Recently in Ron Paul Category

God-o-Meter hadn't realized there was a groundswell of Muslim support for Ron Paul, but that is the case, according to Ali Eteraz at altmuslim.com.

I have noticed that the amount of fervor that Ron Paul has inspired among Muslims has been far greater than the fervor Nader inspired. This has to do with the fact that in addition to his foreign policy positions, Paul is also religious, and socially conservative. I’m thinking that Muslims get way too worked up about conservative men who criticize Israel (thus Pat Buchanan’s popularity). This, probably, has something to do with the fact that according to surveys vast numbers of Muslims — not including me please — are actually more socially conservative than Evangelical Christians.

Paul, therefore, has been turned into the perfect candidate for a large number of Muslims

Eteraz spends the rest of the piece rebutting the Muslim pro-Paul crowd. God-o-Meter thinks he makes a convincing case.

Outspokenly against the war and out of step with his party on much else--his support for tying American currency to the gold standard or for abolishing the Department of Education, for example--Ron Paul is typically portrayed as the libertarian bomb thrower in the Republican presidential field. Culturally speaking, though, Paul is in lockstep with the party's base: a conservative evangelical whose worldview is shaped by his faith. Paul doesn't typically discuss his faith life, but did in his recent Beliefnet interview:

Ron Paul: As the years went on [my wife and I] became more annoyed with the liberalization of the Episcopal church and it didn’t fit us. None of our children stayed in the church…. We now go to a Baptist church.

God-o-Meter: Does that mean you now consider yourself an evangelical?

RP: Yeah, I do. But I’m not sure that every single person that uses those labels are absolutely uniform and that people know exactly what they mean… some evangelicals get a little bit annoyed because I’m not always preaching and saying, “I’m this, I’m this, and this.” I think my obligation is to reflect my beliefs in my life. I like the statement in the Bible that when you’re really in deep prayer you go to your closet. You don’t do it out on the streets and brag about it and say, “Look how holy I am.” If a person has true beliefs and is truly born again, it will be reflected in their life.

And though Paul said his faith influenced his pacifist streak, he also discussed how it shapes such orthodox conservative positions as his opposition to abortion rights and support for religion in the public square:

A few years ago, you wrote a Christmastime essay that said there was a war on religion in this country: “The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation… biased against Christianity.” Do you still see that kind of assault happening? I think it’s systemic… in court cases that say you can’t say a prayer at a football game. Where is it in the Constitution that said that somebody can prohibit prayer? The First Amendment says the federal government shouldn’t write any laws regarding freedom of speech and prayer. And if it becomes offensive… then the local people have to deal with it.... it should be the school board or somebody. But there can’t ever be under the First Amendment a prohibition. The Founders never thought that to be the case…. It’s systemic, especially the aggressive atheists who are always going to courts, to say that their attitude because they’re atheists means a prohibition against expression of Christianity and that of course didn’t happen 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. It’s much more so today because there are some people aggressively trying to undermine Christianity.

All of which makes God-o-Meter wonder: how out of step is a pro-life evangelical conservative who's dark on the Iraq war with the rest of the GOP's evangelical base? With Beliefnet's new poll of evangelicals showing that "ending the Iraq war" is seen as more important than "winning the Iraq war" maybe less than he's given credit for.

Here it is, a few days later than promised: God-o-Meter's sit-down with Ron Paul. GOM has to run, but will have more to say on this later. Suffice it to say that Paul's rating will go up.

One quick nugget:

Now, with the new policy that we have preemptive war, we’ve thrown out the Christian “just-war” theory [and it’s] very disturbing to me. This is a real challenge and should be a challenge for the Christian community. It’s implied that you’re unpatriotic and you’re not defending Christian values if you don’t go along with preemptive war. Some evangelicals do say that you have to have preventative war and preemptive war and that contradicts my understanding of what I learned and what’s become my faith.

God-o-Meter won't be able to post its Ron Paul interview till Wednesday, because it needs to post its interview with Barack Obama tomorrow, but it sounds like the Texas congressman may make news tomorrow in Washington with a likely endorsement from Jane Roe--yes, that Roe. From a Paul campaign press release:

On Tuesday, January 22 – the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision – Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will hold a press conference with pro-life activist Norma Leah McCorvey. McCorvey, who runs Crossing over Ministry, is “Jane Roe” of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.

A few days ago, God-o-Meter mentioned it was on its way to interview Ron Paul at his Bob Jones University appearance. That interview fell through, but GOM sat down with Paul yesterday in Charleston for an illuminating chat about the high quotient of ministers in the Paul family, how the Congressman's religion helped shape his strong pacifist streak, and why he now considers himself an evangelical Christian, even as many in that community have decried his candidacy. The interview will be posted to Beliefnet this week.