This was posted on YouTube two months ago, but I only just saw it. Imagine had Barack Obama compared Catholicism and Judaism to white supremacy and jihad. Now, I'm not a big fan of vouchers, the subject of Hillary's talk in this video, but using the argument that if we do something for Catholics and Jews, then we'll have to do it for white supremacists and jihadists?
Again, imagine Obama had made the comparison and put all of these "religions" in the same camp. Oh the bitterness and the elitism would fly. I think we just found yet another attack ad the Republicans would run against Hillary in the fall, were she to steal the nomination.
Last night, during the ABC debate, Hillary made clear that she would quite her church if she didn't agree with her pastor's sermons. Here is what Hillary had to say:
Transcript:
I would have not been able to stay in the church. And maybe it's, you know, just, again, a personal reflection...
Okay, so we know that Hillary would quit her church of twenty years if the priest, or pastor, gave a sermon that she found objectionable. Fair enough. Then this begs the question as to what sermons would Hillary not find objectionable. Would Hillary stay in her church, for example, if her pastor gave a sermon in favor of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment? How about if her pastor gave a sermon calling for the repeal of Roe v. Wade? Or a sermon calling for America to set up an electronic fence to keep Mexicans out of our country?
I'm quite serious. Hillary went on national TV last night and raised the issue of when and where she would quit her church over the sermons of her pastor. She told all of America that this is an issue we should judge our future president on. Then America deserves to know just what standard Hillary has for quitting her church. Or is gay-bashing, choice-bashing, and Latino-bashing okay in Hillary Clinton's eyes? She raised the issue, we deserve an answer. (Maybe we can beg Sean Hannity to ask ABC to ask her the question?)
Admittedly, I'm not a religious person though I am always intrigued by religion and how cultures recognize religious events and locations. A few years ago while visiting a friend in a small village in the south of France, the village had their annual procession for the Stations of the Cross to start the Easter weekend. The villagers have been doing this for decades, dressing in costumes and leading the entire village to each station. It really was quite a site to see.
Last summer I had the opportunity to visit Israel including Jerusalem and spent time visiting the original Via Dolorosa and the Stations of the Cross right in to the Holy Sepulchre. Regardless of what you believe walking the streets of Jerusalem (in all districts) is one of the most amazing places on earth. It's heavy - very heavy - but every stone has history that scans history right up until today. Even entering the city through the (now closed, I believe) crossing point from Jordon through the DMZ and the West Bank was amazing. Anyway, the night photos are from Roquebrune village (officially Roquebrune-Cap Martin) and the rest, from Jerusalem. More photos after the jump.
Lighting the candles for one of the Stations of the Cross.
One of the Stations of the Cross during the procession.
The procession in the village on Good Friday.
A Jerusalem street sign for the famous street.
Above, Station VI on the Via Dolorosa where Veronica met Jesus and wiped his face as he carried the cross.
In the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was cleansed after death. Crowds of people would gather to touch the stone, often crying and placing objects on it. The occasional outbursts of crying with hair pulling and laying parts of their body on the slab could be somewhat odd to an outsider like myself. Interesting to observe though.
Reuters really skirts around a few stories with this one. While promoting his role as Palestinian peace envoy - though after the announcement, when have we heard anything? - they fail to mention his more recent position at JP Morgan as a $5,000,000 per year consultant. So the man who helped bring war, destruction and more poverty to the Middle East through a war based on lies is going to teach Yale students about bringing religions together for world peace? Only a school that allows people like Bush to buy his way into school could possibly think this is a good idea. What frauds.
This also again raises the issue of former politicians and their lobbying jobs. It's tiring to see all of these politicians (of both parties and globally) cash in after they leave office. When Reagan left office and then ran to Japan to make millions - when Japan was the biggest economic worry for Americans - it just seemed wrong. They all do it and yet last year when the British sailors were taken captive by Iran, there was outrage when they sold their stories to the press for peanuts. Is it so difficult too see that these jobs are obvious conflicts of interest? Who knows what kind of special favors were passed on then (or now) in return for a comfy consultant position.
