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Today Must Be Chutzpah Day

The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin sets the tone:

Yesterday’s long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee report further solidifies the argument that the Bush administration’s most blatant appeals to fear in its campaign to sell the Iraq war were flatly unsupported.

Some of what President Bush and others said about Iraq was corroborated by what later turned out to be inaccurate intelligence. But their most compelling and gut-wrenching allegations — for instance, that Saddam Hussein was ready to supply his friends in al-Qaeda with nuclear weapons — were simply made up.

(…)

The White House response? That officials in Congress and elsewhere were saying the same things about Iraq. Or in other words, that other people bought the administration line. It takes a lot of chutzpah to defend yourself against charges that you’ve engaged in a propaganda campaign by noting that it worked.

Can’t really add anything to that…

But wait, there’s more!  Remember John McCain’s crazy anti-Muslim spiritual guide, Rod Parsley?

Shortly after Sen. John McCain publicly rejected the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, Parsley released his own statement rescinding his endorsement and then sort of disappeared from sight.  Sometime since then, Parsley apparently decided that he had a bit more to get off his chest and so he released a video on his Center for Moral Clarity website in which he reiterated many of the points he made in his initial statement but added some attacks on what he claimed were the “politically vicious and misguided” hit-squads who exposed his radical views, claiming that his views on Islam are “very much in the mainstream” and insisting that he made a “clear distinction between Muslim terrorists and the vast majority of peaceful Muslims.”

Of course, Parsley is on record having told his congregation and massive TV audience that “America was founded in part with the intention of seeing this false religion [Islam] destroyed” and “Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world,” as well as writing that so-called “Muslim extremists” are really “mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam.”

What a dillweed.

And then there’s the Log Cabin Republicans:

Log Cabin has had a long relationship with Sen. McCain, going back to our national office’s opening in the mid-90s.  He has had an open door to us at Log Cabin and has a record of inclusion.

We understand the general election starts today and Log Cabin will do its part to educate gay and lesbian voters about Sen. McCain in the weeks ahead.  Contrary to what many Democrats are saying, Sen. McCain is not George W. Bush.  Most gays and lesbians understand that fact.  Sen. McCain isn’t going to use gay people as a wedge issue.  He won the GOP nomination with no help (and with outright hostility) from many so-called “social conservatives.”  This is a significant achievement for all gay and lesbian Americans.

…McCain didn’t just vote (twice) against the marriage amendment.  He put himself on the line, bucked his own party leadership and President Bush, and took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to speak against the proposal.  In 2004, he gave one of the most impassioned speeches from the Senate floor on the issue.  That isn’t insignificant.

Is his record perfect?  No.  But it’s inclusive and shows positive signs.  We will hear more about his priorities and record in the months ahead.  Stay tuned…

If this sounds hard to believe, that’s because it is:

Uh, he didn’t look like he was putting anything on the line when he did this:

I believe that the institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman, said Sen. McCain. The Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage in our state. I wholeheartedly support the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment and I hope that the voters in Arizona choose to support it as well.

– John McCain in 2005.

* Or when he made this commercial for the failed 2006 Arizona Marriage Amendment, which would have effectively banned same-sex couples from legal recognition of any kind?

* What about this?:

Advisers to Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid say he will not try to “soften” the Republican party’s platform on abortion and same-sex marriage to appeal to more voters.

Sounds like the Log Cabin is more like a houseboat, floating down Denial River.  Good luck with that education program, guys.

Add comment June 6th, 2008 at 07:10pm Posted by Eli

Strengths & Weaknesses

Looks like creationism is getting more & more subtle.  From creationism to “creation science” (coughcoughoxymoroncoughcoughcough) to “intelligent design,” and now… “strengths & weaknesses”:

Starting this summer, the [Texas] state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.

Already, legislators in a half-dozen states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri and South Carolina — have tried to require that classrooms be open to “views about the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory,” according to a petition from the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based strategic center of the intelligent design movement.

“Very often over the last 10 years, we’ve seen antievolution policies in sheep’s clothing,” said Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education, a group based in Oakland, Calif., that is against teaching creationism.

The “strengths and weaknesses” language was slipped into the curriculum standards in Texas to appease creationists when the State Board of Education first mandated the teaching of evolution in the late 1980s. It has had little effect because evolution skeptics have not had enough power on the education board to win the argument that textbooks do not adequately cover the weaknesses of evolution.

Yet even as courts steadily prohibited the outright teaching of creationism and intelligent design, creationists on the Texas board grew to a near majority. Seven of 15 members subscribe to the notion of intelligent design, and they have the blessings of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican.

What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas: the state is one of the country’s biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are loath to produce different versions of the same material. The ideas that work their way into education here will surface in classrooms throughout the country.

“ ‘Strengths and weaknesses’ are regular words that have now been drafted into the rhetorical arsenal of creationists,” said Kathy Miller, director of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that promotes religious freedom.

The chairman of the state education board, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist in Central Texas, denies that the phrase “is subterfuge for bringing in creationism.”

“Why in the world would anybody not want to include weaknesses?” Dr. McLeroy said.

The word itself is open to broad interpretation. If the teaching of weaknesses is mandated, a textbook might be forced to say that evolution has an “inability to explain the Cambrian Explosion,” according to the group Texans for Better Science Education, which questions evolution.

(…)

[P]laying to the American sense of fairness, lawmakers across the country have tried to require that classrooms be open to all views. The Discovery Institute has provided a template for legislators to file “academic freedom” bills, and they have been popping up with increasing frequency in statehouses across the country. In Florida, the session ended last month before legislators could take action, while in Louisiana, an academic-freedom bill was sent to the House of Representatives after passing the House education committee and the State Senate.

In Texas, evolution foes do not have to win over the entire Legislature, only a majority of the education board; they are one vote away.

Dr. McLeroy, the board chairman, sees the debate as being between “two systems of science.”

“You’ve got a creationist system and a naturalist system,” he said.

Dr. McLeroy believes that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. “I believe a lot of incredible things,” he said, “The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.”

But Dr. McLeroy says his rejection of evolution — “I just don’t think it’s true or it’s ever happened” — is not based on religious grounds. Courts have clearly ruled that teachings of faith are not allowed in a science classroom, but when he considers the case for evolution, Dr. McLeroy said, “it’s just not there.”

