In an attempt to appeal to the new party line and make their Christian constituents happy, Congress voted last week to send Terri Schiavo's case to a US federal court with a federal judge randomly selected by computer to hear the case. But that's not at issue. The Constitution gives Congress the power to determine the cases that federal courts will hear. Congress has total control over the federal courts, since it established them back in 1789 by an Act of Congress.

What is in question here is whether or not it is Tom DeLay's, George Bush's, or anyone else's business what happens to Terri Schiavo. Schiavo has lain in a "persistent vegetative state" -- not quite a coma -- for the last seven years after her heart stopped due to an undiagnosed potassium deficiency. Six courts have heard her story, not to mention that the Supreme Court has turned down requests for writs of certiorari three times. Every time the ruling has been the same: Terri Schiavo has a right to die.

The New Right disagrees. It is to be contrasted from the Old Right -- the party of the beloved Ronald Reagan -- due to its religiousness. Ronald Reagan was like George Washington in his affirmation that there was a god out there, somewhere, but he was not public about his religiousness. His conservatism was good, old-fashioned political and economic conservatism. Tax cuts for the wealthy. Budget cuts for social programs. Increased defense spending.

George W. Bush, the figurehead of the New Right, does all that as well as publicly proclaiming his religiousness to anyone who cares (or doesn't care) to hear it. Bush is a born-again Christian, an Evangelical who believes in Puritan morals: drugs are bad, sex is bad, everything the state says is bad is bad. He's like a modern-day John Calvin, except not so crazy and not as smart.

The New Right combines all the secular divisiveness of the Old Right with a new divisiveness based on religion. The official government line on sex education is abstienence only. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was even changed to reflect this new policy, trumpeting the virtues of abstinence without so much as a word about prophylactics (all this in the face of research which suggests that abstinence-only education is, at best, merely as effective as birth-control education, and at worst, much less effective).

What a perfect issue upon which to proclaim one's values: the right to die, an extension of the "right to life." The New Right posits that while there is a right to life, there is no right to die. Just ask former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who, months into his new job in 2001, ordered the state of Oregon to repeal a popularly-passed state law allowing assisted suicide. Thankfully, the US Supreme Court rebuked him for overstepping his bounds. But where are the rebukes for Bush and the Republicans in Congress who want to involve themselves in the private lives of citizens?

For the Old Right, the Schiavo case has been appalling. Nine old-school Republican senators voted against the measure to send her case to a federal court. Their justification was that the government -- and least of all the Republican Party, the party of federalism -- should not get involved in the issue. The New Right (of which Ohio Senator George Voinovich is a member) claims that issues of life always trump issues of federalism. If there is the possibility of someone's life being taken -- even at that person's will -- then Congress will send in the Marines to ensure that no one dies (even if they want to). "My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing," said Christopher Shays (R-CT) in today's New York Times. "The Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy."

Members of Congress who voted against the measure were weary of government involvement in the case and the kind of precedent that such involvement would set. Anytime someone disagreed with the outcome of a case, he could march to Congress and demand a new trial? Or, more frighteningly, Congress has the power to tell people what they can and cannot do with their lives?

For all the talk that Republicans make about Democrats using the judiciary to usurp the legislature, here is an example of Republicans using the judiciary to usurp the judiciary. Don't like the outcome of a case? Then send it back again! Order a new trial. Keep going until you find a judge who agrees with you. That's clearly what the Constitution, with its literality and timelessness, means.

Terri Schiavo's parents maintain that with additional therapy, she will get better. Doctors who have examined Schiavo disagree, which is why courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo, her former husband, who wants her feeding tube removed. Mr. Schiavo has testified several times that Terri told him that she didn't want to remain a vegetable on life support.

So who holds responsibility for our decisions? Is it us, or is it the government? Apparently, in matters spiritual (and this is being framed spiritually), the government has the last word. In our new Christian theocracy, the government makes our moral decisions for us -- and almost every decision is framed as a moral decision.

Terri Schiavo is not going to get better, despite the claims of her parents and doctors who have never met her or examined her. Certainly she has a right to life, but she also has a right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Trapped inside a stationary shell, she has no liberty, to say nothing of any happiness she may have left. As the recent Spanish film El mar adentro points out, sure people have a right to life, but if they're a vegetable or a cripple, then what kind of life is it? Must they have any life, or a good life of their choosing? If life is a gift, then what happens when a person doesn't want that gift anymore? What happens when life causes more pain and suffering than joy and happiness? Must a person still stick it out just for the sake of existing?

Big philosophical questions that the New Right answers "yes" to. "Yes" a person must stick it out for the sake of existing. "No" it doesn't matter what the individual thinks. We, the congressmen, the Elect, will determine what you shall and shall not do with your own selves. You are not to be trusted with your own lives. They are far too precious to be abused by you.

The age of American secularism is coming to a close. For the next three years, we will be ruled as though this were seventeenth-century Geneva, or 1980s Iran. Faster than we care to believe, The Handmaid's Tale is becoming a reality. The government is taking control of our souls, acting as their custodian, since we un-Elect are too sinful to be trusted with the breath of God. Trust us, we know what we're doing. The fact that we are in power at all is a reflection of our deep spirituality. We're clearly better people than you are. Why else is it that we're up here and you're down there?