This is classic "Romney the hypocrite" in action. Religion for Mitt only matters when it's someone else's religion. He doesn't think it's important to include a Muslim in his administration because they just don't amount to any significant population in the US. While their population is admittedly small, how can any serious presidential candidate not find such inclusion a positive idea considering where we are today? Is it really that horrible that we - gasp! - include a representative who can broaden our horizons and provide feedback on reaching out to this community both at home and abroad?
I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking. More ironic, that Islamic heritage is what qualifies them to best engage America's Arab and Muslim communities and to help deter Islamist threats.
Well, as long as they can carry Mitt's bags or perhaps sweep a floor or two. This is all quite interesting coming from a guy who belongs to a faith that barely represents 2% of the population, compared to the 1% in America who are Muslims. Are we really doing that well with our existing Muslim outreach programs that we can afford to exclude Muslims from senior positions in the next administration? Yes, he's the guy who cries "foul" when anyone discusses his Mormon faith (that he can't stop talking about) but he doesn't mind making a bigoted remark about Muslims. During our so-called war on terror, no less. How insulting, careless and downright offensive.
Okay, this is kind of funny. It's totally outrageous, of course, but still funny as hell that now the far-right religious wackjobs, enabled for so many years by the GOP, are coming back to haunt them, big time.
The Anglican church is being pulled in many directions around the world these days with some supporting positive (and long overdue) change and others preferring to stay in the past. It's puzzling to understand why so many faiths around the world continue to treat women as second class people in this day and age but even more bizarre to understand the position of those who are against basic terms of equality and who want to block change. Yes, a "significant day" indeed.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that questions over whether he identifies himself as a Baptist or an Episcopalian are not as important as his overarching faith. "The most important thing is that I am a Christian," the Arizona senator told reporters following two campaign stops in this early voting state.
With all due respect, you're not that good a Christian if you can't even recall what faith you are and then feel the need to lie about it.
JFK never ran as a Catholic. JFK never intended to jam to his religion down America's throat. Romney, running as a religious right candidate, is doing quite the opposite. Romney isn't just running on his faith. He is openly proud of the fact that he plans to use his religion as a litmus test to determine his position on every issue. While JFK assured us that he wasn't going to be taking orders from the Pope, Romney assures us that he will be taking orders from Pat Robertson and the men at the Concerned Women for America.
Kennedy believed in the pluralism of America. Romney does not. Romney, like so many Republican candidates nowadays, wants you to live your life like a good member of HIS religion. And if you don't, he's going to pass laws making sure that you do.
That's why it's relevant that Romney is a Mormon. If we are expected to live under Mormon law, we deserve to know a bit more about that religion before casting our votes.
Human-animal hybrid embryos conceived in the laboratory - so-called “chimeras” - should be regarded as human and their mothers should be allowed to give birth to them, the Roman Catholic Church said yesterday.
Under draft Government legislation to be debated by Parliament later this year, scientists will be given permission for the first time to create such embryos for research as long as they destroy them within two weeks.
But the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, in a submission to the Parliamentary joint committee scrutinising the draft legislation, said that the genetic mothers of “chimeras” should be able to raise them as their own children if they wished.
The bishops said that they did not see why these “interspecies” embryos should be treated any differently than others.
So tell me again why it's not okay for us to inquire about the religion of our judges and politicians when they may very well be trying to impose their religion on the rest of us? The Pope said it. Don't do what he says and you're ex-communicated. That's blackmail. And it raises the questions of whether our politicians are doing the bidding of the American people or their respective churches. We have a separation of church and state in this country, and just as importantly, we have freedom of religion. If a politician of a particular faith plans on trying to force his faith down the throats of the rest of us, we have a right to know.
First, let's clear the air here. This is all about Don Imus. The Republicans are livid that Imus, who they consider one of their own, lost his job after finally being called out for his ten-plus years of vile bigotry. Imus would publicly excoriate George Bush, and we loved him for it, so it's hard to see why the GOP thinks Imus is one of theirs - he's not. But the GOP does have a patent on the bigot thing, so it's understandable why they simply figured Imus would be a Republican.