(…)

Views like these not only make biology teachers nervous, they also alarm those who have a stake in the state’s reputation for scientific exploration. “Serious students will not come to study in our universities if Texas is labeled scientifically backward,” said Dr. Dan Foster, former chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

“I’m an orthodox Christian,” Dr. Foster said, “and I don’t want to say that Christianity is crazy.” But science, not scripture, belongs in a classroom, he said. To allow views that undermine evolution, he said, “puts belief on the same level as scientific evidence.”

(…)

“When you consider evolution, there are certainly questions that have yet to be answered,” said Mr. Fisher, science coordinator for the Lewisville Independent School District in North Texas.

But, he added, “a question that has yet to be answered is certainly different from an alleged weakness.”

Mr. Fisher points to the flaws in Darwinian theory that are listed on an anti-evolution Web site, strengthsandweaknesses.org, which is run by Texans for Better Science Education.

“Many of them are decades old,” Mr. Fisher said of the flaws listed. “They’ve all been thoroughly refuted.”

A case based on zombie lies that won’t die?  Sounds like the Republican approach to pretty much everything.  I love McElroy’s desperate efforts to make it sound like his stance is based solely on reasonable, non-religious commonsense grounds, not religious fanaticism at all.  Riiiight.  But the thought that this anti-science wanker is just one seat away from controlling Texas’s board of education is absolutely terrifying.

Add comment June 5th, 2008 at 07:27am Posted by Eli

Why Didn’t I Think Of This???

It’s brilliant on so many levels…

If millions of Christians suddenly disappear from the face of the Earth as the opening act for Armageddon, Threat Level thinks most nonbelievers will be too busy freaking the hell out to check their e-mail. But if they do log in, now they can be treated to some post-Rapture needling from their missing friends and loved ones, courtesy of web startup YouveBeenLeftBehind.com.

For just $40 a year, believers can arrange for up to 62 people to get a final message exactly six days after the Rapture, that day when — according to Christian end times dogma — Christians will be swept up to heaven, while doubters are left behind to suffer seven years of Tribulation under a global government headed by the Antichrist.

“You’ve Been Left Behind gives you one last opportunity to reach your lost family and friends for Christ,” reads the website, which is purportedly run “by Christians, for Christians.” The domain name is registered through an anonymous proxy service, presumably to protect the proprietors from the Forces of Darkness, and not because they’re up to anything shady.

The e-mails will be triggered when three of the site’s five Christian staffers “scattered around the U.S.” fail to log in for six days in a row — a system that incorporates a nice margin of safety, should two of the proprietors turn out to be unrepentant sinners or atheists.

Users can also upload up to 150 megabytes of documents, which will be protected by an unidentified encryption algorithm until the Rapture, then released to up to 12 nonbelievers of your choice. The site recommends that you use that storage to house sensitive financial information.

“In the encrypted portion of your account you can give them access to your banking, brokerage, hidden valuables, and powers of attorneys,” the site says. “There won’t be any bodies, so probate court will take seven years to clear your assets to your next of kin. Seven years, of course, is all the time that will be left. So, basically the Government of the Antichrist gets your stuff, unless you make it available in another way.”

Of course, some of us would  sooner trust the Antichrist with our stuff than turn it over to a company that hides behind an anonymous domain registration service, and doesn’t list a single corporate officer or employee by name on its website.

The company, You’ve Been Left Behind LLC, didn’t respond to an e-mail query, raising the obvious question of whether the Rapture has already begun. Developing …

Awesome.  They sound totally trustworthy to me.  I’m sure all the security measures are to ensure that no-one unscrupulous kidnaps the staffers to trigger those e-mails prematurely.  Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.

2 comments June 4th, 2008 at 07:03pm Posted by Eli

Hagee Holocaust Comments Don’t Bother Lieberman

I wonder if Lieberman’s purpose in life now is to make McCain look good by comparison:

Senator Joseph Lieberman is scheduled to headline Pastor John Hagee’s 2008 Christians United For Israel Washington-Israel Summit this July 22. In accepting Hagee’s invitation, Lieberman became the most senior elected representative confirmed to appear at the annual gala. Last year, when Lieberman spoke at Hagee’s summit, he compared the Texas televangelist to the biblical prophet Moses, dubbing him “an Ish Elochim,” or “a man of God.” Unless he rescinds his pledge to appear at this year’s summit, Lieberman can be expected to deliver another soul-stirring tribute.

Hagee’s vitriolic condemnation of Catholicism, his jeremiad declaring Hurricane Katrina divine punishment for New Orleans’ hosting of a “homosexual rally,” and his generally disturbing apocalyptic theology became national news last February when John McCain accepted his endorsement in a widely publicized ceremony.

While initially resisting pressure to reject Hagee’s endorsement, McCain finally ended his relationship with Hagee when a sermon by the preacher describing the Holocaust as the will of God registered on the mainstream media’s radar (Hear the now-infamous sermon here).

(…)

Lieberman was aware of many of Hagee’s vile statements well before McCain renounced him. On May 13, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked Lieberman to respond the gathering criticism of Hagee’s remarks. But instead of distancing himself from Hagee’s views as McCain had, Lieberman launched into a spirited defense of the televangelist, describing him as someone who “represents a lot of people in this country, particularly Christians who care about the state of Israel.”

At the time, prior to McCain’s sweeping renunciation, Lieberman could have reasonably claimed to be unaware of the preacher’s repugnant views on the Holocaust. Now, he has no excuse for ignorance….

So why the silence? Why won’t Lieberman, who is married to the daughter of Holocaust survivors, end his relationship with Hagee as well? … If Lieberman plans to continue touting his moral fiber and independence as his greatest assets, he must renounce the hate-mongering Hagee.

Wow.  So describing the Holocaust as essentially a good thing - or at least useful - and Hitler as God’s “hunter” driving the Jews to Israel is more offensive to John McCain than to Joe Lieberman?

I’m already in favor of booting Joe out of the Democratic Party - now I’m wondering if he can be excommunicated from Judaism as well. (”He’s with us on everything except the Holocaust…”)

1 comment May 27th, 2008 at 07:19am Posted by Eli

Wankers Of The Day - Religious Right Edition

Shooting at Democrats is hilarious!!!

Yes, that’s right - Mike Huckabee finds the idea of an assassination attempt on Barack Obama amusing.  I’m sure Jesus made assassination jokes all the time too.

But hey, at least he doesn’t think Jews have “dead souls” and that the Holocaust was actually a good thing:

In his 2006 book “Jerusalem Countdown”, [notorious McCain endorser Pastor John] Hagee proposed that anti-Semitism, and thus the Holocaust, was the fault of Jews themselves - the result of an age old divine curse incurred by the ancient Hebrews through worshiping idols and passed, down the ages, to all Jews now alive….

