Well, it looks like the right wing is going batsh%$ insane about Rick Warren giving the prayer at the convention too.
Debbie Schlussel (no link directly to her, she makes Michell Malkin look like Mother Theresa) is freaking out claiming that Rick Warren is a Syrian sympathiser, and she actually posts a picture of him getting or giving an an award from/to Bashir al Assad:
What’s next? Is this guy going to be caught on tape discussing a bribe with Blago?
Over a year ago, I called out Barack Obama for throwing gays under the bus with his gospel concert in South Carolina, when he let an anti-gay bigot (who’s also … you know gay … but all better now really … no … really … he’s all better now…) take the stage … scratch that take over the stage…
Well, I’m not stunned and amazed: He handled the McClurkin contraversy in the way most calculated to be hurtful, and now he
is having bigot Christo-Fascist* Rick Warren to give inaugural invocation.
The PFAW president describes himself as ‘Profoundly Disappointed’ by this development, and Atrios gives Obama the coveted Wanker of the Day award.
The good folks at Right Wing Watch have the scoop on just what this man has done and said, which includes:
I’m a bit disappointed, but I am far from surprised, I expected some sort of backhand to “te gay” as a demonstration of “bipartisanship.”
My gay friend who thinks that Obama sh%$s ice cream though….I don’t know how he’ll rationalize this.
If you are expecting a move on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the military before the 2010 elections, you are sorely mistaken.
*I could also use the term “Talibaptist”….Your thoughts on which works better?
It appears that there is a kosher meat shortage as a result of Agriprocessors’ collapse.
I guess that this hits me where I live, as we keep kosher, but considering the labor law violations, hiring illegals and child labor, in their slaughterhouse, good riddance.
Agriprocessors are a shanda before the Goyim.
David Lee, writer and producer, nails the issue:
Whenever anyone justifies their bigotry with what I call DHRB (deeply held religious beliefs) we roll over as if that were the end of the discussion.
We have confused respecting a persons right to hold whatever religious beliefs they chose with respecting those beliefs. The truth is there are plenty of DHRB that are simply not worthy of our respect. Can we start with the ones that have no respect for us? Can you imagine an African American respecting someone’s DHRB that the Bible justifies slavery? The right to believe it, yes. The belief itself? No way.
The fact is that there are many people out there who are not so much pro-religion as they are pro-hate, and they use religion as nothing more than a way to provide cover for that hate, and their ideas should not be granted any respect.
It appears that they neglected to report extensive “in-kind” donations on the Prop 8 campaign:
….. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints failed to report money invested to organize phone banks, send out direct mailers, provide transportation to California, mobilize a speakers bureau, send out satellite simulcasts and develop Web sites as well as numerous commercials and video broadcasts.
It’s not the contributions, it’s the failure to report that is in question here.
In this case, it’s the right wing nuts of the Episcopal Church,
When I last heard about this, they had allied themselves to a Nigerian nutcase Bishop who wanted imprison and/or execute gays, in the hope of forming an affiliation with the Nigerian communion.
Now they want to form a parallel church, all because there has been a gay Bishop consecrated hundreds of miles away from them, and they feel the need to hate.
There are differing counts of how many congregations are willing to leave, but all indications are that the number is relatively small, and it will likely will remain small, unless the mainstream Episcopals feel compelled to make nice.
From a pragmatic perspective, making nice would allow the people who are arguing for bigotry to keep buildings and other assets accrued, and there are a lot of people who won’t go along with the bigots if it means losing their church and school buildings.
From a moral perspective, people who use their God as an excuse to hate should not be humored.
Gee, following a crushing electoral defeat, conservative windbag Kathleen Parker goes and blames it all on the what she sees as right wing medieval religious types:
As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.
….
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
….
So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.
Ouch!!! Reading further it appears that her problem with the Religious right is that it is insular, nativist, and so is hostile and frightening to the majority of the population who are not a part of this. Well put
However, honesty forces me to note that her argument would be far more convincing if she hadn’t endorsed the idea of fear and hatred of those who don’t look like us using a right wing evangelical just this May:
“A full-blooded American.”