Anyway, I have to laugh when FOX News and the rest of the far-right (read: Baptists) have the gall to attack anyone for being intolerant of other faiths. The far-right of the Republican party has contempt for every faith in America other than Baptist. They call Catholics a "Satanic counterfeit," Reform Judaism is roundly criticized as being too liberal and thus not serious, Episcopalians and Methodists and Lutherans (the tolerant ones) are called fringe and irrelevant, and we know what they call Muslims (remember, Mohammed was a pedophile, or that's what the religious right leaders said). So now they're all upset that Al Sharpton mentioned that Mitt Romney was a Mormon.
This issue, Mitt Romney's Mormonism, came up on CNN this past weekend when I was on Howie Kurtz's show. Howie asked me, in shock, how I could suggest that it was relevant to the presidential campaign to discuss Mitt Romney's Mormonism. Well, if Mitt Romney can discuss my rights as a gay American in terms of how it jibes with his understanding of the Book of Mormon, then I think I have a right to inquire just what is this Book of Mormon that Mr. Romney wants to impose on me and my private life. Same goes for any other candidate who embraces anyone who uses their faith to tell anyone else in America how to live.
But this is the way conservatives always act. They always try to tell the rest of us how to live, and use their own religion (or their own screwed up, usually bigoted, interpretation of what they think their religion says) to justify their fatwahs. They even go so far as to tell the rest of us that our religion is wrong and theirs is right. On gay marriage, for example, several religions, like reform Judaism and some Episcopal churches, perform gay marriages, so how can Republicans and their religious right allies justify using the Bible to ban gay marriage when some religions support gay marriage? They can't - they're simply trying to legislate THEIR religion over OURS. And that makes their religion relevant to the public debate because THEY made it relevant.
Again, these are people who say that Catholics aren't even Christians. They're people who have the nerve to tell the world's one billion Muslims that they worship a pedophile. These are people who tell us that we caused September 11 because God hates fags. These are the intolerant "religious" freaks that Mitt Romney is embracing, and we don't have the right to inquire just what Mr. Romney embraces?
They brought religion into the picture, not us.
And PS. If Mitt Romney were a Scientologist would his religion still be irrelevant? (FYI, Romney did recently say his favorite novel was "Battlefield Earth," which was written by the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.)
Tim Wildmon, head of the religious right group American Family Association, had the following to say recently about GOP presidential candidate, and Mormon, Mitt Romney. From Pam Spaulding:
"[Romney's Mormonism] would not prevent me from voting for Mitt Romney but it might some other Christians and if you understood Morman [sic] theology (and perhaps you do) you would understand why Christians might hesitate. Mormans [sic] believe God is a physical being on a planet for instance and that one day we all will have our own planet, like God, if we are good Mormans [sic]. And on and on."
Soaring sectarian violence and government abuses have caused an alarming deterioration in religious freedom in Iraq, prompting a U.S. advisory panel for the first time to place it on a watch list of countries where worship is under severe threat.
Citing gross violations of the rights of Sunni and Shiite Muslims, as well as followers of numerous minority beliefs, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom added Iraq to its ``watch list'' on Wednesday. Violations included arbitrary arrests, torture and rape.
Iraq joins Afghanistan, Belarus, Egypt, Bangladesh, Cuba, Indonesia and Nigeria on the list.
Gee, what a surprise. The guy the Anglican Communion is taking orders from, the guy that made them adopt their new anti-gay stance, is the same guy who is helping pass legislation in Nigeria that could make it illegal for people of the same gender to even have dinner together.
Hell of a church you've got there. Taking orders from some hateful troglodyte who think it's still the 15th century. What's next for the Anglican church, burning witches?
Anglican leaders have sided with a backward, bigoted Nigerian bishop in a battle with the US Episcopal church over what to do about gays. They just threw the gays, and the US Episcopal Church, to the lions.