(…)

In the following audio sermon, which I have put into a video [and that includes other viciously anti-Jewish statement from John Hagee], Hagee says:

- Jews are not “spiritually alive”.I have a copy of John Hagee’s “Prophecy Study Bible”, which makes quite clear Hagee is talking about all Jews now living - whom Hagee singles out, from among all other non-Christians on Earth, to note that they specifically do not have living souls. Indeed, Hagee says the souls of all Jews now living are dead. Dead souls. McCain endorser John hagee says Jews have dead souls.

- Hitler and the Nazis were sent by God, to chase Jews back to the land of Israel. Because that’s where God intends them to be. So, the Holocaust was a gruesomely inefficient system of divine “persuasion”, and Hitler and the Nazis were doing “God’s work”. But Hagee also depicts this divine ethnic cleansing imperative as a future project: it will happen [see bolded section of transcription, below].

- In Hagee’s 2006 “Jerusalem Countdown”, Hagee says anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust, were and are the fault of Jews - a divine curse for worshiping idols.

Shorter Hagee: Ethnic cleanliness is next to godliness.

Ya know, if there ever is a Rapture which comes and takes all the right-wing fundamentalists away, they won’t be heading in the direction that they expect.

1 comment May 16th, 2008 at 07:06pm Posted by Eli

After The Lovings

Another American hero gone:

Mildred Loving was a black woman who married a white man in Virginia, which was against the law in the state. She took her case all the way up to the Supreme Court, which struck down interracial marriage bans in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision. Today it was announced that she has died at the age of 68. But what her AP obituary doesn’t mention—hopefully others will correct the oversight—is that last year Mildred Loving came out foursquare for marriage equality for same-sex couples as well, and insisted you should, too. Here was her statement:

We didn’t get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there
because the government wouldn’t allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we
grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and
build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that
time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who
should marry whom.

When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we had no
intention of battling over the law. We made a commitment to each other in our love and
lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what
marriage is?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own
bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the “crime” of marrying the wrong
kind of person. Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed.

The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed
them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there
would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a
cause. We were fighting for our love.

Though it turned out we had to fight, happily Richard and I didn’t have to fight alone.
Thanks to groups like the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, and
so many good people around the country willing to speak up, we took our case for the
freedom to marry all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the
Supreme Court ruled unanimously that, “The freedom to marry has long been recognized
as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free
men,” a “basic civil right.”

(…)

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that
I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to
have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the
“wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no
matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over
others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court
case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so
many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the
freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Two things jump out at me here:

1) Mildred Loving is awesome, and she recognizes that prohibiting same-sex marriages now is the same kind of injustice as preventing mixed-race marriages was then.

2) Since when is “God created the races separate” any kind of recognizable or acceptable legal argument?  I thought our system of law was supposed to be based on the Constitution and not the Bible.  I wish there were a way to remove judges when they demonstrate themselves to be manifestly unqualified or unfit for their positions.

2 comments May 5th, 2008 at 09:31pm Posted by Eli

Fact-Checkiness

Oh, goody!  The WaPo is diligently protecting us from misinformation in all its forms, debunking Reverend Wright’s claims that the US government invented AIDS.  What a relief!

I now eagerly await their followup, in which they explain that American public schools are not, in fact, performing abortions or teaching “precursors to witchcraft” as John McCain’s BFF Pastor Hagee says. I hope they get on that right away - I’m sure a lot of parents are very worried.

(h/t dakine)

Add comment May 5th, 2008 at 08:25pm Posted by Eli

What Pastor Problem?

Dr. Slammy has largely beaten me to it, but I also wanted to ask why it is that when Rev. Wright says “God damn America” and says that AIDS was a government plot, he’s destroying Obama’s campaign, and Obama can never denounce him enough…

…But when Rev. Hagee says that God dooms America, and that public schools are peddling abortions and witchcraft, it’s not even a story?

Oh, that’s right: The media are corporate tools.  Forgot where I was for a second.

Still, that’s some pretty intense crazy that McCain has lashed himself too, innit?  What a great “get” that endorsement was, eh?

Add comment May 1st, 2008 at 08:33pm Posted by Eli

Did I Miss It?

Has anyone compared Rev. Wright to Sister Souljah yet?

And how come Republican candidates are never obliged to denounce right-wing crazies to reassure Americans about how reasonable and moderate they are?

2 comments April 30th, 2008 at 11:22am Posted by Eli

Thou Shalt Not Have Any Other Religious Denominations Before Me

How crazy and intolerant is the Religious Right?  This many:

In 1952, when Harry Truman called for a National Day of Prayer, now celebrated annually on the first Thursday of May, it was meant to encourage Americans of all faiths to pray with one another in whatever way felt best to them. It would be an ecumenical celebration of faith that would draw people together in common religious and spiritual contemplation. One can only imagine what Truman would think of this year’s event, the planning for which has been marred by bitter squabbling over who should be allowed to participate.

Shirley Dobson, wife of James Dobson, the conservative founder of Focus on the Family, is this year’s chairperson of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a non-governmental organization based in Focus on the Family’s offices in Colorado Springs and charged with organizing various events. According to Jay Keller, national field director of the Interfaith Alliance, Dobson has made a point of “excluding Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, and even mainline Christians” from the National Day of Prayer.

Thanks to Dobson, this year’s task force volunteers are required to sign pledges, stating: “I commit that NDP activities I serve with will be conducted solely by Christians while those of differing beliefs are welcome to attend.” Volunteers must also affirm that they “believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God” and that “Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God.” Such oaths violate the non-sectarian nature of the National Day of Prayer and clearly align “a government-sponsored event with a particular Christian denomination, in violation of the basic provisions of the First Amendment to the Constitution,” says Keller.

If that isn’t enough to make Truman roll over in his grave, try this: Dr. Ravi Zacharias, the honorary chairman of this year’s event, has refused to invoke the name of Jesus Christ in his official prayer, so as not to offend the faithful of other religions. (Read the text of his prayer here.) This has sparked outrage among Evangelicals, such as those at the Christian Newswire, which issued a press release—titled, “Ashamed of Jesus at the National Day of Prayer”—which attacks Zacharias and, if you can believe it, takes aim at Dobson for not doing enough to uphold Jesus’ name in the upcoming events.