That’s how 24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama. His feelings aren’t racist, he explained. He would just be more comfortable with “someone who is a full-blooded American as president.”
…
Full-bloodedness is an old coin that’s gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.
Maybe she’s just pro bigotry, and since it’s no longer acceptable, at least not in the Washington Post OP/Ed pages to call the President-Elect a n*gg*r (yet), she just needed someone else to hate.
It’s circular firing squad time, and unlike in 1964, there are no moderates left to target….
I’m going to get some popcorn.
*It was a typo, then I realized that I was funnier by accident than I was on purpose.
To demand full obedience, no thought, no doubts, no conscience, just obedience.
And only 72.9 miles driving distance from me:
Rob Foster was 16 when his family unraveled.
He had told his parents that he wanted to leave Calvary Temple, the Pentecostal church in Sterling the family had attended for decades. But church leaders were blunt with his parents: Throw your son out of the house, or you will be excommunicated. And so that December two years ago, Gary and Marsha Foster told Rob that he had to leave. They would not see him or talk to him.
It’s repulsive, and if subjected churches to the same level of fiscal accountability as other non-profits, it’s clear that he would be in jail for that
Friday night services.
USY, the teen youth group, did their own toon for the closing prayer Adon Olam…..Not surprising, it can be done to any tune I’ve ever heard.
That being said, why did they have to do it to the tune of the J. Giles song “Angel is a Centerfold.”
**shudder**
We have a report that Benedict implied in an informal chat with Rabbi David Rosen.
Seeing as how there is a lot of dispute about Pius XII and what he did, and did not do regarding the Holocaust, and the Vatican has refused to released records, this is a refreshing change.
That being said, this is probably more about John Paul II than it is about Pius XII.
It appears (from the Wiki) that somewhere around half of all saints ever made were made by JPII, and my guess is that Benedict is looking at shutting down the pipeline that was left him, because he finds it excessive.
The grand high priestess of snark, Wonkette, notes that a Christian group has called for prayer to repair the broken financial system.
While the obvious rejoinder would be something about chasing money lenders out of the temple, that’s not my holy book, but Christo-Fascist (she says it’s because of gay marriage) nutcase Cindy Jacobs has done me the favor of allowing me to go seriously Old Testament* on these folks:
For these and other reasons Cindy is calling for a Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies on Wednesday, October 29, 2008. They are calling for prayer for the stock markets, banks, and financial institutions of the world on the date the stock market crashed in 1929. They are meeting at the New York Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank, and its 12 principal branches around the US that day.
“We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems,” she said. “While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do know that without intercession, economies will crumble.”
(emphasis mine)
Umm…Folks, bull, as in adult male cow, as in it was once a CALF, and Bronze is a GOLD colored alloy…..Gold….Calf….does that ring a bell?
On a more amusing note, that photograph really does look like the one from The Ten Commandments
*Normally, I do not use the term, “Old Testament”, I use the term Tanakh, because “Old Testament” implies that there is a “New Testament” out there, which is somehow divinely connected, and I do not accept the divinity of the Christian bible. In this case, however, the phrase, “Going seriously Tanach on these folks,” loses something in the translation.
Polio is spreading again, all because some ignorant superstitious whack job mullahs in Nigeriawent tinfoil hat on the UN’s polio eradication plan, and sabotaged it.
Sometimes I wonder if organized religion might be the single worst way to find the divine in the universe.
While at the UN, she said, ““I look forward to hearing about your work with the Jewish Agency and all the plans that we have,” Palin told Ambassador Sallai Meridor. “We’ll be working together.”
Did she just say that she wants Jews to leave the US?
The implication, of course is that all the Jews have to be back in Israel for the rapture, doncha know.
H/T Matthew Yglesias.
