Huck contra Catholics

Reuters is framing Huck's visit to John Hagee's megachurch today as potentially offending Catholics, given Hagee's fundamentalist, anti-Catholic theology. This is stupid -- I mean, if Huck, or any candidate, appeared before an orthodox Catholic Church, he would be speaking to a group of people who believe that Protestantism is badly defective (and if he spoke to Latin mass traditionalists, the view of Protestantism is even more critical). If a candidate spoke at a Mormon church, he'd be talking to people who believe Christians belong to apostate churches. If he spoke to Muslims -- I mean, come on!

Very few religious groups, aside from liberal ecumenists who believe that all religions are pretty much the same, are inoffensive to somebody. This is a big, diverse, pluralistic country. If a candidate goes to speak to ultraorthodox Jews, he has spoken to people who have little use for my religion. I guarantee you the grand rebbe of any given black-hat Jewish sect is no more a religious liberal than any Christian fundamentalist. So what? Again: it's a big country, with all kinds of people in it. You don't have to agree with them, or even like them much, to appeal for their vote. As long as they're not devil-worshipers, radical Muslims or white-supremacist Christian Identity churchmen, I don't much care if a presidential candidate of either party accepts their invitation to speak. It's what the candidate says to them that I care about. I'm not a fan of Alan Keyes, but I admired the heck out of him for going to Bob Jones U., which has a policy forbidding interracial dating, and giving a speech during his 2000 presidential run. Here's his speech, and here's a great passage:

And I have to tell you--and here I get to a part that may be uncomfortable for you. But you all know I have the reputation of being somebody--I don't come here to tell you what you want to hear. I feel that, whatever the cost to myself, I will pay an ultimate cost to the One Who matters more than any, if I don't tell you what you need to hear.

And one of the things that I believe has held us back, and made us prey to all this manipulation in the world, is that although our Lord told us that we should live in such a way that others look at us and say, "See those Christians, how they love one another," we have been quite unwilling truly to understand or to act according to His words.

There are folks who don't think I should be talking to Bob Jones University, in fact. You know that, don't you? I hope you understand this. They said I shouldn't come here, because I am a black person, and there are these terrible policies about interracial dating. They said I shouldn't come because I am--I say it with pride and certainty--a Roman Catholic Christian. And that I would not be received in this place, on that account.

I have, thankfully, put the lie to that by my presence. But I think we are, all of us, enjoined to put the lie to it by what we do, and what we pray for, and how we act, and how we love. For our Lord told us that it is by their fruits that ye shall know them. And if the fruit is the fruit of courage to stand for Christ, if the fruit is the fruit of truth to call our people to salvation, and to call our nation back to its right path and its right home, then we ought not to let any sectarian bigotry, any racial prejudice, stand in the way of the unity that Christ represents for all Christian people who acknowledge His name, and welcome Him into their life and into their heart.

It is for us, as Christian people, to reject religious bigotry, to reject racial bigotry, to stand before America to example that which we are called upon to example--whether we be Americans, whether we be Indians, whether we be Asians, Jews, whatever it is. We are called upon by the Lord God, in the name of Jesus Christ, to go and preach to all nations the truth that we stand before the Lord our God, one in His mercy, if we are willing to accept that Christ which is the messenger of His truth, and whose life and whose blood has saved us for our God by His love.

If we stand, one in the body of Christ, one in the faith we have in our Lord, Jesus Christ, then we are one indeed, and we can offer to the world a hope and an example of love and purity that they will get from no other source, and find in no other place.

Do we have the courage to do this? Some folks, I think, chose to come to this platform and not even have the courage to challenge us to do it. But I couldn't do that today.

Anyway, any conservatives who whack Huck for consorting with anti-Catholics had better check to see if they criticized George W. Bush for speaking at Bob Jones U., or if they criticized Mitt Romney for taking Bob Jones III's endorsement. If not, they should lay off Huck.