General Discussion

xchrom

(108,903 posts) Tue Feb 17, 2015, 08:03 AM Feb 2015

The Christian Right Is Quite Scary, But the GOP's Economic Agenda Is America's Big Nightmare

http://www.alternet.org/economy/christian-right-quite-scary-gops-economic-agenda-americas-big-nightmare

Woe to the American president who says anything sensible on the subject of religion. President Obama forgot that unwritten rule recently at the National Prayer Breakfast when he pointed out what an eighth-grader could tell you: that acts of violence have been committed in the name of many faiths, not just Islam:

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. … So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.”

Cue Christian right fake freakout. The holy rollers, naturally, seized the opportunity to present themselves as persecuted patriots defending America’s regular folk against godless liberal elites. They came charging out of the gate, sending blast after blast of ridiculousness across the media. Catholic League president Bill Donohue retorted that the Inquisition “only” piled up 1,394 bodies, while Rush Limbaugh professed Jim Crow to be something that is “not around today … a thousand years ago, yeah. But not today.” On Fox & Friends, Catholic priest Jonathan Morris warned viewers of a rising “Christianphobia,” a pernicious “hatred of Christians is on the rise in America.” Past and current Republican presidential candidates including Rick Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee hustled to outdo each other in their faux outrage, accusing the president of supporting only Muslims and setting himself against everything Christians stand for.

The paroxysm of pandering culminated with a guest appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” by Christian conservative Star Parker, who declared herself so violated by the President’s reference to the obvious she pronounced his remarks “verbal rape.” Star commented: “We were not expecting it, nobody wanted it, it was horrible to sit through, and after it was over we all felt like crap.” She went on to claim that Obama was sending a message to Muslim terrorists to “keep doing what you’re doing over there in the Middle East.”