Reply #15: That's absurd [View All]

[theredpen]

Expecting people with religious faith to stay in the closet is as ignorant as expecting people without faith to keep their mouths shut about not believing. If find it reminiscent of the wingnuts who say, "I don't mind what the homos do in the privacy of their home, but I don't want them legislating their 'gay agenda.'" Does anyone here really think that Barney Frank wakes up every day wondering how he can impose homosexuality onto the lives of middle Americans? Why, then would we expect someone who is unabashedly religious — such as Barrack Obama or John Edwards — to be that way with their religion?

In the specific case of Barack Obama, some people have criticized his overt spirituality. This negativity has come from — as usual — middle class white liberals who are ignorant of the role that faith has played in the black experience in America. Essentially, Christian faith was the only positive thing that American blacks were allowed to have by the white establishment for hundreds of years. I find these attacks on Obama's spiritual audacity to be implicitly racist.

The bottom line is that just because someone is religious, it doesn't automatically make them a theocrat. We need to deep-six that smear because this religiophobia as it gets the Democratic party labeled as radical and out of touch with mainstream America.

Edit: Typos

Also, tell your fundie neighbors that Ron Paul is a Catholic who attends an Episcopal Church. If that doesn't sour them, they aren't fundies — you just think they are.