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Ron Paul
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Friday February 15, 2008
A Muslim Case Against Ron Paul
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.
Filed Under: altmuslim, Islam, Ron Paul
posted by Dan Gilgoff @10:37am Permalink 
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Thursday January 24, 2008
More on Ron Paul's Interview
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.
Filed Under: casting stones, interview, Ron Paul
posted by Dan Gilgoff @10:53pm Permalink Email This Add to:
Thursday January 24, 2008
Beliefnet's Ron Paul Interview
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.
Filed Under: interview, Ron Paul, South Carolina
posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 4:50pm Permalink Email This Add to:
Monday January 21, 2008
Anti-War, Pro-Life
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...Filed Under: abortion, endorsements, Jane Roe, Norma Leah McCorvey, Roe v. Wade, Ron Paul
posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 6:31pm Permalink Email This Add to:
Sunday January 20, 2008
About that Ron Paul Interview...
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...Filed Under: interview, Ron Paul, South Carolina
posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 9:56am Permalink Email This Add to:
Thursday January 17, 2008
Ron Paul to Speak at Bob Jones University
Ron Paul, the candidate who recently quoted Sinclair Lewis's line that "when fascism comes to this country it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross," is speaking at the fundamentalist Bob Jones University this evening. God-o-Meter will try...Filed Under: Bob Jones University, casting stones, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, South Carolina
posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 9:44am Permalink Email This Add to:
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Ron Paul: Fascism Will Come 'Carrying a Cross'
On Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends today, Ron Paul answered a question about whether Mike Huckabee's new Christmas ad takes religious politicking too far thusly: Well I haven’t thought about it completely but it, you know, reminded me...Filed Under: Ad, casting stones, Mike Huckabee, Republicans, Ron Paul
posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 1:41pm Permalink Email This Add to:
Friday September 21, 2007
Paul snags second in Christian activist straw poll
Yes, God-o-Meter realizes the headline from yesterday’s straw poll among conservative evangelical activists in South Carolina is that Mike Huckabee won. God-o-Meter was more taken, however, by Ron Paul’s commanding second-place finish, collecting 179 votes out of roughly 600 cast—well...Filed Under: Giuliani, Huckabee, Iraq, Paul, poll, Republican, South Carolina, Thompson
posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 1:19am Permalink Email This Add to:
Sunday July 22, 2007
Paul's opposition to Iraq partly faith-based
It turns out that even in his religion, Ron Paul is an iconoclast. Raised a Lutheran but currently attending a Baptist church, the anti-abortion, anti-profanity (he once chided an aide for using the term “red-light district” in the presence of...Filed Under: Iraq, Paul, Republican
posted by Dan Gilgoff @10:40am Permalink Email This Add to:
About God-o-Meter
NOTE TO READERS: From June 12 to June 25, God-o-Meter is being guest blogged by Gustav Niebuhr, Associate Professor of Religion and the Media at Syracuse University, where he directs the Religion and Society Program. In more than two decades as a journalist, Niebuhr has covered American religion and other subjects for The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. His book Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America, will be published next month by Viking. Dan Gilgoff returns to God-o-Meter June 26.The God-o-Meter (pronounced Gah-DOM-meter) scientifically measures factors such as rate of God-talk, effectiveness—saying God wants a capital gains tax cut doesn't guarantee a high rating—and other top-secret criteria (Actually, the adjustment criteria are here). Click a candidate's head to get his or her latest God-o-Meter reading and blog post. And check back often. With so much happening on the campaign trail, God-o-Meter is constantly recalibrating!
God-o-Meter blogger Dan Gilgoff is Beliefnet's Politics Editor. A former political correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, he is author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War.
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