"At what does this become a religious test for office?"
The issue is not religion at all.
The issue is about hate speech - at what times did Obama witness it, what did he do about it, and what it his stand on it. Also, Wright clearly demonized Hillary Clinton and her husband in his sermons, while praising candidate Obama, a possible violation of the church's tax exempts status. Did Obama request this endorsement in any fashion? Obama did donate over $22,000.00 to Wright's church. Did he object to the possible violation? Voters deserve answers to these questions.
The religious institution where the hate speech and endorsement occurred is immaterial.
NM
The ease in which you and others slander a church with tens of thousands of members, the biggest church in a denomination with over a million members, is just mind-blowing.
Obama has clearly answered what his stand on this is. As for when and where he worshiped to the God he believes, that is none of your fucking business.
"The ease in which you and others slander a church"
The church is immaterial, no one is slandering the church. It is the behavior of Jeremiah Wright and violations of the law and bigoted hate speech that are the issue here.
No matter what church or other religious institution housed the events in question, they are still important issues for voters to question and get answers to. It is appropriate business for all voters when considering a candidate.
Do you really think "church" refers to just the building?
No. It refers to the faith community in a congregation, from the pastors down to all the parishioners.
Comments like this are slandering that church.
Trinity is obviously a bigoted church
That has basically become the de facto position of this blog, that Trinity is a racist bigoted hate-filled church.
And it is slander, against the church and everyone of it's congregates.
was racist.
Only if he was the preacher for someone running against a Clinton.
It would be like "OMG he said moderate whites and white clergy were worse than the KKK!!" "He's a racist!!!"
But that's not the problem. "God damn America" is the problem. Accusing the government of inventing AIDS to kill black people is the problem. Saying that 9/11 is America's chickens coming home to roost is the problem. Wright has some good points, but he also has some tinfoil-hat notions.
This isn't about Trinity and it's not about the religious denomination. It's about the guy who Obama himself said was his mentor for twenty years, the guy who performed Obama's marriage ceremony and baptized his children, who gave the name to Obama's book, who.... You get the picture.
Added to the above is the fact that this controversy has shown Obama to be hypocritical. I believe Obama is lying when he says that, had Wright not retired, Obama would be thinking about leaving the Trinity congregation. Huh? If he didn't do so over a 20-year period, even though he's admitted he knew Wright said controversial things, then he wasn't ever planning to do it anyway. The reason Obama is saying these things now is that he is in a political bind.
I don't mind people acting like politicians, but I don't like hypocrisy.
I suggest that you listen to Wright's sermon "The Audacity to Hope" It is brilliant, inspiring and not racial in the least.
30+ years of a career cannot be reduced to soundbites. Please stop trying.
In fact, most of the youtube clips are taken out of context.
You're not listening to ME. I said the problem is that this is a way to lose the GE. Sound bites are ALL the Rethugs will need or will use in their ads.
I'm not screaming about Wright at all. He's entitled to his opinions and he's entitled to express them. I can agree with some of what he says. He is entitled to some anger - gawd knows I'm angry about discrimination against myself. Obama is entitled to attend that church. But if Obama wants to become president, then he's made some stupid choices relating to this pastor. Like having a relationship with him in any way, shape or form.
I know it is a widely held fear especially amongst Hillary supporters that this issue will kill Obama in the election. I think that's jumping to conclusions. It remains to be seen whether or not that people who think this way are falling into a trap of fearing the Republican attack or wishful thinking/schadenfreude or correctly perceiving a genuine election killer.
One thing I have noticed in listening to Hillary supporters is a rush to dismiss Obama's speech or any poll numbers that support its efficacy. I don't think everyone has done that, and I wouldn't advocate concluding that he is out of the woods either. That said, it's just too early to really say.
I think early returns are positive, and we should have open minds but not so open that our brains fall out.
Americans hold this against Obama. If they do then they get what they deserve. If Democrats do then they get what they deserve as well and African-Americans should probably start a third party with actual liberals.
"Do you really think "church" refers to just the building?"
Of course not, I consider the church the entire spiritual community connected with it. And the criticisms are of the behavior of Jeremiah Wright, which is bigoted and hateful and may violate federal law. And by extension, the criticisms are of a presidential candidate who participated in and donated to this pastor's ministry for 17 years. Not the church. Why don't you understand the difference? It is legitimate criticism and investigation, and should be pursued.
"God Damn America!" is a 'violation of the law' or 'bigoted hate speech'?
Are you really that delusional about the role the US has been playing in the last 60 years? About the extra-ordinary grief US government policies have caused at home and around the world? About the millions of people who have every right to be angry at the US government?
The idea of America, equality, liberty, and justice for all, is beloved around the world.
Nuking mid-sized cities to keep the Soviets off of Japan, napalm-bombing Vietnamese children, lynching black Americans about to vote, ....destroying Iraq, neglecting New Orleans: Not so.
America is a free country because it is NOT ILLEGAL to criticize its history or present.
Of course its not illegal. And most Clinton supporters probably agree.
But instead of being logical, they decide to march lock stock along with little green footballs, Rush, Hugh, PJ media, Fox news and the rest of the right wing noise machine.
Why? Because for them, its now about their bruised egos and not about supporting the progressive movement.
"Of course its not illegal."