An excerpt from the release:

According to the truth of God’s Word, the entire counsel of God, we do not pray in “God’s Holy Name” to God the Father. We pray to God the Father in the name of His only Son, Jesus Christ, who alone provides us access to the Father. It is appalling that Dr. Zacharias is willing to capitulate to the un- Scriptural, interfaith ecumenism and discard the name of Jesus. NDP Chairwoman, Shirley Dobson, owes a biblical explanation to Christians around the nation as to why the name of Jesus is absent from the official prayer. We are not here as Christians to appease those of other world religions. We cannot come to God except through His Son’s righteous merits. To pray as “Christians” in any other way is both a farce and a mockery. While other believers around the world are dying for that name, in America, Dr. Zacharias will not even breathe that name in his official public prayer because it might “offend”.

If evangelical leaders want God’s help in the midst of America’s deepening national crisis, we must come to Him on His stated terms, not ours. Either God’s Word is truth, or it is not. There is no middle ground. There are no special interfaith prayer models in Scripture for evangelical activists hoping to maintain conservative political coalitions. Such tacit denial of Jesus Christ will court God’s righteous wrath, not His blessing. Dr. Zacharias owes an apology to those throughout history who have paid the ultimate price for their fealty to King Jesus. May God grant repentance to those pragmatic evangelicals who place cultural concerns before Scriptural truth.

Yes, God forbid you should show any respect for other religions, because that would totally make the Baby Jesus cry.  I swear, the fundie God must be the most insecure deity ever.

1 comment April 24th, 2008 at 08:40pm Posted by Eli

That Hagee Endorsement Is Working Out Very Well For Him.

Yeah, getting that Hagee endorsement sure was a coup for John McCain:

On his radio show yesterday, right-wing talker Dennis Prager asked Hagee to respond to “the various charges made against him” in a fact sheet put out by the Democratic National Committee. Asked about his comments on Hurricane Katrina, Hagee said “the topic of that day was cursing and blessing”:

(…)

PRAGER: Now, they have you on Hurricane Katrina, quote, from NPR two double-o six: “All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.” Go ahead.

HAGEE: Yes. The topic of that day was cursing and blessing. Moses taught in the book of Deuteronomy that everything in life is either a blessing or a curse. There are days that things happen that at the time look like a curse. In the passing of time, they may become what appears to be a blessing. An illustration is Joseph, when he was sold into slavery it looked like a curse, it looked like the worse day of his life. When his brothers came into Egypt looking for food, what looked like a bad day 13 years before turned out to be a blessed day. What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God, in time if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it’s called a curse.

(…)

PRAGER: Right, but in the case, did NPR get, is this quote correct though that in the case of New Orleans you do feel it was sin?

HAGEE: In the case of New Orleans, their plan to have that homosexual rally was sin. But it never happened. The rally never happened.

PRAGER: No, I understand.

HAGEE: It was scheduled that Monday.

PRAGER: No, I’m only trying to understand that in the case of New Orleans, you do feel that God’s hand was in it because of a sinful city?

HAGEE: That it was a city that was planning a sinful conduct, yes.

Granted, I’m not exactly the foremost expert on religion, but it sure does sound like Hagee is making some kind of Great Flood analogy, where God cleanses the Earth of the wicked for a clean start.  Either that, or He was simply so outraged by the idea of a gay pride parade that he wiped out the entire city.  But if God hates gays and their horrible, sinful gay parades of gayness that much, why is San Francisco still standing?  I mean, it’s in prime earthquake country, and yeah, it got hit pretty bad in 1989, but it hasn’t been totally devastated since 1906, and I’m pretty sure that was before gayness was even invented.

So what gives?  Why wipe out New Orleans and not San Francisco?  Is it all the black people and the poor people?  Is that it? Or maybe God is waiting for all the gay people to migrate to San Francisco, until it’s like Israel for gays (Gaysrael?)… so then He can wipe them all out at once, thus conserving His divine energy and reducing collateral damage to cities like New Orleans.

Um, not that I’m actually advocating that God destroy San Francisco, I’m just trying to understand the apparent inconsistency here.  Admittedly, I can’t see the entire universe, so I’m sure there must be very good big-picture explanation that I just can’t comprehend.  Or, alternatively, Hagee could just be a hate-filled crackpot who believes God to be an omnipotent version of himself, but I’m sure a Serious Presidential Nominee Of A Major Political Party would ever seek the endorsement of a hate-filled crackpot.  No, surely not.

Boy, I sure hope McCain gets some questions about this when he’s in Louisiana tomorrow.  I hope they make him angry.  You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

3 comments April 23rd, 2008 at 07:34pm Posted by Eli

Press Puff Piece On Pope’s Puss

NY Daily News breaks the story:

There’s one very unusual biography of Pope Benedict - a children’s book, supposedly written by his cat.

“Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat” is a 36-page illustrated book that chronicles the life of Benedict through the words of his cat, Chico.

“I’m meeting you in the pages of this book to tell you a story about my very best friend, a wonderful man with whom I’ve shared so many happy times,” Chico says.

“I want to tell you about where he comes from, how devoted he is to his studies and his work, what is he doing now.”

The book, of course, wasn’t actually written by a cat. It was penned by Italian journalist Jeanne Perego. It was illustrated by Donata Dal Molin Casagrande and features an introduction by the Rev. Georg Ganswein, the Pope’s personal secretary.

The book begins with the Holy Father’s birth in Bavaria, Germany, in 1927. Chico explains that Benedict and his family moved many times during his childhood. In a surprising passage, Chico describes how Joseph Ratzinger, the man who would become Pope Benedict, joined the seminary in 1939.

“At the beginning, Joseph was not enthusiastic at all about living in a community,” Chico says. “He could not concentrate on his studies and it felt as if he had lost his freedom.”

The book also touches on Benedict’s service in the German Army during World War II.

“During that period, Joseph was forced to do something that went absolutely against his will: join the army and go off to war,” Chico says.

The book’s message is “stay faithful and committed in life, without getting discouraged when difficulties arise.”

Chico no longer lives with the Pope because animals aren’t allowed at his house in the Vatican. [Um, he's the friggin' Pope. Can't he get an exemption?]

The cat now stays with a neighbor near Benedict’s former home in Bavaria.

I’m not sure what’s stranger: That Benedict has a cat, that his cat wrote a book, or that his cat is named Chico.

1 comment April 20th, 2008 at 03:23pm Posted by Eli

McContext

It really is amazing what a difference “context” can make:

On Bill Bennett’s radio show this morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he repudiates “any comments” by hard-line conservative Pastor John Hagee “that are anti-semetic or anti-Catholic, racist, any other.” “I repudiate the words that create that impression,” said McCain.But unlike his previous, half-hearted attempts to distance himself from Hagee, McCain also spoke up in the controversial pastor’s defense, saying that Hagee “said that his words were taken out of context”:

I will say that he said that his words were taken out of context, he defends his position. I hope that maybe you’d give him a chance to respond. He says he has never been anti-Catholic, but I repudiate the words that create that impression.

