers and suicide bombers.