It is illegal for a tax exempt religious institution to endorse a political candidate. Reverend Wright viciously vilified Barack Obama's competitor, Hillary Clinton and her husband, and praised Barack Obama to his congregation, after Barack Obama donated $22,000.00 to this church last year. I heard the church will be investigated for this violation of federal law, and their tax exempt status may be threatened.
I question whether there was a quid pro quo involved in this transaction between Obama and the Reverend Wright.
It's not illegal, nor should it be.
The point we are trying to make is that it is a surefire way to LOSE the presidency in 2008.
I have yet to see the Clinton supporters explain how she overcomes her HUGE negatives to win the GE. For crying out load she can't even win the popular vote of her own party. Can't you see the legions of right wingers going on and on about her lie/misremembering/misspeak of Bosnia, or whitewater, or treatment of st. troopers in Arkansas, or her Irish peace process exaggeration, or lawsuits from donors, or pardons or health care failures and on and on and on and on and on. Uhg. It would be DISASTER all of the progress we have made as party would be halted as we revert to the past.
Double blech
A huge amount of the popular vote for Obama is NOT of our party, so right there you've lost me.
As for the other things you mention, they are either incorrect and/or pale compared to what will happen to Obama from the wingnuts.
Whitewater? OMG so last decade. Been there, done that, no one cares anymore, move on.
You seem to have one meme, Wright which is fair (if you stick to facts and not just right wing talking points) but I think the Big O has answered those questions quite well and from recent polling seems to have bounced back quite well. While you still haven't even begun to answer how she overcomes her HUGE negatives. I don't think the electorate will dismiss them as easily as you do. Especially after it all comes out again and again. Do you honestly believe that people just need to learn more about her?
What a mess.
There is so much wrong with your analysis; where to start?
Obama's negatives, now that he is much better known than before, are as high as Hillary's. This is what happens when one enters a national contest.
Wright is all? Oh no, not at all. Much will be made of the fact that the Big O kept admitting that Rezko fundraised 22K, no 50K, no 125K, no....
Big O has answered questions well? Oh yeah? Now he's getting backed into one corner after another and is prevaricating.
Recent polling? Bounced back? Sure - among Democrats. The Rethugs aren't going to be as kind as the Democrats.
RW talking points? See above.
Facts? What election is about facts? Voters in the aggregate don't have a chance to know the facts, if they even care. Which is sad, of course, because if all the facts were known and people voted on them, Hillary would win in a landslide.
Hillary's negatives? Democrats love her and a lot of indies do, too.
Montague, as of today's Gallop poll, Democrats appear to love Obama about 8% more than they love Sen. Clinton, and I can assure you that Republicans hate Sen. Clinton a heck of a lot more and with significantly more bile, than Obama.
I can't understand all the rest of your post through all the spittle and bile.
It IS my "fucking" business, bawbie, if his association with Obama means the Democratic Party loses Independents and Reagan Democrats in the fall.
Damn right it is.
And nobody gives a rat's patootie whether you agree or not.
Deal with that, bawbie.
Try and accept that your use of profanity does not make you appear very rational. In fact, it makes you look WORRIED.
I DO hope that in the new rules this blog is creating, that posters like you splashing obscenities all over the place will be deleted or banned.
Jerome, are you listening?
If there are rules on this blog against using profanity, please point me to them.
Anyway, I don't think you are being very civil or mature, throwing around stuff like this:
And nobody gives a rat's patootie whether you agree or not. Deal with that, bawbie.
And, please, this is the Democratic party. If our principles and values mean anything there will be no religious test for office in our party.
What Obama thinks and feels about this, as eloquently laid out in his Philly speech, you can judge all you want. But you CAN NOT disqualify him for office based on his church.
Not in the Democratic party I believe in.
the his use of space.
I think its the best way to prove ones point factually ;)
Geez
I hope comments like yours are snark.
Yikes
defend yourself I see.
I must concur with your point that it is indeed our business if it impacts whether we get a Democratic president or not.
To characterize Rev Wright's statements as "hate speech" is simply ignorant. Rev. Wright is not a hateful man, and what he said can be so decribed only taken out of context and taken from the point of view of privileged white pundits. I find it hard to imagine that, after what's happened to the US in the past seven years, that Democratics can buy into the "conservative" meme that the United States has never done anything in her history deserving of condemnation.
How about Wright's theology that the white church is the Antichrist?
How you think that's gonna go over with Independents and Reagan Democrats?
And frankly, 58% of AFrican American voters found Rev. Wright to be racially divisive and deeply offensive.
Are THEY racists too?
you go listen to the entire sermon, before you start making up stuff.
"you go listen to the entire sermon, before you start making up stuff."
Anyone who doesn't think this is hate speech, please go read Jim Cone's work and get to understand more of what Wright bases his theology on.
or "hate preach," the new term I've heard thrown around, then what was it?
How about the latest statements:
"The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans." ... Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ... "He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God." http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp? Page=/Politics/archive/200803/POL2008032 6a.html
...
Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ...
"He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God."
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp? Page=/Politics/archive/200803/POL2008032 6a.html
And this isn't from years ago, it's from a few months ago in printed sources.
What else has this guy said and written? Who else has he denigrated and insulted?
The double standards being applied in this Wright situation are astounding, and really offensive, IMHO.
Finally, a link to the actual statements! Thanks, joanneleon. This is getting out of hand.
Please blockquote some of this "hate speech" to which you refer. Do your best to provide some context, if that's possible.