McCain then said he could look past Hagee’s bigoted comments because “when we were doing the No Surrender tour, he came and spoke on behalf of not surrendering in Iraq.”

Even if Hagee does support McCain’s vision of 100 years in Iraq, that does nothing to change the context of his past toxic comments. What context would absolve his belief that “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans” for hosting a gay pride parade?

And let us not forget when Hagee called the Catholic Church “the great whore,” a “false cult system,” and “the apostate church.” Because I’m sure that the context was something like, “Here is a list of things that the totally awesome Catholic Church is not.”

I am so sick of Republicans using “out of context” as a get-out-of-jail-free card whenever they get busted saying something repulsive.

Add comment March 11th, 2008 at 10:36pm Posted by Eli

Sunday Mr. Deity Blogging

Jesus’s dress rehearsal is not going well.

Apparently the sandals are a bit of a problem.

(Although they don’t seem to be impairing his Mad Kung Fu Skillz)

Add comment March 9th, 2008 at 12:52pm Posted by Eli

John McCain Travels Back In Time To Make John McCain Cry

John McCain, 2000:

If I’da been invited to Bob Jones University, sure I woulda gone - heh heh…  And I’da told ‘em, “Get out of the 16th century and into the 21st century! What you’re doing is racist and cruel!” Instead, Governor Bush went there and never said a word. I would never, ever do such a thing.

And just FYI, from a pro-McCain robocall from the same time period:

Governor George Bush has campaigned against Senator JohnMcCain by seeking the support of Southern fundamentalists who have expressed anti-Catholic views. Several weeks ago, Governor Bush spoke at Bob Jones University in South Carolina. Bob Jones has made strong anti-Catholic statements, including calling the Pope the anti-Christ, the Catholic Church a satanic cult! John McCain, a pro-life senator, has strongly criticized this anti-Catholic bigotry, while Governor Bush has stayed silent while seeking the support of Bob Jones University.

John McCain, 2008:

All I can tell you is I’m very proud to have pastor Hagee’s support.

That JohnMcCain 2000 sounds like kind of a decent guy, at least when it comes to rejecting bigoted fundie extremists. John McCain 2008, on the other hand, can’t get enough of ‘em - the crazier, the better. I don’t know whether his taste in supporters has changed, or if he’s just doing what he’s gotta do to win an election, and I don’t care. Either he likes bigots and crazies, or he’s a phony. Or both.

Add comment March 5th, 2008 at 10:23pm Posted by Eli

GOP Will Eat Itself

I wonder when Tim Russert will demand that McCain “reject” Hagee’s support…

The president of the Catholic League today blasted Sen. John McCain for accepting the endorsement of Texas evangelicalist John Hagee, calling the controversial pastor a bigot who has “waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church.”

Hagee, who is known for his crusading support of Israel, backed McCain’s presidential bid Wednesday, standing next to the senator at a hotel in San Antonio and calling McCain “a man of principle.”

But Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement today that Hagee has written extensively in negative ways about the Catholic Church, “calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’”

“Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee,” Donohue said.

Catholics United, a national online group, also blasted McCain over the endorsement. “By receiving the endorsement of an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church, McCain once again demonstrates that he is willing to sell out his principles for a chance to win the Presidency,” said Chris Korzen, Executive Director of Catholics United in a statement. “We hope Senator McCain will take the principled position of publicly and unequivocally distancing himself from Pastor Hagee’s anti-Catholic comments. Intolerance and bigotry do not belong in American politics.”

TPM Election Central has the same thought, plus more on the extent of Hagee’s crazee.

And when exactly was Farrakhan standing side-by-side with Obama, I’d like to know. I don’t remember Tim Russert demanding that Ron Paul “reject” Stormfront’s support in any of the GOP debates, either.

(Note: Just to be clear, Bill Donohue is himself a despicable right-wing looney, way outside the Catholic mainstream. Although more mainstream Catholics aren’t real thrilled with Hagee either.)

Add comment February 28th, 2008 at 08:14pm Posted by Eli

IRS Finally Gets Serious About Religion And Politics

Yes, the IRS is finally investigating a church for possible political activities:

The IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ over a speech Barack Obama gave to its national meeting last year after he became a candidate for president.

Obama is a member of the church.

A spokesman for the denomination says it received notice of the inquiry on Monday.

The IRS says there is reason to believe the speech violated restrictions on political activity for nonprofit groups. The denomination denies any wrongdoing.

Church officials say they had consulted with lawyers before the Democrat’s June 2007 speech and made clear before Obama’s address that he was speaking as a church member, not a political candidate.

Sure, it’s not like there’s a bunch of fundie preachers and leaders out there endorsing candidates and telling their congregations that the Baby Jesus wants them to vote Republican or anything. Way to go, IRS.

(h/t twolf)

Add comment February 27th, 2008 at 11:18am Posted by Eli

Sunday Mr. Deity Blogging

Lucy has some issues with Mr. Deity’s assignment of gender roles.

Is that an N64 controller?

Add comment February 24th, 2008 at 02:59pm Posted by Eli

Sunday Mr. Deity Blogging

Mr. Deity and Larry discuss ideology and third-party iPhone apps.

“Boy, that’s a really bad day for the animal, sir.”

Add comment February 10th, 2008 at 03:33pm Posted by Eli

Sunday Mr. Deity Blogging

Mr. Deity deals with the fallout from shutting down Limbo.

You know the Mickey D’s, just outside the gates of Hell, on MLK Boulevard?

