My great-great grandfather was among the earliest menbers of the modern Republican party.  He came from Germany after the revolution of 1848 to escape the repression that followed.  Family lore has it that he was a medical student at the Heidelberg and had shot a police officer, necessitating  hasty immigration to Sheboygan County in Wisconsin where he built himself a cabin in the middle of 80 acres of land. He was known as a "Latin Farmer", or, in the words of one of my great-great aunts, he sat on the porch and read Latin while my great-great grandmother literally pulled the plow.

Great-great Grandpa was a son of the enlightenment and was (gasp) a Freethinker.  For this reason alone, he would be aghast at the efforts currently underway by Republicans to make this country a theocracy.  More below the fold....