Oh please. Stop the whining. No administration in recent history has been more manipulative of faith than the Bush Administration. President Bush, a man of sincere faith, talks about his faith all the time. If anything Americans have been ill-served by a press that hasn't explored his manipulation of faith for his political ends nearly enough. This old, old, old whine that, "Wah, Wah, we are being discriminated against," is old and pathetic. Conservative Christians in the public arena aren't being discriminated against any more than any group in the public square gets challenged and criticized and attacked. Such is the nature of the public square, such is the nature of a public debate. Deal with it and start trying to figure out why so many Christians are bailing on the religious right and the Republican party. Hint - it is because they are sick of seeing Jesus manipulated for political ends. And a word to Democrats eager for the "faith vote" - don't think that you can just mention the name of Jesus, prop yourself up in a pulpit and expect to win elections. Don't manipulate God for your own political ends because neither God nor religious voters will be happy.
“If the same standard that was applied to President George W. Bush were to be applied to Senator Barack Obama, then Obama must be considered a theocrat who shows no respect for separation of church and state. What else is one to conclude after seeing a color photo of him today on the front page of the New York Times preaching from the pulpit of a Christian church? The article itself is even more indicting.
...Obama can begin his presidential campaign with ‘Giving all praise and honor to God,’ and it doesn’t raise an eyebrow among the guardians of church and state. But when Bush said that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, the guardians went ballistic. Indeed, Obama can compare himself to Joshua, and no one blinks.
Yesterday, Obama blasted the Bush administration’s handling on the war in Iraq while preaching at a Christian church. Now imagine a pro-life Republican candidate speaking at a Catholic Church denouncing the Democrats for supporting partial-birth abortions. And imagine the reaction he would receive if there were a color photo of him on the front page of the New York Times speaking at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The double standard is nauseous, and it smacks of religious and racial prejudice.
and so the attacks on Obama begin...
Monday April 30, 2007
...it didn't take long for the attacks to start. Catholic whiner (a factual rather than a judgmental term) Bill Donohue has sent around a blast email on the Obama article titled, "Obama - Theocrat?":
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I was hoping that the elections in 2006 would be an eye opener to the Religious Right. Here is just one exit poll of one of hotly contested (and closest) Senate races that was in Virginia (George Allen/Jim Webb). Link is http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/VA/S/01/epolls.0.html Allen was the imcumbant who said some racial slurs. He also did a lot of other shady things. In the week before the election, he heavily infected home with phone advertisements asserting his anti-gay marriage stance. Jim Webb received 35% of the Born Again/Evangelical, 20% of the White Born Again/Evangelical vote, 36% of the vote of people who week to church more than weekly, and 46% of those who went weekly.
It was enough to give him the election. What should that tell the Pat Robertson (who lives in my town - Virginia Beach) types? That people who have Jesus as their Lord and Savior aren't just going to blindly follow all in one party because they are supposdly "Godly". (David, I am sorry this post took up so much space.)
David, thank you for you comments -- I completely agree. Thinker, you are also correct that Bill Donahue only speaks for a narrow slice of Catholics. The "outrage" he expresses over these insignificant matters is ridiculous. I am a Catholic who is regularly disgusted with the tactics and messages of his organization, which claims to stand for me. For a rebuttal to the religious right, we need only to look to Christ himself who did not walk around constantly protesting and complaining about the treatment he received from his detractors. Rather he kept focused on his love for God and for others. The world saw his sincerity and dignity and knew God through this.
Shannon, I appreciate your point but I wonder about what political lessons there are to learn from the 2006 election. All the Democrats learned from 2000-2004 is to end some sentences with "In Jesus name, amen." So I'm not sure if the GOP will learn not to, but the real issue to me is that I hate to think that voters are training people to modulate their faith for electibility. It's one thing to have ravening wolves running around pretending to be lambs, it's another to knit wool sweaters in wolf sizes.
I saw Donohue recently in connection with the "Chocolate Jesus" exhibit in New York City. He was on Anderson Cooper 360, along with the sculptor who created the statue. Regardless of one's opinion of the "art", the attitude of Donohue was repulsive. He all but threatened the artist with death; the vitriol coming from him shouldn't have been associated with any Christian. Whoever made the previous analogy with Fred Phelps is right; two sides of the same coin. Hate is hate, no matter what denomination.
So much for the "promise" that 'there shall be no religious test for holding public office'! America the Theocracy seems nearer and nearer each day. Come the Apocalypse and all that. Sheesh!
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