Yesterday was Shmini Atseret. Tonight is Simchat Torah, which, along with starting a new job, has had me offline for the past few days.
We are going to a family friendly Simchat Torah celebration….No booze…..So I’m sober, and wishing that I wasn’t.
Oh well, in the morning, I’ll be sober either way.
I can’t believe that I’m quoting aAndrew Sullivan, but he has the video, where he makes this comment at about 1:10:
The second area whereby God wants us, wants to penetrate in our society is in the economic area. The Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. It’s high time that we have top Christian businessmen, businesswomen, bankers, you know, who are men and women of integrity running the economics of our nations. That’s what we are waiting for. That’s part and parcel of transformation. If you look at the — you know — if you look at the Israelites, that’s how they work. And that’s how they are, even today.”
(emphasis mine)
And at 7:20 Sarah Palin walks up to stage to accept a blessing from him.
She wasn’t just in the audience, she walks up and accepts his blessing after an anti-Semitic screed.
I agree with Andrew Sullivan, when he says, with no small amount of snark, “Sure they vetted her.“
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Well, if you are waiting for the next shoe to drop in the dsyfunctional religious freak show that is Sarah Palin, here it is.
It now appears that everyone’s favorite hock mom has said that her election as governor was as the direct result of the prayers of a Kenyan witch-hunter, Thomas Muthee.
I’m not sure which I find more disturbing, the belief that the prayers of a self admitted witch hunter somehow got her elected governor, or the complete self-absorption to think that here elections are somehow the direct will of God.
In either case, it’s clear that she is just plain nuts, in a way that makes John Seymour McCain look pretty damn sane.
Here’s a hint, girl, if you believe that God is on your side, you are almost certainly arrogant, wrong, and deluded.
Sane people don’t believe that God is on their side; sociopaths do. Sane people worry if they are on God’s Side.
In any case, here is a vid of her talking about how she sees herself as have being elected by dint of God supporting her.
H/T Group News Blog.
Actually, the title is a joke, but it does reflect a sort of American Jewish political idiom that Palin will have to deal with.
The problem is that her church hosted a talk from David Brickner, and unlike Obama and Jeremiah Wright, Palin was in the audience listening happily (see also here)
David Brickner is the controversial founder of Jews for Jesus, a front group for evangelicals targeting Jews for proselytization. Additionally, while speaking before her church, and Palin, he, “told the congregation that terrorist attacks in Israel are God’s ‘judgment of unbelief’ for Jews who reject Christianity.”
Let me be clear, there are some politically conservative Jews who might find a way to alibi for Brickner’s quote, but never for a church inviting the founder of Jews for Jesus.
In American Jewish life, inviting him to your church crosses a line that cannot be uncrossed.
This trumps any concerns about Obama’s middle name for the bulk of American Jews.
I’m not surprised. As anyone who has followed Bush and His Evil Minions™ knows, religiously based government does not work.
The Iranian people know that too, which is why they are increasingly restive under the Mullahs.
Chart pr0n:
I would note that there appears that only the 2 data points show a real shift, so we could be dealing with sampling or question issues.
Of interest is that more people are now saying that politicians talking religion makes them uncomfortable too.
Talk about a long legal dispute!
The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, which claims to be a descendant of the Knights Templar, are suing Pope Benedict over what they claim are about €100 billion in assets seized in 1307.
It appears that both Benedict and the Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ are both moving toward the rehabilitation of the order, though I am not sure how the lawsuit would aid in this process.
The Association claims that, “Their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the ‘good name’ of the Knights Templar.”
Methinks that someone has watch the latest Indiana Jones movie too many times.
It looks like McCain is looking at Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) as a VP pick.
I hope that this sort of choice won’t make a difference to how Jews vote, and my guess is that it would not have much of an impact on Jewish voters, but it would piss off the Evangelicals that McCain is so aggressively courting.
We’ll see.
I expect his running mate to be an Evangelical, because choosing a Jew or a Catholic, or even a mainline Protestant would honk off their leadership.