Add comment January 27th, 2008 at 11:55am Posted by Eli

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

From Pharyngula, by way of fourlegsgood, the Fundies Say The Darnedest Things Top 100. Some of the quotes are almost certainly parody, but it’s not easy to be sure which. My personal Top 25 (more or less):

o No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest “cover” of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims.

o Gravity: Doesn’t exist. If items of mass had any impact of others, then mountains should have people orbiting them. Or the space shuttle in space should have the astronauts orbiting it. Of course, that’s just the tip of the gravity myth. Think about it. Scientists want us to believe that the sun has a gravitation pull strong enough to keep a planet like neptune or pluto in orbit, but then it’s not strong enough to keep the moon in orbit? Why is that? What I believe is going on here is this: These objects in space have yet to receive mans touch, and thus have no sin to weigh them down. This isn’t the case for earth, where we see the impact of transfered sin to material objects. The more sin, the heavier something is.

o I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don’t think he’s ready to date yet. What’s worse is that he’s sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!

o The word of God has been in heaven forever. The KJV has always been there. The so called Hebrew words like Alleluia are English words. The English did not borrow them from the Hebrew but rather the Hebrew borrowed them from the English. If the KJV has always been there and is the original word of God then there is no other conclusion. The same can be said for any so called Greek words that were borrowed from the Greek or transliterated. It is a matter of what bias you approach this particular subject.

o [Replying to 'as for not seeing evolution it takes several million years... incase you missed that memo...']

several million years for a monkey to turn into a man. oh wait thats right. monkeys dont live several million years.

o If u have sex before marriage then in Gods eyes u are married to that person if a man rapes a woman in Gods eyes they are married it sucks for the girl but what can we do lol

o How can anyone beleive we evolved from monkeys heres a few questions for people who beleive that

1.If we did evolve from monkeys then how come babies arent born monkeys

(…)

4.how come we cant speak monkey

o [Talking about an eleven year old girl who was raped and then buried alive]

god was sacrificing this child as a way to show others the light. much as he did his own child. what a beautiful gift he has given us.

o Make sure your answer uses Scripture, not logic.

o A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However he should not penetrate, sodomising the child is OK. If the man penetrates and damages the child then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl’s sister.

o To say the Bible was written by men and may contain inaccuracies completely contradicts the word of the Bible.

o Me and like-minded Christian students are trying to organize a mock stoning of openly gay students at our campus. We will be using crumpled up gray/brown construction paper to represent rocks, and will recite bible verses in opposition to their sinful nature. We will throw a volley or two of these “rocks” at every Gay person we happen to encounter that day.

o Apes are just creatures twisted by Satan to mock Jesus by giving EVILolition credibility. Further more they are naturally lust crazed for human women. Since they are not natural creatures they should be exterminated forthwith as the tools of evil they are.

o Everyone knows scientists insist on using complex terminology to make it harder for True Christians to refute their claims.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example… sounds impressive, right? But have you ever seen what happens if you put something in acid? It dissolves! If we had all this acid in our cells, we’d all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution, Check MATE!

o Constants seldom are … pi changes depending upon the strength of the gravitational field involved.

o …I know that some of the times when I was right in the very act of looking at, not pornography, but lingerie ads or some of those things, my wife would run down the stairs because she had just had a dream where she’s being chased by Satan and she couldn’t find me in the dream to protect her. I really think that the effects of my sin were causing my protection to be taken off of her.

o all the evolutionists, tell me something. i know how the big bang “has happened, but tell me, wouldnt an explosion, especially one that size, take away life instead of allow it? think about it.

ex: the a-bomb, the h-bomb, grenades, cannon balls (when fired from a cannon of course), mines, rocket launchers, and anything and everything in between. they all have taken lives.

o What do the other human persons here think ?

No doubt someone will object, saying something obviously ridiculous like, but atheists are persons.

But clearly this is mistaken because anybody without a well developed belief in God is obviously not a full human person.

What could be more obvious than that ?

How many full human persons do you know without a well developed belief in God. Obviously none, because if they were full human person they would have a well developed belief in God.

Now some people might object to killing atheists for there (and obviously it is there and not thier as they are not whos but whats ) organs but think of all the full human persons that would benifit from the organs and the medical research that could be done on these non-persons.

How could anybody object, they are not human persons and if you think we should not kill them then that is just because of out dated ideas and because they must really just want people to suffer. For shame on you !

So what do people think ?

Should we kill these atheist human non-persons for the benifit of fully human persons ?

o so you think if no one believed in any religion there would be no wars or fighting? i think it would be worse. i know if i didn’t fear god’s judgement i would have killed many many times.

o All elements in the universe (periodic table) get their properties based on their combinations of 3 specific sub-atomic components. Protons, Neutrons, & Electrons. No element has the same combination. (ie…Gold has 79 protons, 118 neutrons, 79 electrons)Carbon (man) has 6 protons, 6 neutrons, 6 electrons. [666]. This will be the number in which the Anti-Christ will be identified by. And because a clone does not have working sexual organs, this explains why a “cloned” Anti-Christ will not have need for a woman.

o I am 100% pro-life, unless we’re talking about capital punishment, in which case I am 100% pro-death.

o No one knows what’s happening until the flood comes (according to Matthew). And the flood is here - it refers to the apocalypse. There is a huge amount of supporting evidence on the site. For example, there is evidence for the wh0re of Babylon due to a 666 mile long penis in Mexico.

o I’m not talking about a simple power outage. I’m talking about enriched plutonium which comes from the conversion of uranium into WMD. It is considered the most dangerous substance known to man and absolutely will shut off the electricity present in planes. All any terrorist has to do is drop large quantities of plutonium from airplanes onto American soil and it will render electricity completely useless. And the chain reaction that will occur from the US shutting down will be global. We Americans have had the capacity to do that to our enemies for years. I had erroneoulsy thought that atheists knew that since they claim to know so much about our universe.

o Don’t you know that evolution is basically a racist concept? Some evolutionists still teach that white people evolved from “negroes” who evolved from apes– Meaning “white people are more evolved!”

o According to evolutionists, it’s a fact that aliens ruled the planet before the dinosaurs because that can’t be disproven.

We have deformed skulls to prove that these aliens once had ape-like foreheads, and some walked on 2 legs and others walked on 4 legs. And since there have been confirmed sightings of alien spacecraft, that proves that they have come back to check on how things are going on planet earth.

We don’t know who the first alien was, but from the few skulls and bones we have, we can tell that there were millions of them. Then when they had explored planet earth, they found it boring and decided to leave but not before some of them had died here which is why we still have their skulls and bones. From them, we can tell what they wore, what color eyes they had, and that they were covered in hair. These are what evolutionists call facts, so we’ve proven that aliens once ruled the planet earth.

o Masturbation can sometimes be wrong and it can sometimes not. If you masturbate thinking about how pretty the flowers are and how you want a puppy, essentially that’s not wrong. But most times, that is not the case. I believe that when one masturbates a high percentage of the time they are fantasizing about a sexual partner therefore making masturbation lust. Lust, as the Bible states, is a sin. But masturbation is something that people in general should stay away from because it’s hard not to lust whilst doing it.

