If President Bush wants to flaunt his Christianity, invoke it to defend his policies and use it to promote legislation like the anti-gay constitutional amendment, then it's fair game for us to consider just how good a Christian President Bush really is.
The devastating Tsunami this past weekend, and Bush's reaction to it, prove beyond a doubt that this man is hardly a good Christian.
Bush's first reaction on hearing of the devastation, as leader of the free world, should have been to immediately annonce that the US was taking the lead in coordinating disaster relief. When we've already spent over $200 billion on Iraq, we shouldn't have said we were committing $15m to the relief effort, we should have announced the creation of a billion dollar global fund and called on all the nations and private citizens of the earth to come together and help finance it. He should have called on all the liberal and conservative donors to both presidential campaigns, red state and blue state, to put aside their differences and donate to this worthy cause.
But he didn't.
Bush stayed on vacation and had a deputy press secretary, not even his real press secretary, answer questions on the disaster. Not until 5 days after the disaster struck, and after news reports indicated the death toll was approaching 100,000, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, not until after the Washington Post ran a story saying that Bush was being criticized for ignoring the humanitarian crisis did Bush finally speak publicly on this matter.
I return to the issue of Bush's Christianity. A good Christian would be mortified by the death and destruction in the East. Occuring just a day, ONE DAY, after Christmas, his heart would go out to the millions of lives affected by this tragedy. He'd demand his aides come up with an immediate Marshall Plan for helping Asia. He'd go on TV immediately to convey his condolences - not simply because it's the right thing to do, but also because we're dealing with a region of the world where such ceremony and attention to such public statements are given great weight. He'd do it not only because it's the right thing to do, but because the disaster has struck a region of the world with the largest Muslim population on the planet. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the WORLD. They have been the worst hit by this disaster.
Imagine the political and public relations impact of the United States coming to the rescue of the world's Muslims during our own high holiday.
Alas, it never happened.
It never happened because it's something a good Christian would do. It's something a good church, a good faith, would do. It's something that any decent human being, let alone a decent person of faith, would do. But it's not something that George Bush did, and it's not something that the religious right in America did. You didn't hear Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell organizing any telethons to help the dead and dying. You didn't hear the religious right demanding the White House get more involved to help the devastated. No. Hurricane Gay is a call to arms for the religious right and this president, but Tsunamis in Asia killing over 100,000 people? Not so much.
George Bush is a bad Christian and a bad president. And the religious right and their pseudo faith in God is right there along side him. One wonders if the reaction would have been different had the victims been European and Christian.