And finally, I apologize for the length, but this was just too crazy to leave out (I have attempted to insert paragraphs to make it semi-readable):

Just imagine vast fields of our sisters in Christ — sisters brain damaged and comatosed, never to mentally return to this Earth full of sin — inserted into pods that are themselves connected to a myriad of wires and hydraulic tubes (I know, it sounds exactly like the Matrix, and I freely admit, although it’s certainly a very evil movie, some of the imagery is inspiring and inspired this post).

The pods will be the most comfortable places on Earth, playing soothing music like Bible hymns and Mozart, their insides like a massage chair and covered in silk. A few intruding wires and tubes will, of course, have to connect to the women inside the pods to monitor their temperature and overall health, as well as the babies’ of those that are pregnant.

And of course there will be one tube reserved for the insertion of a man’s seed whenever the women are at their most fertile. And only the best semen will be used.

I haven’t quite settled on a selection process yet, but I’m thinking some sort of Christian council could perhaps vote on the man who is honorable and moral enough to breed generations of these children. Perhaps one man won’t be enough, for a little bit of diversity is always good. We should, therefore, most likely have a multitude of different men, one of each race.

When the children are born, they can be sent off to special adoption centers, where they can be delivered to good Christian parents who are unable to themselves breed. Those that may be left over can be raised in God, brought up in Christian schools, where prayers are said thrice daily (at least), and in the summer, they can be sent to Jesus camp. If the schools are as good as I envision, then these children will make the perfect leaders for our future.

But not just leaders, for if this idea is near as good as I am thinking, we will breed enough of these children to one day make up a huge percentage of our population, such that they can elect only the most Christian of people to the government. So even those that are not the brightest and best can contribute to God in some way.

Wow. Just wow. I also like the commenters who think they’ve come up with a brilliant, conversation-ending counterargument, like the one about DNA being acid, or the one about the Big Bang being an explosion, or the one about monkeys not living for several million years. They run rings ’round us logically.

Add comment January 19th, 2008 at 06:50pm Posted by Eli

Yet Another Reason I Do Not ♥ Huckabee

No, this doesn’t sound scary at all…

The United States Constitution never uses the word “God” or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from “We the People.” However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it’s time to put an end to that.

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

When Willie Geist reported Huckabee’s opinion on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski was almost speechless, and even Joe Scarborough couldn’t immediately find much to say beyond calling it “interesting,”

Scarborough finally suggested that while he believes “evangelicals should be able to talk politics … some might find that statement very troubling, that we’re going to change the Constitution to be in line with the Bible. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

Jeez. He just proudly announced that he’s a Dominionist. Fantastic.

(h/t Albatross! and A Blog Named Sue)

4 comments January 16th, 2008 at 07:55am Posted by Eli

If You Liked Dubya’s Petty Cruelty, You’ll Love Huckabee!

Hey, remember when Huckabee got that serial rapist paroled because he claimed to have found Jesus and Huck had all this compassion for him, and the guy immediately went out and raped and killed a woman, and probably two? Well, what happens if someone genuinely gets religion, but it’s the wrong one?

Frankie Parker was also a prisoner when Mike Huckabee became governor. And Frankie Parker was guilty; no one says otherwise. In 1984, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, he killed his former in-laws and held his ex-wife hostage. He was sentenced to be executed, and after years of hearings and appeals and stays, the execution was scheduled for September 17, 1996….

…One day, while Parker was in solitary confinement, he asked for a Bible. The Bible was the only book prisoners in solitary were allowed to read. A guard - possibly thinking this would be a nice joke - tossed him a copy of the Dhammapada instead. Frankie found Buddhism.

[snip]

A Zen priest gave Parker jukai, which is something like confirmation as a Buddhist. Several prominent Tibetan masters visited him. Prominent American Zen teachers, including Philip Kapleau and Robert Aitken, wrote letters on behalf of Parker. According to the New York Times, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mother Theresa both wrote to Governor Huckabee urging him to commute Parker’s death sentence and let him serve life in prison.

And do you know what the Rev. Mr. Huckabee did? He moved Parker’s execution date from September 17 to August 8 so he would be executed six weeks sooner. And he was.

Now there’s some compassionate Christian convertavism for you, eh? As ellroon says, “Doesn’t this story remind you of someone we know?”

I think there’s some kind of minimum threshold for evil that you have to meet before you can run for president as a Republican… and it’s really freakin’ high, like, almost Hannibal Lecter high.

Add comment January 15th, 2008 at 06:49pm Posted by Eli

Sunday Mr. Deity Blogging

The aftermath of The First Murder.

From Crackle.

Add comment January 13th, 2008 at 12:13pm Posted by Eli

Pop Quiz

Who has scarier friends, Beagle Eyes or Bunny Ears?

I’m really struggling with this one, but I think I have to give Bunny Ears a slight edge.

2 comments January 6th, 2008 at 11:10pm Posted by Eli

Guess I Blew That One…

From my Iowa wrap-up yesterday:

I’ll be curious to see whether the media ever suggests that Huckabee’s economic populism played into his victory at all, or if it’s all faith ‘n’ folksiness. My guess is that the establishment narrative will be reluctant to acknowledge that there’s a deep hunger for economic fairness. I was hoping that Edwards would win to really drive this point home (not that anyone would notice), but he did place a solid second despite being massively outspent.

Well, it looks like some conservatives have taken note, if only because admitting the alternative is even worse. Bobo Brooks yesterday:

On the Republican side, my message is: Be not afraid. Some people are going to tell you that Mike Huckabee’s victory last night in Iowa represents a triumph for the creationist crusaders. Wrong.

(…)

Huckabee understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived….

(…)

A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.

Of course, being the out-of-touch wanker that he is, Brooks frames Huckabee’s message as a concern for family cohesion rather than a desire for economic justice. But if he acknowledged that, then he probably wouldn’t be able to say this:

[Obama has] made John Edwards, with his angry cries that “corporate greed is killing your children’s future,” seem old-fashioned. Edwards’s political career is probably over.

So, yeah, economic populism is sooo over. Unless it’s coming from Republicans, in which case it’s The Next Big Thing. But I digress.

Fox News may have gotten the message too, and they’re not happy about it:

During a discussion today on the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses, Fox News’s Neil Cavuto ran a chyron asking: “Did populism win and America lose in Iowa?”

Niiice. Still, it’s better than admitting that the religious right has finally found a candidate of their very own instead of letting the GOP establishment dupe them into supporting some corporate neocon shill who knows how to speak Evangelese.

Yes, I know I suggested that Huck’s economic populism was a factor in his success, but based on the Iowa exit polls, I think I got it dead wrong. 60% of IA Republican caucus-goers described themselves as born-agains or evangelicals, and 46% of them voted for Huckabee (which works out to 27% of the Republican vote, out of his 34% overall total). 19% voted for Mitt, 11% for Fred, 10% each for Paul and McCain, and 2%(!) for Rudy.

That looks like pretty strong evangelical support to me. I’m surprised at just how much support Mitt got, but maybe his landmark “I’m just like you: I want to ban all the same stuff, and I agree that atheists have no place in the public discourse” speech worked, or maybe he just picked up the pro-corporate evangelical vote.

Add comment January 5th, 2008 at 02:51pm Posted by Eli

Hey, Remember What Happened The Last Time We Elected A “Uniter”?

Yeah, I thought so.

Mike Huckabee is not a nice man. He just plays one on TV.

Add comment December 18th, 2007 at 07:16am Posted by Eli

Sunday Mr. Deity Blogging

Lessons learned: Lunching with Jesus is a big money-saver; don’t flirt with the underage waitress when your girlfriend is sitting right next to you - or, probably, ever.

(Embedded Crackle video may not work in Firefox…)

Add comment December 16th, 2007 at 01:23pm Posted by Eli

Christian Conservatives Are Neither Christian Or Conservative. Discuss.

As Peggy Noonan (of all people) points out, religion is becoming a little too much of a factor in selecting a Republican presidential candidate. But are Republican Christians really Christians in any meaningful sense of the word? Judith Warner has the same doubts I do:

…I’m thinking of the now entirely muted issue of whether the basic ethical foundations of Romney, Huckabee et al’s political views truly are “Christian” - in the good-neighborly sense of the word.

I am referring here to the sentiments that lie behind the candidates’ attitudes toward gays, which may have found their most honest and open expression in Huckabee’s recently resurrected 1992 suggestion that AIDS patients should be forcibly isolated. I am thinking too of Christian conservative opposition to progressive taxation, public spending for the needy and government “meddling” in such matters as anti-discrimination policies. And, of course, of the willingness to sacrifice women by genuflecting before a segment of the population that is scared witless by modernity and sugar-coats its fear and hate in the name of the sacred. (As governor, Huckabee, according to veteran Arkansas political journalist Max Brantley, once “stood in the hospital door, at least figuratively, to prevent state funding” for a mentally handicapped teenage girl who’d been raped by her stepfather and needed to have an abortion.)

(…)

“We cannot abandon the field of religious discourse,” Barack Obama, the most eloquently convincing of them all, said back in June of 2006. “Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.”

These days, however, for all the talk of religion, there is little public soul-searching about the absence of care and compassion, love, acceptance and inclusion - the things that many consider to be the essence of Christianity - in the words of our purported Christian leaders.

(…)

In the winter of 2004, Howard Dean - a man who considers himself a faithful Christian - raised… questions about the nature of American fundamentalism. “Don’t you think Jerry Falwell reminds you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does of the teachings of Jesus?” he asked in Iowa. “And don’t you think this campaign ought to be about evicting the money-changers from the temple?”

This may well have been the beginning of the end for Dean’s campaign. But what a moral, values-driven (if politically foolhardy) thing it was, what a breath of fresh air it was, to suggest that Christian conservatives ought actually to be Christian in spirit as well as in name. It would be nice today to hear a candidate step up and oppose all that is “appalling, brutal and bigoted” in the limited religious views that substitute for spirituality in American politics today. Who knows - it might even be good politics.

Amen. How can people who call themselves Christians be so utterly devoid of compassion? How can they manage to stand for the opposite of virtually everything Jesus stood for? I sometimes refer to the intolerant right-wing fundamentalists as “Old Testament Christians,” because the Old Testament’s authoritarian message of rage and vengeance is all that they’ve absorbed from their much-bethumped Bibles.

It’s also very questionable whether modern conservatives are really even conservatives anymore. Last week, Texas Governor Rick Perry pointed out - shock of shocks! - that Dubya isn’t really a fiscal conservative. Wow! Who knew? Of course, this begs the question of whether any conservatives are fiscal conservatives any more, at least in the sense that I understand it, i.e., in favor of balanced budgets and a strong economy. Now if “fiscal conservative” now means “fiscal right-winger,” and stands for screwing the poor and helping the rich, then pretty much all self-identified conservatives fit the description. Including Dubya.

And as Paul Rosenberg pointed out, it goes way beyond that. Today’s conservatives don’t really seem to adhere to any traditional conservative values. Conservativism is merely the respectable mask that they wear to cover their fear, greed, and hate.

1 comment December 15th, 2007 at 03:16pm Posted by Eli

The War On Christmas Is Over.

Santa won.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has introduced a resolution (H.Res. 847) saying, and I am not making this up, that Christmas and Christians are important. The House is scheduled to vote on this groundbreaking resolution on Tuesday.

(…)

Update - The House passed this bill today. The vote, surprisingly, was 372-9, with 10 members also voting “Present,” meaning they took no position on the legislation, and 40 not voting. One of the “Present” votes was cast by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). More Democrats -195 - voted for the bill than Republicans, 177.

(…)

Here’s the text of H.Res. 847, just so you know how important Christianity and Xmas are:

Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.

Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the world;

Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the American population;

Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians throughout the world, making Christianity the largest religion in the world and the religion of about one-third of the world population;

Whereas Christians identify themselves as those who believe in the salvation from sin offered to them through the sacrifice of their savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and who, out of gratitude for the gift of salvation, commit themselves to living their lives in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Bible;

Whereas Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization;

Whereas the United States, being founded as a constitutional republic in the traditions of western civilization, finds much in its history that points observers back to its roots in Christianity;

Whereas on December 25 of each calendar year, American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ;

Whereas for Christians, Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God’s redemption, mercy, and Grace; and

Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others: Now, therefore be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

Boy, Christmas really dodged a bullet there. The nine Grinches who voted to outlaw Christmas are all Democrats, of course: Gary Ackerman (NY), Yvette Clarke (NY), Diana DeGette (CO), Alcee Hastings (FL), Barbara Lee (CA), Jim McDermott (WA), Bobby Scott (VA), Pete Stark (CA) and Lynn Woolsey (CA). Yea, their names shall live in infamy, and their private parts will be scorched by Rudolph’s radioactive nose for all eternity.

(Blue Texan also pointed out that none of the Republican Representatives running for president made it to the vote - otherwise Tancredo probably would have tried to get Mr. Kringle deported.)

(h/t Jane / Blue Texan / Balloon Juice)

Add comment December 12th, 2007 at 07:13pm Posted by Eli